APPENDIX II 225 



in England. The Code Napoleon enacts that on the death 

 of the father property must be equally divided amongst all 

 the children, and limits the parental power of testamentary 

 disposition of property to a part equal to one child's share. 

 This law was bequeathed to France by the authors of the 

 French Revolution. It is designed to promote equality, and 

 to secure the rights of the whole community in the distribu- 

 tion of public wealth. Even before the French Revolution 

 there were many small holdings in France, but it is un- 

 doubtedly the case that the operation of this law has caused 

 and continues to cause a great subdivision (and incidentally 

 fragmentation) of holdings. It has roughly been estimated * 

 that in France there are 5,000,000 land-owners who own estates 

 averaging 7^ acres each, 500,000 who own estates averaging 

 75 acres each, and 50,000 who own estates averaging 750 acres 

 each. It is asserted that together with the subdividing action 

 of the law, another consolidating force is in operation, which 

 arises from the fact that the peasants are very hard-working 

 and frugal, and manage to save enough money to purchase 

 small parcels of land adjoining their own, and to round off 

 their own small properties. The fact that in France families 

 are usually small also mitigates the evil. Still in some parts 

 of France the holdings have been subdivided and fragmented 

 to an extent which is very prejudicial to effective production, 

 and a demand has arisen t in France for a modification of 

 the law which leads to such results, with a view to creating 

 peasant holdings of the right size and shape, and to recon- 

 stituting into solid holdings the existing scattered plots. This 

 demand has never been met in full by legislation, but Acts J 



* " Econoruie Ruiale de la France," by M. de Lavergne (1875). 



f" Economie Ruiale," by M. Jouzier, pp. 344-55 (1903). "Bul- 

 letin of Economic and Social Intelligence" for December, 1910, 

 issusd by the International Institute of Agriculture, Rome. 



X " Economie Rurale," by M. Jouzier, pp. 344-55 (1903). " Bulletin 

 of Economic and Social Intelligence " for February, 1914. 



15 



