THE FARMERS' SOCIAL OUTLOOK. 23 1 



of France, inheriting from their ancestors a load of injus- 

 tices, are hardly responsible even for what their own exer- 

 tions might remedy. Circumstances may make men but 

 little removed from the brute. 



However, all socialistic schemes as continuous policies 

 mean slavery. It is only when the evils which prompt 

 retaliation by combination are removed, that freedom is 

 real. Socialism is in direct antagonism with the true 

 interests of agriculture. Under a general regime of one 

 socialistic scheme against another, the game is against 

 the best condition of agriculture. Freedom ! Freedom ! 

 Individuality ! must be the watchwords of the husband- 

 man. The present state of land ownership in Great 

 Britain is admitted on most sides to be unsatisfactory, — 

 in proof of which is the endeavor of successive govern- 

 ments to remedy the evil legislation of centuries past. 

 There, as in other parts of Europe, the disease having, 

 in a certain sense, become chronic, a return to a better 

 state of land ownership is most difficult. In America, 

 the acute stage is approaching rapidly, through a some- 

 what different channel from that by which England's 

 farmers lost their lands ; but I trust it is not too late, in 

 most localities at least, for the application of a salutary 

 remedy. 



I believe*in a numerous land-holding class ; small land 

 proprietors have been the backbone of nearly all real 

 progress in America ; and the outlook is dark indeed 

 if their power and influence is gradually to disappear. 

 Sismondi says : " Wherever we find peasant proprietors, 

 we find comfort, security, confidence in the future, and 

 that which assures at once happiness and virtue." This 

 independence certainly should be the desired condition. 



