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.