230 AMERICAN FARMS. 



the agitations in Ireland, and other parts of Great Britain, 

 over the land question. In Germany, Bismarck's social- 

 istic measures for the assumed benefit of the working 

 classes have failed to satisfy the farmers. In France, 

 these sentiments gain ground in the rural districts. The 

 peasantry of Russia, Spain, and Italy are on the verge of 

 revolt. In parts of Italy they have already shown their 

 hand. In 1882, and again in 1888 Lombardy was the 

 scene of serious disturbances among the rural classes ; 

 buildings were burned, and various crimes committed. 

 Official reports state that " it will require energetic 

 measures to combat these fermentations." 



Collectivism, land nationalization, and other socialistic 

 schemes are proposed to remedy all our social ills. These 

 grow in favor as capital continues to rob the small hold- 

 ers of their land. In Mantua, a province in Italy, between 

 187 1 and 1879, land proprietors had decreased from 39,- 

 868 to 35,535. The peasant in many cases holds on to his 

 land with a death-like grip, with all the harrowing anxiety 

 which its ownership entails ; and it is only when its load 

 of debt devours it, that he gives it up. He is then found 

 low and servile, or the bitter enemy to the existing order. 

 The three millions of so-called pauper land proprietors 



government. He says : " Communism is a hateful thing, and a men- 

 ace to peace and organized government. But the communism of com- 

 bined wealth and capital, the outgrowth of overweening cupidity and 

 selfishness, which insidiously undermines the justice and integrity of 

 free institutions, is no less dangerous than the communism of oppressed 

 poverty and toil, which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks 

 with wild disorders the citadel of rule." This is not the disturbing 

 utterance of a mere demagogue, or the hallucination of a disordered 

 crank, but the timely warning of the true patriot, who would avert a 

 calamity terrible to contemplate. 



