THE LAW AND CUSTOM OF PRIMOGENITURE 373 



throughout the country," so that of some 7,500,000 proprietors, 

 about 5,000,000 are estimated to average six acres each, while 

 only 50,000 average 600 acres. This morcellement is the direct 

 and foreseen consequence of the partible succession enforced 

 by the Code Napoleon, under w^hich all children inherit the 

 bulk of their father's property equally, without distinction of 

 age or sex, a testator with one child being allowed to dispose 

 of half, a testator with two children of one-third only, and a 

 testator with three children of one-quarter. The dismember- 

 ment of estates thus produced is progressive. " With some 

 rare exceptions, all the great properties have been gradually 

 broken up, and even the first and second classes" (averaging 

 600 and 60 acres respectively) " are fast merging into the 

 third." Volumes of controversy have not exhausted the argu- 

 ments either for or against the French law of inheritance, and 

 it is instructive to remark that, whereas it used to be attacked 

 on the ground that it stimulated the increase of population to a 

 frightful extent, it is now attacked on the ground that it keeps 

 the population almost stationary. In France itself, if we may 

 trust the report, " the prevalent public opinion as to the 

 advantages or disadvantages of the tenure of land by small pro- 

 prietors is decidedly that it has been advantageous to the pro- 

 duction of the soil, and has tended to the improvement of the 

 material condition of the agricultural population." It is believed, 

 moreover, that subdivision " conduces to political as well as 

 social order, because the greater the number of the proprietors, 

 the greater is the guarantee for the respect of property, and the 

 less likely are the masses to nourish revolutionary and sub- 

 versive designs." The reporter, Mr. Sackville West, appears 

 to share these views, but he is careful to express his concurrence 

 in M. Lavergne's opinion that morcellement has now reached 

 the limit of safety, and that " an unlimited partition of the 

 small properties as they already exist would be productive of 

 serious evil." 



The elaborate report on land tenure in Prussia and the 

 North German Confederation, by Mr. Harriss Gastrell, attests 

 the same preponderance of public opinion in favour of small 



