New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-10-09
AGES OF ENGLISH FARMING.
TIE GROWTH OF AN INTEREST THAI WAS
ONCE THE PRIDE OF GREAT BRITAIN.

HISTORY OF TIE ENGLISH LANDED INTEREST.
rs CrsToMs. LAWS AND AGRICULT! RE- Iy
Russell NJ. GARNER. PIP Xvlii 4o". Machil''ih "
In this volume one may see how tn" p'hdlIuh
Of economic thought in England is swinging back
| toward a trustworthy conservatism lime WIS.,
and not very long ago either, when the doc
| trinares in language and politics seemed ap'"'
TO cut away from English speech and from
Ennlish life everything that failed To cXhale an
upmistakable Tcutcnic flavor. People detained
IN words fully half Of which We're OF Latin or in
in favor of the good old AnglO-SaNOn dialect. While
those who listened or read felt 4 malicou, wish
that Latin might be abolished for III" moment
lust to see how the crazy special plcadcr' would
founder in expressing the thoughts f modern
civilization. The same narrow spirit was ShoWh
in economic history. Men deliberately shut their
eyes 10 the influence of Rome and l'yzanlinm on
Middle and Northern Europe throughout the
earlier Middle Ages down 70 time When III"
development Of modern national systeu's had
reached an era OF sclf-consciOusness, and when
lingual and geographic divisions began II APP
pear which have persisted unchanged SAY" IN
minor details T. the present day The four hundred
years of Roman domination in Britain-a period
| long enough in these latter days 70 chang" the
aspect Of the whole Western COntincnt-was IL
nored as Ct no value to subsequent history, ana
speculation started with more les, imaginary
data about the way people lived in the forests of
; Germany. Such speculation had its value,
doubt, but its most marked result has been the
| prevalence of a socialism which at its very best
borders on anarchy and at its worst threatens II
| destroy the whole fabric Of civilization which
| it has taken-spealing roughly-thrcc hum
| dred generations # intelligent men, Babylonans.
Egyptians, Assyriins, Phocniclans Greeks, Romans
| Iberians Gauls and Germans to build up
Mr. GARNER docs not disguise his dislike for
| theories. Where he has occasion 10 discuss the
statements Of antique authorities he evidently in
clinrs to bald and literal Interpretation. lie
| might even be criticised for going too far in his
| conservatism, as, when he says in discussing tie
subject of tithcs, that if he chose to hold a
brief at all in the discussion between Libratonists
and Chnrchmen over the so-calcd Anglo-SaXon
| laws relating to ecclesiastical imposts and those
| relating TO secular taxation, it would be for the
| Church: because, aside from the merits Of the
| historic question, the effect Of the 1.-THE system,
as he points ont, has been injurious TO the agri-
culturist: For since the abolition OF the Corn
| Laws the British farmer has had 10 compete
| with the foreign producer in the home market
| on unequal terms his circumstances on this
| count being parallel TO the of the pedestrian
who is pcnalized ten yards in every hundred
whenever he completes in trial of speed with
| other runners" An outsider would De apt 10
say that no prcscriptivc rights on earth could
| Justify discrimination to such extent against
the class most important TO the well being Of
! every community. But he turns the whole his
tory OF the 1.-THE question from Anglo-SaNOn
times into a very neat argument for the survival
| Of Roman influence in the later policies Of Eng
land However closely" says he, " the National
LEGISLATION guarded the 1.-THE owners interests, it
seems to have been impossible for it to have
| provided against the evasion of the payment of
personal tithes. The profits from commerce and
trade were Insignificant in these early times :.
they varied with each individual. and terminated
at his death II, therefore, predal and mixed
| tithes were difficult TO collect, how much more
personal tithes' ; and then he faces the other
| aspect OF the matter, secular taxation, with the
| words:
Just as the Church had looked to the land for
the maintenance Of the National clergy, poor. aud
houses Of worship so also the State looked to the
land for the maintenance Of the National dcfences.
Practically in these early times, there little
prospcct for fiscal officers 70 find the ncce sSarv
funds elsewhere Commercial capital was IL III re
cipher in the National wealth. It's compulsory tan
! alton was quite beyond the rude machinery cm
ployed by the Anglo-SaXon civil service. The
creed of the political economist, partly from ne
| cessity partly also from prediction, remained
| idcnticaly the same until the times OF Adam
Smith: English finance ministers held views ASSOC
ciated with that French school of political econ
omists which hourished toward the close of the
eighteenth century. The fundamental principle OF
it's leaders that all profits being originally
drawn from the soil, 80. too, should all taxation
be. So strongly rooted was this conception that
not even the publication and subsequent popu-