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I.

The Abolition of Provinces Act is not likely to be a measure standing alone on the Statute Book. Its advocates have set the ball of change a-rolling, and none can do more than guess what direction it will take, or when it will stop. The constitution of the Legislative Council, which has hitherto been a theme for mere speculation, now presents itself as a problem requiring early, if not immediate solution. Then the land question, over which we have fought for years and years amid conflicts as apparently interminable and indecisive as those which long ages ago took place around the walls of Troy, suddenly assumes an aspect which betokens that the final battle is at hand. That event, however, has only been hastened. Men have reached deeper social and political principles than they had attained when these Colonies were founded, and are getting impatient at the desultory fighting which has been going on between the mass of the community and the large landholders. They want something more effective. They have begun to see—in a glass darkly, as it were, yet still with a strong apprehension of the lineaments of the truth—what are the real rights of the State to the possession and control of its lands; and it is these feelings and perceptions which have made so many persons look favorably upon the State leasing system. The arguments used in support of that scheme have familiarised the public with one aspect of the relations between a State and its lands; but those relations may be contemplated in several lights. For the purposes of this treatise, four points of view will be sufficient. First, a State, through its governing body, may let out its lands on terms of military service—that is the feudal system; secondly, it may lease them to tenants paying a money rental—that is, the "leasing" system; thirdly, it may sell the perpetual freehold to any person who chooses to buy the land for money, without limiting the area purchaseable by a single individual, which is the system prevailing in New Zealand; and fourthly, it may sell the perpetual freehold to the first comer who is page 4 willing to pay the price asked for it, under the restriction that any individual or his family shall not possess beyond a certain acreage of land. The latter plan was advocated by me in a pamphlet published eighteen months since, entitled "An Agrarian Law for New Zealand." The proposal provoked sharp criticism. Novel views in politics generally do, especially when they relate to fundamental questions; besides which, in this instance, a great many persons' toes were trodden upon, while a still larger number fancied themselves to be threatened with personal injury. Some one put it that I was attacking all the leading men of the country. The supposition was baseless. I attacked immorality, and tyranny, and greed of gain wherever exhibited, and careless whether my words touched high or low; but my sole object was to show how the future welfare of the entire community was endangered by the presence of certain evils in its midst. Still my proposal was capable of being contorted from its natural shape, and those who deemed their craft was imperilled did not scruple to so twist it with little regard to fair play. Two or three critics discussed it as though my avowed purpose was to advocate the abolition of manufactures : a preposterous notion, which no word of what I wrote could reasonably be construed to mean. On the contrary, I had argued that by the greater independence of the workman, which would result from the adoption of correct agrarian principles, his intelligence would expand, he would become an artist instead of a mechanical drudge, and manufactures would attain higher excellence than is possible under a system which reduces him to a state of complete dependence upon his employer, and thus degrades his faculties. The question I propounded, and, so far as I know, it was the first time it had been propounded in the Colony, was—Are we not establishing in New Zealand a counterpart of that state of society which in England has produced pauperism and kindred evils, and will it not produce the same results here, and that, too, before very long? My remedy may be good or bad, but who will undertake to deny the importance of the question? It goes to the root of all we are doing politically; and if the proposition I have laid down be right and sound, no pooh-poohing will get rid of it, nor will a foolish shutting of the eyes to the approach of the enemy prevent him seizing us with a strong grasp when his day comes. My argument is the old one—"You cannot sow thistles and reap figs." If you scatter the seeds of pauperism broadcast over the land in due season you will reap pauperism; and if the efficacy of the antidote which I suggest should be used against the latent poison in our political frame is disputed, those who object to its use are bound in duty to propose a better. Happily the public mind is becoming educated on this subject. When these views were page 5 first enunciated the idea that pauperism or aught in its shape could ever overtake New Zealand was ridiculed as being absurd; yet I have since had the pleasure of finding certain of the newspapers wherein these hostile criticisms appeared either arguing in a similar strain or taking the fact as proved, and the still greater pleasure of seeing so eminent a man as Sir George Grey vigorously warning the people of New Zealand that a state of society containing evils as bad as those which contaminate society in Great Britain impends over the Colony, and summoning them to use their utmost efforts to prevent its descent. The danger being admitted, there is hope that the safeguard will be erected.

In the pamphlet referred to I directed my arguments chiefly to these points (1), to prove that our present land system would result in the overcrowding of towns, and the deprivation of the poorer classes of their social independence, ultimately accompanied by pauperism; (2), that the best safeguard against the occurrence of these evils was a strict limitation of the size of freeholds; and (3), that such a restriction would in the end produce the effect of raising the moral and intellectual tone of the entire community. As a minor point, it was also urged that the comparatively small quantity of arable land in New Zealand rendered the limitation expedient. A different train of reasoning will now be pursued, and it will be contended that the practice of permitting individuals to acquire the fee simple of the soil, without limit as to area, by money purchase, is a contravention of the fundamental principles of the land laws of Great Britain and of the leading States of the Continent. The very spacious field of inquiry here opened up would require a bulky volume for its full treatment, and the only method to follow in a popular sketch like the present is to indicate the salient features of those laws, leaving the assertions made to be tested in the usual manner by reference to standard works. The argument will not, however, be confined to that point, but will support the enactment of an agrarian law for the reason, likewise, that the productivity of the soil would thereby be increased, and the territory of the State made to furnish subsistence for a far denser population than it can maintain where the size of private domains is only limited by the bounds of the owner's purse.

First, as to

England.—When searching for the key to the Anglo-Saxon tenures, which are the oldest we can deal with, the circumstances of the country must be kept in mind. The population of England was very small then compared with what it is now, and there was consequently no lack of land. Forest and morass overspread much of the country, and the open land was, as it were, cultivated in patches. Its full produce was not page 6 required for the support of the home population, and an export trade in farm commodities scarcely existed. Nor was there any prospect of a lack of territory. Hence, if individuals had accumulated large freehold estates, it could not have exposed them to the charge that by so doing they were likely to injure their poorer neighbors. Their greed or land could scarcely result in driving hundreds of thousands of human beings into cities, there, at the best, to lose their independence, and, at the worst, to sink into the deeps of pauperism. It might have been contended, and justly, that no one man was entitled to monopolise a large area of that Earth which was given by its Maker for the use and enjoyment of all His creatures; but that would have been an abstract idea, too refined to emanate from so rude an age. Had our Anglo-Saxon ancestors only regarded the rule that might is right (whether the might of the sword or the might of gold) in the possession of land, and admitted the principle that, because the earl was rich and powerful, he was justified in appropriating to himself as much land as he pleased; and that, because the ceorl was poor and weak, he must go without any, or take whatever his lord might please to leave him; still, that fact would not be available as an argument for the adoption of the same or a kindred system now. The world since that period has rolled through many centuries; its people have gathered together vast stores of knowledge; they have mounted, with much toil and struggling, from one lofty principle to another; and are nearing the summit whence they will discern a new and glorious region of intelligence and beauty. They will never go back. Nor will they ever look back save for warning, and to rejoice over those few bright stars of morality and genius, scarce heeded in their day, but now shining immortally through the darkness around the mountain's base. If I say the Anglo-Saxons, just emerging from barbarism, had acknowledged to the full, the right of individuals to monopolise extensive tracts of land, it could not have been urged as a plea to justify such a practice at the present day; but when on the contrary the Anglo-Saxon laws did not recognise any such right, but created tenures founded on principles entirely adverse to monopoly, it becomes an argument of enormous weight against a British Colony, governed on essentially democratic principles, in the nineteenth century, with all its subtle refinements of human rights, permitting individuals to engross scores of thousands of acres of land to their private use, without being required to render any special service to the State for the privilege.

The notion lying at the bottom of the various Saxon tenures was that the land belongs to the entire community. That is the original, and I submit the just idea which man page 7 forms to himself of his claim to the soil. A nation holds a certain territory—in the savage state, because it is strong enough to do so by force of arms; in the civilized, because one nation the recognises right of another to live as well as itself. The Saxons brought with them from Germany to England that custom of the Village Community which Sir Henry Maine has shown to have been widely distributed over Asia and Europe; and which exists in full vigor in India, and to a less degree in Russia, Servia, Croatia, and Austrian Sclavonia at the present day. A large portion of the soil of England was thus held under folcland tenure—that is to say, it was the property of the people—of Communities, who dealt with it in their folkmotes according to their own will, save that they could not alienate it in perpetuity. They could and often did grant leases of it to individuals for the lifetime of the parties, for convenience of cultivation, but at the death of the lessees it reverted to the community, which thus never lost its inheritance. Neither the Crown nor the nobles could touch it, and what in modern days would be termed "public opinion" was too strong to permit of the display of such acts of rapacious tyranny as were subsequently committed by the Norman kings and barons; nor were the people able to divest themselves of their birthright. They held the land, not by charter nor by deed, but by custom dating to the remotest antiquity. Mr Allen, indeed, in his learned work entitled, "An Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative," expresses the opinion that folcland was assignable to thanes on military tenure, which is an apparent contradiction of what I have just stated; but military tenure in those days always ended with the life of the holder, and it may well be imagined that in disturbed times a folkmote might deem it necessary for the safety of the community to offer a portion of its land to a thane for life in order to gain his protection. Some land was, however, private property, held by virtue of written documents, and hence called bocland. This tenure seems to me have been derived from the Romans. The Roman legions stationed in Britain, like those posted in other outlying parts of the empire, held land upon military tenure, that is to say, they occupied it on condition of defending it, but without thereby gaining the fee simple of the soil; and when, in course of time, the egions were withdrawn from the country, the Romanised Britons accepted the same tenure, and deemed all lands to be held of the Sovereign as paramount lord, to whom they would revert in case of the tenant failing to fulfil the military conditions upon which he held it. Mr Finlason ascribes the introduction of the manorial system to the Romans. Tracts of public land were granted to private page 8 individuals, not, as in New Zealand now-a-days, to do what they liked with, but to allot amongst actual cultivators of the soil; the grantee possessing superior privileges to his dependents, but not being permitted to expel them from his domain in order to substitute sheep or cattle in their place; and being, moreover, responsible for the safety of his manor against the onslaughts of the public enemy. It may be presumed, however, that during the 470 years over which the Roman rule, more or less effective, lasted in Britain, a population of Roman descent grew up, who, with chance settlers, would form a resident population looking to peaceful pursuits for its support. We know, at any rate, that London attained a considerable size under Roman dominion. A population of this kind would not break up entirely on the departure of the legions, and it is to these peaceful settlers we must look for the origin of deeds of grant in England.

Bocland was devisable and alienable at the will of the proprietor, but the Crown retained control by subjecting the land to forfeiture in the event of certain delinquencies on the part of the owner; and the overgrowth of estates was effectually checked by the Saxon law of succession, by which landed property was divided amongst the children. This rule kept down the size of estates to such a degree as to become a matter of complaint.

While it is needful for the husbandman to till the ground in order to provide the means of subsistence for himself and his family, it is equally necessary that, while so employed, he should be protected from hostile attack, and that his crops, when garnered, should not be liable to be swept off in a raid of the enemy. It is difficult for us to realise such a danger. Now-a-days the former ploughs, and sows, and reaps; and the thought of how his life and property are to be protected never enters his head. That he regards as the business of the Government, and his anxieties are confined to the state of the weather and the likelihood of getting a good price for his crops. But in ancient times, if a man did not guide the plough with one hand and carry the spear in the other, he had, at all events, to ascertain beforehand that his field work was not likely to be interrupted by a descent of the foe; still more, that a fair prospect existed of his reaping the [unclear: coop] which he had sown. Hence arose the military tenu es under which a portion of the land of England was held in the latter days of the Saxons. An arl undertook to defend a certain tract of territory, and it was placed under his dominion for the purpose; the thane did the same thing for a similar reward, holding sometimes of the earl, sometimes of the king. But it was not the fee simple of the land that was given to them; it was theirs to guard and protect; page 9 they became entitled to certain dues from its inhabitants; but they could not sell it or do what they pleased with it, and when the lord died, he could not appoint an heir to reign over his possession. The lord himself, too, was compelled to perform certain services to his superior for the privilege of exercising this dominion;and the same principle descended from the highest to the lowest, the inferior order of thanes, who were either deemed unworthy of, or were exempt from, performing knight's service, being required to pay rent or render other dues for the land which they held. It is true that holdings in fee simple or "allods" did exist, corresponding to a certain extent with "bocland," and originating probably, as Freeman suggests, from the invaders of the country being permitted to appropriate portions of land for their personal use, as prizes of war, in which case it is obvious that the noble, being a leader, would take more than the ceorl who had followed in his train; but although these allods have since developed until they have covered the entire country, it is pretty clear that they embraced but a small area of it in Anglo Saxon times, or at all events in the early and middle periods of Anglo Saxon domination. Moreover, even allods were subject by the common law to certain burthens. They were not private estates of vast magnitude, whose lucky owners, having bought the fee simple, sometimes for a fraction of its value, can escape special taxation, and even, occasionally, much of the taxation of Road Boards, and who argue as if it were a treason against natural justice to hint that their domains are not in their absolute possession, as so many bales of wool might be. Upon these allods, as upon every inch of soil in England, lay the trinoda necessitas—the liability of the occupier to serve in the field, and to contribute towards the repairs of fortresses and bridges. These three burthens were inseparably connected with the land, and so continued for centuries.

The subject of Saxon tenures, although explored by many learned men, and illuminated by much fresh light gained of late years, still remains rather obscure, but their leading principles are known and have just been described. At their bottom lay the Village Community, with its absolute repudiation of the private ownership of the soil. "In the time of Cæsar," says Mr Freeman, in his 'Norman Conquest,' "it would seem that the whole territory of a Teutonic community was folcland—individuals could obtain no right in it beyond that of a yearly tenancy." This great and fundamental principle had been broken into before the Saxon invasion of England. The republicanism of barbarism had begun to yield, and the chiefs to snatch bits of land for their private use; but the innovation was not material, while page 10 such as it was, it was a violation of Custom, which in those days stood in place of law. It was the outrage of Might upon Right. The position of the invaders after establishing themselves in England tended to destroy the principle still further. The Romans, during their occupation of the country, had established their own tenures there, and the large number of Teutons and other foreigners serving in the legions, by importing their own notions about land, would serve to complicate the nature of the tenures of the country.

William the Norman came and established the feudal system in its harshest form. Its elements were in England before; but William developed and confirmed the system in its entirety, and without the graces of chivalry which afterwards surrounded it with the glory of romance. His reign was the very age of blood and iron. It is conspicuously worthy of note in regard to the changes made in the land tenures of England. Immediately after Domesday Book was compiled, a Great Council was held at Sarum, in 1086, at which all the principal landholders of the kingdom submitted their lands to military tenure, became the King's vassals, and did homage of fealty to his person. Two decrees, having the force of laws, were afterwards promulgated by William, which effectually rivetted Feudalism upon the country Freeholds thus vanished, and the whole of the land was brought within the power of the Crown. It was dealt with as State property, placed in the temporary charge of individuals who were forced to render numerous contributions to the Crown in the shape of aids, relief, primer seisin, fines, and other feudal incidents familiar to all readers of history, while the soil itself remained subject to the trinoda necessitas, to which it was liable in the days of the Saxons.

France.—The land system of France, like that of England, originated in a variety of customs, arising from the intermingling of different races. The earliest period to which we need refer is the time of the irruption of the Goths and Burgundians into Gaul, the whole of which then lay under the dominion of the Romans, who had planted colonies and granted lands there upon the usual conditions of military service. These colonies contained numbers of barbarians, who would naturally import their peculiar notions of property in land, which ideas would, when the Empire was breaking up, and the Roman law began to be enforced with less strictness than before, influence the character of the land tenures; while behind lay the mass of the aborigines, with their notions of common proprietorship. The Goths and Burgundians descended upon the country, and the Roman Governors, making a virtue of necessity, gave them locations, the invaders receiving two-thirds of the whole occupied page 11 territory, and thus foreign modes of tenure were introduced into the complex system already prevailing. But the occurrence which revolutionised the agrarian system of Gaul was the advent of the Franks, who in this respect did for Gaul what the Normans did for England. The Franks came as conquerors, used the conquerors' rights, took what land they pleased, and impressed their own laws and customs upon the country. Their land tenures present two distinguishing features—the allodial holdings and the benefices. The former approached the nature of holdings in fee simple, with the important difference that the allodialist was compelled to perform military service for his land; in other words, he was bound to protect it against foreign enemies, which principle will be found to lie at the bottom of most, if not all, European tenures, except those of Russia, which rest upon a more primitive basis. The notion of a man possessing land as something peculiarly his own property, which he can do as he likes with, and without being forced to render special public services for it to the supreme authority of the State, is entirely unknown to these tenures. It is an idea of very modern times, and, indeed, has only reached its full development in the United States and the British Colonies. The allodialist, so far as military service was concerned stood on the same footing as the feudalist, only whereas the latter followed the banner of his feudal lord, the former was led to battle by a count—that is to say, in France, with which we are dealing. The benefices—the other conspicuous feature of the Frankish tenures—may be designated embryo feuds. A great deal of learned discussion has been spent upon the nature of these benefices, and historians and antiquarians still dissent from each other's views on the subject. This much, however, is conceded : that they were military holdings, and at first of limited duration. Some writers contend that they were orginally revocable at pleasure; others, that they were granted for life. The first seems the better opinion; but it is of little consequence for the purposes of our inquiry. It suffices to know that the land did not actually belong to the beneficiary, but to the King, as representing the State, nor did the holder enjoy any absolute property in it whatever. The honor of exercising dominion over the benefice, for its protection, was the gift conferred upon him, together with the right to cultivate a liberal portion of it for his own use, and to exact certain services from its humbler occupants, whom he led in his train when called upon by his King to perform military service in the field. The utmost personal freedom prevailed amongst the Franks at the period when they invaded Gaul, and amongst themselves they would never have page 12 tolerated individual landed possessions of great magnitude; or that the holder of a benefice should obtain excessive privileges. The vanquished tillers of the soil, however, furnished a ready means of aggrandising the power of the nobles; while the dispersion of the Franks over a wide space of territory rendered it difficult for the King to strengthen his influence sufficiently to preserve the temporary nature of the benefices, which gradually lapsed into regular fiefs. This, with other causes, ultimately made them hereditary, which consummation was attained under the rule of the Mayors of the Palace. The lords of the fiefs grew strong; the vassals became weak; while the allodial holdings were swallowed up one by one until they all became merged in the feuds. This was effected by the small allodialist finding himself practically defenceless in the presence of the feuds, and a kind of outcast, while at the same time special inducements were offered to him to place his land under feudal tenure, by surrendering it to a lord and receiving it back on terms of homage. Thus the whole of France was, little by little, brought under feudal tenure, and a very hard tenure it became for all save the territorial aristocracy. It would be out of place in a rough sketch like the present to discuss the causes which rendered feudal service so very oppressive in France. Harsh servitudes began at an earlier and lasted until a later date there than in any other country of Europe. They existed until the great Revolution, when they vanished in the moral hurricane which swept over society. Nevertheless, in the primary stages there seems to have been no attempt at monopolising vast tracts of land for the exclusive use of individuals, albeit the enormous areas of territory then lying waste might have supplied an excuse for such a proceeding, if any valid excuse could be made for it. The spirit of the feudal system forbade a monopoly of this kind. It was when tyranny got full swing that monopoly of the soil came into play; yet even just before the Revolution, when the whole country groaned in sympathy with the peasant's sufferings, the extent of land monopolised by the nobles was not a prominent subject of complaint. His plot of ground was still left to the peasant, but he was grievously oppressed by servitudes which he was forced to render to his feudal superior. The gabelle, or tax on salt, and the corvee were his peculiar burdens; but at every turn clues and payments on account of manorial rights hampered his exertions and made his life one incessant round of toil for the benefit of another, who idled away his time in luxurious splendour. The deluge came; the feudal obligations and laws disappeared for ever; and when the flood subsided the country was divided into a multitude of small freeholds, in which state it still remains. According page 13 to the Hon. G. E. Broderick, writing on primogeniture in the Cobden Club Essays, 1871, there are 7,500,000 landed proprietors in France, about 5,000,000 of whom own plots averaging six acres a-piece, while only 50,000 of the holdings average 600 acres each. The size of the holdings is kept down by the laws of inheritance, as defined in the Code Napoléon, under which a testator with a family is permitted to dispose of but a part of his property, varying in proportion to the number of his children, who take the remainder in equal shares. This system of inheritance has, it is well known, caused the soil to become subdivided to such a degree as, while increasing its productivity, to keep the husbandman in needless poverty, while the frequent political changes in the country, and the mischief resulting from a severely centralized form of government, have seriously retarded the progress of agriculture and prevented the full benefits being obtained which would otherwise have accrued from this distribution of the ownership of the soil—although, it may be observed, I am not advocating peasant proprietorship. Nevertheless, in spite of all drawbacks, the net result is satisfactory. Mr Sackville West, Secretary to the Paris Legation, reporting upon the tenure of land in France to the British Government, says,—"The prevalent public opinion as to the advantages or disadvantages of the tenure of land by small proprietors is decidedly that it has been advantageous to the production of the soil, and has tended to the improvement of the material condition of the agricultural population." [Reports from Her Majesty's Representatives respecting the Tenure of Land in the several Counties of Europe, 1869, part I., p. 66.] Other responsible witnesses concur in affirming that the French peasant is better off materially, and a man of a higher grade of mental cultivation than the English farm laborer. His personal independence is secured, and that is the first step in all human progress.

Germany.—Logically, I ought to have dealt with Germany first, since from it issued those races of men which have impressed a deeper stamp upon the land systems of England and France than any other; but, for various reasons, it seemed convenient to begin in reverse order. The earliest form of German land tenure known is that subsisting in the days of Julius Cæsar, at which period the ancient Germans, composed of many tribes, but all following similar usages, resided in villages and held the land in common—each individual, or rather head of a family, however, being allotted a piece of land for cultivation, which he retained for a year only, an annual redistribution of such plots being made. The Germans were, at that time, barbarians and unsettled in their page 14 habits; but as civilisation began to touch them, and the tribes to take up permanent locations, individual ownership of the soil, to a limited degree, intruded itself into their communities. Each family then acquired the permanent ownership of the piece of ground upon which its dwelling and the usual surroundings stood in the village; while a certain portion of the arable land was allotted to it, occasionally in perpetuity, but generally for a term of years; and, in tilling its allotment, it was obliged to follow the method of cultivation prescribed by the community. The leading features of a Village Community, at this stage, are clearly and boldly sketched out by Professor Maine in his work on "Village Communities" in these words :—"The ancient Teutonic cultivating community, as it existed in Germany itself, appears to have been thus organised. It consisted of a number of families standing in a proprietary relation to a district divided into three parts. These three portions were the Mark of the township or village, the common Mark or waste, and the arable Mark or cultivated area. The community inhabited the village, held the common Mark in mixed ownership, and cultivated the arable Mark in lots appropriated to the several families." This principle of general ownership possessed vitality enough to live for 1,800 years, and, favored by locality, even now retains its primitive form in some places. In proof of that assertion let me quote from Mr Harris-Gastrell, of the Berlin Embassy, who, in his admirable official report on the land tenures of Prussia [See Reports on the Land Tenures of Europe, already quoted] says :—"In many of these districts, as in Saarhölzbach so recently as 1863, the only private right of property was to the house and any small garden belonging to and adjoining it."

The ancient Germans, like most barbarians, were essentially republicans. Equality and fraternity were the principles on which the members of a tribe held the soil. The more complex tenures of the Saxons and Franks, as exhibited in England and France respectively, were fruits of later growth, when these peoples had become partially civilised, and doubtless the succession of conquests made by the German nations tended much to the rapid development of their system of tenure. The division of conquered territory, if it was proposed to settle upon it (and the object of the Germans in their military excursions generally was to obtain a fresh place of residence) would be the first proceeding after victory; and the mode of distribution is probably correctly described by Menzel, who says that, whenever the ancient Germans acquired territory, the land was equally divided amongst all the freeborn. That, however, was in the early stage. A military system grew up; the power of the chieftains, at first temporary and dependent upon page 15 the will of the people, became fixed and permanent; they learnt to arrogate the right of allotting the conquered territory amongst their followers in such proportions as they deemed fit and on terms of military service, the gift, moreover, being revocable at the will of the donor, while the vast tracts of waste land, which were then to be found in all parts of Europe, save Italy and Greece, naturally fell under the control of the principal ruler, and were used by him as a means to supply the wherewithal to support his dignity and the expenses of Government. In France and Germany the kings and princes long looked to the public domain as the prime source of the royal income, taxation being unknown, or rather unavailable; and while this was a legitimate use to which to apply the land it enabled the Crown to grant large estates to its principal subjects, and so infringe upon the territorial equality, or almost-equality, which originally prevailed. These estates were, it is true, bestowed as temporary fiefs only, but since the very gift helped to deprive the Crown of the power of enforcing the observance of the conditions upon which it was made the nobles speedily converted their fiefs into estates hereditary in all but the name. The quantity of waste land formerly existing in Germany was immense. The population of the country was comparatively small, and when the Village Communities had taken as much land as they desired there still remained vast tracts of territory, mostly covered with forest, ready to be seized by the kingly and aristocratic powers as soon as they came into existence. A certain number of small freeholds were likewise carved out of the forests and moors by squatters from time to time.

It may perhaps be asked, "Why rake among the dust of a distant Past in order to discover the roots of a pernicious land system? Why not rest content with proving that the abolition of that system would result in glorious consequences to the country in the future? Thrown amid the surging flood of men which now overspreads the earth, we cannot afford to spend our days in gazing on the past, admiring its triumphs, or regretting its errors; we must needs look at the Present and towards the Future alone." To which I reply—All that is required to justify the enactment of an Agrarian Law is proof that it would be beneficial in its operations; but those who desire to maintain the existing state of things, presuming upon the popular dislike to historical researches, assiduously promulgate the theory that the present land system possesses a kind of sanctity from long usage, having its roots intertwined amid the foundations of society, and that the most terrible effects would result from its subversion, whereas in truth it is but the offspring of page 16 yesterday. If that fact be proved the supporters of land monopoly will be driven from their strongest logical position.

The feudal system rose up through the ancient tenures of Germany, intermingling with and greatly modifying, but not utterly destroying them. The lords of the fiefs were incessantly trying to encroach upon the rights of the poorer occupants of the soil and did ultimately succeed in reducing the bulk of them to a state of personal serfdom, and even when the peasants, in course of time, escaped from that abject condition, it was only to find themselves surrounded with feudal dues and taxes. The lords were, however, much less fortunate in their attacks upon the landed possessions of the peasants, because they had then to encounter the united strength of the Communes, and although they managed to convert very considerable tracts of common, originally belonging to themselves and the peasantry as joint owners, into their own private estates, the confiscations thus effected were, compared with the size of the country, far smaller than those of which the lords of the manors in England were guilty. The latter forged a powerful instrument for accomplishing their purpose by getting the commonage of the manor recognised as property legally belonging to themselves, but to which the people resident in the manor had a usufructuary right; in Germany, however, the Communes in most cases successfully resisted this encroachment, and upheld the original principle that the waste of the manor was the common property of the lord and the peasant. The feudal lords of Germany, too, in their contests with the Crown, were unable to secure for themselves such large powers of alienation as fell into the hands of their English brethren. In many districts, up to the present century, the consent of the Crown had to be obtained before the lord could sell his land; while, since the beginning of the 18th century, if, from any cause, a peasant's holding became vacant, the lord could not annex the land, but was bound to find another peasant cultivator for it. Then, also, it was the duty of the lord to keep the roads and bridges within his manor in repair; to provide churches, and perform similar public services; in fact, while the lord oppressed the peasant with dues and taxes, the oppressor himself was greatly embarrassed by the heavy services which the State exacted from him, and his lack of liberty to dispose of his land.

About sixty years ago agrarian legislation of the most radical character was entered upon in the different German States for the purpose of liberating the peasants (in which term nearly the entire agricultural population is included) from the yoke of the feudal obligations and converting them into small freeholders, and at the same time releasing the lands of page 17 the nobles from their bonds and obligations, so as to make them freeholds likewise. Although the land tenures of Germany sprang from common sources, the division of the country into a number of separate States had naturally engendered diversities in the manner in which the soil was held: the Commune having departed from its primitive form to a less extent in some districts than in others, while the power of the lords over the soil of their manors was proportionately great or small. The general tenor of the requisite legislation was, however, much the same everywhere, and its result has been to educe a multitude of small freeholders, the production and preservation of which class is sedulously fostered by the laws relating to inheritance and the transfer of land. The parcelling out of the soil is, nevertheless, very unequal. The Rhineland province of Prussia, for instance, measuring 6,127,216 acres in area, is held by 824,611 persons, in 1,181,858 parcels, while in Silesia and Posen many large properties exist, some of them being 50,000 or 60,000 acres in extent. In Bavaria, according to Mr Fenton, Secretary to her Majesty's Legation at Munich, the total number of landowners is about 500,000, of whom only 100 are proprietors of estates, or of an aggregate of land, exceeding 1,000 Bavarian acres [a Bavarian acre is equal to a fraction more than five-sixths of an English acre] in extent. Wurtemberg has 280,000 proprietors of plots of less than five acres in area, and some 160,000 owners of larger estates. Two-thirds of the cultivated land in the Grand Duchy of Hesse belongs to the peasants, leaving moderately-sized farms out of account; the, rest of the soil being in the possession of the Crown and large proprietors.

The Empire of Austria is a congeries of different peoples, and the character of its land tenures varies accordingly. They all derive their origin, however, from the Commune and the Feudal system. The latter subsisted until 1848. In the lowland districts of Styria and Oarniola the land belongs chiefly to small proprietors; but in some of the Alpine districts the peasants own as much as from 1,500 to 2,000 acres a piece, a considerable area of such properties usually consisting of forest. Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia seem to be the especial heritage of great proprietors, who own estates varying in size from 10,000 to 60,000 acres. The Hungarian nobles likewise possess immense estates. On the other hand, the Commune exists in its primitive form in Sclavonia.

Feudalism was abolished so recently in Austria that there has not been time to loosen the grip which it enabled large landowners to place upon certain parts of the country, but it may be inferred that the agrarian legislation of Germany will page 18 produce its effect upon Austria in due course. The results of that legislation have been distinctly felt in Germany, and it seems to be agreed on all sides there that the true policy to be pursued is to break up the large holdings. The reports made by Her Majesty's Representatives at the German Courts [see Reports from Her Majesty's Representatives respecting the Tenure of Land in the several Countries of Europe, 1869-70] supply remarkable testimony to the wisdom of creating a multitude of small proprietors, and prove indubitably that it betters the social condition of the poor agriculturist, increases the productiveness of the soil, and augments the resources of the State. The doubts which agitate the minds of English writers on the subject find no place among writers resident on the spot. It must, however, be admitted that, in some districts, the subdivision of the soil has been carried to a mischievous extent; but that is an evil which will right itself by-and-bye, as it has already done in certain localities. Taking the worst view of the case-conceding all that has been urged against the peasant proprietor—that he toils early and late, that his food is coarse, that in bad seasons he suffers want—surely he is far better off than the agricultural laborer of Wiltshire, who likewise toils early and late, lives on the plainest fare, and often suffers want, and in addition exists in the lowest state of dependence on his employer, has neither house nor land to call his own, and no prospect of rising from his condition of demi-serfdom. His circumstances are more fortunate than those of the poor laborer or artizan in a city, trembling all his life on the verge of the gulf of pauperism, working from six o'clock in the morning until six or eight at night in some crowded factory; dwelling in some unhealthy hovel in a dirty alley; plunged in misery when lacking employment, and when he finds work to do not daring to call his soul his own lest his master should be offended and dismiss him—nominally a free man, practically a slave. The peasant proprietor works hard, but for himself; he labors in the pure air of Heaven, and is his own master. He is free, not a serf, and that is worth untold treasures. And if he occupies a superior position to the English country or city laborer, how exalted is his state compared with that of the hereditary pauper in a workhouse, born of a pauper, and whose children will be paupers after him! There are a million of paupers in England—the offspring of Manufacturing Civilization.

Russia.—The Village Community, or Commune, lies at the base of the agrarian organisation of Russia, and never having been complicated, as in Germany, by feudal customs, has retained its pristine vigor until the present day. The Russian Village Community differs in some important re- page 19 spects from the German, but its animating principle is the game. It furnishes a conspicuous example of the acknowledgment of the right of the nation, in its collective capacity, to the land, and gives an equally conspicuous denial to the justice of that system—the progeny of mercantile ideas of the worst kind—which permits any individual to purchase as much land as he pleases, and to deal with it when obtained as though it were a bale of goods. To comprehend how firmly welded the Commune is in the Russian Constitution we must carry our thoughts back to the period antecedent to the year 1861. Prior to that date nearly all the Russian peasantry, and many of the townspeople, were serfs, occupying different grades of servitude indeed, but all veritably slaves, inasmuch as they were deprived of personal freedom. Altogether 48,000,000 persons belonged to the fettered class, and were divided into Crown, appanage, and private serfs, the first being, as might be guessed, the best off. Some of the serfs on the nobles' estates, and they counted two and twenty millions, were slaves of the lowest and most degraded order, their lot reminding one of that of the negroes on certain of the Mississipi and Louisiana plantations before the American Civil War. Yet, while exercising despotic power over the peasants, the nobles were never able to deprive them of then title to the Commune lands. The noble heaped personal services upon the villager and made his wretched life more wretched, but did not dare to break through the ancient custom and tear him from the soil altogether. Nor did the Crown attempt to do so. The condition of the Crown peasants, indeed, was much easier than that of the private serfs; but it is a striking proof of the deeprootedness of this custom of the Commune, that the Crown never offered to disturb it. The sway of a Sovereign could not be more despotic than was that of the Czar before the accession of Alexander II. to the Throne of Russia. Nicholas was regarded almost as a god by the mass of his subjects, and if when Jupiter nodded, nutu, totum tremefecit Olympum, the nod of Nicholas was hardly less awful to the Russians. He knouted, and slew, and banished whom he pleased, but in his most irritable and savage moods he let the commune lands alone. In truth, the custom existed before serfdom began. Grant Duff, in his "Studies on European Politics," says :—"The communal institutions of Russia are far older than its serfdom. They saw that evil begin, as they have seen it end." Russian serfdom arose in comparatively modern times.

An excellent account of the agrarian organisation of Russia is given by Dr. J. Eckardt, in his "Modern Russia." One third of the land in a manor, whether belonging to the Crown or to a private individual, fell, according to custom, page 20 to the direct use of the lord, the rest belonged to the Village Community, and was left to its undivided possession. Nominally and legally the land was owned by the lord, just as the serfs were owned by him, but practically it belonged to the latter, who regarded their share of the domain as the private property of the Commune, exempt from the lord's control. So strong was this feeling that most of the Communes, since the emancipation, have refused to avail themselves of the right accorded them by the Act of Emancipation to purchase the proprietary right of the lord, on the plea that the land is, and always has been their own. All the occupiers of the estate stood in equal, and almost unlimited dependence on their master; and were bound, amongst other things, to cultivate the part of the domain allotted to his use. The equitable ownership of the soil of the village was vested in the villagers as a body, and the land was periodically allotted, usually about every ninth year, in equal parcels amongst all the families in the place. Every member of the community had an equal claim to the use of a share of the village territory; and if a peasant, with the permission of his lord, took up his abode in a city for a time in order to work as an artisan or engage in commerce, he could, on any day, return to his village and obtain a share of the land at the next allotment, even though he had become wealthy during his absence. At the allotment, the arable laud was divided into narrow strips, 100 to 500 fathoms long, and from three to six broad; the wood, pasture land, fisheries, etc., being left to the undivided possession of the whole community. This plan of cutting up the arable land of the village into narrow strips, for temporary occupation, was adopted by the Teutonic village communities of Germany, and its traces were likewise visible in some parts of England until a recent date.

The framers of the Emancipation Laws, recognizing facts, strove to convert the Communes into legal owners of the soil, but otherwise the principles on which the Communes existed were left untouched. "In the management of the estate; in the relation of each member to the entire community; in the periodical allotments; in the manner and style of taxation; and in the division of the land, absolutely nothing was altered. The right was indeed secured to the communities of dividing their district, after they had acquired it as property, and to subdivide the separate portions, but no use was ever made of this right and the land was retained as common possession." The Commune did not exist in the Baltic Province, inhabited chiefly by a population of German descent, in the Provinces which formerly made part of Poland, nor in a portion of Russia Minor. Even in Russia Proper page 21 there were a few small freeholds, but they were looted upon as abnormal, and throughout a territory where fifty millions of serfs, besides free men, dwelt, the Village Community was supreme, "a system which," says Professor Maine, "is known to be of immense antiquity. In whatever direction research has been pushed in Indian history, general or local, it has always found the community in existence at the farthest point of its progress." The vast extent of territory over which this mode of occupying land has, at one period or another, prevailed, was unknown, even to scholars, until within the last few years, and still lacks full recognition. There is, of coarse, a community of living intertwined with this community of land tenure, and in Russia the social communism became remarkably developed, each village commune being subdivided into families, consisting of a number of persons residing together, and yielding obedience to a patriarch, who kept the common purse, and exercised very large social powers over the members of the family, of which he was the representative so far as the outside world was concerned. The emancipation laws have resulted in a considerable disintegration of the communal system in this respect, but to the decided benefit of the people; otherwise, the commune holds its ground, and is regarded by the Russian Socialists, whose ranks contain the bulk of the intellectual classes of Russia and "Young Russia" almost to a man, as the basis upon which a new and better national organisation can be built, and all the Sclavonic races of Europe raised to a higher grade of civilisation.