It seems to be the destiny of France to work out all sorts of problems
in state and social policy. It may be said to volunteer experiments in
government for the benefit of mankind. All kinds of forms it tries,
one after the other: each, in turn, is supposed to be the right thing;
and when found to be wrong, an effort, fair or unfair, is made to try
something else. It would surely be the height of ingratitude not to
thank our versatile neighbour for this apparently endless series of
experiments.
Unfortunately, the novel projects extemporised by the French are not
on all occasions easily laid aside. What they have laid hold on, they
cannot get rid of. We have a striking instance of this in the practice
of subdividing lands. Forms of state administration may be altered,
and after all not much harm done; it is only changing one variety of
power at the Tuileries for another. A very different thing is a
revolution in the method of holding landed property. Few things are
more dangerous than to meddle with laws of inheritance: if care be not
taken, the whole fabric of society may be overthrown. The unpleasant
predicament which the French have got into on this account is most
alarming--far more terrible than the wildest of their revolutions. How
they are to get out of it, no man can tell.
Latterly, the world has heard much of Socialism. This is the term
applied to certain new and untried schemes of social organisation, by
which, among other things, it is proposed to supersede the ordinary
rights of property and laws of inheritance--the latter, as is
observed, having, after due experience, failed to realise that
happiness of condition which was anticipated sixty years ago at their
institution. As it is always instructive to look back on the first
departure from rectitude, let us say a few words as to how the French
fell into their present unhappy position.
At the Revolution of 1789-93, it will be recollected that the laws of
primogeniture were overthrown, and it was ordained that in future
every man's property should be divided equally among his children at
his death: there can be no doubt that considerations of justice and
humanity were at the foundation of this new law of inheritance.
Hitherto, there had been a great disparity in the condition of high
and low: certain properties, descending from eldest son to eldest son,
had become enormously large, and were generally ill managed; while
prodigious numbers of people had no property at all, and were
dependents on feudal superiors. The country was undoubtedly in a bad
condition, and some modification of the law was desirable. Reckless of
consequences, the system as it stood was utterly swept away, and that
of equal partition took its place. About the same period, vast domains
belonging to the crown, the clergy, and the nobility, were
sequestrated and sold in small parcels; so that there sprang up almost
at once a proprietary of quite a new description. Had the law of equal
partition been extended only to cases in which there was no
testamentary provision, it could not have inflicted serious damage,
and would at all events have been consistent with reason and
expediency: but it went the length of depriving a parent of the right
to distribute his property in the manner he judged best, and handed
over every tittle of his earnings in equal shares to his children. One
child might be worthless, and another the reverse; no matter--all were
to be treated alike. No preference could be shewn, no posthumous
reward could be given for general good-conduct or filial respect. In
all this, there was something so revolting to common sense, that one
feels a degree of wonder that so acute a people as the French should
have failed to observe the error into which they were plunging.
For every law, however bad, there is always some justification or plea
of necessity. Besides tending to level the position of individuals,
the plan of equal distribution of property was said to be justifiable
on the ground that there are more than two parties concerned. Society,
it was alleged, comes in as a third, and says to the parent: 'You must
provide for this son, however worthless; you must not throw him
destitute on our hands; for that is to shift the responsibility from
yourself, who brought him into the world, to us, who have nothing to
do with him.' This plea, more plausible than sound, had its effect.
That an occasional wrong might not be inflicted, a great national
error, practically injurious, was committed.
A compulsory law of equal division of lands among the children of a
deceased proprietor, may be long in revealing its horrors in a country
where the redundant population sheds habitually off. In Switzerland,
for example, the evil of a subdivision of lands is marked but in a
moderate degree--though bad enough in the main--because a certain
proportion of each generation emigrates in quest of a livelihood--the
young men going off to be mercenary soldiers in Italy, waiters at
hotels, and so forth; and the young women to be governesses and
domestic servants. France, on the contrary, is the last nation in the
world to try the subdivision principle. Its people, with some trifling
exceptions, go nowhere, as if affecting to despise all the rest of the
world. Contented with moderate fortunes, inclined to make amusement
their occupation, unwilling or unable to learn foreign languages, or
to care for anything abroad, and having so intense a love of France,
that they will not emigrate, they necessarily settle down in a
gradually aggregating mass, and are driven to the very last shifts for
existence. Only two things have saved the nation from anarchy: the
remarkable circumstance of few families consisting of more than two,
or at most three children, any more being deemed a culpable
monstrosity; and the draughting of young men for the army. In other
words, the war-demon is an engine to keep the population in check; for
if it does not at once kill off men, it occupies them in military
affairs at the public expense. The prodigious number of civil posts
under government--said to be upwards of half a million--acts also as a
means for absorbing the overplus rural population.
Circumstances of the nature here pointed out have modified the evil
effects of the law of subdivision; but after making every allowance on
this and every other score that can be suggested, it is undeniable
that the partition of property has gone down and down, till at length,
in some situations, it can go no further. The morsels of land have
become so small, that they are not worth occupying, and will barely
realise the expense of legal transfer. In certain quarters, we are
informed, the individual properties are not larger than a single
furrow, or a patch the size of a cabbage-garden. A good number of
these landed estates--one authority says a million and a quarter--are
about five acres in extent, which is considered quite a respectable
property; but as, at the death of each proprietor, there is a further
partition, the probability would seem to be that, ultimately, the
surface of France will resemble the worst parts of Ireland, with a
population sunk to the lowest grade of humanity. Perhaps, however, the
evils inflicted on society through the agency of subdivision, are
mainly incidental. General injury goes on at a more rapid rate than
the actual partition of property. From the causes above mentioned, the
population in France is long in doubling itself; and the slower the
increase, the slower the subdivision. Already, however, the properties
are so small, that they do not admit of that profitable culture
enjoined by principles of improved husbandry and correct social
policy. In the proper cultivation of the soil, other parties besides
agriculturists are concerned; for whatever limits production, affects
the national wealth. The meagre husbandry of the small properties in
France is thus a serious loss to the country, and tends to general
impoverishment. But there is another and equally calamitous
consequence of excessive subdivision. The small proprietors in France
are for the greater part owners only in name: practically, they are
tenants. Desperate in their circumstances, they have borrowed money on
their wretched holdings; and so poor is the security, and so limited
is the capital at disposal on loan, that the interest paid on mortgage
runs from 8 to 10 per cent.--often is as high as 20 per cent. After
paying taxes, interest on loans, and other necessary expenses, such is
the exhaustion of resources, that thousands of these French peasant
proprietors may be said to live in a continual battle with famine.
According to official returns, there are in France upwards of 348,000
dwellings with no other aperture than the door; and nearly 2,000,000
with only one window. And to this the 'pattern nation' has brought
itself by its headlong haste to upset, not simply improve, a bad
institution. The living in these windowless and single-windowed abodes
is not living, in the proper sense of the word: it is existence
without comfort, without hope. The next step is to burrow in holes
like rabbits.
It will thus be observed, that the subdivision of real estate has
brought France pretty much back to the point where it started--a small
wealthy class, and a very numerous poor class. The computation is,
that in a population of 36,000,000, only 800,000 are in easy
circumstances. A considerable proportion of this moneyed class are
usurers, living in Paris and other large towns. They are the lenders
of cash on bonds, which squeeze out the very vitals of the nation--the
gay flutterers and loungers of the streets, theatres, and cafés,
drawing the means of luxurious indulgence from the myriads who toil
out their lives in the fields.
Obtaining a glimpse of these facts, we can no longer wonder at the
submission of the French peasantry to a thinning of their families by
military conscription; at the eager thirst for office which afflicts
the whole nation; or at the morbid desire to overturn society, and
strike out a better organisation. As matters grow worse, this passion
for wholesale change becomes more fervidly manifested. The
_jacqueries_ of the middle ages are renewed. Various districts of
country, in which poverty has reached its climax, break into universal
insurrection. It is a war levied by those who have nothing against
those who have something. To have coin in the pocket, is to be the
enemy. The cry is: Down with the rich; take all they have got, and
divide the plunder amongst us. Such are the avowed principles of the
Socialists. According to them, all property is theft, and taking by
violence is only recovering stolen goods! When a nation has come to
this deplorable pass, what, it may be asked, can cure it? The malady
is not political; it is social. Perhaps, under a right development of
industry, France has not too great a population; but, subject to the
present misdirection of its energies, the position of the country is
assuming a gravity of aspect which may well engage the most earnest
consideration. The least that could be recommended is an immediate
change in the law which so unscrupulously subdivides and ruins landed
property.
The history of the Revolution of 1789-93, must have made a feeble
impression, if it has failed to print a deep and indelible conviction
on the mind, that the acts of that great and wicked drama would some
day be bitterly expiated. To expect anything else would be to impeach
the principles of everlasting justice. Bearing in remembrance the
horrid excesses of almost an entire nation, nothing that now occurs in
France affords us the least surprise. The anarchical revolts of 1851,
are only a sequence of crimes committed upwards of half a century ago.
Philosophically, the beginning and the end are one thing. Blind with
rage against all that was noble, holy, and simply respectable, the
innocent were dragged in crowds to the scaffold, and their property
confiscated and disposed of. See the consequence after a lapse of
sixty years, 'My sin hath found me out.' The ill-gotten wealth has
been the very instrument to punish and prostrate. A robbery followed
by divisions among the spoilers. Waste succeeded by clamorous
destitution. What a lesson!
It is needless to say, that Socialism, which proposes a universal
re-distribution of property, with some unintelligible organisation of
labour--all on an equality, no rich and no poor, no masters and no
servants, everybody sharing his dinner with his neighbour--is a fancy
as baseless as any crotchet which even the 'pattern nation' has ever
concocted. Yet, it is not the less likely to be carried into
execution, perhaps only the more likely from its practical absurdity.
Of course, the more educated and wealthy portion of the nation view
the doctrines of Socialism, as far as they can comprehend them, with
serious apprehension; but unhappily for France, these classes
uniformly submit to any folly or crime, which comes with the emphasis
of authority, valid or usurped. At present, they may be said to have
made a compromise, bartering civil liberty for bare safety--permission
to live! But how long this will last, and what form the tenure of
property is to assume, are questions not easy to answer. It would not
surprise us to see the nation, in its corporate capacity, assume the
position of universal lender of money on, or proprietor of,
embarrassed estates; in which case the 'ryot system' of India will,
strangely enough, have found domestication in Europe! Is this to be
the next experiment?
A curious and saddening problem is the future of this great country.
'France,' said Robespierre in one of his moments of studied
inspiration, 'has astonished all Europe with her prodigies of reason!'
We are now witnessing the development of several of these astonishing
prodigies; and the spectacle, to say the least of it, is instructive.