238 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



ner to a thousand), you have secretly clenched and 

 fortified the process which entail and primogeniture 

 had openly avowed and established, and rendered it 

 impossible, on the common principles of prudence or 

 economy, for anyone to buy land (except for build- 

 ing) otherwise than in large and increasingly larger 

 quantities. The tendency is not stationary ; it is still 

 going on. The man of small or moderate capital is 

 becoming every day more and more effectually ousted 

 from the possibility of ownership in ' the earth,' 

 which * was made for all.' 



You point to France and Belgium, where there 

 exists an opposite law compelling subdivision, with a 

 still more evil tendency, if possible ; and talk about 

 * political expediency,' and the mischief of * morcelle- 

 ment.' But must we rush into one extreme to aviod 

 the other ? or is our timid intelligence so scared that 

 it cannot pause to distinguish between a tyranny which 

 enforces subdivision, and that middle course which 

 would allow Land, like every other form of capital, 

 to adapt itself naturally to human need and circum- 

 stance, and wholesomely to exist in great and small 

 proportions ? Or is our political philosophy of such 

 a school as to allow the supposition that we have the 

 MORAL RIGHT to * capitalize' the earth, and disfran- 



