COTTAGE SYSTEM.

Among the various schemes devised for checking the progress of pauperism in England, and for augmenting the comfort and happiness of the lower classes, few seem to have obtained a greater degree of popularity, or to be more generally patronised, than the cottage system ;—that system which proposes, under certain restrictions, to furnish the industrious poor with cottages and small pieces of land, to be used for the purpose of keeping kine, raising potatoes, or for some other species of husbandry.

It is not our intention to detail the various peculiarities of the plans of different authors by whom the efficacy of the cottage system has been maintained. We shall content ourselves with examining the fundamental principles on which the whole scheme is founded; and, in so doing, we shall endeavour to resolve the important question, whether the more minute division of landed property, and the letting of small farms and patches of ground, to any considerable portion of the lower classes, would tend to improve their condition and character, and to reduce the sum total of human misery.

As the effects of the cottage or small farming system on the condition of the poor must, in a great measure, depend on the fact of its tending to increase or diminish the exchangeable value of raw produce, it will be necessary, first of all, to inquire into its probable operation in this respect. If it should tend to reduce the price of corn, cattle, &c. or to render their acquisition less difficult, that would be a strong presumption in its favour. But, on the other hand, if it should tend to raise the price of these articles of provision, or to make them exchange for a greater quantity of labour, its introduction would obviously be prejudicial to the community', and especially to the labouring classes.

We have already endeavoured to show that the price of. raw produce has a natural tendency to rise as society ad- i vances, and as a country becomes more populous. (Prin∙' ciples of the Corn Laws.} The best lands being first brought under cultivation, recourse is afterwards had to* those which are inferior, and require a greater quantity c of labour to make them yield the same produce. The reali price of this produce, which is always regulated by the quantity of labour necessary to its production, is therefore increased; and it exchanges for a greater portion of those commodities the production of which has not also become more difficult.

Had the inventive genius of man been limited in its powers; had the ploughs, harrows, and other machinesand implements used in agriculture, at once attained their utmost degree of perfection, and remained ever after in the same state; the rise in the price of raw produce consequent to the increase of population would have been much more obvious. When in such a state of things it became necessary to resort to poorer soils in order to raise additional quantities of food, a corresponding increase of manual labour would have been required. On this hypothesis no improvement could have taken place in the powers of the labourer himself. Having already reached the perfection of his art, a greater degree of animal exertion could alone have overcome fresh obstacles. More labour would have been necessary to the production of a greater quantity of food; and it would have been necessary in the precise proportion according to which the quantity [7:7:387]was increased. Thus, supposing the labour of ten men to have been required, during a given number of days, to produce ten quarters of wheat, from land of a certain quality,—when fifteen quarters were produced in the same time and from the same land, fifteen hands must have been employed in its production. The effects of improved machinery, and of a better system of manuring and cropping, are here supposed to be entirely out of the question. Had the arts continued in this stationary state, the price of raw produce must obviously have varied directly with every variation in the quality of the soils successively brought under cultivation.

But in an improving society, the circumstances which regulate the real and exchangeable values of raw produce are extremely different. Here, too, it has doubtless a constant tendency to rise; for notwithstanding that every successive improvement in agriculture, and every new device by which labour may be saved, and the energies and powers ofmachinery augmen ted, operate to lower prices,—still the rise of profits, and the consequent stimulus given to population, by every fall in the price of raw produce, increase the demand, and again raise prices, by forcing the cultivation of poorer soils. But this rise is rendered much less perceptible than it would be in a stationary state of society. After inferior soils have been brought under cultivation, more labourers may be required to raise the same quantities of food; but as the powers of the labourers are augmented, a smaller number is required, in proportion to the work to be performed, than if no such improvement had taken place. It is in this way that the tendency to an increase in the price of raw produce is counteracted in the progress of society. The productive energies of the earth itself gradually diminish, and we are compelled to resort to soils of a constantly-decreasing degree of fertility; but the productive energy of the labour employed to extract produce from these soils is as constantly improved. Two directly opposite and continually-acting principles are thus set in motion. From the operation of the causes to which we have alluded, the increasing sterility of the soil is sure, in the long run, to overmatch the increasing power of machinery and the improvements of agriculture, so that prices experience a corresponding rise. Occasionally, however, meliorations in the latter more than compensate, during lengthened periods, for any deterioration in the quality of the former, and a fall of prices is the consequence. Should an equilibrium take place, and the opposite principles exactly counterpoise each other, prices would remain stationary.

Had the whole surface of the earth been originally of the same degree of fertility, and had the same outlay of capital and labour always continued to yield the same amount of raw j>roduce, the effects of improved machinery and agriculture in reducing prices would have been quite obvious. If such had been the case, raw produce must have invariably fallen in value as society advanced. There would have been nothing to counteract the effects of improvements. The quantity of labour required for the production of all sorts of commodities would, by reason of improvements in machinery and the arts, have been almost always diminishing; and of course their real price would have been as constantly on the decline.

It results, as a consequence of these principles, that any constitution of society, or any method of dividing landed property, which should operate to counteract t∙he spirit of improvement, or which should prevent agriculturists from adopting the most efficacious methods for saving labour and expense in carrying on their business, would be materially injurious.

The rate of profit, and consequently the power to accumulate capital and population, is ultimately regulated by the price of farm produce. If its price be relatively low, that is, if it be easily produced, a comparatively small outlay of labour will suffice to obtain a large quantity of produce. If, in a country thus situated, property be protected, and full scope be given to accumulation, wealth will rapidly increase. Where labour is mpre than ordinarily productive, the labourer receives a large share of the produce of his exertions, at the same time that a large net profit remains to his employer. In America, labour is extremely well rewarded, but the profits of stock are, notwithstanding, muclι higher than in Europe. The choice of immense tracts of fertile and unoccupied land relieves the farmers of the United States from the necessity of cultivating any but the richest soils. The wants of the country can be supplied without having recourse to lands of an inferior quality; and although the wages of workmen are comparatively high, yet, as their labour is proportionally productive, capitalists realize a corresponding and ample profit.

The difficulty of raising sufficient supplies of corn is the principal cause why old-settled and densely-peopled countries advance slowly in the accumulation of capital and riches, and why the profits of stock in them are comparatively low. Were it not, however, for the improvements which are constantly making in agriculture, this difficulty would be greatly increased. ∙ These, by enabling the increasing sterility of the soil to be partially overcome, reduce the cost of production, or the real price of food; and by this means the rate of profit, and consequently the power to accumulate wealth and population, is prevented from falling so low as it would do in a society where no improvements were made.

Now this, we apprehend, must be the situation of every country in which a minute division of landed property, or an extended cottage system, has been introduced. The produce of a small farm of five, ten, or even twenty acres, may perhaps enable its occupier to preserve his family from downright starvation, but it will never enable him to accumulate stock to any extent. “Where,” asks Mi-Young, “is the little farmer to be found who will cover his whole farm with marl at the rate of 100 or 150 tons per acre? who will drain all his land at the expense of two or three pounds an acre? who will pay a heavy price for the manure of towns, and convey it thirty miles by land carriage? who will float his meadows at the expense of L.5 per acre? who, to improve the breed of his sheep, will give 1000 guineas for the use of a single ram for à single season? who will send across the kingdom to distant provinces for new implements, and for men to use them? who employ and pay men for residing in provinces where practices are found which they want to introduce into their farms? At the very mention of such exertions, common in England, what mind can be so perversely framed as to imagine, for a single moment, that such things are to be effected by little farmers? Deduct from agriculture all the practices that have made it flourishing in this island, and you have precisely the management of small farms” ( Travels in France, 2d edition, vol. i. p. 410.) Besides, though it were admitted that small farmers might accumulate capital, they could not apply it in the most efficient manner. “The division of labour which, in every pursuit of industry, gives skill and dispatch, cannot take place on the greatest farms in the degree in which it is found in manufactures; but upon small farms it does not take place at all. The same man by turns applies to every work of the farm; upon the larger occupation there are ploughmen, thrashers, hedgers, shepherds, cow-herds, ox-herds, limeburners, drainers, &c. This circumstance s of considerable importance, and decides that every work will be better performed on a large [7:7:388]than on a small farm. One of the greatest engines of good farming, a sheep-fold, is either to be found on a large farm only, or at an expense of labour which destroys the profit.” (Travels in France, vol. I. p. 409.)

Neither could a small farmer use any but the simplest machines, and he must, in a great measure, be prevented from availing himself of the powers of the lower animals. An Irish cottager cannot employ either a thrashing-machine or a horse. Manual labour is his only engine for extracting produce from the earth. He cannot avail himself of natural agents, nor render them subservient to the great work of production. Those improvements which, in countries where capital is accumulating in masses, are every day rendered more efficient, and tend materially to reduce the price of raw produce, and to render the necessaries of life attainable by less labour, are altogether incompatible with a minute division of landed property. The additional supplies of food required in a kingdom divided into small occupancies cannot be produced without a proportional increase of manual labour; so that raw produce rises in price with every increase of population, or as soon as it becomes necessary to cultivate inferior soils. There is, in this case, nothing left to counteract increasing sterility. It is neither cheeked by improved machinery, nor by any expedients for saving labour. But, being allowed to exert its full effect, society very soon becomes clogged in its progress; and its future advancement is rendered extremely problematical.

This, we conceive, constitutes a fundamental objection to every attempt to introduce a plan for dividing landed property into minute portions; for surely nothing can be more preposterously absurd than to think of relieving the hardships and distresses of the poor by recommending the adoption of a scheme which would infallibly tend to raise the price of the principal necessaries of life.

But a minute division of landed property is not merely disadvantageous from its having a tendency to raise the price of raw produce, by preventing the most advantageous distribution of capital and labour; it must also exercise a powerful effect on manufactured commodities, and, by increasing the cost of their production, contribute to enhance their real price.

In a country like England, where an improved system of husbandry is generally introduced, where farms are extensive, and where improved machinery is employed in agricultural operations, a comparatively small proportion of the inhabitants are engaged in the cultivation of the soil. The rest are employed in manufacturing, in carrying the products of the different districts of the kingdom to where they are in the greatest demand, and in exchanging them for the products of other countries. Farmers do not spend their time in clumsy attempts to manufacture their own produce; and manufacturers cease to interest themselves about the raising of corn and the fattening of cattle. Every class bestows its undivided attention on some particular department of industry. Labour is economized, and it is also perseveringly and judiciously applied. Agriculturists raise the largest crops, because they can readily exchange them for other commodities conducive to their comforts and enjoyments; whilst manufacturers and merchants are stimulated to increase the quantity and to improve the quality of their articles, that they may thereby command a greater quantity of raw produce. As valuable or desirable objects are multiplied, greater efforts are made to procure them. A spirit of industry, and a desire to rise in the world, are universally diffused, and the apathy and languor which are natural to a stationary state of society are scarcely known.

“It is,” says Dr Smith, “the great multiplication of the productions of the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of, beyond what lie himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quanti ty, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for; and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society.”

But if a country were generally divided info small farms, these effects could only take place in a very limited extent. Where a great proportion of the inhabitants is directly supported by the produce of the soil, it is obvious that there must be less of it to support others. Small farmers have it not in their power to purchase any considerable quantity of manufactured goods; nor, where these abound, are manufacturers able to purchase a large share of the produce of the soil. Neither capital nor labour can, in such circumstances, be employed in the most advantageous manner; and that division of labour, to the influence of which the greater part of the improvement of society may be justly ascribed, can only be partially introduced. A considerable portion of the coarser sorts of manufactured commodities would, in a country so occupied, be prepared at home, though at a much greater expense; for the small surplus of agricultural produce that would remain, after satisfying the wants of the cultivators, would be barely sufficient to procure such necessaries as could not be procured by the rude efforts of agricultural labourers. Being obliged to engage by turns in every different employment, workmen would be prevented from acquiring a proper degree of dexterity in any.^[1. “In Ireland, the minute division of land, and the manner in which the inhabitants are scattered over the country, render it necessary for labour of various kinds to be. combined in the same individual; and thus each family becomes the manufacturers of their own clothing, and of every thing else which they use. Most of tliç raw materials being supplied either by their flocks, or the produce of their land, they are better able to continue this system, and to dispense with the use of articles imported or made by regular workmen. In arts carried on in this manner, improvement is impossible; and while the same system exists, no taste can be excited for a superior mode of life, nor will much encouragement be given to the establishment of manufactories. Except in the cotton branches, and in the curing of provisions, this pernicious system is everywhere observed; it pervades all ranks, from the nobleman, who makes his own candles, cultivates his own patch of flax, and has it spun by his servants, to the cotter, whose wife and daughters spin and manufacture the frieze and woollen stuffs which serve them as clothing.” (Wakefield’s Account of Ireland, vpl. i. p∙ 7ö0.) ] Butas it is by the quantity of labour expended on a commodity that its exchangeable value is regulated, it is obvious that, where there is a minute division of landed property, not only the price of corn, but also that of all sorts of manufactured commodities, would be increased. Labour would become less powerful in producing or in procuring them; and the situation of the great body of the people, who have only labour to barter for commodities, would be rendered comparatively wretched. No one would have any, or but very little surplus produce to dispose of; and instead of general opulence, we should meet with nothing but universal poverty. “The tendency of such a system,” says an intelligent writer who had carefully observed its effects, “ is to approximate man to the state of the savage, where the insulated being is obliged to [7:7:389]supply himself by his own labour with every thing that his situation may require"

It deserves to be mentioned, that a minute division of landed property, by preventing the extension and improvement of manufacturing industry, renders the occupiers of land almost entirely dependent on its proprietors. Those farmers who incur the displeasure of their landlords are unable to betake themselves to another employment, and are obliged to submit to every species of indignity. The state of society during the middle ages approached, in some respects, very nearly to this; and it should be remembered, that the division of labour, and the extension of commerce and manufactures, has been even more beneficial, from its having effected the abolition of villenage, and removed the grinding oppression of feudal tyranny, than from its having multiplied the comforts and conveni-encies of life. Nor is it less certain that every discovery of a new channel in which industry may be advantageously employed, affords an additional guarantee for the enjoyment of personal freedom and independence. By enlarging the field of exertion, and adding to the means of acquiring an independent livelihood, whilst it increases the comforts of every individual, it also renders them less liable to be affected by derangements in any particular branch of business, or by the partialities and caprices of those in authority.

It is impossible that the prizes in the lottery of human life can be too much multiplied. The greater the variety of ways by which men may rise to eminence, the more vigorous will be the efforts to rise. Where full scope is given to the accumulation of property, all individuals, even those in the humblest walks of life, arc cheered with the idea that, by industry and economy, they' may better their situation, emerge from obscurity, and acquire opulence. But in an essentially agricultural society', where the greater part of the population is directly engaged in the culture of the soil, there is but little variety of condition. In such countries capital cannot be accumulated; great cities cannot exist; and the liberal arts and professions, which chiefly depend on them for protection and support, and to which they owe their birth, are neither patronised nor indulged in. It is not to be imagined that cultivators, engrossed, as small farmers must constantly be, with the thoughts of providing for their present wants, can pay any attention to schemes of general or prospective improvement. Such men have no sufficient motive to stimulate them to exertion; and a perpetual sameness, like that of China, or at most a nearly imperceptible progress, is all that can be expected amongst them, and it is all that ever will take place. It is only in countries like America or England that the energies of man, as well as the powers of the soil, are developed to their full extent. There, while the diversity' of the objects of pursuit gives ample room for gratifying the diversity of dispositions, the applause consequent on any invention that either extends the power of man over the physical world, or enlarges his intellectual faculties, perpetuates the discoveries made and the spirit which makes them.

Most of the misconceptions and erroneous opinions to be met with respecting the cottage system appear to have originated in hasty and premature attempts at generalization, founded on a few limited observations of its local effects. But first appearances are, in this case especially, the most fallacious. The effects observed to result from the partial granting of cottages, furnish no clue by which to trace the ultimate consequences of the system. On the contrary, they are eminently calculated to mislead. Were cottages, with small pieces of ground attached to each, let at a moderate rent to a few of the most industrious labourers in the best cultivated districts of Great Britain, there can be no doubt that the situation of those individuals would, in the first instance, be ameliorated. They would acquire these possessions with previously-formed habits of industry and economy. When their own little farm did not require their exertions, they would be able to find employment in the more extensive farms in their vicinity; and might in this way procure the ploughs, harrows, and carts of their neighbours to assist them in their operations. Such men would be employed with nearly as much effect as they would have been had they continued as farm servants on estates managed in the first style. It is even probable that their exertions would, in the first instance, be rather increased, inasmuch as a part of the labour necessary for the cultivation of the small farm would be executed at extra hours, after the ordinary day’s labour was performed.

But the truth of this statement is nowise inconsistent with the principles which we have been endeavouring to establish. The ultimate and necessary consequences of a minute division of landed property deserve to be as much attended to as those which arc immediate and transitory only.

In the first place, it is extremely probable that the small farmers would, at no distant period, become disgusted with the life of laborious exertion which they had formerly led. It is natural to suppose, that, having become comparatively independent, and not being under the necessity of constantly employing themselves, occasional intervals of relaxation would take place. A cottager, however small his possession, has some species of produce to dispose of. This leads to a habit of going to market, where much precious time is lost in the adjustment of trifling bargains. “Nothing,” as Mr Young has justly remarked, “can be more absurd than a strong hearty man walking some miles, and losing a day’s work, in order to sell a dozen of eggs or a chicken, the value of which would not be equal to the labour of conveying it if he were properly employed.” Such habits, too, are almost sure to lead to dissipation. The small farmer must have his porter and his gin as well as the extensive farmer. It is the want of time and opportunity, still more than the want of money, that prevents a hired labourer from apeing the conduct of his employers. The circumstances, too, which distinguish a farm-servant from a farmer, are much better defined, and more easily appreciated, than those which distinguish a small farmer from an extensive one. The latter are both placed, if we may use the expression, in the same caste; and hence the extravagances of the small farmer, though equally hurtful to himself and his family with those of a labourer, are less an object of animadversion in the neighbourhood. They clash less with popular prejudices and received opinions; and there is, therefore, a greater probability of their being more indulged in.

If these consequences of the introduction of small farms should not become obvious in the lifetime of the first occupiers, they would certainly discover themselves in that of their successors. Not having undergone the same rigid training as their fathers, the views and habits of the two races would be essentially different. And the character of the industrious labourer, which had predominated in the first, would, in the second, give place to that of the half-employed, petty farmer.

But, in the second place, it is obvious that the beneficial effects observed to follow the first introduction of small farms depend almost entirely on their occupiers having it in their power to employ' themselves at other work when their labour is not required at home. Now, with a generally extended cottage system, this could not be the case. Where all farms are small, none would require the labour of extra hands, noι∙ would they afford their own [7:7:390]possessors constant employment, except, perhaps, during seed-time and harvest. Nor is it to be imagined that the leisure of a poor cottager has any thing in common with that of an extensive farmer or capitalist. The cottager is inactive, not because be has realized funds adequate for his support, but because no exertions can better his condition, and because there is no demand for his labour. No man, it should be recollected, loves exertion or industry for its own sake. All have some end or object in view, the accomplishment of which is to compensate for the toils and privations to which they at present submit. But a small farmer is almost entirely cut off from the expectation of rising in society. No person possessed of capital would ever think of embarking in such a hopeless concern; and after supporting a family, no small farmer, originally without capital, is ever able to accumulate any. As it is impossible for him to escape from poverty, the cottager naturally becomes indolent and careless. His opinions of∙what is necessary to his comfortable subsistence are degraded, and he ultimately sinks into a state of sluggish or stupid indifference.

That this is a fair picture of the state of society in every country in which landed property is divided into minute portions, is abundantly certain. But we have no occasion to go from home to seek for an exemplification of its effects. We have only to turn to Ireland. There the cottage system has been submitted to the test of experiment, and it is proper that the result should be generally known.

In our inquiry into the principles of the corn laws, we endeavoured to show that the granting of high bounties on the exportation of corn from Ireland, in 1780 and 1784, contributed to the extension of tillage, and to the breaking up of the pasture grounds in that kingdom. But the want of capital^ and the consequent impossibility of procuring tenants capable of taking large farms, obliged the proprietors to divide their lands into small portions. Large tracts of old grass land were ploughed up, and let in farms of from ten to twenty acres; and in this way the stimulus, intended to act as an incitement to agricultural improvement, has had a much more powerful effect in causing the subdivision of farms, and in increasing the agricultural population of the country.

Mr Newenham’s authority is decisive as to this fact. “Large farms,” he informs us, “of from 500 to 1500 and 2000 acres, once so common in Ireland, hold actually no sort of proportion to farms of from ten to thirty or forty acres. In the county of Down, Mr Dubordieu says that farms run from twenty to forty, fifty, and in some instances as far as a hundred acres. Such is the case in most other parts of Ireland. For several years past the landlords of that county have been much in the habit of letting their lands in small divisions. Besides this, the cottier system, or the giving a certain quantity of land as an equivalent for wages, prevails throughout most parts of Ireland. In fact, upwards of four fifths of the Irish people are subsisted chiefly on the produce of the land which they hold.” (Inquiry intodhe Population of Ireland, p. 270.)

Every part of Mr Wakefield’s work on Ireland abounds with interesting information respecting the effects of this minute division of landed property. Our limits, however, will only permit our extracting the following passages.

When noticing the state of landed property in Kerry, Mr Wakefield observes: “Few persons here occupy such a quantity of land as to oblige them to employ a labourer; it is not, therefore, customary for people to go from their own homes to work, and, indeed, none but those who have taken very dear farms, and experience the necessity of procuring a little ready money, ever think of it. This system, Considered in a public point of view, strikes me as being exceedingly injurious. A country occupied by inhabitants whose ambition is so limited that they have no desire to push their industry beyond that indolent exertion which procures them the bare necessaries of life, inust remain without improvement. Such people cannot be said to live, but to exist ; to supply their animal wants is the chief object of their labour, and if they can raise money enough, by the sale of butter and pigs, to pay théit rent, all their care and anxiety is ended. The existence, however, of these wretched beings depends entirely on the season; for if their potato crop fails, they are in danger of being starved. This mode of life, instead of elevating the moral faculties in the slightest degree, tends only to depress and degrade thetn. It becomes the parent of idleness, the worst evil that can afflict human nature; and that habit, if it spreads or becomes general, must lead to national poverty, and even want, with its concomitants, vice and misery.” (Account of Ireland, vol. i. p. 262.)

“In Fermanagh,” says he, “whether it arises from habit, or a natural propensity to indolence, the people do net rise until a late hour in the morning, and the cows are not milked till noon. There being but a poor market for the produce of the earth, little encouragement is afforded to industry; they therefore seldom think of turning their time to the best advantage.” (Account of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 745.)

In his chapter on rural economy, Mr Wakefield makes the following observations: “The Irish cottier’s only anxiety is, that the butter and the pig sold, and the labour given to his landlord, may be equal in value to the payment which he has to make. When satisfied on this head, his mind is at rest; he has no further wants, and neither he nor his family consider labour as of any importance to their happiness. His potatoes are left in the ground till the commencement of frost makes him apprehend that his food may be locked up in the earth; and though very great inconvenience has been occasioned by this negligence, the repeated experiment of the bad result arising from it has not yet been able to induce the peasantry of Ireland to adopt a better method. It is very common to hear persons of higher rank observe, when a very early frost takes place, that ‘ it is a fortunate event, as it will oblige the poor to dig up their potatoes’ (for the poor and the cultivator of the soil are here synonymous expressions') ; and of course they will be saved before a severer one sets in.” (Account of Ireland, vol. i. p. 517 and 583.)

It is not necessary to quote authorities to prove the miserable state of the hovels in which the cottagers reside. Notwithstanding his prejudices in their favour, Mr Newenham admits “that a bedstead is a luxury which a great majority of the Irish labouring poor are strangers to. And as for clocks, warming-pans, frying-pans, tea-kettles, cups and saucers, &c. which we find in every cottage here, I believe it is unnecessary to say that they never constitute a part of the poor Irishman’s furniture.” (Inquiryrespecting the Population of Ireland, p. 280.)

We shall close these statements with an extract from Mr Curwen’s work on Ireland. That experienced agriculturist travelled through the greater part of it in 1813, and, after having carefully inquired into the condition of the small farmers and cottagers, gave the result of his investigation in the following terms: “The size of farms, from fifteen to thirty acres, would give an average of about twenty-two or twenty-three acres to each. Portions of these arc again sublet to cottiers, whose rents are paid by labour done for the tenants, from whom they sometimes receive milk and some other necessaries. These running accounts are an endless source of dissatisfaction, of dispute, and of contention, at the quarter-sessions. In some [7:7:391]of the more populous parts of Ireland there is supposed to be an inhabitant for every aere, while the cultivation of the soil, as now practised, does not afford employment for a third of that population. In the north, where the linen trade has been established, the lower classes are weavers, which gives them a great superiority over the southern districts. The labour on the highways and great roads, for which such large assessments are made on the counties, afford, for a portion of the year, a great source of employment.

“The minute subdivision of lands among these occupants is attended with many serious evils. The rents of these sublet parcels, become so high to the actual cultivators as to preclude all profitable returns from their labour, lt affords too great a facility to marriage. The population becomes increased beyond the capital of the country employed in husbandry; and the supernumerary individuals are compelled to subsist on the produce of others’ labour, to which they have no power of contributing. The aggregate number of horses is greater than would be required if the estates were distributed into moderately sized farms; while the want of farming buildings, besides other disadvantages, prevents the accumulation of manure.

“The labourers, with few exceptions, are all married. The farmers have no hired servants of either sex residing in their dwellings; this is another serious evil arising out of small farms. Ireland, which in extent is nearly equal to one half of Great Britain, does not probably employ one tenth of the agricultural servants.

“The buildings on every farm being erected at the expense of the tenant, are necessarily on the most limited scale, seldom more than a cabin, and this insufficient for the children of the family beyond their earliest days. As the children grow up, they are compelled to seek another establishment for themselves, and to hazard every consequence that may ensue. Alternative they have none. The interests of all parties suffer, and it would be for the advantage of the whole community to promote a radical reform of the present disreputable system.”

Such are the ruinous effects produced by the small farming system. And such, too, with some few exceptions, would be the effects of having a country parcelled out into small freehold properties. A few words will be sufficient to show the similarity of the cases.

First, It is obvious that the division of labour would be quite as inapplicable in a country divided into small properties as in one occupied by small farmers. The proprietor of ten, twenty, or fifty acres, can as little afford to keep ploughmen, hedgers, thrashers, &c. as the person who holds them on lease. But whatever may be the capital of the occupier of a small farm, its size will not admit of its being farmed so as to yield the largest quantity of produce with the least possible expenditure of labour.

It may be supposed, perhaps, that, in countries occupied entirely by proprietors, raw produce may be sold at a cheaper rate than in those occupied by farmers, who, in addition to the expense of labour, are burdened with the payment of rent. This, however, is really not the ease. The price of raw produce, as well as of manufactured commodities, is determined by the quantity of labour necessary to its production. Rent, it has been demonstrated, does not enter into price. Corn is not high because rent is paid, but rent is paid because corn is high; and no reduction would take place in the price of corn although landlords should relinquish the whole of their rent. Such a measuro would turn some farmers into landlords, and some landlords into beggars; but it would not diminish the quantity of labour necessary to raise corn on the least productive land in cultivation; and it is this quantity which determines its price, and consequently the price of the whole crop.

Although, therefore, it cannot be doubted that the condition of the greater part of the occupiers of land, in a country held by small proprietors, must, upon the whole, be preferable to their condition in a country held by small farmers, the condition of every other class would be unaffected. The price of corn is the same whether it is raised by a small farmer or a small proprietor. Neither of them is able to bring his produce to market upon the same reasonable terms as an extensive farmer. The profits of stock would, therefore, be less than in countries where agriculturists are in a situation to adopt every expedient by which labour may be saved or rendered more efficient; and the power of the society to accumulate wealth would be proportionally diminished.

In the second place, small properties, as well as small farms, have a strong tendency to increase the agricultural population of a country in a ratio far exceeding the demand. A property of forty or fifty acres of good land might support a single family in tolerably easy circumstances; but what is to become of the children? No country, it will be remembered, which is divided into small occupancies, can ever furnish surplus produce sufficient, after satisfying the wants of the cultivators, to feed a numerous body of merchants, handicraftsmen, &c.; nor would small occupiers have any demand for the products or services of such persons. There could therefore be no demand for that surplus population which an agriculturał society is always producing; and the division of the paternal property would be the only way in which families could be provided for. This, however, is only calculated to make bad worse. Farms of forty or fifty acres are not inea-pableof pretty good cultivation; but those of twenty or twenty-five, and still more of ten or twelve acres, must be ill cultivated. But in essentially agricultural countries, such, for example, as France, where the right of primogeniture is almost unknown, and where property must be divided in nearly equal portions amongst all the children of a family, properties can hardly fail to be reduced even below ten acres. They must, in fact, be perpetually lessening, until, to use the words of Mr Young, when pointing out the pernicious effects of this system in France, “you arrive at the limit beyond which the earth, cultivate it as you please, will feed no more mouths; yet those simple manners, which instigate to marriage, still continue. What then is the consequence, but the most dreadful imaginable. By persevering in this system, you soon would exceed the populousness of China, where the putrid carcasses of dogs, cats, rats, and every species of filth and vermin, are sought with avidity, to sustain the life of wretches who were born only to be starved. Small properties much divided prove the greatest source of misery that can possibly be conceived; and this has operated to such an extent and degree in France, that a law undoubtedly ought to be passed, to render all division, below a certain number of arpents, illegal.” ( Travels in France, vol. i. pp. 413, 414.)

The condition of the agricultural classes in France has been materially ameliorated since Mr Young visited that kingdom. The abolition of the feudal privileges of the nobility and clergy, and of the gabelle, corvée, and other grievously oppressive and partial burdens, would of itself have sufficed to make the farmers and small proprietors more respectable and comfortable. A great part too of the property of the church, and of the emigrants, came into their hands at extremely low prices. By this means small properties were augmented, and fresh energy was given to the agriculturists. Still, however, the extreme division of landed property, wļfich, in consequence [7:7:392]of the law of equal partition, is every day becoming more minute, and the consequent excess of the rural population, form the prime evils in the soeial condition of the people of France. “The population of that country,” says Mr Birkbeck, “seems to be arranged thus :—A town depends for subsistence on the lands immediately around it. The cultivators individually have not much to spare; because, as their husbandry is a sort of gardening, it requires a large country population, and has, in proportion, less superfluity of produce. Thus is formed a numerous but poor population. The cultivator receives payment of his surplus produce in sous, and he expends only sous. The tradesman is on a par with the farmer; as they receive so they expend; and thus 50,000 persons may inhabit a district, with a town of 10,000 inhabitants in the centre of it, bartering the superfluity of the country for the arts and manufactures of the town: poor from generation to generation, and growing continually poorer as they increase in numbers, in the country by the division and subdivision of property, in the town by the division and subdivision of trades and professions. Such a people, instead of proceeding from the necessaries to the comforts of life, and then to the luxuries, as is the order of things in England, are rather retrograde than progressive. There is no advancement in French society; no improvement, nor hope of it.” ( Tour in Frances 4th edit. p. 34.)^[2. For further information as to the effects of the present French law of succession, see the note on the “Disposal of Property by Will,” in the fourth volume of McCulloch’s edition of the Wealth of Nations. ]

It has been said, that property in land is of all others the most active instigator to severe and incessant labour. This, however, is a very doubtful proposition. It is true, that the exertions of a little proprietor are not paralyzed by the apprehension of being turned out of his farm before he has reaped the reward of his labours. But, on the other hand, his certainty of a resource, his dependence on a small piece of ground from which he cannot be ejected, and which will preserve him from absolute want, joined to the impossibility of his rising in the world, foster indolent habits. A farmer can never calculate with certainty on getting a renewal of his lease. Unless he has accumulated some capital, he is always exposed to the risk of being thrown destitute upon the world; but it is not so with the small proprietor. He relies for support, not upon capital, but upon land. He is exempted from all chance of being turned out of his possession; and he has not therefore the same powerful motive to save and accumulate as the other. The small proprietors and farmers of France, Mr Birkbeck informs us, “having absolutely no means of improving their situation, submit to necessity, and pass their lives contentedly.” The same is the case in Great Britain. “Throughout England there is no comparison between the case of a day-labourer and of a little farmer; we have no people that work so bard and fare so ill as the latter.” (Young’s Travels in France, vol. i. p. 415.) And those counties of Scotland, Kinross for example, in which property is very much divided, are uniformly behind in their agriculture, and are farmed in a very inferior style to those where estates are more extensive.

It is foreign to the object of this article to compare the moral and political effects produced by the division of landed property into large and small portions. We shall merely observe, that a needy population, but scantily supplied with the necessaries, and enjoying very few of the comforts of life, is not very likely to be imbued with a just sense, either of the dignity of man or of his rights. An agricultural population, spread over a wide extent of country, has no point of re-union. Men only feel their consequence; they only act in a collective capacity, and with vigour and effect, after they have been condensed into masses and collected in cities. It is comparatively easy to animate the inhabitants of a large town with the same spirit; there is a sympathy in their joys and in their sufferings; and the redress of an injury done to a single individual becomes, in some measure, the business of the whole. But with agriculturists the case is different; they may be trampled down piecemeal; they cannot act collectively, and must, therefore, submit with less resistance to the yoke of the oppressor. Of all the arguments in favour of a minute division of landed property', that which supposes it should powerfully contribute to keep alive a feeling of manly independence, seems the most futile and preposterous.

As a plan for relieving the distresses of the poor, the cottage system is perhaps the very worst that can be devised. It should always be borne in mind, that except in the case of maimed and impotent persons, there cannot, generally speaking, be any poor in a country, that deserve to be relieved, unless the population be redundant. As long as the supply of labour does not exceed the demand, the whole industrious part of the community may be employed; none but the idle and profligate can be without work, and the means of subsistence; and it will not, we presume, be contended that cottages ought to be built for their reception. In all cases, however, where the poverty and distress of the people proceed from a redundancy of population,—and that is the case wherever industrious persons are unable to procure wages sufficient to purchase the ordinary necessaries and comforts of life —it would surely be most absurd to attempt to improve their condition by introducing a system, which, whatever might be its immediate effects, would lead to a still greater redundancy of population. Now, this would most unquestionably be the consequence of the introduction of the cottage system. A person who gets possession of a cottage and a small piece of ground, finds himself in a situation to marry. Being no longer dependent for mere subsistence on the good will of his employers, but feeling, if not an increase of wealth, at least an increase of security against want, the cottager is naturally stimulated to contract that engagement, into which men are otherwise sufficiently prone to enter. A cottage could not indeed be of any use to a single man. Either a wife or a female servant would be required to superintend its domestic economy; and as a cottager could not afford to pay wages, it is easy to perceive which of the two he would prefer.

No person would think of attempting to relieve the distress occasioned by a bad harvest, or by any sudden derangement of the affairs of the commercial world, by proposing the adoption of a cottage system. The plan of granting cottages has only been recommended in cases where a permanent difficulty has been experienced in procuring employment. But in every such case the cure is worse than the disease. Where the population is redundant,—and an industrious man can never be long without employment from any other cause,—it should be our object not to accelerate, but to retard the rate of its increase— not to increase, but to diminish the number of cottages.

Unluckily, we are not left to argue speculatively on these points, or to refer for illustrations to France and Ireland. England furnishes examples both of the advantage of throwing obstacles in the way of the erection of cottages, and of the evils attending their too great multiplication[7:7:393]. Some of the latter had manifested themselves at a very early period; and in the 31st of Elizabeth an act was passed “for the avoiding of the great inconveniences which are found by experience to grow, by the erecting and building of great numbers and multitudes of cottages, which are daily more and more increased in many parts of this realm.” To counteract the evil, it was enacted that in future no cottage should be built, to which four acres of land were not attached. This statute contributed to check the increase of cottages; but we are clearly of opinion that the poor-laws have opposed by far the most formidable obstacle to their multiplication, and consequently to that of the agricultural population. As soon as they were enacted, landlords and occupiers saw, that if, by the erection of cottages, the splitting of farms, or otherwise, the population upon their estates or occupancies was unduly augmented, they would be burdened with the support of all who, from old age, sickness, want of employment, or any other cause, might become at any future period unable to provide for themselves. The wish to avoid incurring any such indefinite responsibility not only rendered landlords and farmers exceedingly cautious about admitting new settlers upon their estatesand farms, but stimulated them, whenever the demand for labour was not pretty brisk and constant, to take measures for diminishing the population, and for hindering its increase beyond its proper level, by pulling down cottages, and preventing their being rebuilt. The influence of this principle has been most powerful. In proof of this we might refer to a host of authorities; but the following extract from a work of Arthur Young, published in 1771, will probably be deemed sufficient: “One great inducement to marriage is the finding without difficulty a comfortable habitation; and another, nearly as material, when such requisite is found, to be able to exercise in it whatever business a man has been educated to, or brought up in. The first of these points is no easy matter to be accomplished; for it is too much the interest of a parish, both landlords and tenants, to decrease the cottages in it, and, above all, to prevent their increase, so that, in process of time, habitations are extremely difficult to be procured. There is no parish but had much rather that its young labourers would continue single; in that case they are not in danger of becoming chargeable; but, when married, the case alters: all obstructions are, therefore, thrown in the way of their marrying; and none more immediately than rendering it as difficult as possible for the men, when married, to procure a house to live in; and this conduct is found so conducive to easing the rates, that it universally gives rise to an open war against cottages. How often do gentlemen who have possessions in a parish, when cottages come to sale, purchase them, and immediately raze them to the foundation, that they may never become the nests, as they are called, of beggars brats, by which means their tenants are not so burdened in their rates, and their farms let better; for the rates are considered as much by tenants as the rent. In this manner cottages are the perpetual objects of jealousy, the young inhabitants arc prevented from marrying, and population is obstructed.” (Parmers Letters, 3d edit. vol. i. pp. 300-302.)

We are inclined to think that the comparatively slow increase of the agricultural population of England, down to thebeginning of last war, and the high wages received by the labourers, are mainly attributable to the circumstances now stated. But since the alteration of the poor-laws in 1795, the obstacles to the increase of cottages have been to a considerable extent removed, at least in some considerable districts in the south, and the inconveniences thence resulting have been most striking. In several instances the parochial overseers have agreed to pay the rents of the cottages occupied by paupers; and as the assessment for the poor is not imposed on houses, but on the land according to its value, the owners of small patches have, in many instances, been tempted to cover them with cottages, to the great injury of the more extensive landowners of the parish, who are in fact obliged to pay their rents. This system has had the most pernicious operation. It has acted as an incentive to premature marriages, and, in many districts, has increased the supply of labour much beyond the demand. Some very interesting evidence upon this subject was given before the Committee of the House of Commons on Emigration in 1826. A most intelligent witness, Mr Hodges, Μ. P. for Kent, expressed himself as follows: “I am quite satisfied that the erection of cottages has been a most serious evil throughout the country; and I have been induced, acting on that conviction, to concur with other cottage proprietors, who are going to take down from twenty-six to thirty cottages as soon as the present occupants are out of them, if they emigrate, as we think they will do; for it we leave the buildings standing, young persons of seventeen and eighteen years of age, and even younger, would marry immediately, and thus the evd would continue.” (Report, p. 136.) And in another place, Mr Hodges says, “Perhaps I am taking a liberty in adverting to what I stated the other day; but without an attention to the fact then disclosed, of the prodigious increase of cottages of late years, all other regulations will be nugatory; and I cannot forbear urging again, that this, or any similar measure, having for its object the relief of parishes from their overpopulation, must of necessity become perfectly useless, unless the act contain some regulations with respect to the erecting and maintaining of cottages.” (Report, p. 185.) The evidence of other witnesses is precisely similar to this.

In Yorkshire, and all the north of England, where the pernicious practice of mixing up poor-rates and wages has not been introduced, cottages have not been unduly increased, and the poor are comparatively prosperous. We do therefore think that no time should be lost in bringing forward some legislative measure, capable of checking the progress of the evil pointed out by Mr Hodges; and this might be done either by making the owners of all cottages responsible for their occupants, or by making the assessments to the poor proportional to the population on the land as well as to its value. It is not to be endured, that the proprietor of a few acres should be allowed, by covering them with cottages, and letting them to occupants for whom there is no demand, to reduce the whole labouring population of a parish to a state of pauperism, and to bring a heavy burden on the owners of the land and other property, that he may put a few pounds into his pocket. The longer we delay grappling with the evil, it will become the more formidable, and the more difficult to put down. But either of the measures now suggested would arrest its progress; and were they combined with a judiciously devised system of emigration, the surplus labourers by which some districts are now oppressed might be easily got rid of, and the labouring population restored to its former sound and healthy state.

Neither the circumstance of the cottage system increasing the price of food by preventing the accumulation of capital and the improvement of machinery, nor its tendency to diffuse idleness and dissipation, is half so injurious to the labouring classes, as its influence in factitiously stimulating population. Although it were possible, and certainly it i⅛ not, immediately to provide for all the paupers in England, by granting them cottages and small pieces of land at a moderate rent, in the course of a few years [7:7:394]we should be in a much worse situation than at present. What would become of the pauper families? If the cottage system be once fairly introduced, where shall it stop? If it was proper to relieve the distresses of the sires in this way, why not apply it to those of the sons? The call for relief in the latter case would be more pressing than in the former, inasmuch as the population would be more superabundant. It would then be impossible to retrace our steps. A fresh allotment of cottages would become necessary, and a fresh stimulus would be applied to population. In this way the cottage system would at length overspread the whole country. “The principle of gravitation,” to borrow the language of Mr Ricardo, “is not more certain than the tendency of such a system to change wealth and power into misery and weakness; to call away the exertion of labour from every object except that of providing mere subsistence; to confound all intellectual distinction; to busy the mind continually in supplying the body’s wants; until at last all classes should be infected with the plague of universal poverty.”

The fact that the cottage system tends to give a factitious stimulus to population, and hence to cause a reduction of the real wages of labour, is of itself sufficient to satisfy every unprejudiced inquirer of its pernicious influence on the lower classes. But its bad effects would not stop there. After landed property had been divided into minute portions, and population had begun to press against the limits of subsistence, cottagers, in order to preserve their families from want, would resort to such crops as supply the greatest quantity of food on the smallest extent of ground. An extensive farmer cultivates those only which yield the largest net profit. But the small farmer must look to other considerations; the necessities of those depending on him for support must first be provided for. He must have food before he begins to think of profit. A cottager with five, ten, or fifteen acres of land, could not support himself and a family on wheaten bread and butcher-meat. He would be forced to resort to some less expensive food, —to relinquish first one enjoyment and then another; and, descending step 1 by step, according as the increase of population increased the competition for cottages, potatoes would at length constitute his only fare.

Although the price of labour fluctuates with every fluctuation of the demand and supply, it is, like every other thing, possessed of exchangeable value, ultimately regulated by the expense of production. Where labourers consider neat cottages, comfortable clothes, bread, beef, tea, and the like, necessary to their comfortable and decent subsistence—and where, unless they have a prospect of being able to command these enjoyments, they are less inclined to marry—wages are necessarily high. But, under the cottage system, wages would not merely experience a temporary depression from an excessive supply, but would be permanently reduced. It would supply workmen at a comparatively small expense. And wages, being no longer regulated by the price of wheat, beef, and other such articles, but by that of potatoes, a species of food raised at the least possible cost, they would sink to the very lowest point

From the fact of manufactured commodities generally falling, and of raw produce generally rising (See Pnnci- ples of Corn Laws'), in the progress of society, such a disproportion in their values is at length created, that, in those countries where labourers are chiefly supported on corn, beef, &c., and where wages must of course be mainly regulated by their price, they are able, by sacrificing a small portion of their food, to provide liberally for all their other wants. But where the potato forms the ordinary food of the lower classes, the operation of this principle is scarcely perceptible. Potatoes, it is true, as well as corn, rise in real value as society advances, or as it becomes necessary to raise them on poorer soils; but, under any circumstances, the labour required to produce as many potatoes as will feed a workman, bears but a small proportion to that which is required to produce corn or butcher-meat for the same purpose. In a comparative point of view, therefore, very little additional command over manufactured commodities would be gained by the labourer who diminished his consumption of potatoes; and hence the actual condition of a population chiefly dependent on that root is not only much worse than it would be were they dependent on some more expensive food, but their future prospects are rendered still more gloomy and discouraging.

It would not be an easy task to enumerate all the evils to which a country is exposed, where the real wages of labour are reduced extremely low, or where they are regulated by the price of the cheapest species of food; but they are unquestionably of an appaling description. Where wealth is accumulated, the moreopulent and middleclasses, and even the lower orders, consume considerably more than the mere necessaries of life. In a season of scarcity, this consumption being diminished, has the same effectas the importation of an additional supply of provisions from abroad. But where the mass of the population is reduced to a dependence on mere necessaries, they cannot diminish their consumption. In a nation in this situation, consumption remains nearly the same, and a deficient crop is sure to entail disease, famine, and death, on a considerable portion of the community. This is no very alluring prospect held out by the cottage system, but it would be fully realized. When a bad harvest happens in a country abounding in capital and manufactures, these are exported, and corn is brought home from every quarter of the world. But what superfluous produce would a nation of cottagers, or rather, we should say, of paupers, have to dispose of? Millions die in China and Hindustan whenever there is any serious deficit in the rice crop. The extremity of want is felt in Ireland when the potato is not ordinarily productive; and the sole reason why famines are not so frequent as in China is, that the cottage •system is not yet universally introduced, and that some capitalists are still to be found in that country, (c. c.)