tendencies to any over-population, with its consequent degradation and danger.

Peasant proprietors are often heavily burdened with mortgaged debts. It is said that in France the amount of capital invested in mortgage of real estate is not less than £500,000,000 sterling, this estimate being taken from the public registers in which every mortgage, to be legal, must be inscribed. No doubt the real amount is large, but it is certainly less than these figures would imply, for in France it is necessary to go through a form and pay a fee in order to cancel a mortgage, this process being in practice avoided. Hence many estates in France, to judge from the registers, are mortgaged to far more than their real value. Still there is, no doubt, considerable indebtedness in the case of peasant proprietors in a country like France or Belgium.

Such a fact however, though alleged against peasant proprietorship as a system, is in reality no objection. In the first place, it does not follow that the indebtedness of such persons is greater as a rule than that of persons who possess large estates. As a matter of fact, it is certain that the amount of money which is out on mortgage of real estate in this country, where large proprietorships are general, is very great, and would probably not fall short, all things considered, of that in France. besides, my reader will remember the distinction which has been made above between land as an investment of capital and land as an instrument of agriculture. The peasant is far more concerned with the latter aspect of his tenure than he is with the former; though as his mortgage merely stipulates that he should pay such a sum of money, of which the value of his farm at the time when

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the mortgage is effected is constituted a pledge, he has the power of securing such advantages as the growing value of his land gives him.

For it must be remembered, that as long as society progresses, invents, economises, labours, grows, land is the only article the value of which constantly and invariably increases. The value of gold and silver may fall by the discovery of abundant mines and by economy in reducing ores. The value of corn may decline by the cultivation of land at cheap rates, or by inducing cultivation on other lands where corn could not previously be grown, or by abundant and easy importation from foreign regions. The value of manufactured articles may fall by economy in the production of raw materials and by cheapening the process of production. But as these various saving processes are adopted, and the more fully they are adopted, so the rent of land rises, and rises more certainly. The general distribution therefore of land not only gives those moral advantages to the possessor which observers have discovered, but secures to the general benefit of society, or at any rate to the benefit of a larger number of persons, the advantages which ensue from the growth of society itself.

The real disadvantage of these small holdings-if indeed the inconvenience be not exaggerated-lies in the difficulty which there is in supplying peasant tenants with that animal or mechanical labour which, though so expensive at first, effects so great a saving afterwards. Suppose it costs £50 to purchase a reaping-machine, and 2s. 6d. to purchase a reaping-hook, but the annual saving on machine reaping is so great as to diminish the cost of reaping by one half, it is plainly expedient to

make the outlay. But it will be expedient only if the farm be wide enough to bring about the saving in question. So, again, improved breeds of horses, cattle, sheep, poultry are really economies, in which a first increased cost is rapidly counterpoised by diminished cost or increased gain. But it is not possible, or at least easy, for the small tenant to effect these beneficial changes. His farm is too small for their economical use, even if his capital be not too scanty for their purchase. So he uses the cheaper implement, but costlier process, the reapinghook. Hence people point to small tenancies as instances of agriculture being stationary, and assert that when land is held in little parcels, there can be no progress in the art of cultivating the soil. These observations of course apply in chief to the commonest and most general agricultural processes. Vineyards must be trimmed and their produce gathered by hand, silkworms must be fed and reared with the greatest care, and so small cultivation only is possible with a variety of similar products.

It does not appear however that the difficulties are insuperable. Such machines, as for example drilling and threshing machines, are readily hired, and it is possible to conceive that small farmers should co-operate, or form a species of company, by which they might be enabled to purchase such machines by a common subscription, and use them according to a rota to be agreed on between each other. The system of co-operation or co-operate industry is in its infancy as yet, but there seems no reason to doubt that so obvious an application of its principle as that which I have indicated might be readily adopted.

There is yet another kind of tenancy, peculiar to the

United Kingdom, but now, it may be hoped, becoming rarer, though it will not probably disappear for a long time yet. This is the Irish cottier tenancy. A similar kind of holding appears to have existed in the Scottish Highlands, but to be nearly obsolete. The Irish system, however, was partly due to historical circumstances, partly to peculiarities in the social life of the people.

men.

The ancient Irish tenancy consisted of a village or district, or, in the phraseology of the island, a 'country,' in which there was a paramount chief, selected (according to what was called the custom of tanistry) as the worthiest and best of the blood, and a number of dependent clansThese local chiefs were in their way subordinated to the several lords or native princes who held authority over sections of the island. So completely was the tenure of land a village system in which the various members of the sept, though they possessed personal property, were precarious occupiers of particular plots of land, that on the decease of the chief a fresh allotment of the common estate was made among the members of the sept. The right of the chief was that of maintenance, his duty that of defence. These relations were embodied in an adage, 'Spend me and defend me.'

The English conquest of Ireland introduced the AngloNorman law, the basis of which was the assignment of all actual and reversionary rights in the soil to some owner. It held that the ultimate owner of all land was a person, not a community; was an individual, not a clan. There can be no doubt that such a theory of property is more favourable to the progress of society and the accumulation of wealth than a system which gives the individual no right to anything but the produce, and acknowledges no

permanent proprietary rights except in the community. Such a view of the comparative merits of the English and Irish law was alleged as a reason, among others, for superseding the latter by the former. My reader will remember however, from what has been previously stated, that in early times the cost of production and the value of the produce were very nearly equal, and that therefore, as the margin of rent was very narrow, the loss consequent upon these frequent partitions and the insecurity induced upon improvement by the liability to fresh distributions were almost trifling. The case of course was different when land became more valuable, owing to increased skill, diminished cost, and an enlarged population. Five hundred years ago the capital invested in live and dead stock on a well-managed farm was probably worth three times the land. Now it is not worth, as a rule, much more than a third.

This village occupation, in which all the land was treated as the common estate of the sept, appears to

have been general among Celtic races. It prevailed till late years in Scotland; it is seen to have existed in Ireland; it was extinguished in Wales by the statute of Rutland (1284). Its abandonment in Ireland was due to a remarkable decision given in the Irish King's Bench in the year 1608. Tanistry and Irish gavelkind, as the system of electing the worthiest to the headship of the clan and re-dividing the estate among all the males of the sept on certain occasions were called, were, it appears, formally recognised by the English law as late as the reign of Elizabeth.

In the year 1608, then, a case was brought before the Irish King's Bench, in which the plaintiff was the tanist,