360 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



the extent of land devised by them ; nor is there any means of 

 ascertaining, with any approach to accuracy, how far they are 

 employed to aggravate, and how far to mitigate, the inequality 

 arising from the custom of settling landed estates upon eldest 

 sons. It might have been expected, however, that a complete 

 record of the land devolving annually by descent would be kept 

 for State purposes and public information. Instead of this, no 

 distinction appears to be drawn, even between land which passes 

 by will and land which passes by settlement, being equally 

 chargeable with succession duty ; while, for a like reason, no 

 separate account is published of land transmitted to heirs by the 

 law of intestacy. A still more extraordinary, not to say dis- 

 graceful, cause of the mystery which has so long surrounded our 

 land-system is the circumstance that, until the present year 

 (1876), there were no official documents showing the number of 

 landowners in Great Britain, and the distribution of the soil 

 among them. With the new Domesday Book in our hands, 

 we can ascertain how the soil is actually distributed in every 

 county of England and Wales, but how far the law and cus- 

 tom of primogeniture may have contributed to produce this dis- 

 tribution remains even now a speculative question. Still there 

 are certain facts which are matters of common notoriety and 

 others which are within the general cognizance of persons con- 

 versant with land, by the light of which it is possible to arrive 

 at some trustworthy conclusions respecting the dominion of 

 primogeniture over social life in England. 



In the first place, it is material to observe that personal 

 property, which is exempt from the law of primogeniture, is 

 little affected by the custom, save where it is thought necessary 

 to keep up the dignity of a family place. Rich capitalists who 

 do not invest in land, or aspire to found a county family, 

 seldom make an eldest son, and of those who do indulge this 

 ambition, some prefer to buy a moderate estate for each of their 

 sons. Still more habitually is equal division recognised as 

 the dictate of natural equity by the great body of merchants, 

 tradespeople, and professional men, as well as by the labouring 

 classes throughout Great Britain and Ireland ; in short, by the 



