HOW FREEDOM GROWS IN NORTHERN GERMANY.
Local action has always, to a considerable extent, existed in Germany.
For a time, there was a tendency to the centralization of power in the
hands of Austria, but the growth of Prussia at the north has produced
counter attraction, and there is from day to day an increasing
tendency toward decentralization, local activity, and freedom.
It is now but little more than seventy years since the Elector of
Hesse sold large numbers of his poor subjects to the government of
England to aid it in establishing unlimited control over the people of
this country. About the same period, Frederick of Prussia had his
emissaries everywhere employed in seizing men of proper size for his
grenadier regiments--and so hot was the pursuit, that it was dangerous
for a man of any nation, or however free, if of six feet high, to
place himself within their reach. The people were slaves, badly fed,
badly clothed, and badly lodged, and their rulers were tyrants. The
language of the higher classes was French, German being then regarded
as coarse and vulgar, fit only for the serf. German literature was
then only struggling into existence. Of the mechanic arts, little was
known, and the people were almost exclusively agricultural, while the
machinery used in agriculture was of the rudest kind. Commerce at home
was very small, and abroad it was limited to the export of the rude
products of the field, to be exchanged for the luxuries of London or
Paris required for the use of the higher orders of society.
Thirty years later, the slave trade furnished cargoes to many, if not
most, of the vessels that traded between this country and Germany.
Men, women, and children were brought out and sold for terms of years,
at the close of which they became free, and many of the, most
respectable people in the Middle States are descended from "indented"
German servants.
The last half century has, however, been marked by the adoption of
measures tending to the complete establishment of the mechanic arts
throughout Germany, and to the growth of places for the performance of
local exchanges. The change commenced during the period of the
continental system; but, at the close of the war, the manufacturing
establishments of the country were, to a great extent, swept away, and
the raw material of cloth was again compelled to travel to a distance
in search of the spindle and the loom, the export of which from
England, as well as of colliers and artisans, was, as the reader has
seen, prohibited. But very few years, however, elapsed before it
became evident that the people were becoming poorer, and the land
becoming exhausted, and then it was that were commenced the smaller
Unions for the purpose of bringing the loom to take its natural place
by the side of the plough and the harrow. Step by step they grew in
size and strength, until, in 1835, only twenty years after the battle
of Waterloo, was formed the _Zoll-Verein_, or great German Union,
under which the internal commerce was rendered almost entirely free,
while the external one was subjected to certain restraints, having for
their object to cause the artisan to come and place himself where food
and wool were cheap, in accordance with the doctrines of Adam Smith.
In 1825, Germany exported almost thirty millions of pounds of raw wool
to England, where it was subjected to a duty of twelve cents per pound
for the privilege of passing through the machinery there provided for
its manufacture into cloth. Since that time, the product has doubled,
and yet not only has the export almost ceased, but much foreign wool
is now imported for the purpose of mixing with that produced at home.
The effect of this has, of course, been to make a large market for
both food and wool that would otherwise have been pressed on the
market of England, with great reduction in the price of both; and
woollen cloths are now so cheaply produced in Germany, that they are
exported to almost all parts of the world. Wool is higher and cloth is
lower, and, therefore, it is, as we shall see, that the people are now
so much better clothed.
At the date of the formation of the Union, the total import of raw
cotton and cotton yarn was about 300,000 cwts., but so rapid was the
extension of the manufacture, that in less than six years it had
doubled, and so cheaply were cotton goods supplied, that a large
export trade had already arisen. In 1845, when the Union, was but ten
years old, the import of cotton and yarn had reached a million of
hundredweights, and since that time there has been a large increase.
The iron manufacture, also, grew so rapidly that whereas, in 1834, the
consumption had been only _eleven_ pounds per head, in 1847 it had
risen to _twenty-five pounds_, having thus more than doubled; and with
each step in this direction, the people were obtaining better
machinery for cultivating the land and for converting its raw products
into manufactured ones.
In no country has there been a more rapid increase in this
diversification of employments, and increase in the demand for labour,
than in Germany since the formation of the Union. Everywhere
throughout the country men are now becoming enabled to combine the
labours of the workshop with those of the field and the garden, and
"the social and economical results" of this cannot, says Mr. Kay [171]
--
"Be rated too highly. The interchange of garden-labour with
manufacturing employments, which is advantageous to the operative,
who works in his own house, is a real luxury and necessity for the
factory operative, whose occupations are almost always necessarily
prejudicial to health. After his day's labour in the factories, he
experiences a physical reinvigoration from moderate labour in the
open air, and, moreover, he derives from it some economical
advantages. He is enabled by this means to cultivate at least part of
the vegetables which his family require for their consumption,
instead of having to purchase them in the market at a considerable
outlay. He can sometimes, also, keep a cow, which supplies his family
with milk, and provides a healthy occupation for his wife and
children when they leave the factory."
As a necessary consequence of this creation of a domestic market, the
farmer has ceased to be compelled to devote himself exclusively to the
production of wheat, or other articles of small bulk and large price,
and can now "have a succession of crops," says Mr. Howitt--
"Like a market-gardener. They have their carrots, poppies, hemp,
flax, saintfoin, lucerne, rape, colewort, cabbage, rutabaga, black
turnips, Swedish and white turnips, teazles, Jerusalem artichokes,
mangelwurzel, parsnips, kidney-beans, field beans, and peas, vetches,
Indian corn, buckwheat, madder for the manufacturer, potatoes, their
great crop of tobacco, millet--all or the greater part under the
family management, in their own family allotments. They have had
these things first to sow, many of them to transplant, to hoe, to
weed, to clear off insects, to top; many of them to mow and gather in
successive crops. They have their water-meadows--of which kind almost
all their meadows are to flood, to mow, and reflood; watercourses to
reopen and to make anew; their early fruits to gather, to bring to
market, with their green crops of vegetables; their cattle, sheep,
calves, fowls; (most of them prisoners,) and poultry to look after;
their vines, as they shoot rampantly in the summer heat, to prune,
and thin out the leaves when they are too thick; and any one may
imagine what a scene of incessant labour it is."--_Rural and Domestic
Life in Germany_, p. 50.
The existence of a domestic market enables them, of course, to manure
their land. "No means," says Mr. Kay--
"Are spared to make the ground produce as much as possible. Not a
square yard of land is uncultivated or unused. No stories are left
mingled with the soil. The ground is cleared of weeds and rubbish,
and the lumps of earth are broken up with as much care as in an
English garden. If it is meadow land, it is cleaned of obnoxious
herbs and weeds. Only the sweet grasses which are good for the cattle
are allowed to grow. All the manure from the house, farm, and yard is
carefully collected and scientifically prepared. The liquid manure is
then carried, in hand-carts like our road-watering carts into the
fields, and is watered over the meadows in equal proportions. The
solid manures are broken up, cleared of stones and rubbish, and are
then properly mixed and spread over the lands which require them. No
room is lost in hedges or ditches, and no breeding-places are left
for the vermin which in many parts of England do so much injury to
the farmers' crops. The character of the soil of each district is
carefully examined, and a suitable rotation of crops is chosen, so as
to obtain the greatest possible return without injuring the land; and
the cattle are well housed, are kept beautifully clean, and are
groomed and tended like the horses of our huntsmen."--Vol. i. 118.
The labours of the field have become productive, and there has been
excited, says Dr. Shubert--
"A singular and increasing interest in agriculture and in the
breeding of cattle; and if in some localities, on account of peculiar
circumstances or of a less degree of intelligence, certain branches
of the science of agriculture are less developed than in other
localities, it is, nevertheless, undeniable that an almost universal
progress has been made in the cultivation of the soil and in the
breeding of cattle. No one can any longer, as was the custom thirty
years ago, describe the Prussian system of agriculture by the single
appellation of the three-year-course system; no man can, as formerly,
confine his enumeration of richly-cultivated districts to a few
localities. In the present day, there is no district of Prussia in
which intelligence, persevering energy, and an ungrudged expenditure
of capital, has not immensely improved a considerable part of the
country for the purposes of agriculture and of the breeding of
cattle."[172]
Speaking of that portion of Germany which lies on the Rhine and the
Neckar, Professor Rau, of Heidelberg, says that--
"Whoever travels hastily through this part of the country must have
been agreeably surprised with the luxuriant vegetation of the fields,
with the orchards and vineyards which cover the hillside's, with the
size of the villages, with the breadth of their streets, with the
beauty of their official buildings, with the cleanliness and
stateliness of their houses, with the good clothing in which the
people appear at their festivities, and with the universal proofs of
a prosperity which has been caused by industry and skill, and which
has survived all the political changes of the times. * * * The
unwearied assiduity of the peasants--who are to be seen actively
employed the whole of every year and of every day, and who are never
idle, because they understand how to arrange their work, and how to
set apart for every time and season its appropriate duties--is as
remarkable as their eagerness to avail themselves of every
circumstance and of every new invention which can aid them, and their
ingenuity in improving their resources, are praiseworthy. It is easy
to perceive that the peasant of this district really understands his
business. He can give reasons for the occasional failures of his
operations; he knows and remembers clearly his pecuniary resources;
he arranges his choice of fruits according to their prices; and he
makes his calculations by the general signs and tidings of the
weather."--_Landwirthshaft der Rheinpfalz_.
The people of this country "stand untutored," says Mr. Kay, "except by
experience; but," he continues--
"Could the tourist hear these men in their blouses and thick gaiters
converse on the subject, he would be surprised at the mass of
practical knowledge they possess, and at the caution and yet the
keenness with which they study these advantages. Of this all may rest
assured, that from the commencement of the offsets of the Eifel,
where the village cultivation assumes an individual and strictly
local character, good reason can be given for the manner in which
every inch of ground is laid out, as for every balm, root, or tree
that covers it."--Vol. i. 130.
The system of agriculture is making rapid progress, as is always the
case when the artisan is brought to the side of the husbandman.
Constant intercourse with each other sharpens the intellect, and men
learn to know the extent of their powers. Each step upward is but the
preparation for a new and greater one, and therefore it is that
everywhere among those small farmers, says Mr. Kay, "science is
welcomed." "Each," he continues--
"Is so anxious to emulate and surpass his neighbours, that any new
invention, which benefits one, is eagerly sought out and adopted by
the others."--Vol. i. 149.
The quantity of stock that is fed is constantly and rapidly
increasing, and, as a necessary consequence, the increase in the
quantity of grain is more rapid than in the population, although that
of Prussia and Saxony now increases faster than that of any other
nation of Europe.[173]
The land of Germany is much divided. A part of this division was the
work of governments which interfered between the owners and the
peasants, and gave to the latter absolute rights over a part of the
land they cultivated, instead of previous claims to rights of so
uncertain a kind as rendered the peasant a mere slave to the
land-owner. Those rights, however, could not have been maintained had
not the policy of the government tended to promote the growth of
population and wealth. Centralization would have tended to the
reconsolidation of the land, as it has done in India, Ireland,
Scotland, and England; but decentralization here gives value to land,
and aids in carrying out the system commenced by government. Professor
Reichensperger [174] says--
"That the price of land which is divided into small properties, in
the Prussian Rhine provinces, is much higher, and has been rising
much more rapidly, than the price of land on the great estates. He
and Professor Rau both say that this rise in the price of the small
estates would have ruined the more recent, purchasers, unless the
productiveness of the small estates had increased in at least an
equal proportion; and as the small proprietors have been gradually
becoming more and more prosperous, notwithstanding the increasing
prices they have paid for their land, he argues, with apparent
justness, that this would seem to show that not only the _gross_
profits of the small estates, but the _net_ profits also, have been
gradually increasing, and that the _net_ profits per acre of land,
when farmed by small proprietors, are greater than the net profits
per acre of land farmed by great proprietors."--_Kay_, vol. i. 116.
The admirable effect of the division of land, which follows
necessarily in the wake of the growth of population and wealth, is
thus described by Sismondi:--[175]
"Wherever are found peasant proprietors, are also found that ease,
that security, that independence, and that confidence in the future,
which insure at the same time happiness and virtue. The peasant who,
with his family, does all the work on his little inheritance, who
neither pays rent to any one above him, nor wages to any one below
him, who regulates his production by his consumption, who eats his
own corn, drinks his own wine, and is clothed with his own flax and
wool, cares little about knowing the price of the market; for he has
little to sell and little to buy, and is never ruined by the
revolutions of commerce. Far from fearing for the future, it is
embellished by his hopes; for he puts out to profit, for his children
or for ages to come, every instant which is not required by the
labour of the year. Only a few moments, stolen from otherwise lost
time, are required to put into the ground the nut which in a hundred
years will become a large tree; to hollow out the aqueduct which will
drain his field for ever; to form the conduit which will bring him a
spring of water; to improve, by many little labours and attentions
bestowed in spare moments, all the kinds of animals and vegetables by
which he is surrounded. This little patrimony is a true savings-bank,
always ready to receive his little profits, and usefully to employ
his leisure moments. The ever-acting powers of nature make his
labours fruitful, and return to him a hundredfold. The peasant has a
strong sense of the happiness attached to the condition of
proprietor. Thus he is always eager to purchase land at any price. He
pays for it more than it is worth; but what reason he has to esteem
at a high price the advantage of thenceforward always employing his
labour advantageously, without being obliged to offer it cheap, and
of always finding his bread when he wants it, without being obliged
to buy it dear!"--_Kay_; vol. i. 153.
The German people borrow from the earth, and they pay their debts; and
this they are enabled to do because the market is everywhere near, and
becoming nearer every day, as, with the increase of population and
wealth, men are enabled to obtain better machinery of conversion and
transportation. They are, therefore, says Mr. Kay--
"Gradually acquiring capital, and their great ambition is to have
land of their own. They eagerly seize every opportunity of purchasing
a small farm; and the price is so raised by the competition, that
land pays little more than two per cent. interest for the
purchase-money. Large properties gradually disappear, and are divided
into small portions, which sell at a high rate. But the wealth and
industry of the population is continually increasing, being rather
through the masses, than accumulated in individuals."--Vol. i. 183.
The disappearance of large properties in Germany proceeds, _pari
passu_, with the disappearance of small ones in England. If the reader
desire to know the views of Adam Smith as to the relative advantages
of the two systems, he may turn to the description, from his pen, of
the feelings of the small proprietor, given in a former chapter;[176]
after which he may profit by reading the following remarks of Mr. Kay,
prompted by his observation of the course of things in Germany:--
"But there can be no doubt that five acres, the property of an
intelligent peasant, who farms it himself, in a country where the
peasants have learned to farm, will always produce much more per acre
than an equal number of acres will do when farmed by a mere
_leasehold_ tenant. In the case of the peasant proprietor, the
increased activity and energy of the farmer, and the deep interest he
feels in the improvement of his land, which are always caused by the
fact of _ownership_, more than compensate the advantage arising from
the fact that the capital required to work the large farms is less in
proportion to the quantity of land cultivated than the capital
required to work the small farm. In the cases of a large farm and of
a small farm, the occupiers of which are both tenants of another
person, and not owners themselves, it may be true that the produce of
the large farm will be greater in proportion to the capital employed
in cultivation than that of the small farm; and that, therefore, the
farming of the larger farm will be the most economical, and will
render the largest rent to the landlord."--Vol. i. 113.
Land is constantly changing hands, and "people of all classes," says
Mr. Kay--
"Are able to become proprietors. Shopkeepers and labourers of the
towns purchase gardens outside the towns, where they and their
families work in the fine evenings, in raising vegetables and fruit
for the use of their households; shopkeepers, who have laid by a
little competence, purchase farms, to which they and their families
retire from the toil and disquiet of a town life; farmers purchase
the farms they used formerly to rent of great land-owners; while most
of the peasants of these countries have purchased and live upon farms
of their own, or are now economizing and laying by all that they can
possibly spare from their earnings, in order therewith as soon as
possible to purchase a farm or a garden."--Vol. i. 58.
We have here the strongest inducements to exertion and economy. Every
man seeks to have a little farm, or a garden, of his own, and all
have, says Mr. Kay--
"The consciousness that they have their fate in their own hands; that
their station in life depends upon their own exertions; that they can
rise in the world, if they will, only be patient and laborious
enough; that they can gain an independent position by industry and
economy; that they are not cut off by an insurmountable barrier from
the next step in the social scale; that it is possible to purchase a
house and farm of their own; and that the more industrious and
prudent they are, the better will be the position of their families:
[and this consciousness] gives the labourers of those countries,
where the land is not tied up in the hands of a few, an elasticity of
feeling, a hopefulness, an energy, a pleasure in economy and labour,
a distaste for expenditure upon gross sensual enjoyments,--which
would only diminish the gradually increasing store,--and an
independence of character, which the dependent and helpless labourers
of the other country can never experience. In short, the life of a
peasant in those countries where the land is not kept from
subdividing by the laws is one of the highest moral education. His
unfettered position stimulates him to better his condition, to
economize, to be industrious, to husband his powers, to acquire moral
habits, to use foresight, to gain knowledge about agriculture, and to
give his children a good education, so that they may improve the
patrimony and social position he will bequeath to them."--Vol. i.
200.
We have here the stimulus of hope of improvement--a state of things
widely different from that described in a former chapter in relation
to England, where, says the _Times_, "once a peasant, a man must
remain a peasant for ever." Such is the difference between the one
system, that looks to centralizing in the hands of a few proprietors
of machinery power over the lives and fortunes of all the cultivators
of the world, and the other, that looks to giving to all those
cultivators power over themselves. The first is the system of slavery,
and the last that of freedom.
Hope is the mother of industry, and industry in her turn begets
temperance. "In the German and Swiss towns," says Mr. Kay--
"There are no places to be compared to those sources of the
demoralization of our town poor--the gin-palaces. There is very
little drunkenness in either towns or villages, while the absence of
the gin-palaces removes from the young the strong causes of
degradation and corruption which exist at the doors of the English
homes, affording scenes and temptations which cannot but Inflict upon
our labouring classes moral injury which they would not otherwise
suffer." * * * "The total absence of intemperance and drunkenness at
these, and indeed at all other fêtes in Germany, is very singular. I
never saw a drunken man either in Prussia or Saxony, and I was
assured by every one that such a sight was rare. I believe the
temperance of the poor to be owing to the civilizing effects of their
education in the schools and in the army, to the saving and careful
habits which the possibility of purchasing land; and the longing to
purchase it, nourish in their minds, and to their having higher and
more pleasurable amusements than the alehouse and hard drinking."--
Vol. i. 247, 261.
As a natural consequence of this, pauperism is rare, as will be seen
by the following extract from a report of the Prussian Minister of
Statistics, given by Mr. Kay:--
"As our Prussian agriculture raises so much more meat and bread on
the same extent of territory than it used to do, it follows that
agriculture must have been greatly increased both in science and
industry. There are other facts which confirm the truth of this
conclusion. The division of estates has, since 1831, proceeded more
and more throughout the country. There are now many more small
independent proprietors than formerly. Yet, however many complaints
of pauperism are heard among the dependent labourers, WE NEVER HEARD
IT COMPLAINED THAT PAUPERISM IS INCREASING AMONG THE PEASANT
PROPRIETORS. Nor do we hear that the estates of the peasants in the
eastern provinces are becoming too small, _or that the system of
freedom of disposition leads to too great a division of the father's
land among the children_." * * * "_It is an almost universally
acknowledged fact that the gross produce of the land, in grain,
potatoes, and cattle, is increased when the land is cultivated by
those who own small portions of it_; and if this had not been the
case, it would have been impossible to raise as much of the necessary
articles of food as has been wanted for the increasing population.
Even on the larger estates, the improvement in the system of
agriculture is too manifest to admit of any doubt.... Industry, and
capital, and labour are expended upon the soil. It is rendered
productive by means of manuring and careful tillage. The amount of
the produce is increased.... The prices of the estates, on account of
their increased productiveness, have increased. The great commons,
many acres of which used to lie wholly uncultivated, are
disappearing, and are being turned into meadows and fields. The
cultivation of potatoes has increased very considerably. Greater
plots of lands are now devoted to the cultivation of potatoes than
ever used to be.... The old system of the three-field system of
agriculture, according to which one-third of the field used to be
left always fallow, in order to recruit the land, is now scarcely
ever to be met with.... With respect to the cattle, the farmers now
labour to improve the breed. Sheep-breeding is rationally and
scientifically pursued on the great estates.... A remarkable activity
in agricultural pursuits has been raised; and, as all attempts to
improve agriculture are encouraged and assisted by the present
government, agricultural colleges are founded, agricultural
associations of scientific farmers meet in all provinces to suggest
improvements to aid in carrying out experiments, and even the peasant
proprietors form such associations among themselves, and establish
model farms and institutions for themselves."--Vol. i. 266.
The English system, which looks to the consolidation of land and the
aggrandizement of the large capitalist, tends, on the contrary, to
deprive the labourer
"Of every worldly inducement to practise self-denial, prudence, and
economy; it deprives him of every hope of rising in the world; it
makes him totally careless about self-improvement, about the
institutions of his country, and about the security of property; it
undermines all his independence of character; it makes him dependent
on the workhouse, or on the charity he can obtain by begging at the
hall; and it renders him the fawning follower of the all-powerful
land-owner."--Vol. i. 290.
The change that has taken place in the consumption of clothing is thus
shown:--
Per head in 1805. In 1842.
----------------- --------
Ells of cloth............. 3/4 ............ 1-1/5
" linen............. 4 ............ 5
" woollen stuffs.... 3/4 ............ 13
" silks............. 1/4 ............ 3/8
"The Sunday suit of the peasants," says Mr. Kay--
"In Germany, Switzerland, and Holland rivals that of the middle
classes. A stranger taken into the rooms where the village dances are
held, and where the young men and young women are dressed in their
best clothes, would often be unable to tell what class of people were
around him." * * * "It is very curious and interesting, at the
provincial fairs, to see not only what a total absence there is of
any thing like the rags and filth of pauperism, but also what
evidence of comfort and prosperity there is in the clean and
comfortable attire of the women."--Vol. i. 225, 227.
In further evidence of the improvement of the condition of the female
sex, he tells us that
"An Englishman, taken to the markets, fairs, and village festivals of
these countries, would scarcely credit his eyes were he to see the
peasant-girls who meet there to join in the festivities; they are so
much more lady-like in their appearance, in their manners, and in
their dress than those of our country parishes."--Vol. i. 31.
The contrast between the education of the children of the poor in
Germany and England is thus shown:--
"I advise my readers to spend a few hours in any of our back streets
and alleys, those nurseries of vice and feeders of the jails, and to
assure himself that children of the same class as those he will see
in [these] haunts--dirty, rude, boisterous, playing in the mud with
uncombed hair, filthy and torn garments, and skin that looks as if it
had not been washed for months--are always, throughout Germany,
Switzerland, Denmark, Holland, and a great part of France, either in
school or in the school play-ground, clean, well-dressed, polite and
civil in their manners, and healthy, intelligent, and happy in their
appearance. It is this difference in the early life of the poor of
the towns of these countries which explains the astonishing
improvement which has taken place in the state of the back streets
and alleys of many of their towns. The majority of their town poor
are growing up with tastes which render them unfit to endure such
degradation as the filth and misery of our town pauperism."--Vol. i.
198.
As a natural consequence, there is that tendency toward equality which
everywhere else is attendant on _real_ freedom. "The difference," says
Mr. Kay--
"Between the condition of the juvenile population of these countries
and of our own may be imagined, when I inform my readers that many of
the boys and girls of the higher classes of society in these
countries are educated at the same desks with the boys and girls of
the poorest of the people, and that children comparable with the
class which attends our 'ragged schools' are scarcely ever to be
found. How impossible it would be to induce our gentry to let their
children be educated with such children as frequent the 'ragged
schools,' I need not remind my readers."--P. 101.
This tendency to equality is further shown in the following passage:--
"The manners of the peasants in Germany and Switzerland form, as I
have already said, a very singular contrast to the manners of our
peasants. They are polite, but independent. The manner of salutation
encourages this feeling. If a German gentleman addresses a peasant,
he raises his hat before the poor man, as we do before ladies. The
peasant replies by a polite 'Pray be covered, sir,' and then, in good
German, answers the questions put to him."--P. 159.
With growing tendency to equality of fortune, as the people pass from
slavery toward freedom, there is less of ostentatious display, and
less necessity for that slavish devotion to labour remarked in
England. "All classes," says Mr. Kay--
"In Germany, Switzerland, France, and Holland are therefore satisfied
with less income than the corresponding classes in England. They,
therefore, devote less time to labour, and more time to healthy and
improving recreation. The style of living among the mercantile
classes of these countries is much simpler than in England, but their
enjoyment of life is much greater."--Vol. i. 303.
As a consequence of this, the amusements of their leisure hours are of
a more improving character, as is here seen:--
"The amusements of the peasants and operatives in the greater part of
Germany, Switzerland, and Holland, where they are well educated, and
where they are generally proprietors of farms or gardens, are of a
much higher and of a much more healthy character than those of the
most prosperous of similar classes in England. Indeed, it may be
safely affirmed that the amusements of the poor in Germany are of a
higher character than the amusements of the lower part of the middle
classes in England. This may at first seem a rather bold assertion;
but it will not be thought so, when I have shown what their
amusements are.
"The gardens, which belong to the town labourers and small
shopkeepers, afford their proprietors the healthiest possible kind of
recreation after the labours of the day. But, independently of this,
the mere amusements of the poor of these countries prove the
civilization, the comfort, and the prosperity of their social state."
* * * "There are, perhaps, no peasantry in the world who have so much
healthy recreation and amusement as the peasants of Germany, and
especially as those of Prussia and Saxony. In the suburbs of all the
towns of Prussia and Saxony regular garden, concerts and promenades
are given. An admittance fee of from one penny to sixpence admits any
one to these amusements." * * * "I went constantly to these
garden-concerts. I rejoiced to see that it was possible for the richest
and the poorest of the people to find a common meeting ground; that the
poor did not live for labour only; and that the schools had taught
the poor to find pleasure in such improving and civilizing pleasures.
I saw daily proofs at these meetings of the excellent effects of the
social system of Germany. I learned there how high a civilization the
poorer classes of a nation are capable of attaining under a
well-arranged system of those laws which affect the social condition
of a people. I found proofs at these meetings of the truth of that
which I am anxious to teach my countrymen, that the poorer classes of
Germany are much less pauperized, much more civilized, and much
happier than our own peasantry." * * * "The dancing itself, even in
those tents frequented by the poorest peasants, is quite as good, and
is conducted with quite as much decorum, as that of the first
ballrooms of London. The polka, the waltz, and several dances not
known in England, are danced by the German peasants with great
elegance. They dance quicker than we do; and, from the training in
music which they receive from their childhood, and for many years of
their lives, the poorest peasants dance in much better time than
English people generally do."--Vol. i. 235, 237, 240, 244.
How strikingly does the following view of the state of education
contrast with that given in a former chapter in relation to the
education of the poor of England!--
"Four years ago the Prussian government made a general inquiry
throughout the kingdom, to discover how far the school education of
the people had been extended; and it was then ascertained that, out
of all the young men in the kingdom who had attained the age of
twenty-one years, _only two in every hundred were unable to read_.
This fact was communicated to me by the Inspector-General of the
kingdom.
"The poor of these countries read a great deal more than even those
of our own country who are able to read. It is a general custom in
Germany and Switzerland for four or five families of labourers to
club together, and to subscribe among themselves for one or two of
the newspapers which come out once or twice a week. These papers are
passed from family to family, or are interchanged." * * * "I remember
one day, when walking near Berlin in the company of Herr Hintz, a
professor in Dr. Diesterweg's Normal College, and of another teacher,
we saw a poor woman cutting up in the road logs of wood for winter
use. My companions pointed her out to me, and said, 'Perhaps you will
scarcely believe it, but in the neighbourhood of Berlin poor women,
like that one, read translations of Sir Walter Scott's novels, and of
many of the interesting works of your language, besides those of the
principal writers of Germany.' This account was afterward confirmed
by the testimony of several other persons.
"Often and often have I seen the poor cab-drivers of Berlin, while
waiting for a fare, amusing themselves by reading German books, which
they had brought with them in the morning expressly for the purpose
of supplying amusement and occupation for their leisure hours.
"In many parts of these countries, the peasants and the workmen of
the towns attend regular weekly lectures or weekly classes, where
they practise singing or chanting, or learn mechanical drawing,
history, or science.
"As will be seen afterward, women as well, as men, girls as well as
boys, enjoy in these countries the same advantages, and go through
the same, school education. The women of the poorer classes of these
countries, in point of intelligence and knowledge, are almost equal
to the men."--P. 63, 65.
These facts would seem fully to warrant the author in his expression
of the belief that
"The moral, intellectual, and social condition of the peasants and
operatives of those parts of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, and
France where the poor have been educated, where the land has been
released from the feudal laws, and where the peasants have been
enabled to acquire, is very much higher, happier, and more
satisfactory than that of the peasants and operatives of England; and
that while these latter are struggling in the deepest ignorance,
pauperism, and moral degradation, the former are steadily and
progressively attaining a condition, both socially and politically
considered, of a higher, happier, and more hopeful character."--Vol.
i. 7.
The extensive possession of property produces here, as everywhere,
respect for the rights of property. "In the neighbourhood of towns,"
says Mr. Kay--
"The land is scarcely any more enclosed, except in the case of the
small gardens which surround the houses, than in the more rural
districts. Yet this right is seldom abused. The condition of the
lands near a German, or Swiss, or Dutch town is as orderly, as neat,
and as undisturbed by trespassers as in the most secluded and most
strictly preserved of our rural districts. All the poor have friends
or relations who are themselves proprietors. Every man, however poor,
feels that he himself may, some day or other, become a proprietor.
All are, consequently, immediately interested in the preservation of
property, and in watching over the rights and interests of their
neighbours."--P. 249.
How strongly the same cause tends to the maintenance of public order,
may be seen on a perusal of the following passages:--
"Every peasant who possesses one of these estates becomes interested
in the maintenance of public order, in the tranquillity of the
country, in the suppression of crimes, in the fostering of industry
among his own children, and in the promotion of their intelligence. A
class of peasant proprietors forms the strongest of all conservative
classes." * * * "Throughout all the excitement of the revolutions of
1848, the peasant proprietors of France, Germany, Holland, and
Switzerland were almost universally found upon the side of order, and
opposed to revolutionary excesses. It was only in the provinces where
the land was divided among the nobles, and where the peasants were
only serfs, as in the Polish provinces, Bohemia, Austria, and some
parts of South Germany, that they showed themselves rebellious. In
Prussia they sent deputation after deputation to Frederic William, to
assure him of their support; in one province the peasant proprietors
elected his brother as their representative; and in others they
declared, by petition after petition forwarded to the chamber, and by
the results of the elections, how strongly they were opposed to the
anarchical party in Berlin."--Vol. i. 33, 273.
It is where land acquires value that men become free, and the more
rapid the growth of value in land, the more rapid has ever been the
growth of freedom. To enable it to acquire value, the artisan and the
ploughman _must_ take their places by the side of each other; and the
greater the tendency to this, the more rapid will be the progress of
man toward moral, intellectual, and political elevation. It is in this
direction that all the policy of Germany now tends, whereas that of
England tends toward destroying everywhere the value of labour and
land, and everywhere impairing the condition of man. The one system
tends to the establishment everywhere of mills, furnaces, and towns,
places of exchange, in accordance with the view of Dr. Smith, who
tells us that "had human institutions never disturbed the natural
course of things, the progressive wealth and increase of the towns
would, in every political society, be consequential and in proportion
to the improvement and cultivation of the territory and country." The
other tends toward building up London and Liverpool, Manchester and
Birmingham, at the cost of enormous taxation imposed upon all the
farmers and planters of the world; and its effects in remote parts of
the United Kingdom itself, compared with those observed in Germany,
are thus described:
"If any one has travelled in the mountainous parts of Scotland and
Wales, where the farmers are only under-lessees of great landlords,
without security of tenure, and liable to be turned out of possession
with half a year's notice, and where the peasants are only labourers,
without any land of their own, and generally without even the use of
a garden; if he has travelled in the mountainous parts of
Switzerland, Saxony, and the hilly parts of the Prussian Rhine
provinces, where most of the farmers and peasants possess, or can by
economy and industry obtain, land of their own; and if he has paid
any serious attention to the condition of the farms, peasants, and
children of these several countries, he cannot fail to have observed
the astonishing superiority of the condition of the peasants,
children, and farms in the last-mentioned countries.
"The miserable cultivation, the undrained and rush-covered valleys,
the great number of sides of hills, terraces on the rocks, sides of
streams, and other places capable of the richest cultivation, but
wholly disused, even for game preserves; the vast tracts of the
richest lands lying in moors, and bogs, and swamps, and used only for
the breeding-places of game, and deer, and vermin, while the poor
peasants are starving beside them; the miserable huts of cottages,
with their one story, their two low rooms, their wretched and
undrained floors, and their dilapidated roofs; and the crowds of
miserable, half-clad, ragged, dirty, uncombed, and unwashed children,
never blessed with any education, never trained in cleanliness or
morality, and never taught any pure religion, are as astounding on
the one hand as the happy condition of the peasants in the Protestant
cantons of Switzerland, in the Tyrol, in Saxony, and in the
mountainous parts of the Prussian Rhine provinces, is pleasing upon
the other--where every plot of land that can bear any thing is
brought into the most beautiful state of cultivation; where the
valleys are richly and scientifically farmed; where the manures are
collected with the greatest care; where the houses are generally
large, roomy, well-built, and in excellent repair, and are improving
every day; where the children are beautifully clean, comfortably
dressed, and attending excellent schools; and where the condition of
the people is one of hope, industry, and progress."--Vol. i. 140.
The artisan has ever been the ally of the farmer in his contests with
those who sought to tax him, let the form of taxation be what it
might. The tendency of the British system is everywhere toward
separating the two, and _using each to crush the other_. Hence it is
that in all the countries subject to the system there is an abjectness
of spirit not to be found in other parts of the world. The vices
charged by the English journals on the people of Ireland are those of
slavery--falsehood and dissimulation. The Hindoo of Bengal is a mean
and crouching animal, compared with the free people of the upper
country who have remained under their native princes. Throughout
England there is a deference to rank, a servility, a toadyism,
entirely inconsistent with progress in civilization.[177]
The English labourer is, says Mr. Howitt [178]--
"So cut off from the idea of property, that he comes habitually to
look upon it as a thing from which he is warned by the laws of the
great proprietors, and becomes in consequence spiritless,
purposeless."
Compare with this the following description of a German bauer, from
the same authority:--
"The German bauer, on the contrary, looks on the country as made for
him and his fellow-men. He feels himself a man; he has a stake in the
country as good as that of the bulk of his neighbours; no man can
threaten him with ejection or the workhouse so long as he is active
and economical. He walks, therefore, with a bold step; he looks you
in the face with the air of a free man, but of a respectful
one."--_Ibid_.
The reader may now advantageously compare the progress of the last
half century in Ireland and in Germany. Doing so, he will see that in
the former there has been a steady tendency to the expulsion of the
mechanic, the exhaustion of the soil, the consolidation of the land,
and the resolution of the whole nation into a mass of wretched tenants
at will, holding under the middleman agent of the great absentee
landlord, with constant decline in the material, moral, and
intellectual condition of all classes of society, and constantly
increasing inability on the part of the nation to assert its rights.
Seventy years since the Irish people extorted the admission of their
right to legislate for themselves, whereas now the total disappearance
of the nation from among the communities of the world is regarded as a
thing to be prayed for, and a calculation is made that but twenty-four
more years will be required, at the present rate, for its total
extinction. In Germany, on the contrary, the mechanic is everywhere
invited, and towns are everywhere growing. The soil is being
everywhere enriched, and agricultural knowledge is being diffused
throughout the nation; and land so rapidly acquires value that it is
becoming more divided from day to day. The proprietor is everywhere
taking the place of the serf, and the demand for labour becomes steady
and man becomes valuable. The people are everywhere improving in their
material and moral condition; and so rapid is the improvement of
intellectual condition, that German literature now commands the
attention of the whole civilized world. With each step in this
direction, there is an increasing tendency toward union and peace,
whereas as Ireland declines there is an increasing tendency toward
discord, violence, and crime. Having studied these things, the reader
may then call to mind that Ireland has thus declined, although, in the
whole half century, her soil has never been pressed by the foot of an
enemy in arms, whereas Germany has thus improved, although repeatedly
overrun and plundered by hostile armies.