_How the Observation and Knowledge of Nature, 250
and the Conditions of Society, affect
Religion and Theology—An instructive
Parallelism—Conclusion_
_INDEX_ 265
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A MONTH IN SWITZERLAND
CHAPTER I.
TO ZERMATT
What blessings Thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away;
For God is paid when man receives:
T’ enjoy is to obey.—POPE.
_August 26._—We left London at 8.45 P.M., and reached Paris the next
morning at 7 A.M. We found the Capua of the modern world looking much as
it used to look in the days that preceded the siege and the Commune. The
shops were decked, and the streets were peopled, much in the old style.
If, as we are told, frivolity, somewhat tinctured with, or, at all
events, tolerant of, vice, together with want of solidity and dignity of
character, are as conspicuous as of yore in the Parisian, we may reply
that if they were there before, they must be there still; for a people,
can no more change on a sudden the complexion of their thoughts and
feelings than they can the complexion of their faces. These matters are
in the grain, and are traditional and hereditary. The severity of
taxation France will have to submit to may, when it shall have made
itself felt, have some sobering effect, whereas the bribery and
corruption of the Imperial _régime_ only acted in the contrary
direction. But time is needed for enabling this to become a cause of
change; and much may arise, at any moment, in the volcanic soil of
France, to disturb its action. All that we can observe at present is,
that the people seem still quite unconscious of the causes of their
great catastrophe. Their talk, when it refers to late events, is of
treason and of revenge; as if they had been betrayed by anything but
their own ignorance, arrogance, and corruption; and as if revenge, to be
secured, had only to be desired. In such talk, if it indicates what is
really thought and felt, there is scant ground for hope.
_August 27._—We left Paris this evening at eight o’clock, taking the
route of Dijon and Pontarlier. The sun was up when we reached
Switzerland at Verrieres. There was no gradation in the scenery: as soon
as we were on Swiss ground it became Swiss in character—mountainous and
rocky, with irrigated meadows of matchless green in the valley. We were
sure that the good people in the _châlets_ below could not be otherwise
than satisfied with the price they were getting for their cheese; for
its quantity, and perhaps quality, we were equally sure that the
greenness of their meadows was a sufficient guarantee. By the wayside we
saw women with baskets full of wormwood, for making absinthe which will
be drunk in Paris.
We breakfasted at Lausanne, and dined and slept at Vevey. We had thus
got to Switzerland, practically, in no time at all, and without any
fatigue, for we had been on the way only at night, and both nights we
had managed to get sleep enough.
We had come, as it were, on the magical bit of carpet of Eastern
imagination; which must have been meant for a foreshadowing of that
great magician, the locomotive, suggested by a yearning for the
annihilation of long journeys, without roads, and with no conveyance
better than a camel: though a friend of mine, whose fancy ranges freely
and widely through things in heaven above, and on earth below, tells me
he believes that that bit of carpet was a dim reminiscence of a very
advanced state of things in an old by-gone world, out of some fragments
of the wreck of which the existing order of things has slowly grown.
My last hours in London had been spent in dining at the club, with a
friend, who is one of our greatest authorities on sanitary, educational,
and social questions; and our talk had been on such subjects. It is well
to pass as directly as possible, and without tarrying by the way, from
London and Paris, where man, his works, and interests are everything, to
Switzerland, where nature is so impressive. The completeness of the
contrast heightens the interest felt in each.
Those who give themselves the trouble, and do you the honour, of looking
through what you have written, become, in some degree, entitled to know
all about the matter. They are in a sort partners in the concern. I will
therefore at once communicate to all the members of the firm that I did
not go on this little expedition because I felt any of that desire for
change by which, in these days, all the world appears to be driven in
Jehu-fashion. I have never felt any necessity for this modern nostrum. I
do not find that either body or mind wears out because I remain in one
place more than twelve months together. I am a great admirer of White of
Selborne; and I hope our present Lord Chancellor’s new title will lead
many people to ask what Selborne is famous for; which perhaps may be the
means of bringing more of us to become acquainted with a book which
gives so charming a picture of a most charming mind that it may be read
with most soothing delight a score of times in one’s life (one never
tires of a good picture); and which teaches for these days the very
useful lesson of how much there is to observe, and interest, and to
educate a mind, and to give employment to it, for a whole life, within
the boundaries of one’s own parish, provided only it be a rural one.
It is true that I have been in every county of England, and in most
counties of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; and some general acquaintance
with his own country—which is undoubtedly the most interesting country
in the world—ought to an Englishman, if only for the purpose of
subsequent comparison, to be the first acquisition of travel; and also
that I have made some long journeys beyond the four seas, having set
foot on each of the four continents; but I can hardly tell how on any
one occasion it happened that I went. It certainly never was from any
wish for change. It was only from taking things as they came. And so it
was with this little excursion. It was not in the least my idea, nor was
it at all of my planning. My wife wished to spend the winter in a more
genial climate than that of East Anglia; and it was thought desirable
that her little boy should go to a Swiss school, for, at all events, a
part of the year, until he should be old enough for an English public
school. And so, having been invited to go, I went. My part of the
business, with the single exception of a little episode we shall come to
in its place, was to be ready to start and to stop when required, and to
eat what was set before me; in short, to take the goods a present
providence purveyed. I recollect a weather-beaten blue-jacket once
telling me—on the roof of the York mail, so all that may be changed
now—that the charm of a sailor’s life was that he had only to do what he
was told, and nothing at all to think about. Of this perhaps obsolete
nautical kind of happiness, we housekeeping, business-bound landsmen
cannot have much; but a month of such travel comes very near it. And if
a man really does want change for the body, together with rest for the
mind, here he has them both in perfection. What a delightful oasis would
many find such a month in their ordinary lives of inadequately
discharged, and too inadequately appreciated, responsibility! This
little confidence will, perhaps, while we are starting, convey to the
reader a sense of the unreserved and friendly terms on which, I hope, we
shall travel together. I regret that, from the nature of the case, in
these confidences all the reciprocity must be on one side.
_August 29._—Left Vevey by an early train for Sierre. The line passes by
Montreux, Villeneuve (where it leaves the eastern extremity of the lake
of Geneva), Aigle, Bex, St. Maurice, Martigny, and Sion. At Sierre we
took the diligence for Visp. This part of the valley of the Rhone is a
long delta, which in the lapse of ages has been formed by the _débris_
brought down by the Rhone, and the lateral torrents from the mountains.
Much of it is swampy, and full of reeds. Some of this, one cannot but
suppose, might be made good serviceable land by cutting channels for the
water, and raising the surface of the land with the materials thus
gained. Indian corn grows here very luxuriantly. It is a large variety;
some of the stems had three cobs. This, the potatoes, and the tobacco—of
which, or, at all events, of the smoke of which, we saw much—in thought
connected the scene before us with the New World.
Between Sierre and Visp there are a great many large mounds in the
valley. The side of these mounds which looks up the valley is always
rounded. The face which looks down the valley, is sometimes rocky and
precipitous. This difference must be the effect of former glacier
action, at a time when the whole valley, down to Geneva, was the bed of
a glacier, which planed off and rounded only that side of the mound
against which it moved and worked. Above Visp the land is very poor,
consisting chiefly of cretaceous detrital matter. This is covered with a
pine forest, a great part of which is composed of Scotch fir, the old
ones being frequently decorated with tufts of mistletoe.
Geologists are now pretty well agreed that the lake of Geneva itself was
excavated by this old glacier. Its power, at all events, was adequate to
the task. It was 100 miles long, and near 4,000 feet in thickness at the
head of the lake, as can now be seen by the striated markings it left on
the overhanging mountains. It acted both as a rasp—its under side being
set with teeth, formed of the rocks it had picked up on its way, or
which had fallen into it through its crevasses; and also as a scoop,
pushing before it all that it could thrust out of its way. And what
could not such a tool rasp away and scoop out, at a point where its
rasping and scooping were brought into play, as it slid along, thicker
than Snowdon is high above the sea, and impelled by the pressure of the
100 miles of descending glacier behind, that then filled the whole broad
valley up to and beyond Oberwald? It was wasting away as it approached
the site of the modern city, where it must have quite come to an end;
for the lake here shoals to nothing; there could, therefore, have, then,
been no more rasping and scooping. At the head of the lake, where the
glacier-tool was tilted into the position for rasping and scooping
vigorously, the water, notwithstanding subsequent detrital depositions,
is 900 feet deep.
At Visp my wife and the little boy got on horseback. Another horse was
engaged for the baggage. I proceeded on foot. Our destination was
Zermatt. We got underway at 2 P.M., and reached St. Niklaus at 5.45;
about twelve miles of easy walking. The situation of this place is good,
for the valley is here narrow, and the mountains, particularly on the
western side, rise abruptly. The inn also is good. I note this from a
sense of justice, deepened by a sense of gratitude; because here an
effort, rare in Swiss hotels, has been made to exclude stenches from the
house; the plan adopted being that of a kind of external Amy Robsart
gallery. From Visp to St. Niklaus the road is passable only for horses.
_August 30._—My wife and the little boy took a _char_ for Zermatt, which
also carried the baggage. I was on foot. The distance is about fourteen
or fifteen miles, slightly up hill all the way. The road is good and
smooth. I must now begin to mention the conspicuous objects seen by the
way. At Randa, in the Bies Glacier, which is that of the Weisshorn, we
saw our first ice. This glacier descends so precipitously from the
mountains, on the right of the road, that you can hardly understand how
its enormous weight is supported. There are, however, on record some
instances of its having fallen; and it is also on record that on one of
these occasions the blast of wind caused by the fall of such a mass, was
so great as to launch the timbers of houses it overthrew to the distance
of a mile; but I would not back the truth of the record.
After an early dinner at Zermatt, my wife and myself walked to the foot
of the Gorner Glacier, to see the exit from it of the Visp. It issues
from a most regularly arched aperture. This is the glacier that descends
from the northern and western sides of Monte Rosa, the sides of the
Breithorn, and one side of the mighty Matterhorn.
We found the hotels at Zermatt overcrowded. This is a great rendezvous
for those who do peaks and passes. In the evening, particularly if it is
cold enough for a fire, the social cigar brings many of them together in
the smoking-room. Among these, at the time we were there, was the hero
of the season. He is a strong, wiry man, full of quiet determination. He
was then doing, so ran the talk of the hotel, a mountain a day, and each
in a shorter time than it had ever been done in before. To-morrow he is
to climb the Matterhorn in continuous ascent from this place, in which
fashion I understand no one has yet attempted it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
THE RIFFEL—THE GORNER GRAT—SUNDAY—ZERMATT—SCHWARTZ SEE—MOUNTAINEERING
Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places, and the peak
Of earth-o’ergazing mountains; and thus take
A fit and unwalled temple, there to seek
The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,
Uprear’d of human hands.—BYRON.
_August 31._—After breakfast my wife and I walked up to the Riffel
Hotel. It is rather more than 3,000 feet above Zermatt. The little man
rode. We were two hours and a half in doing it. It would be a stiff bit
for beginners. The upper part of the forest, on the mountain-side,
consists of Pinus Cembra. This is far from being either a lofty or a
spreading tree. The lower branches extend but little beyond the upper
ones. There is a good deal of reddish-brown in the bark. In this
respect, as well as in the colour of its foliage, and in its form, it
contrasts well with the larch and the spruce, though of course not so
well with the Scotch fir. I heard that its timber is very lasting. The
views, from the forest, of the Gorner glacier, and, when you are beyond
the forest, of some of the neighbouring mountains, and of the valley of
Zermatt, are good.
After luncheon at the Riffel Hotel, we walked to the summit of the
Gorner Grat. Here you have what is said to be the finest Alpine view in
Europe. You are standing on a central eminence of rock in, as far as you
can see, a surrounding world of ice and snow. On the left is the Cima di
Jazi, which you are told commands a good view into Italy. Just before
you, as you look across the glacier, which lies in a deep broad ravine
at your feet, rise the jagged summits of Monte Rosa with, at this
season, much of the black rock showing through their caps and robes of
snow. Next the Lyskamm, somewhat in the background; then Castor and
Pollux, immaculate snow without protruding rock; next the Breithorn,
then the naked gneiss of the Matterhorn, a prince among peaks, too
precipitous for snow to rest on in the late summer, looking like a
Titanic Lycian tomb, such as you may see in the plates of ‘Fellowes’s
Asia Minor,’ placed on the top of a Titanic rectangular shaft of rock,
five thousand feet high. Beyond, and completing the circle of the
panorama, come the Dent Blanche, the Gabelhorn, the Rothhorn, the
Weisshorn, over the valley of Zermatt, the Ober Rothhorn, and the
Allaleinhorn, which brings your eye round again to the Cima di Jazi.
What a scene! what grandeur for the eye! what forces and masses beneath
for the thought! Here is the complement to Johnson’s Charing Cross and
the East Anglican turnip-field. Both pleasant sights in their respective
classes, but not enough of all that this world has to show.
The little boy in the morning, during our ascent of the Riffel, had not
been able, when he dismounted, to take a dozen steps without resting, as
it appeared both from having outgrown his strength, and from some
difficulty in breathing; but in the afternoon he skipped up to the top
of the Gorner Grat, an hour and a half, and ran down again, just as if
he had been bred on the mountains. It was difficult to keep him on the
path, and from the edges of the precipices. He was at the top some
minutes before any of us—we were a large party, for several parties had
drawn together in the ascent. I heard a lady exclaim, ‘There is the blue
boy again’ (that was the colour of his blouse). ‘He has beaten us all.’
Never was there such a difference before between a morning and an
afternoon.
As we descended the Gorner Grat a scud of snow passed by. The
antithesis, common in the mountains, of gloom to sunshine, and of cold
to warmth, was as complete as it was sudden. In a few minutes it was
bright and warm again.
While we were at the hotel two American lads came up with their guides,
and, after a rest of ten minutes, started for some pass. They had
nothing on but coarse grey woollen pants, shirts of the same without
collars, and boots very heavily nailed, or rather spiked. They were not
more than seventeen years old, if so much.
The Riffelberg abounds in beautiful flowers; Gentians, Sedums, and
Saxifrages reach almost to the top of the Gorner Grat. As might be
expected at such a height, none rise, at their best, more than an inch
or two above the ground. Gorgeous lilies and lovely roses would be as
much out of keeping, as impossible, here. Such objects belong to the
sensuous valley.
_September 1._—There was a sharp frost this morning, but the sun was
bright and warm all day. So warm was it at ten o’clock, that people were
glad to sit about on the grass, some preferring the shade of the rocks.
It was Sunday, and I was requested to conduct divine service. The
reading saloon was prepared for the purpose. I shortened the service by
omitting the first lesson, the _Te Deum_, and the Litany. Before
commencing, I announced to the congregation that I should do this,
giving as my reason that the room did not belong exclusively to us, and
therefore that it was better to act upon our knowledge of this, than to
be reminded of it afterwards by those who had withdrawn that we might
hold our service. I had been called upon to conduct the service only a
few minutes before it commenced, and as I had no memoranda for sermons
with me, I took for my text the scene around us, and spoke of the
effects such scenes, and the contemplation of nature generally, appear
to have on men’s minds. The knowledge men now have of the solar system,
and of the sidereal universe, does not prevent the heavens from
discoursing to us as eloquently as they did to the Psalmist.
Intelligible law is grander and more satisfactory for thought to rest
upon than vague impressions of glorious power. So with the great and
deep sea also, now that we know something about the place it occupies in
the economy of this terrestrial system. It is the same with the
everlasting mountains, since we have come to know something about the
way in which they were formed and elevated, and how the valleys were cut
out. Man is the child of Nature, in whose bosom he is brought up. It is
true that there are some who cannot see that it is his duty and his
happiness to acquaint himself with nature; but no one who had made any
progress in the study of nature, ever thought lightly of what he had
attained to. And this is true of the knowledge, not only of the grander
objects of nature, such as the starry firmament and the great and deep
sea, but equally of the most inconspicuous, and, as they appear to our
senses, the most insignificant objects in nature. It is not more true of
the eternal mountains than of the particles of moss that hide themselves
in the crevices of the rock, or the lichen that stains its face, &c.,
&c.
In the afternoon we walked back to Zermatt.
Though every effort was being made at Zermatt to prevent people from
going up to the Riffel without tickets assuring them of accommodation at
the Riffel Hotel, still, so many, in their impatience, set this
regulation at defiance, and went up on the chance that they would be
allowed six feet by three somewhere, that night after night, as we were
told, the authorities were obliged—perhaps it was a necessity which was
accepted not unwillingly—to convert the bureau, the _salle-à-manger_,
and the reading-room, into dormitories. At all events, we were turned
out of the reading-room before ten o’clock to make way for a pile of
mattresses we found at the door, ready to be substituted for the chairs
and tables we had been using. To be berthed in this way is far from
pleasant; but it is not worse than spending the night in the crowded
cabin of a small steamer, or in the hermetically-closed compartment of a
railway carriage, with five other promiscuous bodies.
_September 2._—Started this morning for the Schwartz See and Hornli. We
were all mounted—it was the only time I was during the excursion. In
ascending the mountain, when we were above the pine-wood, and so in a
place where there was no protection, and where the zig-zags were short
and precipitous, both the hind legs of the little boy’s horse slipped
off the path. The animal was so old, and worn-out, and dead-beaten with
its daily drudgery, that it had appeared to us not to care, hardly to
know, whether it was dead or alive. But now it made an effort to recover
itself, with the power or disposition for making which we should not,
beforehand, have credited it. Perhaps the centre of gravity in the poor
brute was never actually outside the path. I was close behind, and saw
the slip and scramble. It was an affair of a few seconds, but it made
one feel badly for more minutes.
At the Schwartz See, we sent the horses to the foot of the Zmutt
glacier, and began the ascent of the Hornli. In about a quarter of an
hour we made the discovery that the blue boy was not man enough for the
Hornli. I do not know, however, that we should have seen much more if we
had gone to the top. We were close to the mighty Matterhorn, of which
the Hornli is a buttress, and at our feet was the great Gorner glacier.
These were the two great objects, and neither of them would have been
seen so well had we been higher up. In returning we went by the way of
the Zmutt glacier, a wild scene of Alpine desolation. There is much
variety, and much that interests in this excursion; the cultivated
valley, the junction of the Findelen and the Zmutt with the Visp, the
wooded and then the naked mountain, the two great glaciers, the sedgy,
flowery turf above the wood, the little black tarn, the bare rock of the
Hornli, and, over all, the shaft of the Matterhorn. On the ridge above
the Schwartz See we found a handsome blue pansy. Somewhere else I saw a
yellow one of almost equal size.
Our guide, Victor Furrer, speaks English well. He wished to come to
England for the seven winter months, thinking that he could take the
place of under-gardener or stableman in a gentleman’s house, or that of
porter in a London hotel. Swiss education disposes the people to look
for openings for advancing themselves in life beyond the narrow limits
of their own country, and qualifies them for entering them.
The number of peak-climbers and pass-men assembled at Zermatt had
increased during our short absence. Among the latter was an Irish judge,
who did the St. Theodule. The law was in great force here, as was also
the Church. The gentleman who had attempted the Matterhorn on Saturday,
had been driven off by the weather. Though fine down here, it had been
windy, wet, and frosty up there; and to such a degree that the face of
this Alpine pier, for it is more of that than of a mountain, had become
glazed with a film of ice. To-day he again attempted it from this place;
and, the weather having been all that could be desired, he had gone, and
climbed, and conquered. He found the air so calm on the summit that he
had no occasion to protect the match with which he lighted his cigar;
and, if he had had a candle, he would have left it lighted for the
people at the Riffel to look at through their telescopes.
Notwithstanding the argument which may be founded on the graves (one a
cenotaph) of the four Englishmen in the God’s acre of the Catholic
church of Zermatt, one cannot but sympathise with the triumph, and
applaud the pluck and endurance of our mountaineering countrymen. It
must be satisfactory, very satisfactory indeed, for a man to find that
he has such undeniable evidence that he is sound in wind and limb, and,
too, with a heart and head to match; and that he can go anywhere and do
anything, for which these by no means insignificant qualifications are
indispensable. Mountaineering, in its motives, to a great extent
resembles hunting, and, where there is a difference, the difference is,
I think, to its advantage. It is more varied, more continuously
exciting, more appreciated by those who do not participate in it, and,
which is a great point, more entirely personal, for your horse does not
share the credit with you. Shooting and fishing can bear no comparison
with it. The pluck, endurance, and manliness it requires are not needed
by them. It is also a great merit that it is within the reach of those
who have not been born to hunting, fishing, and shooting, and will never
have the means of paying for them. All these pursuits have each its own
literature; and, as the general public appears to take most interest in
that of the mountaineers, there is in this, as far as it goes, reason
for supposing that the pursuit itself is of all of them the most
rational and stirring.
Alpinism is also a natural and healthy protest in some, whose minds and
bodies are young and vigorous, against the dull drawing-room routine of
modern luxury; and in others against the equally dull desk-drudgery of
semi-intellectual work, to which so many are tied down in this era of
great cities. It is for a time a thorough escape from it. It is the best
form of athleticism, which has its roots in the same causes; and it is,
besides, a great deal which athleticism is not.
To a bystander there is something amusing in the quiet earnestness with
which a peak-climber discusses the possibilities of an ascent he is
contemplating. I was with two this afternoon who were about to attempt a
mountain by a side on which it had not yet been scaled. The difficulty
was what had hitherto been regarded as pretty much of a sheer precipice
of some hundreds of feet. One of the two, however, had examined it
carefully with his glass, and had come to think that there was roughness
enough on its face for their purpose. The guides who were present were
of the opposite opinion. That it had never been ascended on that side,
but might perhaps prove not unascendable, was the attraction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III.
WALK BACK TO ST. NIKLAUS—AGRICULTURE—LIFE—RELIGION IN THE VALLEY
Whate’er men do, or wish, or fear; their griefs
Distractions, joys.—JUVENAL.
_September 3._—Left Zermatt at 2 P.M. on foot. Walked briskly, but did
not get to St. Niklaus till near 6 o’clock. All the way down hill. In
coming up was only a quarter of an hour longer; this I can’t understand.
A very warm day. Those who went in chars, as did my wife and the blue
boy, appeared to suffer more from the heat than I did who was walking.
In my four hours’ walk, having been so lately over the same ground, I
paid attention to the methods and results of cultivation, and
endeavoured to make out something of the life of the inhabitants of the
valley. As to the former, it appeared that all the cultivated land had
been reclaimed by a slow and laborious process. The original condition
of mountain valley land is to be more or less covered with rocks and
stones, with some soil beneath and between. Sometimes the whole surface
is completely covered with rocky _débris_, which has been brought down,
like avalanches, on the occurrence of unusually copious torrent floods,
which were, in fact, avalanches of water and of mountain shingle
commingled. The first step in the work of reclamation is to get rid of
the stones. This is either done by removing them to a distance, or
piling them up in heaps, or burying them on the spot. One of these
methods will be best in one place, and another in another. All the soil
that can be procured—sometimes there is enough of it on the surface,
sometimes it has to be mined for in a stratum beneath the upper stratum
of fragments of rock—is then levelled. Of this land, thus laboriously
made, all that can be irrigated by lateral canals brought from the Visp,
or diverted from the mountain torrents, is laid down to pasture. Canals
of this kind may often be seen some miles in length. These irrigated
pastures are always cut twice, or, where the land is deep and good,
three times a-year. The turf is not always composed mainly of different
kinds of grass. Sometimes it contains more dandelion than grass, a great
abundance of autumn crocus, of a kind of geranium with a purple flower
as large as a florin, and of other herbaceous plants. Where there is
much dandelion the hay, while making, has a sickly smell, but when fully
made its scent is generally good. The reclaimed land, which cannot be
irrigated, is used for rye, wheat, barley, and potatoes. A well-to-do
family has two or three patches, about a third of an acre each, of this
grain land. They will have also two or three cows. The mountain forest,
and the mountain pastures are held in common for the equal use and
benefit of all the inhabitants of the village.
As to the people themselves, the most prominent facts are that they all
work hard, and that their hard work does not give them more than a bare
sufficiency for the most necessary wants. I suppose that nowhere else in
the civilised world is there so little buying and selling, and so little
interchange of commodities, as in a Swiss Alpine valley. The rule is for
every family to be self-contained, as far as this is possible, in all
things, and to produce for itself everything it can of what it will
require in the twelve months. Their cows supply them with milk and
cheese; the surplus of the latter being the medium through which they
procure from the outside world what they cannot produce for themselves:
but that does not come to much. It is interesting to see their sheaves
of corn stored away in the galleries beneath the projecting eaves of
their houses, and their haricots strung up in the sun to dry. This makes
you think how carefully these provisions will be used in the winter and
spring. And you see the flax and the hemp, of which they grow a great
deal, spread out on the grass, to prepare it for scutching; from which,
and from the wool of the small flocks of the neighbourhood, they make at
home much of the materials for their clothes. From their apples, of
which they grow great quantities, they make a kind of brandy. Their
lives are a never-failing discipline, notwithstanding the brandy, of
industry, patience, and forethought. In imagination you enter the
_châlet_, and sympathise with the cares, the troubles, the frugality,
the modest enjoyments of its inmates. The result of all does not go much
beyond daily bread. You hope that the harvest has been good, and that
the cows are doing well. The boys you have seen are sturdy little
fellows. You hope that the girls will not be goitred, and that the
sturdy little fellows will in time make them good husbands. They, you
are sure, will make industrious, frugal, uncomplaining wives.
We heard at Zermatt, and our guide told us that what we had heard was
true, that the inhabitants of the valley pass some of their time in
winter in playing at cards; the stake they play for being each other’s
prayers. Those who lose are bound by the rules of the game to go to the
village church the following morning, and there pray for the souls of
those who win. The priest also is supposed to have an advantage in this
practice, as it gives him a larger congregation.
Religion—the reader will decide for himself whether or no what has just
been mentioned promotes it—holds a large place in the life of these
Alpine valleys. The priest is the great man of the village, and has
great power. The influx of travellers has a tendency to lessen this
power, for it enriches innkeepers and guides, and so renders them
independent. Formerly the village church was the only conspicuous
building; the only one that rose above the low level of the _châlets_.
This symbolised the relation of its minister to the inhabitants of the
_châlets_. Now the church is dwarfed in comparison with the contiguous
hotel. Changes in the world outside have caused a new power to spring
up, and take its place in the scene. Be this, however, as it may, one
cannot but see that the services and _fêtes_ of the Church, supply the
hard monotonous lives of the people with some ideas and interest. Even
the authority the Church claims, while it has a tendency to overpower,
has also a tendency to stir their minds a little. The prominence of the
material fabric of the church in the village led me to reflect on what
would be the result in the minds of the people if it were otherwise. In
that case they would probably lose the idea of union with other times,
and with the great outside world, and the little elevation of thought
and feeling beyond the round of their low daily cares, which that idea
brings with it. The Church may to them be an intellectual tyranny, and
much that it teaches may be debasing and false, still it appears to have
some counterbalancing advantages. Our system may have more of truth and
of manliness, but it would, at present, be unintelligible to them, or if
intelligible, repulsive. Their system, however, is one which, under the
circumstances of the times, cannot last. It is even now on the road to
the limbo of things that have had their day. In Catholic countries, as
far as the educated classes and the inhabitants of all the large cities
are concerned, its power is gone, or still more than that, it is
actively disliked. This settles the question. The time will arrive when,
as knowledge and light spread, the village people will come round to the
way of thinking of the educated classes and of the inhabitants of the
cities. In this matter history is repeating itself. At its first
establishment Christianity spread from the cities to the pagans, that is
to the inhabitants of the villages. And so will it be again, at the
rehabilitation of religion in those countries that are now forsaking
Romanism. A revised and enlarged organisation of knowledge must be first
accepted by those who can think and judge. It is then passed on to those
who cannot.
Such valleys as this of Zermatt have hitherto offered no opportunities
to any portion of their inhabitants to emerge from a low condition of
life. Little that could elevate or embellish life was within their
reach. The only property has been land, and that, from the working of
inevitable natural causes, has been divided into very small holdings.
This has kept every family poor. Railways, which connect them with the
world, the influx of travellers, in many places a better harvest than
that of their fields, the advance of the rest of the world around them,
and the capacity there is in their streams for moving machinery, may be
now opening new careers to many. It is unreasonable to regret the advent
of such a change, for it has more than a material side; it must bring
with it, morally and intellectually, a higher and richer life. It
implies expansion of mind, and moral growth—new fields of thought, and
of duty.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER IV.
I. PEASANT-PROPRIETORSHIP IN THE VALLEY. II. LANDLORDISM. III. THE ERA
OF CAPITAL. IV. OBSTRUCTIONS TO THE FREE INTERACTION OF CAPITAL AND
LAND—THEIR EFFECTS, AND PROBABLE REMOVAL. V. CO-OPERATIVE FARMING
NOT A STEP FORWARDS
But what said Jaques?
Did he not moralise the spectacle?—SHAKESPEARE.
This chapter is to be a disquisition, after the manner of the
philosophers, at all events, in its length, on peasant-proprietorship as
now existing in the valley of Zermatt, or rather of the Visp; and on
alternative systems. I do not invite anyone to read it, indeed, I at
once announce its contents and its length, for the very purpose of
inducing those who have no liking for disquisitions in general, or for
disquisitions on such subjects, to skip it, and to proceed to the next
chapter, where they will find the continuation of the narrative of our
little excursion. My primary object in writing it was to ascertain,
through the test of black and white, whether what I had been led to
think upon these matters possessed sufficient coherence. I now, with the
diffidence one must feel who ventures upon such ground, submit it to the
judgment of those who take some interest in questions of this kind.
Bearing in mind that the subject is not a lively one, I will endeavour
so to put what I have to say as that not much effort may be required to
understand my meaning. From all effort, however, I cannot exempt the
reader of the chapter, should it find one; for he will have, as he goes
along, to determine for himself whether the facts alleged are the facts
of the case, whether any material ones have been overlooked, and whether
the inferences are drawn from the facts legitimately. He will not be in
a position to allow what is presented to him to pass unquestioned; for
he will be, himself, the counsel on the other side, as well as the jury.
* * * * *
I. The figures I am about to use do not pretend to accuracy, or even to
any close approximation to accuracy. Some figures, but what figures is
of no great consequence, are necessary for the form of the argument, and
for rendering it intelligible. If they possessed the most precise
accuracy that would not at all strengthen it. Those I employ, I retain
merely because they were the symbols with which, in my two walks through
the valley, I endeavoured to work out the inquiry.
Suppose, then, that the valley of the Visp contains 4,000 acres of
irrigated meadow and of corn and garden ground; and that each family is
composed of husband and wife, and of not quite four children. The
average here in England is, I believe, four-and-a-half children to a
marriage. Marriages, probably, take place at a later period of life in
the valley than in this country, and, therefore, the average number of
children there will be smaller. Let, then, the grandfathers and
grandmothers who may be living, and the unmarried people there may be,
bring up the average of each family to six souls.
We will now suppose that the husband will require a pound and a half of
bread a day, that will be about nine bushels of wheat a-year; and that
the wife and children will require each a pound a day; that will be
about thirty bushels more, or thirty-nine bushels in all. From what I
saw of the land in the valley I suppose that it will not produce more
than twenty-six bushels an acre. Whether its produce be wheat, or rye,
or barley, will make no difference to the argument. An acre and a half
will then be necessary for the amount of bread-stuff that will be
required for each family.
A family, we will take a well-to-do one, will also require three cows.
Deducting the time the cows are on the common pasture on the mountains,
each cow will require, for the rest of the year, two tons of hay. That
may be the produce of one acre of their grassland, for some of it is cut
three times a-year, but most of it only twice, the second and third
crops being light.
They will not want for their own consumption the whole of the produce of
the three cows. A surplus, however, of this produce is necessary,
because it is from that that they will have the means for purchasing the
shoes, the tools and implements, and whatever else they absolutely need,
but cannot produce themselves. The cows will then require three acres.
But we will suppose that by the use of straw, and by other economies in
the keep of their cows, they manage to reduce the quantity of hay that
would otherwise be consumed. This will set free a little of their land
for flax, hemp, haricots, cabbages, potatoes, &c. The three last will go
some way towards lessening the quantity of bread-stuff they will
require. We may, therefore, set down the breadth of cultivated land
needed for the maintenance, according to their way of living, of our
family of six souls, at four acres.
The 4,000 acres will thus maintain 1,000 families. This will give our
valley a population of 6,000 souls.
Here, perhaps, the rigid economist would stop. It would be enough for
him to have ascertained the laws which regulate, under observed
circumstances, the production and the distribution of wealth. But as
neither the writer nor the readers of these pages are rigid economists,
we will, using these facts only as a starting point, proceed to ulterior
considerations. The question, indeed, which most interests us is not one
of pure economy, but one which, though dependent on economical
conditions, is in itself moral and intellectual; and, therefore, we go
on to ask what kind of life, what kind of men and women, does this state
of things produce?
In such a population, the elements of life are so simple, so uniform,
and so much on the surface, that there will be no difficulty in getting
at the answers to our questions. There is not a single family that has
the leisure needed for mental cultivation, or for any approximation to
the embellishments of life. They each have just the amount of land which
will enable them, with incessant labour, and much care and forethought,
to keep themselves above absolute want. Subdivision might, possibly, in
some cases be carried a little further, but things would then only
become worse. Towards this there is always a tendency. But, for reasons
we shall come to presently, there is no tendency at all in the other
direction. Intellectual life, therefore, is impossible in the valley.
The conditions requisite for it are completely absent.
With the moral life, however, it is very far from being so. Of moral
educators, one of the most efficient is the possession of property; the
kind of education it gives being, of course, dependent on the amount and
kind of property. For instance: the simplicity and gentility of a large
fortune in three per cent. consols educates its possessor. It does not
teach him forethought, industry, or self-denial. He may be improvident,
idle, self-indulgent, and still his means of living may not be thereby
diminished; nor will anything he can do improve them. Nor, furthermore,
will the management of his property bring him into such relations with
his fellow men, that, at every step and turn, he has to consider their
wants and rights, and to balance them against his own. Nor will anything
connected with his property teach him the instability of human affairs,
for his is just the only human possession that is exempt from all risks
and changes. Now the non-teaching of these moral qualities is an
education, the outcome of which is likely to be a refined selfishness.
An equal fortune derived from commerce, trade, or manufactures, teaches
other lessons, almost we may say lessons of the very opposite kind. He,
whose position depends on buying and selling, and producing, and on the
human agencies he must make use of, on new discoveries, and on a variety
of natural occurrences, will estimate life and his fellow men very
differently from his neighbour, who has nothing at all to do except
receiving, and spending his dividends. We are taking no account of
individual character, and of the thousand circumstances and accidents,
which may overrule, in any particular case, the natural teaching of
either of these two kinds of property: we are only speaking generally;
and are taking them as illustrations, with which we are all familiar, of
a character-forming power every kind of property possesses.
Looking, then, at the property possessed by these Visp-side families in
the same way, we can readily understand the moral effect it will have
upon them. It will enforce what it teaches with irresistible power,
because it will be acting on every member of the community in precisely
the same way, throughout every day of the lives of all of them,
generation after generation. Such teaching there is no possibility of
withstanding. And what it teaches in this undeniable fashion,—undeniable
because the virtues taught are to them the very conditions of
existence,—are very far from being small moralities, for they are
industry, prudence, patience, frugality, honesty.
Without industry their little plots of land could not support them; not
the industry of the Irishman, in the days before the potato-famine, who
set his potatoes in the spring, and took them up in the autumn, without
finding much to do for the rest of the year; but an industry which must
be exercised, sometimes under very adverse circumstances, throughout the
whole twelve months. Every square yard of every part of their land
represents so much hard labour, for nowhere has land been so hard to
win. This fact is always before their eyes, and is in itself always a
lesson to them. And this hard-won land, reminding them of the industry
of those who were before them, has still, always, to be protected
against the ravages of winter storms, and its irrigation kept in order.
And every hard-won square yard must be turned to the best account. And
all must labour in doing this. Their cows, too, require as much
attention as their families. For them they must toil unremittingly in
their short summer: they must follow them up into the mountains, and
they must collect and store up for them the provender they will need in
the long winter. And they must be industrious not only in the field, but
equally in the house. They cannot afford to buy, and, therefore,
everything, that can be, must be done, and made, at home. They cannot
allow any portion of their time, or any capacity their land has for
producing anything useful, to run to waste. There can be no fallows, of
any kind, here.
With their long winters and scanty means, frugality, prudence,
forethought, are all as necessary as industry. These are the
indispensable conditions for eking out the consumption of the modest
store of necessaries their life-long industry provides. If they were as
wasteful, as careless, as improvident as our wages-supported poor, the
ibex and chamois might soon return to the valley.
It is these necessity-imposed virtues which save the valley on the one
hand from depopulation, and on the other from becoming overpeopled. Our
labourers, and artisans, and operatives, who depend on wages, as soon as
they have got wages enough to support a wife, marry. The general, almost
the universal, rule with them is to marry young. The young men and
maidens on Visp-side, not being dependent on wages, but on having a
little bit of land, sufficient to support life, do not marry till they
have come into possession of this little bit of land. Early marriages,
therefore, are not the rule with them. The discipline of life, such as
it is in the valley, has taught them—and a very valuable lesson it is—to
bide their time.
Another virtue, which comes naturally to them, is honesty. The honesty
of the valley appears to an Englishman unaccountable, Arcadian,
fabulous. The ripe apples and the ripe plums hang over the road without
a fence, for land is too precious for fences, and within reach of the
hand of the passer-by; but no hand is reached out to touch them. Why is
such forbearance unimaginable here? The reason is that, where only a few
possess, the many not having the instincts of property, come to regard
the property of the few as, to some extent, fair game for them. It is
their only chance—their only hunting-ground. This is a way in which,
without sanctioning a law which will act prejudicially to themselves,
they can secure their share of the plums and apples nature provides.
But, when all have property, each sees that the condition on which his
own plums and apples will be respected is that he should himself respect
the plums and apples of other people. This idea is at work in
everybody’s mind. The children take to the idea, and to the practice of
it, as naturally as they did to their mother’s milk. Honesty becomes an
element of the general morality. It is in the air, which all must
breathe.
Here then is a picture that is most charming. How cruelly hard has
Nature been! Look at the cold, heartless mountains. Look upon their ice
and storm-engendering heights. See how the little valley below lies at
their mercy. Consider how, year by year, they fight against its being
extorted from their dominion. Yet the feeble community in the valley, by
their stout hearts and virtuous lives, continue to make it smile on the
frowning mountains. How pleasing to the eye and to the thought, is the
sight! And what enhances the charm it possesses is the sense of its
thorough naturalness. There is nothing artificial about it; and so there
is nothing that can to the people themselves suggest discontent. Their
condition, in every particular, is the direct result of the unobstructed
working of natural causes, such as they exist in man himself, and in
environing circumstances. Whatever may be its drawbacks, or
insufficiencies, they can in no way be traced to human legislation. How
unwilling are we to contrast with this charming scene—but this is just
what we have to do—the destitution, the squalor, and the vice, not of
our great cities only, but even of our Visp-sides.
But, first, we will endeavour, by the light of the ideas we outside
people have on these subjects, to complete our estimate of the worth of
the state of things we are contemplating; of this oasis, the sight of
which is so refreshing to those whose lot it is to be familiar with, and
to dwell in, the hard wilderness of the world.
Its virtues are, doubtless, very pleasing to contemplate; but they are
not of quite the highest order. The industry before us is very
honourable. The mind dwells on the sight of it with satisfaction. But,
as it only issues in the barest subsistence, the observation of this
somewhat clouds our satisfaction. There are, too, higher forms of
industry of which nothing can be known here—the industry of those who
live laborious days, and scorn delights, from the desire to improve
man’s estate, to extort the secrets of nature for his benefit, to clear
away obstacles which are hindering men from seeing the truth, to add to
the intellectual wealth of the race, to smoothe the path of virtue, and
make virtue itself appear more attractive. Such industry is more
honourable, and more blessed both to him who labours and to those who
participate in the fruits of his labour. And such prudence, frugality,
and forethought as are practised in the valley are very honourable, and
the mind dwells on the sight of them, too, with satisfaction. But he who
belongs to the outside world will here again be disposed to repeat the
observation just made. It is true that that man’s understanding and
heart must be out of harmony with the conditions of this life, and
therefore repulsive to us, who does not gather up the fragments that
nothing be lost, but when this is done only for self, and those who are
to us as ourselves, though so done unavoidably through the necessity of
the case, it is somewhat chilling and hardening. And it is not
satisfactory that so much thought and care should be expended only upon
the best use of the means of life—those means, too, being sadly
restricted; for a higher application of these virtues would be to the
best use of life itself. And so, again, with respect to their honesty.
This is a virtue that is as rare as honourable; and the mind dwells on
the sight of it with proportionate satisfaction. But its application to
plums and apples is only its beginning. It has far loftier and more
arduous, and more highly rewarded forms. It may be acted on under
difficulties, and applied to matters, not dreamt of in the valley. It
may rise into the form of social and political justice, in which form it
prompts a man to consider the rights of others, especially of the most
helpless and depressed, and even of the vicious, as well as his own; and
not to use his own advantages and power in such a way as to hurt or
hinder them: but, rather, to consider that it is due to their unhappy
circumstances and weakness, that he should so use his power, and good
fortune, as to contribute to the redress of the evils of their ill
fortune.
Attractive, then, as is the contemplation of the moral life of the
inhabitants of the valley, it is not in every respect satisfactory. A
higher level may be attained. After all, it is the moral life rather of
an ant-hill, or of a bee-hive, than of this rich and complex world to
which we belong. And even if it were somewhat more elevated than it is,
still there would remain some who would be unable to accept it, as
worthy of being retained without prospect of change or improvement; and
their reason would be, that man does not live by, or for, morality only.
The worthy exercise of the intellectual powers is necessary for their
idea of the complete man; and here everything of this kind is found to
be sorely deficient. On the whole, then, in respect of each of the three
ingredients of human well-being, a thoroughly equipped life,
intellectual activity, and the highest form of virtue, we feel that
something better,—with respect, indeed, to the two first something very
much better,—is attainable, than what exists in the charming oasis
before us.
* * * * *
II. I now invite the reader to proceed with me to the consideration of
how different economical conditions, such as our experience enables us
to imagine, would modify the state of things we have been contemplating.
For instance, suppose Visp-side were in Scotland or England, then its
4,000 acres might, and it is not unlikely that they would, be only a
part of the estate of some great landlord. Let us endeavour to make out
the effects this would have on its inhabitants.
The most obvious result would be that the population would be diminished
by more than a half. At present the produce of the valley, with no very
considerable deductions, is consumed in the valley. What is produced is
what is required for supplying its large population with the first wants
of life. But this will no longer be the case. The land will be let. We
will suppose that this change has been completely effected; and that its
irrigated meadows, with the contiguous little plots of corn-land, have
been formed into farms, and that all is now treated in the way those who
rent them find it pays best to manage them. We will suppose they have to
pay a rent of 30s. an acre. The rent of the valley will then be
6,000_l._ a-year. How will this sum be made up? Cheese, of course, will
be the main means. The young bullocks and the old cows will come next.
We will take little credit for corn or potatoes, because it is evident
that not nearly so much of them will be grown as was done under the old
system; for much of the mountain corn-land will not pay now for
cultivation with hired labour.
The economist, pure and simple, may say that this is all right. The
course of events must be submitted to. Whatever they dictate is best;
and best as it is. Interference with natural laws is always bad. The
cheese and the cattle will sell for as much as they are worth. The
sovereigns they will fetch are worth as much as the produce. There will
be no diminution of wealth. But, however, it has to be proved that the
new system is unavoidable in the sense of being either a natural step in
the unobstructed course of human affairs, or, as some would tell us, the
natural consummation of their long course, now at last happily effected.
Perhaps it may be possible to show that there has been serious
interference with their natural evolution; so serious as greatly to
affect their character. And, if so, then the question of whether or no
there has been any loss of value does not arise, for the antecedent
question may render its discussion unnecessary. Be, however, these
matters as they may, they do not cover all the ground we are desirous of
investigating. We are thinking not of exchangeable wealth only, but also
of men and women; and they, perhaps, may be regarded as wealth in its
highest form; a kind of wealth, in which, if the men and women are not
corrupt or counterfeit, but good and true, all may to some extent
participate, and be the better for.
Under the system we are now considering, it jars against a sense of
something or other in the minds of many, to see so much of the results
of the labour of the people of the valley passing away from them, never
to return in any form or degree. As far as they are concerned it is a
tribute they are paying to the man who owns the land of the valley. And
whether it be, year by year, paid to him, or whether all this cheese and
all these cattle be every year on a stated day collected and burnt at
the mouth of the valley; or the price, for which they may have been
sold, thrown into the mid-ocean, would make no difference to them. They
will get no advantage from it at all, for it is evident that a man who
has an income of at least 6,000_l._ a-year will never live in the Valley
of the Visp. He will, perhaps, have his mansion on the bank of the Lake
of Geneva; or perhaps at Paris: at all events, it will be somewhere at a
distance. The case of so many bales of calico being sent out of
Manchester, to all parts of the world, is not similar. They are sent out
for the very purpose of coming back again in the form of what will not
only support those who produce them, but will also, if trade be good,
increase the fund that supports the trade, that is to say, will increase
the number of those who in various ways are supported by the trade:
hence the growth of Manchester. Nor is it the same thing as so many
quarters of corn being sent from America to this country, for in that
case also the price of the corn returns to the hands of those who grew
it. Their corn-fields have produced for them, only in a roundabout
fashion, a golden harvest; and they have, themselves, the consumption of
this harvest, precisely in the same way as the now existing Visp-side
population have the direct consumption of the produce of their little
plots of land. Some, of course, of the price of the cheese and cattle
sent away will enable the farmers to live and to pay their labourers;
but none of the 6,000_l._ a-year will come back in any form.
But the point now actually before us is the effect this change will
produce on the amount of population. In order that the land might be let
profitably, it was necessary to clear it of its old proprietors, for
they could pay no rent at all. Their little estates were barely
sufficient, with the most unremitting labour, and the most careful
frugality, to support life. The valley has now been formed into
cheese-farms; and we will suppose that for keeping up the irrigation,
cutting the grass, tending the cows in summer on the mountains, and
during the winter doing everything for them, and for cultivating
whatever amount of land is still cropped with corn and potatoes, five
men are wanted for a hundred acres. This will give for the 4,000 acres
200 men. Let each man, as before, represent a family of six souls. Here,
for the labourers and their families, will be a population of 1,200. We
will also suppose that, under the circumstances of the valley, the
average size of the farms is not more than fifty acres. This will give
eighty farmers. If their households average eight souls, we have 640
more. These, and the labourers, will not, as was formerly done, under
the old order of things, by every family, produce themselves pretty
nearly all that is necessary for their households. It will not be so,
because the farmers, who must also attend to their farms, will require
many things that none required before; and because the labourers, having
to give all their time and strength for wages, will be obliged to buy
almost all that they will require. This will necessitate the
introduction into the valley of a considerable number of tradesmen. We
will suppose a hamlet every five miles, in which, besides farmers and
labourers, will reside eight tradesmen and petty shopkeepers. That is
five hamlets, and forty tradesmen and shopkeepers. These, with six to a
family, will add 240 to the population. These different contributories,
then, will raise the total to 2,080. As the distances will remain what
they were, and as there will be more stir and ambition among a
population of farmers and shopkeepers, than there was formerly among the
peasant proprietors, we will take the number of school-teachers as much
the same under either system. The reduction of the population to
one-third of its former amount will somewhat reduce the number of
priests; but as thought will now be more active, and, therefore, more
varied, this reduction will be counterbalanced by an increase in the
number of prophets.
The next step in our inquiry is, how will this revolution affect the
character of the population of the valley? We have seen that under the
old system their whole character was the direct result of the fact that
everyone was either the actual, or the prospective, possessor of a small
plot of land, just enough to sustain the life of a family. That was the
root out of which their lives grew; and their industry, frugality,
forethought, patience, and honesty were the fruits such lives as theirs
produced. That root is now dead. The conditions of life are different;
and with different conditions have come corresponding differences of
character. For instance, we all know that those who labour primarily for
others, that others may make the profit that will accrue from their
labour, are not so industrious as those who labour entirely for
themselves. Nor will they have the same forethought, because their
dependence is on wages, and wages require no forethought. Formerly
forethought was a condition of existence. They are also now in a school
which is a bad one for frugality and patience, and which is very far
from being a good one for honesty. These, however, are still the main
constituents of morality, for in them there can be no change, because
morality is the regulative order of the family and of society: and now,
with respect to all of these points, among the mass of the population,
there is, necessarily a deterioration. Nor is petty trade, at least so
says the experience of mankind, favourable to morality. As to those who
hire the land, we will suppose that the more varied relations, than any
which existed under the old system, into which they have been brought
with their neighbours, and with the world outside the valley, have in
some cases had an elevating and improving effect. The moral influences,
however, of occupations of this kind are far from being universally
good, because those who live by the labour of others, will in many cases
be of opinion, that their own interests are antagonistic to the
interests of those they employ in such a sense, that it is to their
advantage to pay low wages, which means to lessen the comforts, and even
the supply of necessaries, to those by whose labour they live. This may
be an unavoidable incident of the relation in which the two stand
towards each other, but it is not conducive to the result we are now
wishing to find.
The intellectual gains and losses are harder to estimate. As to the
labourers, one cannot believe that a body of men that has been lowered
morally has been raised intellectually. Among the tradesmen class
there will be some who will have more favourable opportunities for
rising into a higher intellectual life than any had among the old
peasant-proprietors. And among the small occupiers of land, for the
farms only average fifty acres, these chances will, perhaps, be still
greater. But all this will not come to much. The great question here
is about the one family, for whose benefit mainly, almost, indeed,
exclusively, the whole of the change has been brought about. This
family now stands for 4,000 of the old inhabitants of the valley. One
of the greatest of all possible revolutions has been carried out in
its favour, for it is a revolution that has swept away the greater
part of the population, and completely altered the material, moral,
and intellectual life of all that remained. We will, however, suppose
that they are everything that can be expected of a family so
favourably circumstanced. That their morality is pure and elevated.
That, intellectually, they are refined and cultivated. That they
promote art. That science is at times their debtor. That among its
members have been men who have advanced the thought of their day, and
have made additions to the common fund of intellectual wealth; and
others who have done their country good service in peace and in war.
When I say that this family stands in the place of the 4,000 who have
disappeared from the valley, I limit the observation to the valley, for
I do not mean that the population of the world has been diminished to
that extent to make space for them, because the cheese and cattle sent
out of the valley for their 6,000_l._ a-year, will contribute to the
support elsewhere of a great many people who must work, and so live, in
order that they may be able to purchase them.
But to return; those who were not satisfied with the original Arcadian
state of things, we may be sure will not be satisfied with that which we
are now imagining has taken its place. For nothing will satisfy them, if
there must be a change, except some such condition of things as will
work as favourably both for morality, and for intellect, as that did for
morality alone; and which will, at the same time, provide, generally, a
better supplied material life than that did.
We have now endeavoured, first, to analyze the land-system of the
valley, such as it presents itself to the eye of a contemplative
pedestrian; and which may be regarded as the natural working out of
proprietorship in land, when it is the sole means of supporting life. We
then proceeded to compare with this a system we wot of, carried out to
its full-blown development. This second system is what people refer to
when they talk of English landlordism. These two forms, however, of the
distribution and tenure of land are very far from exhausting all that
have existed, and that do and that might exist. Distribution and tenure
are capable of assuming many other forms; and some of these must be
considered before we can hope to arrive at anything like a right and
serviceable understanding of the matter.
* * * * *
III. The distinguishing feature of the economical conditions of the
present day, and of other conditions as far as they depend on those that
are economical, is the existence of capital in the forms and proportions
it has now assumed. This has modified, and is modifying, the life of all
civilised communities. It is this that has built our great cities, that
is peopling the new world, that has liberated the serfs of the Russian
Empire. It leavens all we do, or say, or think. We are what we are,
because of it. The tenure and distribution of land, next to capital
itself, the most generally used and diffused of all property, originally
the only, and till recently the chief, property, cannot escape the
influence of this all-pervading and omnipotent agent of change, which
everywhere cuts a channel for itself, and finds the means for rising,
sooner or later, to its own level. In some places it has affected land
in a fashion more or less in accordance with its natural action; in
other places in a fashion which has resulted more or less from
artificial restrictions: but in some fashion or other it affects it
everywhere; as it does all man’s belongings, and the whole tenor and
complexion of human life.
Land, then, was the sole primeval means of supporting life. Over large
areas of the earth’s surface it is so still. It was so in Homeric
Greece—at that time the most advanced part of Europe—though we can trace
in its then condition a certain indefinite nebulous capacity for the
development of capital, the higher means of supporting life; and which
capacity afterwards assumed its true form and action among the Ionians
and other Asiatic Greeks, but above all at Athens: which accounts for
the differences between it and Sparta: for it was the existence and
employment of capital which made it the nurse and the holy city of
intellect; while it was the contempt and the legislative suppression of
capital which kept the Lacedæmonians, except so far as they were
affected by the general influences of Greek thought, in the condition of
a clan of splendid savages. And what obtained all but absolutely in
Homeric Greece, obtained at that time, as far as we know, quite
absolutely over all the rest of Europe. In the early ages of Roman
history, Rome was a city of landowners; that is, of landowners living a
city life. To understand this fact is to understand its early, and much
of its subsequent history. It was so, also, with the neighbouring
cities, in the conquest and absorption of which the first centuries of
its historic existence were spent: they were cities of landowners. As we
walk about the streets of disinterred Pompeii, we see that in this
pleasure-city, even down to the late date of its catastrophe, it was
very much so, although the capital of the plundered world had, at that
time, for several generations, been flowing, through many channels, into
Italy. That specimen city, as we may call it, of imperial Italy, appears
to have been laid up in its envelope of ashes, preserved like an
anatomical preparation, for the very purpose of enabling us to
understand this luciferous fact.
I need not go on tracing out the subsequent history of land and capital,
which would lead, again, to a comparison of the splendid savagery of
feudal landowners with the revival of culture in the capital-supported
trading communities of the Dark Ages; and their interaction upon each
other: but will pass at once to ourselves. It is very possible now, at
all events it is conceivable under the present state of things, that in
a large English city—it is more or less so with almost all our
cities—there may not be a single owner of agricultural land in its whole
population: for I now, as I do throughout this chapter, distinguish land
held for agricultural purposes from that which is held merely for
residential, or commercial purposes. Here, then, is a difference so
great that it takes much time and thought to comprehend its extent, its
completeness, and its consequences. It belongs to a totally different
stage of economical, and of social development; as complete as the
difference between a caterpillar and a butterfly. The solid strength,
the slow movements, the monotonous existence of the former represent the
era of land. The nimbleness (capital is of no country), the beauty, the
variety of life, but withal the want of solidity of the latter represent
the era of capital. It is the wise combination, and harmonious
interaction, of the two, which would, and which are destined to, cancel
the disadvantages, and secure the advantages of each.
The revolution, that has been effected, is mighty and all-pervading. But
because it has not been carried out by invading hosts, ravaged
provinces, blazing cities, and bloody battle-fields, it is difficult to
bring home to the general understanding that there has been any
revolution at all. At its commencement it found those who owned the land
of the country, not merely the most powerful order in the state, but
quite supreme. It gradually introduced another order of men, those who
own capital; and has ended by making them at length the most powerful;
and so much so that now, whenever they choose to assert their power,
they are supreme. Of course there ought not to be any antagonism between
the two; but as there is unfortunately, and quite unnecessarily, an
artificially created antagonism, there must be collisions and conflicts;
in which, however, the supremacy must always eventually rest with the
strongest.
The progress of this revolution ought to be seen a little in detail. Not
an acre can be added to the land of the country, but to the capital of
the country, already several times as much in value as the whole of the
land, and supporting a greater number of lives, there is added a sum of
two millions and a half of pounds sterling every Saturday night. We will
note a few of the steps in the growth of capital. The year 1550 is very
far from the date of the recognised appearance of capital in this
country: it was even observed that in the previous century there had
been an unexampled extension of commerce; but there are good reasons for
supposing that the whole of the accumulated capital of the country at
that time was less than one year’s purchase of the land. The land, at
all events, was worth a great many times as much as all the capital
amounted to.
In 1690 the purchase of an estate, of the value of 100,000_l._, was the
wonder of the day.
In the next fifty years bankers were the chief, or only, large
purchasers.
In the following half-century the Indians came home, and were added to
the class.
Then, in the last half of the last century, came the manufacturers.
And now the most prominent capitalists, who become large purchasers of
land, are the coal-owners, and the owners of iron-works, who, however,
are accompanied by a cloud of contractors, engineers, merchants,
brewers, Stock Exchange speculators, Australians, and even tradesmen,
among whom bankers and manufacturers still hold their ground. Of course
all of these classes who might, do not, become purchasers of
agricultural estates; but those who do, show us in what direction we are
to look for the great money-lords of the day. And if they are so
many—there probably are at this time in Newcastle alone, in consequence,
just now, of the prosperity of the iron and coal trades, five and twenty
houses making, each, its 100,000_l._ a-year, how many must be the rank
and file of the army of capital. The ratio then of capital to land has
been completely inverted. At this moment there is disposable capital
enough in the country to buy, at its present enhanced price, all the
land of the country, three times over. And this stock of capital goes on
increasing at the rate of 150,000,000_l._ a-year.
In the political order, we are indebted to capital for Sir Robert Peel
and Mr. Gladstone, and for their policy; and we may suppose that the
policy which capital may dictate will, henceforth, be the policy of
every Government that will administer the affairs of this country. The
land and the proletariat will never combine for the purpose of
attempting to make it otherwise: for it will never be their interest to
do so. Capital is both aristocratic and democratic in the best sense of
each of these words. It is the cement, and the mainspring of modern
societies, and, also, the ladder within them, without which there would
be no rising from low to high positions.
And now let us go back to Visp-side, bearing in mind the ideas we have
been working out. We will, then, suppose that by trade, and commerce,
and manufactures, which are both the children and the parents of
capital, other means for supporting life have become abundant in the
valley. It is easy to make out what will be the effect of this on the
dimensions of the, at present, diminutive properties of its one thousand
families. Land will present itself to the minds of all as what it has
really become; that is to say, as only one means among many for the
support of life: the many others being the various forms in which
capital works. The present subdivision, therefore, of the land will no
longer be regarded as an obvious and undeniable necessity. It has,
indeed, become only a secondary, and inferior means for supporting life.
Those engaged in trade and commerce, it will be manifest, are many of
them living much better lives than the petty proprietors. The old ideas
and practices, then, with respect to land will melt away, and be utterly
dissolved. The necessity for maintaining them has ceased; and they will
cease to be maintained.
At the same time those who have acquired capital by trade, and commerce,
and manufactures, will be desirous of investing some of it, perhaps a
surplus their business may not require, in land, which must always
continue to be the safest, and in some other respects the most desirable
form of property. And many of those who have come to wish to retire from
the labours and anxieties of business, will have the same desire. So,
too, will some who are disposed to prefer agriculture to other kinds of
industry; and who are, therefore, desirous of becoming possessed of
sufficient land for their purpose, that they may apply to it their
capital and intelligence, using it as the raw material of the
manufacture towards which they are most attracted. Some will merely want
a pleasant situation for a home for their families; some a little land
around such a home to give them a little pleasant occupation. There
will, we will suppose, be no artificial, as there are no natural,
obstacles to all of these people buying what they have the means for
buying, and the wish to buy; and using what they buy as they please. The
properties thus formed will, many of them, be large, in proportion to
the amount of surplus capital many will come to possess. But what will
be remarkable, in this respect, will be, while the number of landed
properties will be very considerable, the variety of their dimensions,
which will be proportionate to the endlessly varying means of the
multitudes, who in an era of capital will be desirous of investing in
land, and the variety of uses to which they will be put in accordance
with the varying wants and tastes of their owners.
And in these properties, whether great, or small, there will be
incessantly at work two directly opposite tendencies. One in the
direction of enlargement by inheritance, by marriage, and by larger
increases of surplus capital, and of capital retiring from business. The
other in the direction of subdivision, through the necessities, or the
wishes, of their holders. These necessities may have arisen from the
vicissitudes of business, the occurrences of life, and the extravagances
and vices of their holders from time to time. Or the descendant of a
purchaser may wish to capitalise his land, and take the capital back to
business; or to place it in some investment more profitable than land.
But, at all events, there will be no escaping from the natural,
ever-felt, imperious obligation proprietors of land, like all other men,
will be under, of providing for their widows and children. This will
keep every estate in the condition of liability to subdivision; and
must, at intervals, subdivide it. All these may be regarded as natural
conditions. They are self-acting, and never-failing; and that they
should lead to their natural issue, that is to the subdivision of landed
estates, is in accordance with good instincts, in no way demoralising,
and in every way healthy. Their free action exactly accommodates things
to the requirements both of individuals and of the times.
What we are now contemplating is the state of things which will be
brought about when the natural action of capital, and the natural action
of landed property, have been left to take their own unimpeded course in
the valley: for it is to the actual and the possible conditions of
Continental Visp-sides, viewed in connection with the actual and the
possible conditions of Continental cities, rather than to the broad
acres and busy cities of wealthy England, that what I am now saying
belongs, notwithstanding the appearance, which is unavoidable, of a
constant reference to ourselves. Their case is not quite identical with
ours, either in their existing conditions, or their future
possibilities, as will be seen in due time and place, when we come to
the distinct, and separate, consideration of our own case. Surplus
capital, then, and capital withdrawn from business, will always be
seeking investment: and as the land of a country is the natural
reservoir for a large proportion of all such capital; and as every acre
of land is, on our supposition, saleable, as much so as a sack of wheat,
or a horse, though at the moment the owner may not be tempted by the
price that would be offered for it; and as much of the land everywhere
is always actually in the market, and on sale; the habit of looking to
land as the safest both of temporary and of final investments, will
become pretty general amongst all classes of people engaged in business.
And amongst the holders of land, those who may wish to woo fortune by
going into business, and to increase their incomes by investing the
price of their land in some good security, will have nothing to withhold
them from disposing of it. Estates, that are now in process of
formation, will inevitably, when children have to be provided for, or
upon the occurrence of any of those other causes we have already
referred to, sooner or later enter upon the reverse process of
subdivision. The great points to be kept in mind are that every acre,
though it may not be actually in the market, is yet, at the will of its
owner, marketable; and that, whatever may be the will of its present
holder, must, sooner or later, come on the market; and that capital,
availing itself of these facilities, naturally takes the direction of
the land—in the long run, and to the majority of mankind, the most
desirable of all investments; and that this maintains at a high figure
the number of proprietors, that class which it is for the interest of
the country should be as large as possible: it is obvious that this
class will be large, in the era of capital, in every country where the
land is within the reach of every man who has capital, exactly in
proportion to the amount of capital he is desirous of investing in it.
This state of things appears to have some advantages. These may be
summed up in the general remark that it is in complete conformity with
the wants and conditions of an era of capital, such as that in which we
live. Let us, however, endeavour to resolve this general remark into its
constituent elements. As land is the most attractive of human
possessions, the one possession which gives a man a place of his own to
stand on in this world, it ought naturally to attract to itself much of
the surplus capital of the day, and of capital that is being withdrawn
from business. In the state of things, we have been just considering,
there is no hindrance to the operation of this tendency. This flow of
capital towards the land will make it far more productive than it ever
has been under any other system. For capital is nothing in the world but
bottled-up labour, reconvertible, at the will of the holder, into actual
labour, and the implements and materials and products of labour; and
this system secures the advantage that the proprietors shall generally
be men who have much capital in proportion to their land; and much of
this capital will, of course, be applied to it. More land will be
reclaimed, more rocks blasted and buried; irrigating canals and
cultivation will be carried higher up the sides of the mountains; and
more costly means of cultivation applied than are possible under either
the peasant-proprietor system, or the large estate system. And this may
be a state of things which will not dissatisfy the economist.
It is a state of things which the modern statesman, also, ought to
regard with approval; because the possession of land has always,
everywhere, been the conservative element in human societies; and the
wide diffusion of the proprietorship of land is the only effectual means
by which the statesman of the present day can hope to balance, and
neutralise, the disturbing action of the large aggregations of
population capital has called into being in the great commercial, and
manufacturing cities of this era of capital. It ought to be a pleasing,
and reassuring sight to him to behold streams of capital and of
proprietors constantly flowing off from them towards the land: for in
these streams he knows that power is being drawn off from those terrible
centres of possible disturbance, which cause him so much anxiety; and
that what is thus drawn off from them is being added to the conservative
elements of society. So that if the order of society, or any valuable,
but, at the moment, misunderstood, institution—misunderstood because
things are in an unnatural state—should have to sustain a shock, there
would be less power on the side of those who might originate it, and
more on the side of those who would have to bear the brunt of it—a state
of things which would, probably, prevent the shock from ever occurring.
Whereas to array on one side the land of a country held by a handful of
proprietors against on the other side numbers and capital, is both to
invite the shock, and at the same time to forbid the existence of the
natural means for resisting it.
Many great cities are terrible centres of possible disturbance, just
because there are artificial barriers which keep asunder the land and
its inhabitants on one side, and the cities with their capital and
population on the other side. If things were so that streams of those
who had had the energy and intelligence requisite for success, and had
succeeded, were constantly flowing off from the cities to the land; and
back-currents of those, who were desirous of seeking fortune, flowing
into the towns from the country; and this is what ought to be the state
of things in an era of capital; there would be less opposition of
interests and sentiments between the town and the country: they would
together form more of an homogeneous system. If the town populations
could be brought into some kind of connection with the land, they would
then, so far, have given hostages, a material guarantee, to social
peace, and order.
Neither will they be dissatisfied who are desirous of seeing property so
distributed as to favour as much as possible the moral and intellectual
condition of the community. Property will everywhere be diffused; and
never being encumbered more than very temporarily, that is never beyond
the life of the encumbered holder, for on our supposition it will always
pass from hand to hand perfectly unencumbered in every way, its numerous
holders in every locality will be in a position to do, and to support,
whatever need be done, and supported. Take the instance of the support
of religion. It would be mischievous under the previously considered
system to disestablish a national Church, because as all the surplus
produce of the valley, in the form of a rent of 6,000_l._ a-year, is
sent out of the valley, there is nothing left in the hands of the
population, such as we imagined it had become, to support religion,
except in the humblest, that is in a thoroughly unworthy, form. And here
we cannot but think about ourselves; and our doing so will contribute
somewhat towards bringing us to a better understanding of this
particular point. As things now are in this country the portion of the
rent which is retained in every parish for the maintenance of religion
is in multitudes of cases the only part of the rent that is retained,
and spent, on the spot, among those whose labour produces it. No one
will deny that this is in many ways an advantage to them. To instance
one advantage, it is often the cause of the existence of needed
institutions, as was lately seen most conspicuously in the part the
clergy took in the establishment and maintenance of schools, which was
an undeniable benefit to their poor neighbours, and to the country,
though at the same time something besides and beyond what they were
bound to do for the maintenance of the knowledge and of the services of
religion. In many places, too, it is the only part of the rent which
supports in the locality a man of education and refinement; a social and
political advantage which cannot be denied, or overlooked. And this
appropriation of a small portion of the rent has largely benefited
literature, and to some extent science. It also gives us a large number
of families, who far outnumber those supported by the great bulk of the
rent of the country, and are in a very favourable position for bestowing
on their sons the best attainable education, carefully supervised. To
them we owe multitudes of those who are at all times doing the country,
at home and abroad, good service. We may, at the present moment, take as
instances the Lord Chancellor and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, both
of whom were brought up in rural parsonages. Surely it would be a local
and a national benefit if more of the rent of the land were somewhat
similarly conditioned. And perhaps the greater part of it would be under
the system we are now considering. And in addition to this much other
property in the form of capital, belonging to such owners of the land,
would be brought into each locality, some of which would be sunk in the
land, and some retained in securities paying interest and dividends,
which would be spent on the spot. Under such a state of things there
would be abundance of local means for the voluntary support of all
needed institutions, and of religion among the rest; and a national
establishment would then cease to be the necessity it is now. At all
events, should the national provision for the maintenance of religion,
which is incidentally a provision, and as things now are very usefully
so, for spending a small part of the rent of each parish, often a very
small part indeed, in the parish itself, be cancelled, the aspect of
things in many places, and the consequences, would be such as to bring
many, who are pretty well satisfied with things as they are without
thinking why, to join in the cry for free trade in land.
* * * * *
IV. We have been considering three conditions under which the land of
the valley may be held; first, that of a thoroughly carried-out system
of peasant-proprietorship, which is the natural consummation of things
when land is the only means of supporting life, or so nearly the only
means that other means disturb its action so little that they need not
be considered; and which is the cause of its being divided down to the
lowest point at which it is capable of supporting life: we then passed
to the opposite extreme, to which the name of landlordism has been
given; and we came at last to that which would result, and in places has
more or less resulted, from the free interaction of land and capital, in
this era of capital. We still have to consider how it has been brought
about that, in this era of capital, the free interaction of the two, in
this country hardly exists at all; what it is that here hinders its
existence; and so gives rise to the two abnormal, but closely connected,
phenomena, that land is held only in very large aggregations, and that
capital is driven away from the proprietorship of land, except in these
large aggregations, to seek imaginary investment at home in never-ending
bubble schemes, the manufacture of which is as much a trade as that of
calico, or sent abroad to be sunk in impossible Honduras railways, the
shares of non-existent Californian mines, and the bonds of hardly more
existent states.
This, as it is an unnatural state of things, can have been brought about
only by the disturbing action of law. What, then, we have to consider
now is, how law has stepped in, and hindered the existence of the state
of things which the circumstances of the times demand, and which,
therefore, would be their natural and normal condition; and, as it
seems, would be fraught with so many and such great advantages to
individuals and to the country. The general sense of uneasiness, these
questions have given rise to throughout society, indicate that in this
matter there is something constitutionally wrong.
When I was in the United States in 1867-1868, I was frequently asked how
the people of England could tolerate a system—the questioner always
supposed that such a result could only be brought about by law—that gave
the land of the country to a handful of the population? I always replied
‘that it was a natural consequence of our great wealth. A banker, an
Australian, a contractor, a merchant or manufacturer, a coal or iron
owner, made his million of money, and as he could live very well on
25,000_l._ a-year, he sunk it in land for the sake of the security the
land offered, and because, moreover, its possession gave certain social
and political advantages. That it was the competition of these
millionaires, who were willing to pay for something beyond the
productive powers of the land, that kept small purchasers out of the
market, and also induced small holders to sell.’ I gave this answer
because I wished to avoid a long explanation, involving probably a great
deal of argument; and I had not crossed the Atlantic to give, but to
receive, information.
I knew at the time that my answer was only a partial one; that it
omitted some very important elements of the question; and, therefore,
was worth very little, except for the purpose in view at the moment.
For instance; it rested on the assumption that the interest of money is
now so high in this country that under no circumstances—I admit that it
is so under existing circumstances—would people hold small amounts of
land, say a thousand acres, because they could get a better income by
selling the land, and investing the proceeds otherwise; and that none
can afford to buy land, except those who can afford to buy so much that
the moderate interest of the purchase will still in its amount be
sufficient for all their wants. It is acknowledged that at present it is
so. The whole question, then, turns on the point of what causes it to be
so? Is it unavoidable and natural? If so, then it is all right as it is;
and the subject is withdrawn from the category of useful discussions.
I, however, for one, am disposed to think that it is neither unavoidable
nor natural. There is not such a great difference between the interest
of money in France and in England, as to make the great bulk of the
people of France desire, above all things, land, and the great bulk of
the people of England quite indifferent about it, and even the few who
have it in moderate extents desirous of getting rid of it. And, again,
in the United States the interest of money is higher than it is here,
and yet the ownership of land is regarded as the support, and its
cultivation as the natural employment of, I suppose, four-fifths of the
whole white population. To us, who look across the Atlantic, the cities
appear to be America. But this is an optical illusion. The United States
are as large as the whole of Europe, and the cities, though centres of
extraordinary activity, are few and far between. Its vast occupied area
maintains an agricultural population; and its agriculture is carried on
upon so grand a scale that, when the eye is directed to it, everything
else is utterly lost to view. The towns are nothing in a scene which
takes in fifteen hundred miles of farm-houses from New York to Omaha,
which begin again in the Great Salt Lake Valley, and again on the slopes
of the Sierra-Nevada, reaching to the shore of the Pacific.
The cause, then, why what does take place in France, and in the United
States, does not take place here, must be sought for in something
peculiar to ourselves. And our English peculiarity I believe to be this,
that here the dominant and regulative fact bearing on the distribution
of land is, that it is not distributable; in plain English, that it is
not saleable. This is brought about by the law which allows estates to
be settled, that is to be taken out of the market and practically to be
rendered unsaleable. This being the general fact with respect to land,
the millions connected with its cultivation, seeing no opening for their
ever becoming possessed of an acre of it, do not save for this purpose,
and have their thoughts turned in other directions, that is to say, to
the towns, to trade, or to emigration. And the rest of the population,
being met by the same obstacle, have their thoughts with respect to
land, and the investment in it of their capital, equally shaped and
coloured by the existence of that obstacle. That which is the dominant
fact brings about what is the general feeling and practice. Where is the
rural district in which, from the general condition of things, it could
become a general practice among the population to work, and deny
themselves, in order to acquire some property in the land? Unsaleability
is the general rule, and so this motive, and everything that would be
connected with it, and grow out of it, has no existence. The same cause
acts even in a higher degree on the rest of the population, because
their thoughts are not, from the circumstances and character of their
lives, so naturally directed towards the land. It would be just the
reverse if every acre, everywhere, were always saleable: of course not
always on sale, but always saleable at the will of its owner.
Speaking generally, we are in the unique and anomalous position of a
nation which has no class of proprietors of small, and moderate-sized
estates, cultivating their own land. If circumstances were at all
favourable to the maintenance amongst us of such a class, I believe it
would be maintained, and would go on increasing. What is the case is,
that circumstances adverse to it, and even destructive of it, have been
created artificially. By the power of settling estates, large settled
estates have everywhere been called into existence. Thenceforth the
fight in each neighbourhood is between large settled estates and small
properties. The large settled estates are endowed, practically, with
perpetuity, and they have within themselves great powers of purchasing,
that is of extension; for their owners are already wealthy, and have,
also, the power of discounting, for the purpose of making purchases, the
future increase in value of their estates; and they always have a strong
motive for making such purchases. The small properties, as things now
are, have very little of the element of perpetuity; generally no
self-contained power of extension by purchase; and their proprietors
have no special motives for attempting to extend them. The absorption,
then, of the small properties is inevitable; and has been, indeed,
almost entirely effected already. Our system creates the large estates,
and endows them with the power of swallowing up the small ones; and so
year by year takes the land, more and more, out of the market: the
general result being that at last we have come to have only a handful of
very wealthy rent-receiving proprietors, and few cultivating
proprietors; and that the thoughts, the prospects, and the capital of
the richest nation in the world are all pretty completely turned away
from the land.
We said that our system was not either unavoidable or natural. We ought,
therefore, to show how it could have been avoided. We partially did this
when we pointed out its causes. Let us, however, endeavour now to find
for ourselves a distinct answer to the question, In what way could its
growth and establishment have been prevented? I need not repeat its
peculiarities: they have just been referred to. Suppose, then, a century
ago, the Legislature had come to be of opinion that it was contrary to
public policy that an existing generation should have its hands tied, in
dealing with the land of the country, by the necessities, or the
personal and family ambitions, or the ideas, of preceding generations;
and that public policy required that the land of the country should pass
from hand to hand perfectly free, each successive holder having an
absolute interest in it; receiving, and transmitting it, quite
unencumbered, precisely in the same way as a sovereign passes from hand
to hand. And that, therefore, it had been enacted, with the view of
securing these conditions, that land should not be charged in any way;
that it should not be encumbered with any uses, or settlements of any
kind; and that there should be no power of mortgaging it beyond the
life, or tenancy, of the mortgagor. Such an enactment, it is obvious,
would have rendered the existence of the present system impossible. It
would have had this effect, because no one having had the power of
encumbering land in favour of his widow and younger children, those
whose property was only land, would have been obliged to provide for
their widows and younger children by bequeathing to them certain
portions of the land itself. This would have subdivided the large
estates. It, also, would have secured to every owner the power of at any
time selling his land, if for any reason he were desirous of so dealing
with it. It is, then, presumably, the permission of the very opposite to
that which would have prevented the present state of things from
existing, that has given it existence.
We have been speaking of what might have been done. Let us look at
something that has been done. The course of recent legislation upon this
subject is very instructive; and, as far as it goes, is confirmatory of
what we have been saying as to both the cause, and the remedy, of
existing evils. We often hear remarks made upon the mischievous
consequences of land being held in mortmain. But the fact is, that in
this country there is no such thing as land held in mortmain. The
Legislature has seen the ill effects of its being so held, and, by a
series of Acts, all having the same object, has released what was so
held. The estates vested in the Ecclesiastical Commission were made
saleable in 1843; the episcopal and capitular estates in 1851; the
estates of all other ecclesiastical corporations in 1860; of
universities and colleges in 1858. The estates of schools and charities,
and of municipal bodies, are now in the same state. By this series of
enactments the Legislature has, I believe, completely abolished the
holding of land in mortmain. It could not, we may be sure, have done
otherwise. There was among all enlightened people an overwhelmingly
preponderant perception of what ought to be done; and it was
comparatively easy to deal with that portion of the land of the country
to which these enactments apply. The ground they took was not that the
corporate estates had a worse body of tenants, or were worse cultivated
than settled estates, for that was not the case, but that it was an evil
that land should not be saleable; and so some, that was not saleable
before, was made saleable.
And now let us see how these Acts have worked. There have been instances
in which incumbents of parishes have sold their glebes, and colleges
some of their estates. But who have been the purchasers of these glebes
and college estates? As far as I can hear, in every instance the
purchasers have been large landed proprietors. And they did no wrong in
buying them. Reader, had you and I been in their places we should have
done just what they did. The result, however, has been that the large
estates have become larger; that is to say, the amount of land that was,
through settlements, practically unsaleable, is now greater than it was
before; and that through legislation which had for its aim to make land
saleable. The present system was so widely established, so powerful, and
so ready and so able to avail itself of every opportunity, that there
was no possibility of its being otherwise. The fate, then, of that
portion of the previously mortmain-held land that has been sold, shows
how our existing system works; and enables us to see by an instance,
which, though not great in amount, is yet distinct and palpable, the
tendency in our large settled estates to continue growing, and by so
doing to diminish the amount of saleable land in the country. If,
instead of being misled by names, we look at facts, the true
mortmain-held land of this country is the settled estates.