The Express.
London, England, 1847-01-07 00:00:00

proprietors, whose taxes indicate their poisemione to be on an
an average under 10 acres. We should not tipsier: have thought
it likely that there were amongst thew small proprietors any
great number holding property in different communes, and
we are therefore led to suspect that the calculation of
6,600,000 of distinct proprietor, is, at all events, not
exaggerated. Assuming it, then, to be just. our surprise I
at even that number is not diminished by the con-
sequences that fallow. In the first plate, it appears from the
official returns that the whole value of real property (its-
Ineuables) of France is estimated at 39,515,000,000 franca,
equal to about 1,580,000,000/. sterling; and its annual reve-
nue at 1,580,030,000 !rands, about 63,000,0001. sterling,—
about 4 per cent ; so that the average income of the five and
a half million proprietors would be about 287 francs, equal
to 111. 10s. sterling; but this average, low as it it, gives •
much more favourable view of the case than the following
more detailed estimate of the several classes of income, which
reduced into pounds sterling will, we think, surprise our
English readers:
3,602,705 families whose revenue does not exceed £2
873,997 4
737,120
369,603 12
342,082 20
276,615 40
170,379 90
23,777 200
16,598 400
6,681 families whose revenues exceeds 400

5,440,763 Vol. i. p. 101.
We ate sorry the estimate is carried no further ; it would
on every account have been very desirable to have had some,
even conjectural, classification of the 6,600 incomes above
400/. a year. We read occasionally in these volumes of
strands propriaaires. It would be very essential to the
general argument to know something specific of tnese large
landed Iffrtunes, their estimated number and ainnunt, how
they have contrived to outlive the Code Napoleon, and
whether there is any possibility. of their continuance, or any
chance hereafter of making similar accumulations in other
quarters all this, we say, would have been important to the
argument, and without it our view of the Mate and influence
of landed property in France must be very imperfect.
We find, however, Beni other documents (p. 116), that, of
the 13,000 highest rated (and of course largest) properties,
the average income was 17,260 franca, about • and as
there are near 4,00') in that number of lesethan 4001., there
are probably, in the higher series, someiconsiderable fortunes
which help to furnish even that average. But however tkat
may be, it is obvious that under the unremitting action of
the law the ten thousand 6901. incomes of one generation
must become in the next (on the calculated average of three
children to each inheritance), thirty thousand of 230/. ; and
although there is at work an antagonist process of recon-
struction or accumulation by marriage, purchase, and colla-
teral inheritance, it is altogether inadequate to stem the
dispersing torrent. The effects of the 'accumulating process
by marriage, purchase, or relationship would naturally
be most frequent and strong amongst neighbour-
ing properties, hut we find that, notwithstanding all such
influents, the numbers of the communal cotes arc rapidly
increasing. In the ten years from 1826 to 1835 the Cote*
lonciires exhibit an increase of 60,000 prop:Tiles being
6,000 additional onnrcellemens (as they are technically spd
emphatically called) per annum; and that the balance of
dispersion over accumulation is progressing in an alarming
ratio a proved by the fact ~that, whereas the increase for the
ten former years was but two per cent., they were in the
next decennium six per cent. on the number of rated pro-
perties (p. 117). Of coarse this increase of number neces-
eerily implies a general diminution of amount; but another
document proves that it was on the larger properties that this
division was acting most powerfully : in ten years the pro-
perties paving less than 16s. in taxation increased in number
by one-ninth, while all the higher classes diminished by one-
third. Under the same processes all must gradually become
; less and less.