The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-06-28 00:00:00

THE SUB-DIVISION OF LAND IN
FRANCE.

At the meeting of the Statistical Society the other
day, Mr. Warde Norman read a paper on the camles
which have led to the subdivikon of land in France
(remarte the Pall Pall Garette). Land according to the
writer, can be bought cheaoer in England than in
France. With us the normal price may be taken at
thirty years' purchase, and there is probably not a
country where land may not be had at this rate.
o.e great cau.e why the cultivator of land in England
is not the purchaser is, Mr. Norman assert., the peace
which Inv, prevailed prevailed in thia country since the close of
the fifteenth century and the security thereby given
to personal as well as real property. The enormous
wealth of England is embarked in all sorts of corn-
monis' I enterprises at home and abroad, and
the means of similar investments are with

us of constant recurrence. Compared with the
Frenchman, the Englishman is an extravagant person'
he lives well, and the low return to be had from the
purchase of land does not tempt him. On the other
hand, a French peasant boys land at forty years' pur-
chase, and borr,,we partof the moneyfor his investment
at prebably 6 per cent or even more. An English-
man would not contemplate such an operation, but the
Frenchman means to farm his own land, and merely
considers whether it will yield a surplus over the in-
terest and taxes when his own and his family's lab nr
have been expended on it. Moreover, until recently
the French peasant, familiar with war and revolution,
never had confidence in any other property. If the
country were more tranquil Mr. Norman thinks the
peasant proprietors would sell their small holdings for
more profitable bovestments. A tendency of this kind
was proceptible during the latter years of the Empire,
when none deemed a revolution near. Following

Lavergne's estimate of the ratio of sgricultuia_
yield in both countries, Mr. Ward places the annual
loss which France suffers from the inferior quantity of
grain and live stock produced at no less than
£lOO,OOO 000. This inferiority ix not ascribable to un-
favourable differences of coil or climate but to the gripe.
nor husbandry of our tenant farmers. If, however, the
economic results obtained by the French cultivator are so
far below the average of this country, there are political
and social advantages which France has in her peasant
proprietors which should not be left out of account. "The
Peasant proprietors of France form the ballad," Mr.
Norman remarks, "which has more than once saved
the vessel of the State from being altogether upset and
dashed against the rocks, amid the stormy raised by
contending factions. Thai army, of which the kernel
is formed from the families of peasant proprietors, has,
in 1848 and 1872, by defeating the socialistic and com-
munistic insurgents, saved property and society itself
from an utter overthrow, and would do so again were
its services required." It was admitted in the discus-
sion on the paper, that it would be futile to attempt
even an approximate estimate of the number of land-
owners in England cultivating their own acres until
Mr. Stansfeld's Domesday Book is before the world.