BARFIELD'S LECTURES ON THE ORGANIZATION OF IN

THESE four lectures were delivered at the University of Cambridge with the sanction of the authorities and of the Professor of Political Economy ; the bait held out by Mr. Banfield to the Dons being a promise of the last new Continental fashions. Mr. Banfield would possess his audience with the newest and soundest views of the French, German, and Italian econo- mists, upsetting the fallacies of the Ricardo school touching rent, profits, and wages, besides telling some secrets worth having in the way of dis- covery. It strikes us, however, that these are not of considerable im- portance, and scarcely to be called new. Mr. Banfield says that " De Rossrs assertion that value is essentially stteetine, or conferred by the estimating party, rather than an inherent quality in the object valued, causes a total revolution in the economical science " : but surely, none of the economists ever spoke of value as something inherent and independent of man and markets. On the contrary, their books treat of value in use and value in exchange, and are full of exceptional cases where the usual laws of value are disturbed—as in sieges ; whilst any practical utility that may flow from the position has surely been forestalled by Smith and his followers in their opinion that value depends upon de- mand—on the quantity of labour or labour's worth which a commodity will purchase; being in fact the definition of De Rossi in less pedantic

phraseology. •

Another novelty is derived from Hermann, who considers the "rela- tions that grow up between man and man as a portion of the wealth and capital both of individuals and nations:' So far as this relates to things like Hermann's illustration of the good-will of a shop, the principle has been pointed out by Hume in the more clear and comprehensive phrase of " connexion" : if it be carried, as Mr. Banfield seems inclined to

carry it, to the social and domestic relations, the question rather belongs §) ethics or politics than political economy ; and perhaps connexion itself is of too fleeting and immaterial a character to be included in any esti- mate of national wealth, though it may be properly considered in explain- ing or illustrating subordinate branches of the subject.

Some of Mr. Banfield's own deductions have as little claim to novelty, at least out of Cambridge. Mr. Banfield rather pompously declares that the Crst proposition of the theory of consumption is, "that the satisfaction of every lamer want in the scale creates a desire of a higher character. if the higher desire existed previous to the satisfaction of the primary Want, it becomes more intense when the latter is removed. The removal of a primary want commonly awakens the sense of more than one secon- dkry privation : thus, a full supply of ordinary food not only excites to delicacy in eating, but awakens attention to clothing." Surely most men have met with all this before, and some of it more elegantly ex- pressed—

" For every want that stimulates the breast Becomes a source of pleasure when redrest," &c.

And so it is with several well-known truths which Mr. Banfield announced as discoveries to the gaping sons of Cam. In fact, his mind seems unfitted for the investigation of truth, though well enough quali- fied for its enunciation. He seems unable to penetrate to the kernel of things ; so that when a proposition is presented to him in other words, he takes it to be another thing.

We do not consider him more successful in his attack upon Ricardo far his law of rent, the consequences deduced from it, and the several questions connected with wages and profits. Most readers of the Spectator know that we are not implicit pupils of the Ricardo school, and no great admirers of the abstract mode of expounding political economy; but of the truth of Ricardo's theory, as he puts it, there can be no doubt. Rent, in the common sense, is composed of many elements,—fertility, site, convenience of locomotion, profit in the capital expended on the land, and, if such an element be admitted, the skill of previous cultivators. Ricardo limited the word "rent" to a difference in the inherent fertility of soils ; and thence deduced the proposition, that as population increases and society advances, recourse must be had to soils of decreasing fertility. The consequence will be a less return to industry; profits will fall, and their measure will be the return to the land last taken into cultivation ; the difference between the return on the barren and on the fertile soil being eoonomical rent, going to the landlord without any exertion on his part, and increasing as population advances, whilst the return to be divided among the industrious declines. We think Ricardo and his followers overrated the immediate effects of this, and did not allow sufficiently for counteracting causes ; but there can be no doubt of the operation of the general law spread over a sufficient length of time. It is not meant that if Squire Somebody encloses a common, rents rise and profits fall; the necessity or effect of general enclosures may be obviated by improve- ments in agriculture, and the opening up of new fields of industry: but in the long ran, the law will tell against society. Adam Smith illustrated this less abstractedly, but perhaps more truly, in his exposition of the advancing, stationary, and declining state of countries. We need only look into history to see the workings of the principle. The decline and fall of the Roman empire was accompanied if not caused by the destruc- tion of the middle class of citizens and landowners, the aggregation of enormous wealth in a few hands, and the abject poverty of the mass, whe- ther citizens or slaves. Mr. Banfield tells the University of Cambridge, that there is a difference between the rate of profit and the amount of profits. This the economists know as well as he does. They also know, what he does not, that though the national amount of profits may be the same (or even greater) when the rate diminishes, it is only large capitals that can be successfully embarked in industrious undertakings. As the rate still farther diminishes, still larger capitals are required to get a living by their employment, till the "small masters" in every mode of industry are eventually absorbed. Allowing for the vast difference in society, some- thing like this ttook place in the ancient world. A similar result may perhaps be traced in the former history of the Italian republics, certainly of Holland. The same thing has begun in this country ; though our states- men contemptuously reject the most certain method of relieving or retard- ing it—a systematic plan of colonization. A new field of commerce can only create a new demand; this new demand more surely arises from a new colony; whilst every colonist lessens pro tanto the competition at home -It is unnecessary to pursue Mr. Banfield into further details ; nor should we perhaps have examined him as we have done had he not appeared with the Cambridge imprimatur. We cannot, however, help suspecting, that the Dons have been done, and that the foreign idea of things was in a measure a blind to smuggle into the University a lecturer of the League. At least, the merits of the manufacturers, the demerits of' the Corn-laws, the increase in the value of land from the growth of commerce, the advantages of free trade, and the necessity of subjecting the farmers to the stimulating effects of competition, are all dwelt upon int the last three lectures, and sometimes in an oratorical style that must have sounded strange to Cambridge ears. Such parts of these argu- ments, however, as relate to matters of fact which make in favour of the League views, are skilfully put together. We think Mr. Banfield unqualified to discover new principles, and not very well fitted to judge of science or even to unfold it : but he has the clearness and animation requisite to urge a view and place it in the strongest light. The following facts connected with the agriculture of Holland, Italy, and Belgium, are well selected and well stated. They do not, however, prove the author's scientific views; for they show that Ricardo was right in fact at all events when he maintained that rent rose with the progress of society. Neither is a very high cultivation inconsistent with great distress—a declining state in the bulk of society; as in China. Even the author's immediate view is assumed. It does not necessarily

follow that England would become like Lombardy and the Low Countries if the Corn-laws were abolished : in fact, as far as the vine and the silk-worm are concerned, Nature has erected an impassable barrier. The precis, however, is very clever, apart from any theory that may be founded on it.

RENTS AND CULTIVATION IN BELGIUM.

The climate of Belgium is too moist to demand irrigation for more than its meadows; and as products connected with manufacturing processes pay better than meadowing, excepting in certain districts, there is little irrigation on a large scale demanding association. Every advantage is taken of the relative value created for all objects by the abundance of others. Thus, while wheat is im- rted at a moderate duty (although too high) from the Baltic and the Black Seas, a large tract of land between Ghent and Bruges and Ostend is devoted to growing butter. Cheese of superior quality is made in the highlands of LimburgL which are too distant from the coast to be able to export butter. The hills e Limburg, on which no corn whatever is grown, and where the climate is ruder than on our exposed uplands, yield rents of 100 to 150 francs per bonnier of three acres' or 11. 48. to 21. per acre. In Flanders, where a dense population has laboriously cultivated a large sandy tract, and made it remarkably productive, flax is the produce thatpays best. The arable crops follow in rotations that prepare the land for flax. It is true, the high price obtained for his flax by the Belgian depends most upon the treatment of the plant when grown; and this process is performed by intermediate hands who purchase the crop standing on the ground. The rent paid in Flanders, how- ever, shows that the landowner always participates in the improved intelligence- and industry of the other classes of society. Two hundred francs per homer (2/. 78. per acre) is a common rent for this land; which, considering the enormous land-tax (1/. 108.13er acre) and the cost of cultivation, (estimated at 131.13s. per acre) is very high. Dung and hay are in these parts imported from Holland; and it must be obvious that the profit in flax and every other market-crop, such as rape, linseed, cheese, butter, and meat, must depend upon the cheapness of the two imported articles—hay for cattle, and corn for the inhabitants.

PRODUCTS OF DUTCH AGRICULTURE.

Meadow produce—hay, butter, cheese, bleaching, and the more artistic branches of cultivation, fruit and flowers—are what the Dutch farmers and landlords look to. These modes of using the land yield the more profit the cheaper grain is in price. In consequence of the good selection of crops, and the skill with which. they are cultivated, agricultural rents equivalent to 2/. and 3/. per acre are cur- rent. These rents do not include such land as that near Haarlaem, which is totally unfit for the growth of wheat, but brings its owners perhaps the largest profits in the world as flower-beds. To the rent the high land-tax has here to be added.

IRRIGATION OF LOMBARDY.

The agriculture of the North of Italy deserves even a more intimate study than that of Holland and Belgium. Like the farmer in these two industrious coun- tries, the Italian prefers the culture of high-priced articles to ordinary crops, but he refines on the li,ftt Northern husbandry. Lombardy, situated at the foot of the Alps' and overlooked by the glaciers of that mountain-chain, has perhaps the greatest fall of rain of any country in Eu- rope. It was probably the inconvenience occasioned from the swelling of the streams that made the Milanese early turn their attention to the construction of canals. The "Naviglio Grande" was commenced in 1178, sixteen years after Frederick Barbarossa had destroyed the city, but only twoyears after theMilanese citizens had again defeated that intruder, and forced him to conclude an igno- minious peace. The Naviglio Grande was destined to water the fields only, and ' was constructed for that purpose at a high level. The success of the experiment occasioned its repetition- and before the close of the fifteenth century, the Mats" state of Milan possessed five canals of considerable size, chiefly intended to assist , the agriculture of the country. The Saracens were, as I have said, the teachers of the art of irrigation, in mo- dern times, in Spain Sicily, and Southern Italy. In Lombardy, the monks were the first who practised the art. As early as the year 1138, a document still ex- isting confers on the monastery of Chiaravalle and Vicoboldone the privilege of carrying water for the purpose of irrigation through any lands they pleased. To induce general consent to this expropriation, which, at a very early period, was found necessa7, and with the aid of which all the grand improvements in that beautiful district situated between the Po and the Adds have been effected, a feel- ing of security was indispensable, and the division of labour was thus insured. No landowner can now refuse another permission to carry a water-course through his land to another which is barren from drought. An understanding is therefore easily brought about, by which those propnetors who lie nearest to the canal or Alpine springs, that are now almost preferred, take the water in the first instance and sell it, when it runs off their fields, to the next neighbour, who in his turn disposes of what he has to spare to a third. A systematic arrangement of this kind of course requires a methodical laying down of the land. The fields are consequently laid down in Lombardy in a scientific manner that no other country has to show. A class of agricultural engineers is found in Lombardy almost exclusively. The water, which doubles the production of the land, of course sells for as much as the land itself. Some- times land and the water that irrigates it form investments for two capitalists, the landowner paying the water-owner a rent for the use of the water.

rrikmax "DIVISION OF 'Almon."

The high value of Italian farming produce is owing to the remarkable divisicer of labour. It is rare to find the actual farmer or manager of the ground at the same time the cheese-maker. The " casaro " is justly esteemed an important personage; and, even where he forms part of a large establishment, is quite in- dependent of the other farming servants. A great deal of the cheese is made in Lombardy by wandering " casari " who contract for the milk of a season often' from more than one dairy, and inake the cheese in an out-house on their own. account.

Rice is extensively cultivated in Northern Italy:. Instead of the flax of Belgium. and Holland, the Italian produces another material for the loom, which is even of higher value. The dry lands that are not adapted to irrigation combine the culture of the mulberry-tree with that of the vine. The production of silk is again facilitated by a division of labour that is peculiar to Italy. The owner of the eggs, or, as they are termed, "the seed," appears at a farmer's residence, and. contracts for his mulberry-leaves as the " casaro "does for his milk. He receives a shed, which is emptied for him, and remains six weeks—until his worms have attained their growth and spun. He then disappears with his crop of cocoons to seek the most skilful spinners, on whose work the value of what he has obtained very !much depends. On the whole, it is scarcely possible to imagine a more pleasing instance of association, combined with division of labour in agriculture, than Northern Italy presents. The financial side of the picture is also a remark- able one.

A comparison between the rents gpecified as paid in Northern Italy and the rents of England, or even of Scotland, will show how much more the Italian landlord receives than the English landlords, although the price of wheat is not higher than 38s. 8d. per quarter, and wine is only rated at cd. per gallon.