Litchfield enquirer., 1880-04-22
French and British Landholders.

deal IS the I3nOlOfu auu tctidut quceIloH. Throughout the whole of Great Britain the monopoly of land is great and an increasing evil About ten thousand proprietors own two thirds of the soil of the United Kingdom. In England the present system is not without its advantages of them quite important The proprietor does not expect high rate Of interest; he resides on his land a large part of the year; he furnishes expensive machine " and makes permanent improvements such as no small owner could afford. In case of hard seasons, the farmers who hold under him can expect reductions of rent, and renewals of their leases are not difficult to obtain. Hence the land is made more productive. the permanent improvements on it are more valu- able, than when the soil isdivided upinto small holdings.
 It is :ot difficult, therefore, for the English landed aristocracy not only to palliate but to justify it's existence. Hence we are not sur prised to find an article in the January number of the Edinburgh Review which claims an advan- tage for the English over the French landed system although admitting many of the excel lencies of the latter. The revlewer points to the fact that the yield of wheat under the English mode of cultivation is about 30 bushels to the acre, nearly double that in France. It will be noticed also that the French average IS considerably higher than that of the American farmer. He maintains that it is much better for the farmer to rent than to own land, since ownership implies the investment of large amount of capital in farm yielding but small return at the best He ayers that the French peasantry exaggerate to fault the virtues of economy and thrift, qualities in which he is obliged to confess that the wage-earning classes of his own country are deficient.
 To one controlling fact, however, the writer in the Edinburgh fails to give due weight-a fact which would seem to account of itself for the better culture of land in England than on the continent. In France, half the people are farmers; in England, barely an eighth. In country, therefore, where there is such mass of n-producers to support, and where agricultural products meet with a ready sale at high prices. high cultivation, heavy outlays for machinery, drainage, &c., must be profitable to an extent that could never be the case in 8 country like France where there is no such preponderance Of pop ulation engaged Tn commerce and manufact- ures. To make the parallel just, we must guess at what would be the condition of Eng land, with the same agricultural population as at present, but with only one seventh of the people who are now engaged in other pursuits than agriculture It can be readily imagined how soon land would fall iu value, and how quickly expensive modes of agricultural pro- duction would be abandoned in case England and France were put on an equality in that respect.
 Nor are we obliged to guess at results. when the comparison of the France of 1880 with the France of 17S0, of the England and Ireland of to day, furnish the exact parallel we wish The Celtic population of Ireland are much the same race as the Celts of France. On re- moving to this country they show much of the thrift we admire in the French peasant. They are energetic and hard working; they buy land and farm it economically. Indeed they often wiring maintenance out of soil on which Yankee would starve. Yet these are the very men who live in novels, and starve when the potato crop runs short at home. The reason is obvious. Ireland, with out the coal and iron that have made England the richest country in the world, depends, like France. largely on agriculture. The soil is good, but the landlord sucks all the real nour. ishment out of it, leaving the tenant no more than a bare support at any time, and without that support in bad times The Irish peasan, of to-day finds himself, in short, in the condi tion of the French peasant of century since What we read of agriculture ln France under the old regime at once reminds us of Ireland The same absentee landlords, the same extor- tions of agents and impoverishment of the people and of the soil, hold true in one case as in the other. We cannot but see that Ireland can never prosper until the landlord is in some way eliminated from the problem, and unti the peasant becomes the proprietor of tht land he tills. Compare the new France since the Revolution with old the France before tho Revolution under sort of Irish land system
 Not only is the population increased and na tional wealth quadrupled but there are nc longer those fearful famines which decimateo the France of the Eighteenth Century as they decimate the Ireland of the Nineteeth. From being the most unfortunate peasantry of Flu rope the French peasantry have become the happiest and the most prosperous. Not ever under the wonderful material prosperity o England has her peasantry prospered as have the peasantry of France.
 But from political point of view thu French system is even more preferable thar from the mere material point of view Tn, article to which we have referred states tha properties are in France divided into threl classes
 50, oOO.
 3, Averaging 60 acres, numbering 2,5OO, 900.
 8, Averaging acres, numbering 5000, GOO.
 Here are near eight million landed proprie tors. owning small farms or lots of ground They increase little in numbers. They liv poorly, but independently. Could any bette basis be imagined for republic? In Grea Britain, on the other hand, it's ten thousan proprietors of two thirds of the soil not onl
 naonopolize the government, but they willcou tinue to monopolize it, so long as their contrs
 over the land continues. Undoubtedly reput
 licanism has it's special dangers in France
 centralized government, and most medde
 some habits of administering that government
 and, worse yet, an immense standing army
 as ready to crush a legislature as to attack a enemy. Still, no country, not even our owr
 has solder foundation of independent lanC
 holders on which to build up an enduring re
 public than France as we find her centur
 after the Revolution which gave her peop
 the land they now so pepesallv own