MR. braman's addrkss. 19 



cess as they do tlieir farms, would bo very apostles: and who, 

 if they made their sermons cut as keenly as some of their 

 farming utensils, would teach their hearers that it was more 

 comtortable to sleep at home than iu the i)ews. 



Some European writers imagine that if the laws allowed of an 

 equal partition of estates, and land Avere thrown fully into the 

 market, to be purchased as easily, and in convenient parcels 

 as any other commodities, it would in time, be reduced to 

 such extreme sub-divisions as not to be capable of affording sub- 

 sistence to the occupant. All, according to their theory, which 

 interposes between us and the miserable poverty of Ireland, is 

 the immense quantity of public lands which supply the de- 

 mands of the rapidly increasing population. They ought to 

 look charitably on the annexation spirit then. If the only al- 

 ternative is annexation, or potatoes and starvation, the yan- 

 kee will have no delicacy about manifesting decided preferen- 

 ces. It is well known that a large proportion of the popula- 

 tion of f^rance are landed proprietors, and that for many years 

 the principle has prevailed of an equal division of the paternal 

 farm among the children. In 1824, the Edinburgh Review 

 predicted that if that system should continue in vigorous ope- 

 ration for another half century, the grand nation would cer- 

 tainly be the greatest pauper nation in Europe, and would 

 with Ireland have the honor of furnishing hewers of wood, 

 and drawers of water, for all the other countries in the world. 

 Twenty-seven years of that half century have elapsed, and the 

 supposed disastrous system has continued, in uninterrupted 

 operation ; and what are the facts ? The reviewer has prov- 

 ed a false prophet. The amount of cultivable land is said not 

 to have materially increased. A considerable accession has been 

 made to population, and yet the people are abundantly richer 

 in the necessaries and comfort of life, then when the terrible 

 sentence of poverty was pronounced from the Edinburgh Tri- 

 bunal. The landed proprietors of the united kingdom, do not 

 exceed thirty thousand, which allows the average of more 

 than twenty-three hundred acres to each individual. If, by the 

 slow and safe operation of that spirit which is now work- 

 ing out the redemption of the old world, these large territories 



