421 
1ELD 
bourer, 
HERE can be no 
subject invested 
with a deeper in- 
terest than that of 
the English, la- 
This position will 
hold good, even when we find 
him smiling by his hearth in the enjoyment 
of all those comforts, which in the best of 
times follow the labours of the industrious. 
But when, as at present, his condition is 
surrounded with so many circumstances 
winch claim our sympathy and consideration 
■ — when we find him ill-requited for his work, 
ill- fed; uneasy, and, in some instances, de- 
sponding — the interest attached to his con- 
dition becomes of primary and pressing im- 
portance. If he have wrongs which no 
one is careful to repair : if his rights are not 
dispensed as a duty ; or, in other terms, if he 
have no means of subsistence but that derived 
from the mere will or generosity of patrons; 
then it is not difficult to foresee that, in place 
of the virtups usually fostered by the enjoy- 
ment of such rights, we shall find him in pos- 
session of all those vices which are the offspring 
of want, and destructive of social order. The 
labourer's private happiness has been wisely 
valued as equivalent to public prosperity ; and 
it is well to look to his privations and suffer- 
ings as involving a risk at all times too great 
to he prolonged. 
It is well known, that the agricultural 
s labourers of this country have not the same 
interest in the soil as they once had. Every 
village and district of country readily affords 
examples of patches of land having been con- 
solidated with a larger tract belonging to some 
wealthy person in the neighbourhood. A 
constant dissevering of the land from the 
imited holders, has thus been going on for 
several centuries, until we scarcetyfind a poor 
man with his croft of ground whereon to pas- 
ture hiscow, &e. Though a necessary conse- 
quence of the improved state of agriculture, 
the decay of the cottar tenantry, as will be 
seen in the sequel of this article, is an evil 
which has been always insufficiently appre- 
ciated : for though it is not meant to recom- 
mend the re-introduction of small holdings of 
ten or twenty acres, I trust I shall be ena- 
bled to show that it is consistent with sound 
policy, to let every English labourer have 
some certain provision, uninfluenced by the 
fluctuations of the labour market, to which he 
might resort in time of need. My recom- 
mendation therefore is, that however small, 
ne should have his share of the land. His- 
tory speaks loudly and distinctly on this point, 
and traces the melancholy fate ot the most 
powerful empires and states to the cutting ofi° 
of every particle of the soil from those which 
were so closely attached to it. " When the 
law of the Ephori empowered the Spartans to 
sell their landed property, and dispose of it 
by will ; and when the estates which had been 
distributed byLycurgus among 9,000 citizens 
were possessed by less than 100 individuals; 
Sparta had no longer any soldiers, army, or 
power. When Athens contained within her 
walls individuals possessed of three miles of 
land, while others had not wherewith to get 
buried, Demosthenes in vain proposed to raise, 
an army of 2,000 foot, and 5,000 horse; a third 
only of which was to consist of citizens; no one 
was found ready to defend a country which 
had become the property of a few families." ( 
I am very much misunderstood if I am 
supposed to advocate any system favourable to 
the equality of possessions, if, indeed, such a 
System could be seriously entertained by any 
one. The inequality of individual disposition 
and faculties, must ever thwart the idea of 
* G.milli's P.iliiii-.-il Kconoiiiy. 
