16 



land-holding in the mind of the Premier, the tenant farming of 

 England seemed, to him, to be eminently successful. The 

 peasant proprietor buys his farm with his hoarded and in- 

 vested wages, or with borrowed money, on which the interest 

 must be paid ; and that is the first income. The erection of 

 the necessary buildings, the supplying of tools and implements, 

 and the stocking of the farm, must all be paid for from the 

 earnings ; and that is the second income. He must be clothed 

 and fed from the receipts of the farm, which, together with the 

 support of his family, employed with him, constitutes the 

 wages of the farm ; and that is the third income. Under 

 peasant proprietorship these three incomes go to one class ; 

 under tenant farming they go to the three classes already des- 

 ignated. " The number and variety of the classes in Eng- 

 land," he adds, " dependent upon the land, is the source of 

 our strength. They have given us those proprietors of the soil 

 who have been the creators of our liberty, in a great degree, 

 and the best securities for local government. They have given 

 us the farmers — the most important portion of the great mid- 

 dle class — and they have given us, lastly, the agricultural peas- 

 ant, whose lot is deplored by those who are not acquainted with 

 it, but who have, to my mind, during the last forty years, 

 made more continuous progress than any class in Her Majes- 

 ty's dominions." 



The assumption of Lord Beaconsfield that it is better policy 

 for a farm to support three classes in the community rather 

 than one simply indicates his recognition of class as a political 

 necessity, and his entire ignorance of the independence of him 

 who, owning and cultivating his own land in this country, not 

 as a peasant, but as a citizen, combines three classes in one, 

 and represents what an American points to with so much pride 



