The following remarks by the celebrated French economist, M. de
Lavaleye, will prove interesting. There is no greater living authority
on land tenure than this writer, and being a foreigner, his opinions
are not open--as the opinions of our own countrymen may be--to the
suspicion of political bias or partisanship on a question which is of
universal interest all over the world. Referring to land tenure in this
country, he says:--
“The dispossession of the old proprietors, transformed by time into new
tenants, was effected on a larger scale by the “clearing of estates.”
When a lord of the manor, for his own profit, wanted to turn the small
holdings into large farms, or into pasturage, the small cultivators
were of no use. The proprietors adopted a simple means of getting rid
of them; and, by destroying their dwellings, forced them into exile.
The classical land of this system is Ireland, or more particularly the
Highlands of Scotland.
“It is now clearly established that in Scotland, just as in Ireland,
the soil was once the property of the clan or sept. The chiefs of
the clan had certain rights over the communal domain; but they were
even further from being proprietors than was Louis XIV. from being
proprietor of the territory of France. By successive encroachments,
however, they transformed their authority of suzerain into a right of
private ownership, without even recognising in their old co-proprietors
a right of hereditary possession. In a similar way the Zemindars
and Talugdars in India were, by the Act of the British Government,
transformed into absolute proprietors. Until modern days the chiefs of
the clan were interested in retaining a large number of vassals, as
their power, and often their security, were only guaranteed by their
arms. But when the order was established, and the chiefs--or lords,
as they now were--began to reside in the towns, and required large
revenues rather than numerous retainers, they endeavoured to introduce
large farms and pasturage.
“We may follow the first phases of this revolution, which commences
after the last rising under the Pretender, in the works of James
Anderson, and James Stuart. The latter tells us that in his time--in
the last third of the 18th century--the Highlands of Scotland still
presented a miniature picture of the Europe of four hundred years ago.
The rent (so he misnames the tribute paid to the chief of the clan) of
these lands is very little in comparison with their extent, but if it
is regarded relatively to the number of mouths which the farm supports,
it will be seen that land in the Scotch Highlands supports perhaps
twice as many persons as land of the same value in a fertile province.
When, in the last thirty years of the 18th century, they began to expel
the Gaels, they at the same time forbade them to emigrate to a foreign
country, so as to compel them by these means to congregate in Glasgow
and other manufacturing towns.
“In his observations on Smith’s _Wealth of Nations_, published in 1814,
David Buchanan gives us an idea of the progress made by the clearing of
estates. ‘In the Highlands,’ he says, ‘the landed proprietor, without
regard to the hereditary tenants’ (he wrongly applies this term to
the clansmen who were joint proprietors of the soil), ‘offers the land
to the highest bidder, who, if he wishes to improve the cultivation,
is anxious for nothing but the introduction of a new system. The soil,
dotted with small peasant proprietors, was formerly well populated
in proportion to its natural fertility. The new system of improved
agriculture and increased rents demands the greatest net profit with
the least possible outlay, and with this object the cultivators are got
rid of as being of no further use. Thus cast from their native soil,
they go to seek their living in the manufacturing towns.’
“George Ensor, in a work published in 1818, says:--They (the landed
proprietors of Scotland) dispossessed families as they would grub
up coppice-wood, and they treated the villages and their people as
Indians harassed with wild beasts do in their vengeance a jungle with
tigers.... Is it credible, that in the 18th century, in this missionary
age, in this Christian era, man shall be bartered for a fleece or a
carcase of mutton--nay, held cheaper?... Why, how much worse is it
than the intention of the Moguls, who, when they had broken into the
northern provinces of China, proposed in Council to exterminate the
inhabitants, and convert the land into pasture? This proposal many
Highland proprietors have effected in their own country against their
own countrymen.
“M. de Sismondi has rendered celebrated on the Continent the famous
clearing executed between 1814 and 1820 by the Duchess of Sutherland.
More than three thousand families were driven out; and 800,000 acres
of land, which formerly belonged to the clan, were transformed into
seignorial domain. Men were driven out to make room for sheep. The
sheep are now replaced by deer, and the pastures converted into deer
forests, which are treeless solitudes. The _Economist_ of June 2, 1866,
said on this subject:--Feudal instincts have as full career now as in
the time when the Conqueror destroyed thirty-six villages to make the
New Forest. Two millions of acres, comprising most fertile land, have
been changed into desert. The natural herbage in Glen Tilt was known
as the most succulent in Perth; the deer forest of Ben Alder was the
best natural meadow of Badenoch; the forest of Black Mount was the best
pasturage in Scotland for black-woolled sheep. The soil thus sacrificed
for the pleasures of the chase extends over an area larger than the
county of Perth. The land in the new Ben Alder forest supported 15,000
sheep; and this is but the thirtieth part of the territory sacrificed,
and thus rendered as unproductive as if it were buried in the depths of
the sea.
“The destruction of small property is still going on, no longer,
however, by encroachment, but by purchase. Whenever land comes into
the market it is bought by some rich capitalist, because the expenses
of legal inquiry are too great for a small investment. Thus, large
properties are consolidated, and fall, so to speak, into mortmain,
in consequence of the law of primogeniture and entails. In the 15th
century, according to Chancellor Fortescue, England was quoted
throughout Europe for its number of proprietors and the comfort of its
inhabitants. In 1688, Gregory King estimates that there were 180,000
proprietors, exclusive of 16,560 proprietors of noble rank. In 1786
there were 250,000 proprietors of England. According to the “Domesday
Book” of 1876, there were 170,000 rural proprietors in England owning
above an acre; 21,000 in Ireland, and 8000 in Scotland. A fifth of the
entire country is in the hands of 523 persons. Are you aware, said Mr.
Bright, in a speech delivered at Birmingham, August 27, 1866, that
one-half of the soil of Scotland belongs to ten or twelve persons?
Are you aware of the fact that the monopoly of landed property is
continually increasing and becoming more and more exclusive?
“In England, then, as at Rome, large property has swallowed up small
property, in consequence of a continuous evolution unchecked from the
beginning to the end of the nation’s history; and the social order
seems to be threatened just as in the Roman Empire.
“An ardent desire for a more equal division of the produce of labour
inflames the labouring classes, and passes from land to land. In
England, it arouses agitation among the industrial classes, and is
beginning to invade the rural districts. It obviously menaces landed
property as constituted in this country. The labourers who till the
soil will claim their share in it; and, if they fail to obtain it here,
will cross the sea in search of it. To retain a hold on them they must
be given a vote; and there is fresh danger in increasing the number
of electors while that of proprietors diminishes, and maintaining
laws which renders inequality greater and more striking, while ideas
of equality are assuming more formidable sway. To make the possession
of the soil a closed monopoly and to augment the political powers of
the class who are rigidly excluded, is at once to provoke levelling
measures and to facilitate them. Accordingly we find that England is
the country where the scheme of the nationalisation of the land finds
most adherents, and is most widely proclaimed. The country which is
furthest from the primitive organisations of property is likewise the
one where the social order seems most menaced.”