The Land from- the Citizens Standpoint. 395 



tioiiary war Jefferson had obtained the abrogation of the laws 

 of entail and primogeniture. A large division of wealth 

 ensued, and though tha class of over-refined persons was 

 exceedingly curtailed, the number of well-educated people had 

 incalculably increased.^ Contrasted with the Spanish colonies 

 of the New World, where a rigid form of entail still impeded 

 the circulation of landed propert}^, the condition of the United 

 States was immeasurably superior both as regards wealth 

 and population."- But was not this phenomenon rather at- 

 tributable to the greater fecundity and industry of the Anglo- 

 Saxon race ? 



Again, in Belgium, Switzerland, Rhenish Prussia, Bavaria, 

 and Holland, similar good effects were visible, while nearer 

 home still, in the Channel Islands, the law of equal division had 

 done wonders. A writer, citing the case of Guernsey, declares 

 that though its land was less fertile, and only three parts culti- 

 vated, a square mile contained five times as many inhabitants 

 as the same area in Ireland. 



Such a description does not augur favourably for the pros- 

 perity of these Channel Islanders. In fact, few of our readers 

 will refrain from wondering whether the happiness of the 

 Guernsey people would not have been enhanced had the 

 circumstances cited above been reversed. If by some means 

 or other the fertility and cultivated area of the island could 

 have been increased, and its population lessened, surely the 

 comforts of existence there would have been augmented ? 

 But supposing it is admitted that the bulk of this evidence 

 is, on the whole, in favour of abrogating existing land S3^stems ; 

 what then ? We have still to decide whether the character- 

 istics of our nation and the peculiar nature of our climate do 

 not demand some stronger proofs than those afibrded b}'' the 

 precedents of foreign peoples. 



The English aristocracy looked upon entails and primo- 

 geniture as the last and strongest bulwark of their power 

 and existence. Yet if the same popular clamour which 

 occurred later respecting the Corn Laws had arisen over the 



^ Lord Brougham's Sketch of the President Jefferson. 

 ^ Dr. Robertson's History of America, vol. iv. p. 27. 



