The past history of agriculture will here help us in our attempt to understand its future. The aboriginal agricultural implement was, as we all know, a burnt stick—a broken branch, with its point hardened in the fire. That was in the stone era, and so the forest could not be felled. Only here and there a small plot could be cultivated with such an implement. The rest of the land, that is to say almost the whole of it, was a game preserve for wild animals, deer, wild cattle, wild hogs, &c. After nobody knows how many ages of this style of farming, and of utilising the land, came the discovery of metals. An iron hoe was then regarded as a more wonderful machine than a steam-plough is now. It was beyond the means of any individual, except perhaps here and there a great chief. Villages may have clubbed together the few articles they had of exchangeable value, that is to say became a joint-stock company, to secure the possession of one of these marvellous implements. Whatever the land had yielded to the tillage of the burnt stick, and through the game preserves, it now yielded a great deal more. The game preserves still continued: but with respect to animal food also there had been a little advance, for domestic animals now began to appear in the village. One advance always draws on others. But the domestic animals were at first kept only in small numbers, for they wandered over large expanses of land, almost exclusively forest; the game still remaining the more important of the two. This was the second stage. But as time goes on iron, and the domestic animals, become more abundant; and an ox, or so many ox-hides, can be exchanged for a hoe. It is now possible to get so much more food out of the land, that one man can raise enough for the support of two. This immediately leads to slavery, which always makes its appearance in rude societies as soon as they have reached the point at which one man can produce more food than is sufficient for himself. This advances agriculture some steps further. Cattle become abundant; labour is abundant; and a sufficiency of iron is procurable. The forest is, therefore, taken in hand, and fields, that is spaces where the trees have been felled, are formed. And now the plough appears on the scene, and civilised society is fairly under weigh. Cultivation continues to extend, and with cultivation pasturage. The forest gradually disappears, and domestic animals entirely take the place of wild game, except for purposes of amusement and luxury. And so on up to the system with which we are all familiar. Every discovery advanced matters a step, and made the land more productive. As, for instance, the introduction of artificial grasses and roots, for our ancestors in the autumn used to kill and salt the beef and mutton they would require for the winter and spring. Then came a better supply of manures, and the two together rendered the abandonment of fallows possible. The land has all along been a constant quantity. It, from the beginning, has been the same. But its produce has from the first been increasing through never-ceasing advances in the means and methods of cultivating it and of turning it to account.

And now another advance is in sight, that of cultivation by steam. This implies a great deal. In each stage there grew out of the nature of things, as they then were, a certain definite proportion between the means used and the amount of land cultivated as one concern. In the burnt stick era the little cultivated plots might have shown in the forest as the stars do in the field of heaven. In the hoe-period they were multiplied and enlarged as the stars appear to us through a telescope. Then we had peasant proprietors, and small tenants. The number and size of the luminous, that is, of the cultivated, plots were increasing, as means and appliances increased and improved. And now we suppose that a farm ought properly to be of 400 or 500 acres in extent. This means that the instruments of production and our organisation have advanced very greatly. So must it be with steam cultivation: each concern must be on a large scale. I have supposed that not less than 1,000 acres will be necessary for turning to good account the machinery that will be required for tilling the soil, and gathering in the crops, and preparing them for market, for preparing food for the stock, and for making artificial manures, &c. No existing buildings will be of any use. Everything will have to be constructed for the purposes required. Land, therefore, that has to be cultivated in this way must be regarded as quite unprovided with the necessary plant, as much so as a thousand acres of the prairie of Colorado, or of the Pampas of La Plata. And as nobody will invest all this costly fixed plant on other people’s land, the land must be owned by those who are to cultivate it in this way. But the purchasing, the providing with such plant, and the so cultivating a thousand acres will require not less than 75,000l. This, at present at all events, is quite beyond a farmer’s means. It can, therefore, speaking generally, only be done by firms or companies. If it will pay, they will do it. Lord Derby tells us the land ought to yield twice as much as it does now. We may, I suppose, set the present gross produce of good average land fairly farmed at 10l. an acre. If land highly cultivated by steam, and with the liberal application of capital we are supposing, would advance its produce to only half of Lord Derby’s supposed possible increase, the gross yield would be 15l. an acre. And this might give, after allowing one-third for working expenses, deterioration, and insurance, 13⅓l. per cent. on the investment; but we will put the working at half, which will leave a profit of 10 per cent. If this could be done, then the streams of English capital that are perennially flowing off into all countries would be profitably diverted to the cultivation and enrichment of our own land; and no small portion of the other millions we are year by year paying the foreigner for food, might be paid to food-manufacturers of our own, and so saved to the country.

France produces at home its own sugar; and, besides, sends to us 60,000 tons a-year. We do not manufacture sugar at home, because an English tenant would not spend 8,000l., if he had it, in erecting a sugar factory on another man’s land; but such firms of proprietors could, and probably would, on their own.

Capital swept away the peasant proprietor. It has almost swept away the 50-acre tenant. And it will sweep away the 250-acre tenant. But it offers to all better careers than those it closes against them. The system it is bringing upon us will employ more hands, and will require them all to be better men, and will pay them all better, both for their work and for their capital. Under it there will be openings everywhere for everyone to become what he is fit to become. This will be a premium on education; and it will do more to suppress drunkenness in the rural districts than any conceivable licensing, or permissive, or prohibitory Acts.

I do not know what, under such a state of things, will become of our old friend, who was also the friend of our forefathers—the agricultural pauper. On a farm of a thousand acres, carried on in the fashion we have been supposing, there would be no place for him. Upon its area there would not be a man who was not wanted. And all who were wanted would be well paid and well housed. There would be engine-men, and stock tenders, and horsemen, and labourers, more in number perhaps than the hands now employed on the same space, but all would be better off, and would be better men. In order, however, that this may be brought about, capital must be allowed free access to the land, that is to say, the land must be set free.

The argument from the picturesque will not arrest the course of events. Never was the country so picturesque as when there was no cultivation at all, and the noble savage pursued his wild game through the primæval forest over hill and dale. The little hoed plots of a succeeding epoch were a great encroachment on the picturesque. The fields that came in with the plough carried the disfigurement still further. Our hedges and copses, under the existing system, are rapidly disappearing. But the human interest in the scene has always been increasing: and it will culminate when the steam-engine shall have brought in a system under which those who do the very lowest forms of labour then required will be better fed, and housed, and clothed, and paid, because it will be a system that will not admit of bad work, than was possible under previous systems, which did not depend for their success on the intelligence of the labourer, and the accuracy and excellence of his work.

Such a system would carry out to their logical and ultimate consummation the free interaction of capital and agricultural land. All such land, the implements, and whole plant employed in its cultivation, and even the labour, skill, and intelligence of its cultivators, would be represented by dividend-receiving, 10l., 5l., or 1l. share certificates, transferable merely by the double endorsement of the seller and of the buyer. The old certificate, thus endorsed, would be presented to the manager, if necessary by post; and a new certificate would be issued to the new holder. These certificates would circulate almost as freely as money; but as it would be a kind of money that would carry a dividend at the rate of capital employed in safe ventures, say four-and-a-half or five per cent., with a prospect of improvement, wherein it would differ from the low interest of Exchequer bills, the holding of such certificates would be the most attractive kind of savings’ bank to the poor, and to all. The great difficulty in the way of saving in the case of the poor, and of all who are unacquainted with business, is to find suitable, and safe, investments. That difficulty would be removed; and they would be enabled to participate, according to their means, as easily, and on the same footing, as the richest and the best informed, in the wealth and property of the country. Any labourer on any joint-stock farm, or elsewhere, any artisan, any servant girl, any poor governess, who might save a few pounds, might invest them in a share or two; and the increment, whether earned or unearned, in the value of land, and of its produce, would go to them proportionally with the wealthiest. Everyone would, in this way, have opened to him an avenue for participating, to any amount possible to him, in the possession of the land everywhere. A large proportion of the population would thus become interested in the development of its resources, and so in the prosperity of the country, and in the order and stability of society. The land would, in a sense, become mobilised; and the possession of it rendered capable of universal diffusion. Any one of the present owners, who might come to wish that any portion of his land might be held, and used, in this fashion, might receive, if he chose to be so paid, as many shares in each concern formed out of it, as would equal the value of land he might make over to it.

If the possibility of such a system could be demonstrated, the existing owners of land might be the first to wish to see it carried out. The following figures will show why. Suppose a thousand acres of agricultural land is letting at what is about the average rent of such land, that is at about 30s. an acre, the landlord will be receiving for it 1,500l. a-year, subject to some not inconsiderable deductions. But if this same land were sold to a cultivating firm at 50l. an acre, the price being received in shares, and the concern were to pay to original shareholders 10 per cent. the rent of 1,500l., subject to deductions, would have become a dividend of 5,000l. subject to no deductions. But we will suppose only 3,000l., for that will be double the present rent, and so quite sufficient for our argument.

So far as the system might be adopted would ownership of the land of the old kind cease, and in its place be substituted, in convenient amounts, dividend-receiving, easily transferable, and freely circulating capital stock certificates, within everybody’s reach, secured upon definite portions of the agricultural land of the country, representing its present value, and participating in its future advances in value. Such certificates would, also, offer an improving security for trust funds of all kinds, and for endowments.

The combination of what I have observed, during a life in the country, of the requirements of land, and of the condition and wants of the poor, with my experience of the duties of a trustee (which have devolved upon me to, perhaps, an unusually great extent), suggested to me the ideas I have just been endeavouring to present to the reader. If they are practicable they may contribute to the solution of existing difficulties of several kinds. I am aware that they cannot do this, because in that case they would be quite visionary, if they are not in harmony with the natural requirements and conditions of the era of capital. That they would have been impracticable in other times does not prove that they would be impracticable now.

But we have been enticed off the main line of our discussion to a by-path, which was offering a very interesting view into the future. We must now return to the point we had before reached, which was that of the popular misconceptions that are held with respect to our existing system. There are, then, again, others who suppose that its salient peculiarities may be explained by a reference to what is frequently spoken of as ‘The Law of Primogeniture.’ We have, however, in this country no law of primogeniture in any sense that can be intended in such a reference. There is no body of rights attaching by law to the eldest son. The extent of what may be regarded as law in this matter is the right of the eldest son of a peer to succeed to his father’s peerage; and of the eldest sons of those who have hereditary titles to succeed to their father’s titles. The power of entailing landed property only acts in favour of the system of primogeniture, because the holders of landed property themselves choose to work it in this direction; for it might be used equally in favour of equal partition. There is then no law of primogeniture in the sense supposed. A man who buys land, or in any way comes to have the absolute disposal of it, as the word absolute implies, may dispose of it as he pleases. He may, if such should be his wish, leave it all to his youngest child, or in equal partition amongst all his children. Only, should he die intestate, the law will deal with his land (but we have just been told that this is to be altered) in the way in which, looking at the conduct in this matter of English landlords generally, it may be supposed the man himself would have dealt with it had he made a will. Possibly he may not have made a will because he knew that the law would so dispose of it. The law in the few exceptional cases of this kind that arise from time to time, recognises, and acts on, the state of opinion and sentiment which has grown out of the power, it had itself given, of charging and encumbering land—a power which probably had no very glaring economical evils and inconveniences in an age when the population of the country was only a third of what it is at present, and when capital was only in an embryonic condition, and when, too, perhaps the political system this power upheld appeared to be necessary.

It is not, then, any law of primogeniture which has brought about our present land-system, but certain powers, conferred by law, which have suggested to people the desirability of acting on, and enabled them to act on, the voluntarily adopted principle of primogeniture; that is to say the power of charging and encumbering their estates. And, now that the era of capital is upon us, it is not improbable that the policy of continuing this power will be debated, for at such a time it has some very obvious evils and inconveniences. I do not mean that it will be reconsidered by the legislature before many years have elapsed, or in the first instance; for in a matter of this kind the legislature can do nothing but give form and sanction to what the circumstances of the times have already settled. If it shall be generally felt that the ill consequences of the exercise of this power overbalance its advantages, we may suppose that it will be withdrawn. This is not a question that will be much affected by any amount of speaking or writing, if that be all. If the facts of the matter are of themselves not felt as evils and inconveniences, no amount of speaking or of writing will bring people so to regard them. But should they come to be so felt, the people of this country will be desirous of dealing with them as all men, always and everywhere, have dealt with such matters, when they were seen to admit of removal. But however that may be, it is not a law of primogeniture, but certain law-conferred powers, enabling people to act on the principle of primogeniture, which are the cause of the existing state of things in this matter.

In the discussion of this subject, which ramifies in many directions, for it has moral and social, as well as economical, political, and constitutional bearings, many questions will be propounded, and will have to be considered: such, for instance, as whether, in these several respects, a comparatively small number of large landowners is better, in this era of capital, and of large cities, than a large number of landowners, holding estates varying in dimensions, according to the amounts of capital people would, from a variety of motives, be desirous of investing in land, were all the land of the country free and marketable; or, in other words, whether, in such times, the artificial condition of things we have been considering is safer than, and preferable to, the natural condition? The share-certificates, I just now spoke about, would make it free and marketable to the greatest imaginable degree.

It will also be asked whether it is fair to the land-owner, and, all things considered, advantageous to the community, that he should be obliged to provide for his widow and younger children either by saving the means for making such provision from his income, or by leaving to them, absolutely, what portions of his landed property he may think fit? Those same share-certificates would supply an easy, inexpensive, and safe method of providing for widows and younger children.

Another question will be whether in this era of capital, which means that there will always be some large capitalists as well as many small ones, the liberation of the land would really lead to the extinction of large estates? Largeness is a word of comparative signification. Of course there would be few such large estates as there are now, because that is the result of growth through many generations under the very peculiar circumstances we have been referring to: but if the interchange of land and capital were perfectly free there would be everywhere many considerable estates, though the general order of things might be estates of moderate size, descending to holdings of small extent, which might be the most numerous of all; or such holdings might not be very numerous: for in matters of this kind there is always much that is unforeseen. One point, however, may, I think, be held to be certain: we shall never, in this country, see anything approximating to peasant proprietorship. That is simply inconceivable in the era of capital. Both the land and the man can be turned, now, to better account. Its advocates are either ignorant demagogues, or members of that harmless class who, having their eyes in the back of their heads, can only see, and wish for, what has passed away. If we ever come to have share-estates, such as I have endeavoured to describe, they will, probably, average, as I said, about 1,000 acres each.

It will, perhaps, also, be suggested that there may be some mixed method of proceeding, which, while respecting existing arrangements, would, at the same time, largely increase the number of proprietors; as, for instance, to deal with the rents of endowments compulsorily, and with those of the owners of land at their option, just as the tithe was dealt with; that is to say, to convert the rent into a permanent charge upon the land; and then to sell the land, subject to this rent-charge, the yearly value of which would be ascertained, as is done in the case of the tithe commutation rent-charge, by reference to certain averages of the price of the different kinds of grain cultivated in this country. The immediate gain to corporations, and trustees, and to proprietors who might be disposed to sell, would be considerable, for they would continue to get their present rents, without deductions, and would, besides, be able to sell the proprietary right in the land, and its capacity for future increase in value, for whatever they would fetch in the market. This would suit the share-system, for the land might then be bought with or without the rent, as it might happen in each case.

Our opinions on any question are very much influenced by our observation of the direction things are taking. Now, with respect to our existing land-system, all changes in matters connected with, or bearing upon, it, and which appear to be either imminent, or possible, are likely to take only the direction of what will be unfavourable to its maintenance. For instance, if it be decided that endowments, now consisting of land, should be capitalised, in order that more land may be brought into the market, the line of argument, that triumphed against them, will be equally available against our existing land-system. And, furthermore, if the lands belonging to charities, institutions, and corporations be sold, it is evident that, as things now are, they will, for the most part, be bought up by the owners of large contiguous estates; so that, in fact, the remedy attempted will only make the evil it was intended to remedy, more glaring: the great estates will have become greater. The fate of the corporate estates, thus compulsorily sold, will be that of the thousands of small properties the large estates have of late years swallowed up. Everybody knows that many houses of the gentry of former times are now farm-houses on every large estate. It cannot be otherwise, for this is how a large estate is formed. All the smaller estates in the neighbourhood, just like the meteoric bodies which come at last to be overpowered by the attraction of our planet, must, as things are now, gravitate towards it: their end is, sooner or later, generally the former, to fall into it. So, if the estates of the endowments are sold, will it be with them. It has been so with those that have been already sold.

Again, if the Church be disestablished and disendowed, a certain proportion of the rent of each parish in the country, pretty generally more or less increased by private income, will cease to be spent within the parish. What is so spent at present, as far as it goes, and to a great extent in many cases, lessens the hard and repellent features of the absenteeism of the owners of the land in those parishes. Disendowment, therefore, will make the evils and inconveniences of the present system, whatever they may be, more felt, and more conspicuous; and a better mark, as they will then stand clear of all shelter, for adverse comment.

So, too, if the agricultural land of this country should continue, and there is no reason for supposing the contrary, to fall, year by year, into fewer hands, the strength of those who will have to defend the system will be diminishing at the very time that wealth, intelligence, numbers, union, and every element of power, are increasing on the side of those who cannot see that they have any interest in maintaining it.

If the recent Education Act have the intended effect of educating the millions who have no landed property, the most coveted of all human possessions, will they find anything in the existing system that will commend it to their favour? Will they not rather be in favour of a system, which would make every acre of land in the country marketable?

If people should come to think that the reason why France, notwithstanding the abject condition of a large proportion of its peasant-proprietors, and without our stupendous prosperity in manufactures and commerce, has become so rich, is that it keeps its savings at home, because the land of the country is marketable, while we, every year, scatter tens of millions of pounds of our savings all over the earth to be utterly lost, because they cannot be invested at home in the land of the country, the natural reservoir, or savings’ bank, of the surplus capital of a country, as well as the best field for its employment, will they not go on to wish that the land here, too, could be made marketable?

If population and capital go on increasing, may we not anticipate that this will engender a desire—for in these days of railways and telegraphs it is much the same where a man lives—that the agricultural land of the country should be brought into the state of divisibility and marketableness, into which some of the land in the neighbourhood of our great cities has been brought through the pressure of circumstances? This pressure may extend, and be felt with respect to the land of the whole country.

In an era, too, when popular principles so thoroughly pervade society as to influence all our legislation, is it probable that a system which is the reverse of popular will commend itself to general acceptance? It is also on the cards now that manual labour may become so costly as to necessitate, if a great deal of land is not to go out of cultivation, the substitution of machinery to such an extent as will be done, generally, only by those who own the land.

The whole stream of tendency, then, both in what is now occurring, and in what is likely to occur in no remote future, seems setting strongly in a direction which cannot be regarded as favourable to the maintenance of our present land-system. And the observation of this will, sooner or later, consciously or unconsciously, very much modify opinion on the subject; for in human affairs, just as with respect to the operations of Nature, we are disposed to acquiesce in what we have come to understand is inevitable.

But we have for some time lost sight of the Valley of the Visp, though not of its imaginary sole Proprietor. He has all along been before us. What we have been considering was how, in this era of capital, he came to be its sole proprietor, what are the action and effects of those artificial conditions which placed him in this position, and what are the chances of the maintenance of these artificial conditions.

Things move fast in these days: but few people expect that any change will take place in his time. He will continue in the position of social eminence, and of political power, he now occupies. He will go on hoping to leave after him a line of descendants occupying the same, or even a greater, position. This will be the dominant motive in his mind. If any land is to be bought in his neighbourhood, there will still be a likelihood that he will become the purchaser of it. It has always been so, since the estate became the predominant one in those parts. And that it should be so is now regarded almost as a law of nature; as something quite inevitable; so that no one need enquire whether it is beneficent in its action, or otherwise. If he have not cash in hand to pay for the new purchase, he will mortgage his property to the amount of the price. In this era of capital the value of land goes on increasing, and so the mortgage will in time be paid off by the estate itself. In this way, in these times, every large estate has within itself, even without Austrian marriages,^[1] a progress-generated power of absorption and growth. Without lessening the area of the estate, he will provide for those who are dependent on him by charging it with the payment of whatever he may please to leave them: so that while no very apparent injustice will be done to them, the position of the single representative of the family will not be affected, for he will still appear before the world as the owner of the whole estate. He will also hope that, from time to time, the representatives of the family will, by making purchases in the way in which he has, and by the introduction of great heiresses into the family, increase the extent of the estate.

At times, when he hears how demagogues are raving about the nationalisation of the land, and the tyranny of capital; and when he visits the valley, and sees the condition of many, indeed of all the people on the estate, he may feel that he is in a somewhat invidious position. But he will feel also that no one is to blame: his progenitors could not well have acted otherwise than as they did; nor could he well act otherwise than as he is acting, and will act. And those who are discussing the matter, sometimes with the tone of men who are suffering a wrong, would, we may be sure, not act otherwise, under the circumstances, themselves.

Suppose, however, that for the restricted and artificial action of capital, which has brought this state of things about, its natural action has been substituted: what will be the effect on the hopes, and on the family, of the proprietor of our valley? We may venture to predict that the natural order of things will give him a securer chance of realising his hopes in their best sense. His family will start, in the race of life, in possession of the whole of the land of the valley. For them this will be no bad start. The land of the valley will bear division for several generations without reducing the members of the family to a bad position, even if none of them should do anything at all to improve their position. But this, judging by the ordinary principles of human nature, we may be sure, speaking generally, will not be the case. Two centuries hence, it will be their own fault, if, instead of the family being really only one man, they have not become a clan in the valley: a clan possessed of more social importance, and of more political influence, than could attach to a family represented by a single member. Some will have become invigorated by the inducements to exertion that will have come home to them, and by the wholesome consciousness in each that he is somewhat dependent on himself for maintaining and improving his position. Whatever efforts to advance themselves they may come to make, will not be made under unfavourable circumstances. None of them will have occasion to feel, as perhaps some of their ancestors at times had, that they are in an invidious position; and none will regard them with feelings that, if not ‘somewhat leavened with a sense of injustice,’ do yet arise from a suspicion that things are not quite as they ought to be, through there having been some kind of interference with their natural course. Is not this a nobler, a more patriotic, a more human, and in every way a better prospect than that which is now feeding the somewhat misdirected paternal ambition of the present proprietor? Would it not be a better anticipation of the fortunes of his family, to think of them as a numerous body of proprietors, occupying a good position, through the natural action of the circumstances and conditions of the times, than to look forward to the uncertain character and uncertain position of a single member of his family, who will be maintained, if maintained, by conditions, on the permanency of which no dependence can be placed, because they are at discord with the needs and circumstances of the times?

Land now no longer rules. Capital is king. Capital it is that does everything now; that even, but under abnormal and artificial conditions, aggregates our large estates. Under this dynasty the advantages the land is capable of conferring on man are not withdrawn, but much increased both in degree and in variety; and everything desirable, the land not excepted, becomes, in a manner and degree inconceivable in all foregone times, the reward of personal exertion and worth. This is what distinguishes this dynasty from those that have preceded it. If it be the true king, it will prove its legitimacy, by removing all artificial barriers to the development and exercise of its beneficent powers. If it cannot do this, it is a bastard dynasty, and will be dethroned.

V. But I have not yet exhausted all the possible forms in which land may be held. Their name is legion. Every country, and every condition of society, has had, has now, and will have, its own. I say nothing of the serf-system: that among civilised nations has gone for ever. So has the system of village communities. The co-operative system, however, has believers, and, it appears possible, may have a trial. But I, for one, because I believe in capital, and in the individual, have no belief in this kind of co-operation, as a general system, either in manufactures and commerce, or, and that least of all, in agriculture: and, with respect to the latter, whether the co-operators be renters, or owners. Ownership would make no difference at all beyond the power owners would possess of mortgaging their land; and this, as it is a resource that would very soon be exhausted, need not be considered here. The only practical difference would be, that co-operative renters would require a larger extent of land to live from than co-operative owners, whose land was unmortgaged. If the system of co-operation were general, competition, and the increase of population that would have to be provided for, and which would lead either to subdivision, or to an increase of co-operators upon each farm, would inevitably bring the style of living down to a point at which it would be no better than it is now in the Visp Valley. And this is so low a condition of life, both materially and intellectually, that most people are of opinion that it is not worth while to go in for its maintenance, or even, perhaps, to regret its disappearance.

A population of co-operators sunk to this depth, and they could not but sink to it, would, like the old Irish potatovors, or the French petty proprietors, be in a state of chronic wretchedness and degradation: this, in bad seasons, amounts to a state of starvation. If the individual Irish potatovor could not, and the individual French petty proprietor, in whom the parsimonious disposition of his race is exaggerated, rarely can, save, because bad seasons oblige him to mortgage his little plot of land, from which he can hardly extract a living in good seasons, we may be sure that neither would, nor could, such co-operators. I am disposed to prefer the present condition of our agricultural labourers, the most feeble class amongst us. At all events, they have more than one buffer between themselves and bad seasons. First there is the reservoir of capital possessed by the farmer. This is, to the extent of wages, generally, sufficient. In consequence of its existence bad seasons make little or no difference to hired labourers. But under the co-operative system there would be no farmers, but only co-operators, just able to get along in ordinary seasons. Our labourers have, also, a second buffer, which is often of some use to them, in their wealthy neighbours. But under the co-operative system there would probably be no wealthy neighbours. They possess, too, a third buffer in the State, which comes in, in the last resort, to rescue them from the extreme consequences of every kind of calamity. But under a system of peasant co-operators there could hardly be anything resembling our poor-law; for the rationale of that is, that the people who cultivate the soil of the country, are themselves devoid of all property. These three buffers, then, would all have disappeared; and nothing, as far as we can see, would arise, or could be created, to take their place. Such co-operators would be only co-operative peasant-proprietors: which is an absurdity.

Another sufficient objection to this system is, that this is the era of capital, and that such a system would most effectually prohibit the outflow of capital to the land. Capital could no more be invested in the ownings of a wretched population of co-operators, than it could be in the plots of Irish potatovors, or of French petty proprietors.

The conclusion, then, to which my moralising on the spectacle of the Valley of the Visp brought me was, that it belongs to a state of things, which, even in such secluded retreats, will not be able to linger on much longer: at all events, that it is not desirable that it should. We live under the dominion of capital, that is to say, of property other than land, or rather, perhaps, of an accumulated, and still accumulating, interest or dividend-bearing essence of all property (which is labour stored up in some material), reconvertible at will, for productive purposes, into land, labour, or anything men have of exchangeable value. This mighty essence of all property is within the reach of us all, in proportion to our respective opportunities and abilities, and the efforts to gain possession of it we choose to make. But though within the reach of all, it is the mightiest of all magicians; and it is evident that it must modify both the possession, the distribution, and the use of land, as well as everything else with which we have to do. In this there is nothing to be regretted. On the contrary, we ought all of us to congratulate ourselves on the advent of such an era: for it means that our resources for living, and for living well, in respect of all the requirements of human happiness, have been thereby vastly enlarged, and with a power of indefinite enlargement, irrespective of the area of the country. It means, too, that careers have been thereby opened to all, in ways which would have been inconceivable when land supplied the only resource for living; for that now every moral and intellectual endowment, every form of labour, and every aptitude can be turned to account. Even land can be made productive of greater benefits to us than we were wont to derive from it, for capital is showing that it has economical, and other, capacities for improving man’s estate, undreamt of by its old cultivators.

Popular language, which is the expression of popular ideas, on this subject is adequate. It gives correctly the philosophy of the matter. What is wanted is that it should be clearly and generally understood, and used with accuracy. Money has both an intrinsic value as the representative of so much labour expended in the acquisition of the precious metals, and a conventional use as a metallic certificate, entitling its holder to exchange it against anything else in the world anyone has to part with, that costs in its production an equal amount of labour, there being at the time no abnormal disturbance of the ratio of supply and demand. In the latter respect it matters not whether the certificate is on gold or paper: for the paper represents gold, or equal value. When earned, or otherwise acquired, by a kitchen-maid, a speculator, or a prime-minister, it may be used in any one of three ways. First, it may be spent. Secondly, it may be hoarded. Thirdly, it may be used as capital. By spending is meant using money for the acquisition of what perishes in the use; when it passes into another man’s hands who again has the option of using it in any one of the three ways. It is evident that a man may spend money for clothing, food, and other necessary purposes, in order to live, and to enable him to do his work in life well, whatever it may be: it is then spent well, and in a sense productively. Or he may spend it on vice, or ostentation, or hurtful pleasures: it is then spent ill. By hoarding is meant putting it away unproductively for future use. This was originally the only alternative to spending. The money stored away in the treasuries of the old Pharaohs was an instance of this unproductive suspension of use. This is still the practice, everywhere, among rude and ignorant people: it is the hibernation of money; its active uses are put in abeyance. As capital it may be used in two ways. It may either be invested, or employed. Investing it means placing it in securities that do not require management, as, for instance, consols, mortgages, the rent of land, &c.; the correlative of which is interest. Employing it means placing it in reproductive industries, as, for instance, in agriculture, manufactures, trade, commerce, &c., which require management, and the correlative of which is profit. This when divided among shareholders, who manage the concern jointly, or by a selection from their body, becomes dividend. This is the highest form of economical organisation. It gives to all, in their respective proportions, however small those proportions may be, the power of employing capital; and to all who have the ability and integrity, the chance of rising to its management. It is the full development of the era of capital. It is the stage we have now reached. It enables the kitchen-maid, and everybody, to participate in the highest advantages of capital. I think we shall see it employed in this way in the cultivation and proprietorship of the land. If so, then, I think the poor and ignorant will have brought home to them a very strong motive for saving, because they will have constantly before their eyes a safe and profitable means of employing their savings. They, too, may thus become capitalists of the best kind.

Two pregnant errors, however, there appear to be, which it will be necessary for us to avoid, especially, in order that, as respects the land, we may secure the natural conditions and natural advantages of our era of capital. One is the error of making people’s wills for them directly, in the way done in France. This breaks up the land of a country into properties smaller than they would become under the natural circumstances of the times: thus condemning, through legislation, a large part of the population, deluded by the fallacious disguise of proprietorship, to life-long misery. The other error is that of making people’s wills for them indirectly, in the way done in some other countries. This has the opposite effect of agglomerating the land of the country into estates larger than they would become under the natural circumstances of the times, and of reducing the number of proprietors of agricultural land almost to the vanishing point. The first method both increases the number of wretched, degraded, and almost useless proprietors, and diminishes the size of the properties, to a highly mischievous degree. The latter just in proportion as it increases the size of the estates diminishes the number of proprietors. Both limit the variety of uses to which the land may be put. Both introduce causes of political action at variance with the natural conditions of the times. Every system has some advantages: but whatever may be the advantages of the latter, it is, at all events, an interference with the natural rights of each generation, and with the natural course of things; for it prevents the ownership, and the uses, of the land of the country adjusting themselves to the circumstances and the requirements of the times; and hinders the application, to its culture, of that combination of knowledge, energy, and capital, which is manifestly within reach, and has become requisite for developing its productiveness to the degree acknowledged to be possible now, but which cannot be secured under our present landlord-and-tenant system. If, however, this be a serious evil, it is, for reasons already given, one of that class of evils which engender their own remedy.

Many are of opinion that landlordism was all along at the bottom of the evils of Ireland. Landlordism is probably the cause of the Liberalism of Scotch constituencies. If so, what is there to prevent the same cause having, eventually, somewhat similar effects in England? And, if so, then, what next? If, however, the law, instead of interfering with the natural course of things, by indirectly making people’s wills for them, would take care that the land of the country should pass from generation to generation, and from hand to hand, free from every kind of encumbrance, and so be all, at all times, at the will of the holder, marketable, a question, which is now causing much anxiety, because it may, before long, give much trouble, would probably die away, and be no more heard of; nor, probably, should we hear any more of the antagonisms, with which we are all now so familiar, between the town and the country. One step, at least, would have been taken towards making us one people.

The stimulus new scenes apply to the mind, more particularly when its owner is passing through them on foot, and alone, accounts for the foregoing chapter. But its having been thought out under such circumstances by A is no reason for its being read by B, who is neither on foot, nor, probably, alone; and the only scene before whom is, doubtless, the not unfamiliar one of his own fireside; one which, perhaps, has never invited, and may, too, be quite unfitted for, either the debate, or the rumination, of such discussions. Still, as it was suggested by, and constructed in the mind during, the tramp I am recording, and was so one of its incidents, I set it down here in its place.