RENTS, PROFITS, AND WAGES. 87 



gradually been built up by the industry of successive 

 generations, especially since the days of Arthur Young, 

 and they enjoy it as an honourable and laboriously ac- 

 quired possession. None of them ever dream of becoming 

 proprietors, for they are better off as they are : to have 

 100 of income as a proprietor, a capital of at least 3000 

 is necessary, whilst 1000 is sufficient to produce the 

 same income as a farmer. 



Lastly, we come to wages. Here the advantage appears 

 to be on the side of France, inasmuch as we appropriate 

 to the payment of wages a larger portion of our raw 

 products than does the United Kingdom. This question 

 of wages, however, is very intricate, and when closely ex- 

 amined, the advantage again is in favour of our neighbours, 

 at least in respect to three-fourths of the country. Only 

 their superiority in this particular, previous to 1848, was 

 less marked than in the other parts of their rural system ; 

 it was in fact here that the weakest part of their system 

 lay. The evil in some parts of the country was serious 

 and deeply seated, and threatened to become general. 



Upon examination into the distribution of wages pre- 

 vious to 1848, whether in France or in the different parts 

 of the United Kingdom leaving Scotland out of the 

 question for the present, on account of the peculiar phe- 

 nomena she presents we find that in England a fourth 

 only of the gross production was appropriated to payment 

 of wages say equal to 50 francs per hectare, or there- 

 abouts whilst in France and Ireland one-half was thus 

 disposed of say also 50 francs per hectare, or the 

 equivalent. But let us look at the other side of the 

 picture the number of labourers required on both sides. 

 In England this number had been reduced to the lowest 

 point ; in France it was much larger, and in Ireland 

 much greater still. The following may be taken as the 



