SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

rOLITICAL ECONOMY,

Plea for Peasant Proprietors : with the Outlines of a Plan for their Establishment in Ireland. By William Thomas Thornton, Author of " Over-Population and its

Remedy." Murray.

•

LITEILAILT BIOGIUPPIT,

The Autobiography of Goethe. Truth and Poetry: from ply own Life. Translated from the German, by John Oxenford, Esq. Thirteen Books. [Bohn's Standard

Library.] Bohn. rwriow, The Changeling. By the Author of " Canvassing," in the " O'Hara Tales." fa three volumes Baueders and (Vey.

TRAVEL, •

Rambles in the Romantic Regions of the Hartz Mountains, Saxon Switzerland. Ae. By H. C. Andersen. From the original Danish, with the Author's sanction, by Charles Beckwith Bentley.

THORNTON'S PLEA FOR PEASANT PROPRIETORS. WHEN subjects so threadbare as small farms, the allotment system, and the history and condition of Ireland, are so treated as to become attrac- tive, economical cleverness and literary merit may be fairly presumed ; and such are the characteristics of Mr. Thornton's Plea for Peasant Proprietors. By an extensive. inquiry into the historY and social con. dition of the peasants and cultivators of various countries at various times, the author has been able to select such facts as favour his views ; he possesses the skill to present them with a logical as well as literary effect; while by having a distinct purpose in hand he is able to exhibit a conclusion in every statement, and to apply his statistics or instances to a definite end. The statistics are often striking from their opposition to received opinions, or from the light they throw upon important and com- plicated questions ; the examples are sometimes interesting from the in. forming pictures they present of the condition of the peasantry or their modes of cultivation.

A Pka for Peasant Proprietors consists of two divisions, of some- what unequal lengths. The first contains a survey of the condition of a peasantry holding very small farms, and the results of that holding both upon themselves and the quantity of-produce. In this part of his work Mr. Thornton takes a summary review of agricultural history under the Jews, Greeks, and Romans in ancient times, and of the Norwegians and Germans at present : the Belgians, Swiss, French, and the inhabit- ants of the Channel Islands, are subjected to a much closer and in the case of France to a very elaborate scrutiny : the object in all cases is to show, in opposition to modern economists, especially to M'Culloch, that when a small portion of laud is held by a peasantry as absolute proprie- tors, or on long leases, they not only obtain a much larger amount of produce per,Acre than the large farmer with his capital, skill, and im- proved implements, but that a larger surplus reniaine for the non-agri- cultural population after comfortably maintaining the cultivators. Mr. Thornton also infers that, during the natural progress of society, there is more danger of the small properties of the peasants becoming ab- sorbed by the rich, than of that excessively minute subdivision which is li‘Culloch's bugbear ; and he scouts the notion of the evils of idleness and drunkenness, which M'Culloch predicts as a consequence of endow- ing a peasant with a property. - Dismissing the ancient world and the modern Continent, Mr. Thornton proceeds to Ireland. The peasants of that country he admits to be dis- tressed in the extreme; but he denies that their case proves anything against his plea, because the Irish peasant'never has been a proprietor. He argues, that in all times of her history, the misery has been as great as it now is, and from the same cause—the disproportion of employment to the people seeking it : the present difference lies in the greater numbers who suffer, not in the intensity of the suffering. To establish this opi- nion, he runs rapidly over the state of Ireland, even from before Strong- bow's invasion ; and, by using history only to apply its facts to political economy, he gives, as we have already said, a species of freshness to a subject that has been repeated even to nausea.

As a logical result of his various examinations, Mr. Thornton, we think, rather makes out a case than establishes his theory. Norway is too peculiarly situated in every point to furnish comparative data for another country ; Judea was under a direct theocracy, and should not have been alluded to at all ; the circumstances of the ancient world are too little knovin in the particulars to warrant any well-grounded conclusion respecting them. The example of modern Germany and of some parts of Switzerland proves only the industry of peasant proprietors, not that they live better, or are better off than day-labourers in England, while their social state is more barbarous. In the case of France, Mr. Thornton labours to overthrow the deductions of the French writers, from observation, and their national statistics, as well as the opinions which their followers in England have inculcated. His arguments are always ingenious, his corrections or explanations sometimes acute, but he rather succeeds in shaking the views of his opponents than in establish- ing his own. The point in which he most closely approaches to success is in showing that the subdivision in France is not so great as it has been made to appear by a misconception of tax-returns. In Belgium and the Channel Islands, particularly the latter, Mr. Thornton succeeds best ; and as respects Guernsey and Jersey, he may be said to have established a complete case. The following regards produce only.

" In the year 1837, the average yield of wheat in the large farms of England was only twenty-one bushels, and the highest average for any one county was no more than twenty-six bushels. The highest average since claimed for the whole of England is thirty bushels; and, according to a statement renting on the same authority, the produce of the seed is 'seldom less than twelve-fold, but if drilled, fourteen-fold, and if dibbled, sixteen, or even twenty-fold.' In Jersey, where the average size of farms is only sixteen acres, the average produce of wheat per acre was stated by Inglis, in 1834, to be thirty-six bushels; bat it is proved by official

tables to have been forty bushels in the five years ending with 1833. In Guern-

sey, where farms are still smaller, four quarters per acre, according to Inglis, is considered a good, but still a very common crop.' • • * It should be ob-

served that the soil both of Flanders and of the Channel Islands is, for the meet part, of a light sandy character, ill adapted for the growth of wheat. Of barley,

a more suitable crop, the quantity in some parts of Belgium is,uometimes as much as eighty bushels per acre, and the average is forty-five; while.hangland, it is only thirty-three bushels. Of potatoes, the average produce in England is certainly not more than 300 bushels, or 22,200 pounds per acre, and is probably not nearly so much. In Belgium it Ia ten tons, or 2,400 pounds; and in Jersey 35,000 pounds." In using the term "logical results," we ineant that the facts as stated support the conclusion. Mr. Thornton sometimes, however, takes a too partial view even of the facts advanced : for example, he relies im-

plicitly upon Inglis when that traveller's opinion supports the views of the Plea, but throws him over when he is adverse. The accounts of shine, which we noticed last week, tend considerably to shake the conclusion of passing travellers as to the prosperity of some parts of Switzerland ; and Miigge's "Homeless" are left out of view. In phi- losophy (which is larger than logic) Mr. Thornton is somewhat deficient.

He does not sufficiently consider that classes of society are a natural

growth, not a sudden artificial creation. They must depend upon country, climate, institutions, and above all on national character. A state of things may have grown up and may flourish in one country, that cannot practically be introduced into another, and would not succeed if it could. That palms and other Southern vegetation flourish on the borders of the Mediterranean, is a true fact; but it by no means follows that they will grow everywhere in a state of nature. We think, too, there is a hitch in the Irish review. About the middle of the last century, agriculture was extensively substituted for pasturage ; and Mr. Thornton doubts whether labour was then, for a short time, much in excess of the demand: but he does not very conclusively explain how population so rapidly shot ahead—perhaps the forty-shilling freehold

was a more potent stimulus than his economical reason. Mr. Thornton's consideration of the comparative number of peasants in proportion to the actual holdings or available waste land in Ireland is alike able and useful. A table, altered from one in Captain Kennedy's Digest of Evidence on Occupation of Land in Ireland, exhibits a classified view of the number of holdings in Ireland, from less than an acre upwards. Mr. Thornton's exposition from these data exhibits so clear an account of the exact extent of one evil with which we have to deal, that it is worth putting it on record.

" This table shows that of 974,000 agricultural families, only 40,000 are alto- gether without land, and that than 500,000 occupy farms of eight acres or upwards. Eight acres are quite enough to enable a tenant family, paying a fair rent, to obtain a competent maintenance; so that occupiers of this class, in order to be enabled to thrive, require only a secure tenure, or, in other words, the secu- rity of leases, with such conditions as would insure to them a fair remuneration for their expenditure of money and labour. • • • There are at present in Ireland nearly half a million of farms large enough," if held on leases and at fair rents, to maintain the actual tenants in plenty and comfort; and there are about 400,000 smaller holdings, comprehending more than a million of acres, which might be consolidated and redistributed into 130,000 farms of, eight acres each. Moreover, the farms of more than twenty acres each are 202,260 in number, com- prehending about fifteen million., of acres; which would furnish occupation for about 120,000 families, in addition to those of the occupiers. Thus, of the whole number of agricultural families, which in 1841 was 974,000, but which must have been considerably reduced by the famine and pestilence of the last two years, and does not probably now exceed 950,000, about 750,000 might obtain a com- petent livelihood from the laud actually under cultivation, if relieved from the competition of the 200,000 families remaining. These last constitute a redundant population."

Mr. Thornton's plan for Ireland is to locate these two hundred thou- sand families on the waste lands which, as far as paper estimate goes, are sufficient for the purpose. So wedded, however, is he to the project of making the waste lands support the surplus of people, that he tosses aside Public Works and Colonization, even as aids, to pursue his hobby into all those particulars and details which the hobby-rider delights to traverse. Mr. Thornton's economical knowledge saves him from the gros- ser oversights of some speculators. He knows, though he does not say so in terms, that proprietors imply property ; that waste land in itself is of no more value than so much water—that it must be drained on a large scale, prepared on a small scale, sown with seed, which must also grow ; and ihat a "cottage" must be erected before the "peasant proprietor" can enter upon the stage. To accomplish these essentials for the two hundred thousand families, will require, he calculates, twenty four millions ster- ling: but he does not tell us on what terms such a sum could be raised in the present state of the financial world, nor what injury the attempt would cause to those industrious undertakings which are not carried on by peasant proprietors. Then, our projector knows perfectly well that draining and similar large preparations must (in Ireland at least) be con- ducted by the State : but we observe no plan to guard against Irish job- bery, none to secure the proper conduct or final success of the under- taking. We pass over the delay, and jobbery of purchasing the lands, with Many minor details; but there is no check—there can be none—upon the social derangement which must result from the rush of the holders of eight, nine, ten or more acres, paying at present a rack-rent, to get a share in the distribution of the two hundred thousand eight-acre proper- ties, to be held "in perpetuity at twelve shillings an acre" at the utmost : nor would the matter be mended if the landlords could be induced to grant long leases at fair rents for the present eight-acre farms and up- wards, as Mr. Thornton assumes, but without showing how. Any rent that a landlord would demand must be by far too repelling compared with the peasant properties. We do not mean by these remarks that Mr. Thornton's scheme is impossible. Omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, could manage it well enough. An excellent, able, intelli- gent landlord, with surplus means, could carry it out with people of his own selection, on his own waste lands ; and, of course, if all the land- lords of Ireland fell under the requisite category, it could be done through- out Ireland. What we mean is, that the project is unnatural for a government ; could not be successfully worked when capital was a drug, and is out of the question now; even supposing Mr. Thornton had suc- ceeded in showing the probability that the Irish, habituated to a life of listlessness, mendicancy, and fraud, could be suddenly endowed with the virtues necessary for peasant proprietors.