The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-29 00:00:00

SMALL PROPERTIES IN FRANCE.

The Pays has an article touching the division of landed
property in France. The writer alludes to the alimen-
tary crisis of late years as to "solemn warnings," and
says their periodicity reveals the nature and intensity of
the evil that causes them. " There is," it declares,
cause, which acts as it were subterraneously, and, like
the famous drop of water, wears away the vital principle
this can e is no other than the unlimited division of pro-
perty—that division which, in less than fihy years, has
raised the number of separate inscriptions for land tax"
to 13 millions, and has burdened the country with eight
millions of indigent proprietors ; that division which, in
constituting the lowest degree of la petite culture, has
rendered all agricultural enterprises upon a large scale
impossible, and, therefore, helped the impoverishment
of production all over the country. Here is the evil
against which something must be done, and which, if it
be not counteracted betimes, will grow to threaten so-
ciety, order, ana public prosperity.
The Paris Correspondent of the Manchester Guardian,
commenting on this article, says :
" The absence of younger sons in a nation is, rely upon
it, the absence in it of its most enterprising element.
From the highest to the lowest ranks in this country
all the children of a family are equally indolenS, for all
have equal prospects, which few go out of their way to
improve ; and those who have only a portion of indigence
to expect, sit down and expect it all the same, and swell
the ranks of the eight indigent proprietors.'
But there is a moral disease, which is the itnmec:iate
consequence of all this, and which is far too little per
ceived or acknowledged in France. I allude to the grek di-
ne-s and baseness fostered in all Frenchmen as far as
marriage is concerned. Economists coon) tell yf u that
the equilibrium is retestablished by the fact of she
eqtality of the wife's fortune to that brought by tie
husband, but they do not see that to found marriage
deliberately upon interest is to corrupt a whole nation
at once, and render it incapable of one generous or ele-
vated sentiment. And this has been, and is, the moral
consequence in France. Unless in a very few ex-
ceptional cases, no Frenchman, let what will be his
condition, is able to dream of marrying a poor woman.
His inevitable necessity is to marry a woman whose. for-
tune is, at least, adequate, if not superior, to his own.
He cannot choose his life's companion ; he must calcu-
late upon what she brings him, and in the most solemn
occasion of his existence, in that which is to influence the
happiness and the character even of the children that
may be born to him, he ;is, and must be, whatever his
rank or personal inclinations, a tradesman—his marriage
is invariably a bargain. Where boys are brought up
from the cradle to know that they must help themselves
they acquire habits of energy and activity, and rather
than not share the good or evil that life may have in
store for them with the woman to whom their heart
is given, men, thus educated, will confront a career full
of hardships, but leading through hard work to com-
parative ease. This produces generous natures, lofty
Fouls, and the political liberties of a country run
but little danger confided to the keeping of such citi-
zens. But of such France knows nothing. I firmly
believe the Emperor to be well aware of all the mis-
chief attached to this system, but I doubt whether he
can, whether he will dare to, touch upon it even in the
slightest degree."