G14 
Small Holdings in France. 
Having been thrown into intimate relations with the peasantry 
of North-Eastern France, for the whole duration of the Franco- 
German war, while engaged in administering the Daily Kens Relief 
Fund, I enjoyed exceptional opportunities of becoming acquainted 
with their economic and social position. Having revisited North- 
Eastern France almost annually ever since, I have constantly en- 
deavoui’ed to improve on those opportunities by correcting first 
impressions and gaining fresh information. 
Being an extensive landowner myself, and farming very largely in 
Cambridgeshire, I approach my subject with a very varied experi- 
ence of dealing with land. I am certainly in the position, not enjoyed 
by all writers on the question, of being brought into close contact, at 
different times of each year, both with English labourers and with 
French peasants. It is this vantage ground which emboldens me to 
dispute the assertions of writers in The Times and British Consular 
Reports, that the lot of the French peasant is the harder of the two. 
When the late Lady Verney published her work on the French 
Peasantry, I ventured to draw attention, in a letter published in 
The Times, to the fact that there is another and a more favourable 
side of the question than that taken by her. In the present paper 
I hope to produce some evidence that, if the social and economic 
position of the French peasant is really so deplorable, he is extra- 
ordinarily clever in concealing it from the impartial observer. It 
may be true that his surroundings do not always justify his gaiety, 
but it is contrary to my experience that he can be truly described 
as worse off than a British labourer. Just before leaving London 
I armed myself with the latest report of a British Consul, that 
of Mr. B. Pauncefote, dated Nantes, February 25, 1892. On page 
12, Consul Pauncefote remarks : “ The position of peasant proprie- 
tors in this district is a miserable one, and I do not see how it can 
be improved.” And a writer in the Daily Graphic of April 8, 1892, 
goes a great deal further : “ As to the proprietors, by far the 
largest number lead lives, which, for privations of all kinds, may be 
considered as miserable as any that the world knows of. I have 
seen peasant proprietors in various parts of France, and frankly, in 
comparison with their existence, that of the agricultural labourer in 
England is a desirable one. If the latter only gets twelve shillings 
a week, provisions are so cheap in England that he is able at any 
rate to nourish himself with wholesome, and even comfortable food. 
He has his tea, his bacon, and his white bread. The French peasant 
considers white bread so much a luxury, that in many villages it is 
only to be seen on his table on Sundays, in some places only on f4te 
days. . . . Coffee is rarely, if ever, drunk.” 
Such reports as these, though doubtless containing much that is 
true with reference to the regions reported on, are, I maintain, highly 
misleading if taken, as they are too apt to be, to apply to French 
peasants generally. In the above quotation, for instance, not a word 
is said about milk, which in North-Eastern France constantly enters 
into the dietary of the French peasant, as does also white bread. 
Coffee is taken regularly twice a day — in the morning and at 4 
