But to each of these methods, and I believe to every conceivable method of appropriating the proceeds, valid objections may be made. If they go in reduction, or whole payment, of rates for schools, roads, churches, fountains, police, &c., then the rich are eased in a far greater degree than the poor; who, according to the original principle of the system have an equal right in the common property with the rich; its use having been, at the time of its institution, so regulated—this was possible under the circumstances of those times—as to enable all to participate in it; and, too, to participate in it pretty equally. Riches have supervened, and have, as things now are, made this impossible. But as those who are now poor may some day become rich, their rights are still, contingently, equal to those of the rich. Or, if the proceeds are divided among the usagers in equal amounts, or in proportion to the number of cows owned, or of the family—and these methods of distribution are often resorted to in places where the population has quite outgrown the common pastures—the benefit to each burger will be very small. In the equal per capita distributions idleness will always be rewarded, without industry being ever encouraged. And in the proportionate distributions it will generally happen that those who want help most will get the least, and those who want it least will get the most; which difficulty will be further aggravated by the fact, that in these days many of those who want it most are least deserving of it. Again, all these methods of distribution exclude the new burgers; and such exclusions are in direct contradiction to the ideas, the sentiments, and the requirements of modern societies.

In those cases in which common pastures belong to sections of the burgers of a commune, that is to say, to corporations, for instance, to the burgers of a particular hamlet, or to certain families, either with or without a definite object to be promoted by the use, or the proceeds, of the common property, or in some way or other by those who hold it, it is found that the same disturbing action, as in the case of the communal property, though not quite to the same degree, has been introduced by the influx of riches. Some get rich, and some get poor; which in the case of these corporations also, renders the system unmeaning, and even noxious. And riches lead to an increase of population which renders the share of each corporator of little value.

The fact is that the old system is utterly inapplicable to the new conditions into which society has advanced. It was intended for that state of things, modified by the strong peculiarities of Switzerland, in which land is the only means of supporting life. Life may now be supported by capital, either invested or employed, a means which admits of indefinite extension, or by the labour and skill of those whom capital employs. This has deprived the old system of its character and utility; and even in many places made its action prejudicial to the interests both of individuals and of society. Its object—that of supporting life—can now be better attained by other arrangements, and also by other means.

Still the great principle to be dealt with in these days is identical with that which had to be dealt with originally. It must, however, be applied under the circumstances existing now, as it had to be under the circumstances existing then. It is the principle that the land of the country ought to be so held as to ensure the production of the greatest amount of food, possible under the conditions of the time, for the people of the country. Any arrangement which now excludes from the land the application to it of capital, the great modern agent of production, contradicts this principle. The old system therefore of holding the land in common contradicts it. It has also to be considered now, how what must be done for carrying out the paramount principle, can be done on a footing that is fair to all. A system which excludes a large part of the population from the chance of becoming owners of land contradicts this requirement. That is to say, the old system, which was in its day beneficial to the community, and fair to all, is now the reverse of beneficial to all, and the reverse of fair to all. Those who are now under the necessity of attempting to work it are beset with much the same kind of difficulties in which a general would find himself involved, if he were obliged to attempt to carry out a campaign with the commissariat and the tactics of the Homeric age. Much would be lost, much would be hindered, and the attempt, after all, could not be anything but unreal and mischievous; or their antiquated methods and position may be compared to what would be those of a colony of Esquimaux, who, having been settled in the genial climate, and amid the abundant resources, of a temperate region, were endeavouring to maintain inviolate the practices and the ways of living that had been necessary in their old Arctic home.

The administration of the common forests is, under existing circumstances, hampered with similar difficulties, though not quite to the same extent. Their produce for fuel, for building, and for repairs, was distributed in accordance with the size of the house. Now, however, there are large mansions, and very small tenements; and, if the old rule of distribution be maintained, the owners of the large mansions, who can very well afford to pay for their fuel, will receive half a dozen or more klafters of fuel, and timber in proportion, while the owners of small tenements may be receiving only one klafter of fuel, and timber in proportion to that. In some places, where the population has largely increased, the produce of the common forests is all sold, and the proceeds are applied to the maintenance of the destitute, or to some other public purpose.

As to the garden-ground, the increase of population has in many places reduced the share of each usager to an almost uselessly small plot of ground: the occupation of which must often prove a real detriment, by indisposing him to turn to some trade or employment, by which he might readily obtain the competency, with the hope, or appearance only of which, his few rods of land are now mocking him.

M. Emile de Laveleye, a learned writer, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, on the social and political relations of agriculture, thinks that he has discovered in the old Swiss system a remedy for the social and political maladies under which France has long been suffering. He advocates its adoption. Of course the adoption of anything of the kind is impossible. This is a matter in which the arrangements of the time can be engendered only by the circumstances of the time. As well might he advocate a reversion to bows and arrows as a scheme for enabling Europe to get rid of its costly armaments; or to domestic distaffs and looms as a remedy for the evils of the factory system. In these matters there can be no reversions. Even in Switzerland, where exceptional causes, the character of the country, and centuries of dearth of capital, so long maintained the system we have endeavoured to describe, and which he would fain endeavour to reproduce in France, it is seen by the more intelligent part of the nation that now, even in its remote and secluded valleys, in consequence of the increase of population and accumulation of capital, it is going, and must go. The holding of land in common they acknowledge to be, as things now are, an evil, and to be no longer capable of defence. The old ideas cannot now be carried out, the old objects cannot now be secured, by the old methods. Society has now needs, and has assumed a form, and has within it an agent, which renders some other arrangement more conformable to existing conditions, more workable, and more productive of the elements of moral and intellectual, as well as of material well-being; and, too, more fair for all. Those among the Swiss themselves who are in a position to take a view of the whole subject, now recognize what time has established among them—that land is no longer, as formerly, the only means of maintaining a family; that in the case of many it is not the best means; that more can be made of it that is to say, that it can be made to produce more food, which is the equivalent of its being made to support a greater number of families, by its being allowed to pass into the hands of private owners possessed of capital, than by its being kept as the common property of communes, or of corporations; and by its acquisition being made by the way of the results of any kind of industry, equally open and possible to all. They regret the difficulties which stand in the way of the removal of those antiquated shackles which now limit its uses and produce, and which do this mischief, ridiculously, in the name of equality; as if the perfection of equality were to exclude rigidly the majority of the community from all chance of ever acquiring any share in the property of the land. In this matter, the true equality for these days is to make the ownership of the land—the chief instrument of production, and participation in the produce of the land, as far as possible equal to all by the thousand ways of the thousand forms of industry society now requires. What is now wanted is that all should have the chance of such an education as would properly qualify each for some form of industry, and enable him by perseverance, thrift, and cultivated intelligence to turn it to good account. This would enable all, and each according to his merits, which should be the first aims of society in the era of capital, to participate in the produce of the soil. Make the produce as abundant as possible, and at the same time make that, as far as possible, common to all, in proportion to the exertions, which mean the intellectual and moral merits, of each. Of these times these are the requirements, which so far from being promoted, can only be thwarted by the system of common land, or by that of the minute division of the land. Both of these systems carry us in a thoroughly wrong direction.

So soon as facts oblige us to see these points, the existing system, so far as it is opposed to them, is demonstrated to have become antiquated and false. It begins therefore to be undermined, and to totter to its fall; no matter how unquestioned, varied, and great the services it was capable, under other circumstances, of rendering, and had rendered, to society. It was for the sake of those circumstances that it existed. When they are gone the reasons for its existence have gone with them. As it, itself, formerly superseded some other system, so must some other system now supersede it. This is the law of nature. In such matters gratitude for what once did good service, respect for the past, the charm that memory flings about old arrangements, have nothing to do with the settlement of the questions in debate, except in the way of securing ample time for their complete discussion. The governing consideration must always be, What under existing circumstances will be best for society? That is to say, in this particular case, What, as things now are, will give the community the best supply of food, and in such a manner as will be fairest and best for all, all the wants of society that are affected by the ownership and the produce of the land having been duly attended to? These are the old questions, which, from the beginning, advances in the conditions of society have reopened again and again, and which have been resettled again and again, always in conformity with the existing conditions of the epoch. They are questions that have relative as well as absolute elements, and which therefore, like that of government, and of almost everything belonging to the domain of human affairs, can never be settled once for all by the aid of some abstract theory. The circumstances, however, and events arising out of the circumstances, which are what force them into debate, always, sooner or later, force upon us a corresponding settlement of them.

A word more. Property, which, as we have seen, existed from the beginning, because it is an incident of life, is not theft. On the contrary, the worst theft is that of the highest property. And the highest property a man can have, and that, too, of which, in these days, the political and economical well-being of society requires that he should have as unrestricted use as of his capital and of his labour, is his capacity for moral and intellectual improvement; the point has now been reached at which these ideas are beginning to form themselves in the general mind; and the theft of this capacity is in a sense committed against those who are debarred from the opportunities, now possible, for its culture and development. We are beginning to see that it is a kind of theft to hinder a man from attaining to what, while it would be of advantage to him, is fairly within his reach; and, if this be just what would make him most truly a man, and enable him to discharge his duties to society as well as to himself, the theft is very far from being an insignificant one. It is, in fact, the very theft against which the Christian Church has all along been, or ought to have been, the protest of humanity: this was its raison d’être: though very naturally, but quite wrongly, so soon as it came to be an hierarchical organization, that part of the protest that had reference to what was intellectual was hushed, and, from obvious motives, knowledge and reason were thenceforth denounced. But so far it had falsified its purpose, abdicated its position, and ceased to be a Church, having become in its stead only an hierarchical organization. Society it is that is now unconsciously committing this theft, against which it is the highest duty of the true Church to protest. And it is society only, acting in its organized form, and through its accredited agent, the state, that can effectually make the restitution; and so far as the state attempts to do this, that is to say, to make the moral and intellectual improvement of the community its aim, it becomes the ally of the true Church.

The progress of society may be measured by the degree in which it enables larger and larger proportions of its members to enter upon a serviceable possession of this, their highest property. It will have attained a very high degree of progress when it shall have given to every member of the community opportunities and means for doing this: everyone will then have some chance of being able to turn his mental endowments to some account, to stand alone, and to take care of himself. That each should have this chance is now as necessary for society as it is for the individual. When the old Swiss system was established it was the material life only of small, poor, uncommercial communities that had to be thought about. Its originators therefore made such a portion of their land common as would be sufficient for this purpose. That arrangement only, then and there, could give the means for material existence; and no other kind of existence was or could have been at that time taken into consideration. All beyond this the Church took charge of, and attended to in accordance with its own ideas and in its own fashion. But now man can live a higher life; and for the requirements of his material life the possession, or direct participation in the use of land is not necessary: indeed, a better material life can, in many cases, be lived without its possession or use than with it. But these new conditions require that a man should be enabled to turn to good account his moral and intellectual capacities: they it is that must now be so cultivated as to enable him to obtain a livelihood by their exercise in the new world in which his lot has been cast.

This is what the present Swiss system of education aims at doing for every man in the country. Their old agrarian system gave to each, when that was what was necessary, a share in the common land. Life with them has now risen into a higher stage. It has moral and intellectual possibilities, which are also requirements, formerly not needed, nor dreamt of. The Swiss recognize this, and give to each opportunities for participating in the knowledge and moral training, as they conceive it, now possible. Having already freedom and political equality, they were able to rise to the idea of humanity. Their old agrarian system, too (morally it had acted in the very opposite direction to ours with its necessary supplement of a communistic poor law) had made industry, thrift, honesty, and foresight traditional and instinctive among them. There was therefore nothing to obscure their perception of, or weaken their desire for what ought to be done under the altered circumstances of the times. Formerly, in conformity with the possibilities and requirements of the age, the community had made some material provision for all; as much as it could, and as fairly as it could; and which would be enough, if turned to the best account by the industry of the individual, for a competent living in the fashion of those days. Time has rendered those arrangements antiquated and inapplicable. This landed provision cannot any longer be made for all. There are too many people and not enough land for that. But contemporaneously with this increase of numbers, which is the same thing as relative decrease and failure of the old landed means for living, a great variety of other means have been opened on all sides; and the stage upon which these may be turned to account has been expanded in the case of each from a small mountain-locked valley to, practically, the whole world. For these reasons, just as their old agrarian system made land, so their new educational system is making intellectual training, and some amount of moral training (though already they have much of that) common to all. The powers these confer are now in a sense common pastures, upon which all may keep flocks and herds; common forests, from which all may get fuel and building materials; and common garden-ground, by the cultivation of which all may supply their minor wants.

They have endeavoured to apply the old principle to a new, a better, and a higher world. The identity of principle, and the differences of application, are analogous to those that exist between the caterpillar and the butterfly. In both life, with its imperative requirements of food, air, light, warmth, &c., and its essential principles of assimilation, circulation, &c., is the same. But in the caterpillar this life has to be maintained by, and spent upon a leaf. Everything therefore is adapted to this condition. Its powerful jaws, its vigorous stomach, its restricted powers of locomotion, the tenacious hold of its feet, its sluggish disposition, its dull colours, are all referable to the leaf, that is to say, to its habitat and means of living. So with the butterfly. Its life is to be spent in the air, and among the flowers, and upon the honey distilled from the flowers. Hence its large powers of locomotion, its beautiful colours, its lively temperament, its sensitive antennæ, its fastidious stomach, its flexible proboscis. Everything in it has been readapted to the new conditions. So, too, with the Swiss. While they were in the earlier stage of their national existence, what was needed for each was a little bit of land, a cow or two, a spade, a manure basket, and a wife to carry it. This was their caterpillar stage. They are now passing into the butterfly stage. All their arrangements and provisions therefore have now to be reaccommodated to the new conditions in the required fashion. They must now be endowed with the capacity for collecting and turning to account capital, the distilled essence of all property, without which even the land cannot be made much of now. This life does not require the tough hide, the strong sinews, the gross stomach, the adstriction to a single spot, of the old life; but on the contrary, a vastly enlarged mobility both of body and mind, a readiness for turning anything to account, and for entering on any opening. They must be quick in thought and quick in action. If they cannot find what they want at home, they must be able and disposed to go to seek it elsewhere—here, there, anywhere. They must have scientific and technical knowledge; must be capable of appreciating new facts, and of taking large views; must be patient and painstaking; must have the power of working mentally for distant objects; must have an instinct of submission to law, both to the laws of society, which aim at justice to all, and at order, and to the laws of nature, submission to which enables a man to use effectually his own powers, and to turn to account the powers of nature. These are moral and intellectual qualities. And it is with these that the Swiss school system, like that of their North German neighbours, would fain endow the whole people.