140 RURAL SOCIOLOGY 



English system of cultivation by hired labor, it must be regarded 

 as eminently beneficial to the laboring class. French history 

 strikingly confirms these conclusions. Three times during the 

 course of ages the peasantry have been purchasers of land ; and 

 these times immediately preceded the three principal eras of 

 French agricultural prosperity." 



2. The other view is that effective farming in the future can 

 only be done by a system of large properties and tenant renters 

 whose rights are protected by legal provision. It is held that 

 the capital which needs to be invested in machinery and equip- 

 ment in order to make farming competitively profitable and pos- 

 sible cannot be provided by small owners. They will be forced 

 to sell to capitalistic owners who can make the large investments 

 needed. Moreover, the fall in prices places a shock on the land- 

 lords and farmers which is not felt by other callings in the same 

 manner. Small proprietors have nothing to shield them from 

 the shock and must give way to men of larger resources. 



It would seem that recent events and the spirit of present times 

 is in favor of the position held by Mill. The progress that is 

 being made in agricultural development in Europe and Great 

 Britain is most conspicuous just where the larger estates are 

 being broken up, parceled out, and vested in numerous small 

 proprietors. This is notably the case in Ireland and in Den- 

 mark and in both countries farming and dairying have made 

 prodigious progress, and in both the consequences have been of 

 the best for the character and intelligence of the citizenship. 

 New interest in life, renewed industry, progressive and coopera- 

 tive undertakings, enriched social and moral life, have been the 

 results. 



Of much importance to rural sociology is the effect on rural 

 social life of absentee landlordism and of tenant farming. The 

 economic effects of absentee landlordism with its attendant 

 abuses has had historic examples. Perhaps the most notable 

 recent one has been that of Ireland. The profits of the large 

 estates were spent abroad, draining Ireland of its productive 

 capital; the best land of large estates was turned into pasture 

 land ; and when tenants made improvements on farms to enlarge 

 the production the rents were systematically raised to absorb 

 the reward of initiative and industry. Consequently a premium 



