540 Agricultural and Horticultural Labourers 



regarding France as an agricultural and horticultural country, 

 it is impossible to overlook the political revolution which has 

 divided the landed property into small masses, and which, by 

 abolishing the right of primogeniture, tends continually to 

 subdivide every estate in France. It is easy to conceive, in 

 theory, that this subdivision might be carried so far as to 

 prejudice the interests of agriculture: but I do not believe that 

 it has had or Avill have this effect, for the proprietors of very 

 small portions of land will almost always sell them if there be 

 no house upon the property. A more equal division of land, 

 by increasing the number of proprietors, gives security to 

 property, as it increases the number of those deeply interested 

 in its defence. The system applauded by some economists, of 

 breaking up small farms, and consolidating them into large 

 ones, has not (as it has often been contended) the necessary 

 effect of increasing produce, but it sends the greater part of 

 the population of whole villages to the workhouse. 



In Flanders, where the farms do not on the average exceed 

 from eight to eighteen acres, we find a population which, taken 

 per square mile, is double that of England ; and a greater 

 quantity of food is said to be produced there than from any 

 country of the same size in Europe t the people are also living 

 in a state of great comparative comfort. The natural fertility 

 of Flanders is not greater than that of England. 



Another advantage resulting from the division of property 

 will be, that the possessors will cease to be very eager to turn 

 soldiers, and hazard their lives for objects in which they have 

 no interest whatever ; and if in this way the military ardour of 

 the French people should abate, it will be better both for 

 themselves and their neighbours. When the right of primo- 

 geniture underwent a fresh examination by the French legis- 

 lature four years since, and the law which abolished it was 

 reconfirmed, an English senator, whose views are in general 

 liberal and just, surprised his friends by declaring in parlia- 

 ment that the French legislators were insane ; because the 

 abolition of the right of primogeniture Would, by the division 

 of property, increase the number of rural consumers of pro- 

 duce, and be the ruin of France. In proof of this, he stated 

 that the rural population of France at present consumed one 

 half of the agricultural produce, whereas in England the rural 

 population consumed less than one third.* I confess that I 



* I am not certain that the relative proportion of food consumed by the 

 rural population of France and England is precisely what was stated, not 

 having the papers to refer to : the principle, however, remains the same. I 

 published some remarks on this extraordinary speech in the Times news- 

 paper, a few days after its delivery.- 



