Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 424 | Page 2

of necessity. Besides tending to level the position of individuals, the plan of equal distribution of property was said to be justifiable on the ground that there are more than two parties concerned. Society, it was alleged, comes in as a third, and says to the parent: 'You must provide for this son, however worthless; you must not throw him destitute on our hands; for that is to shift the responsibility from yourself, who brought him into the world, to us, who have nothing to do with him.' This plea, more plausible than sound, had its effect. That an occasional wrong might not be inflicted, a great national error, practically injurious, was committed.
A compulsory law of equal division of lands among the children of a deceased proprietor, may be long in revealing its horrors in a country where the redundant population sheds habitually off. In Switzerland, for example, the evil of a subdivision of lands is marked but in a moderate degree--though bad enough in the main--because a certain proportion of each generation emigrates in quest of a livelihood--the young men going off to be mercenary soldiers in Italy, waiters at hotels, and so forth; and the young women to be governesses and domestic servants. France, on the contrary, is the last nation in the world to try the subdivision principle. Its people, with some trifling exceptions, go nowhere, as if affecting to despise all the rest of the world. Contented with moderate fortunes, inclined to make amusement their occupation, unwilling or unable to learn foreign languages, or to care for anything abroad, and having so intense a love of France, that they will not emigrate, they necessarily settle down in a gradually aggregating mass, and are driven to the very last shifts for existence. Only two things have saved the nation from anarchy: the remarkable circumstance of few families consisting of more than two, or at most three children, any more being deemed a culpable monstrosity; and the draughting of young men for the army. In other words, the war-demon is an engine to keep the population in check; for if it does not at once kill off men, it occupies them in military affairs at the public expense. The prodigious number of civil posts under government--said to be upwards of half a million--acts also as a means for absorbing the overplus rural population.
Circumstances of the nature here pointed out have modified the evil effects of the law of subdivision; but after making every allowance on this and every other score that can be suggested, it is undeniable that the partition of property has gone down and down, till at length, in some situations, it can go no further. The morsels of land have become so small, that they are not worth occupying, and will barely realise the expense of legal transfer. In certain quarters, we are informed, the individual properties are not larger than a single furrow, or a patch the size of a cabbage-garden. A good number of these landed estates--one authority says a million and a quarter--are about five acres in extent, which is considered quite a respectable property; but as, at the death of each proprietor, there is a further partition, the probability would seem to be that, ultimately, the surface of France will resemble the worst parts of Ireland, with a population sunk to the lowest grade of humanity. Perhaps, however, the evils inflicted on society through the agency of subdivision, are mainly incidental. General injury goes on at a more rapid rate than the actual partition of property. From the causes above mentioned, the population in France is long in doubling itself; and the slower the increase, the slower the subdivision. Already, however, the properties are so small, that they do not admit of that profitable culture enjoined by principles of improved husbandry and correct social policy. In the proper cultivation of the soil, other parties besides agriculturists are concerned; for whatever limits production, affects the national wealth. The meagre husbandry of the small properties in France is thus a serious loss to the country, and tends to general impoverishment. But there is another and equally calamitous consequence of excessive subdivision. The small proprietors in France are for the greater part owners only in name: practically, they are tenants. Desperate in their circumstances, they have borrowed money on their wretched holdings; and so poor is the security, and so limited is the capital at disposal on loan, that the interest paid on mortgage runs from 8 to 10 per cent.--often is as high as 20 per cent. After paying taxes, interest on loans, and other necessary expenses, such is the exhaustion of resources, that thousands of these French peasant proprietors may be said to live in a continual battle with famine. According to