writing of a Swiss valley, said that in England the whole valley would have belonged to one family, and that family and its servants and retainers would have been the sole inhabitants; whereas, under the Swiss system of peasant proprietorship, about 4000 persons live in the valley. At the time he wrote this, Mr Barham-Zwincke much preferred the English way, because the single great family would have so high a standard of cultivation and refinement; while the 4000 peasants lead a life of rude hardship. His remarks made a profound impression on me. I happened to know the valley extremely well—indeed, I had found the book at a mountain hotel in that very valley, and this was the first time I realised the effect of great estates in thinning down rural population. Mr Barham-Zwincke came in after years to a different opinion, as I could not help thinking, in consequence of what he saw in the valley.
Mr Shaw-Lefevre, in his work on "Agrarian Tenures," gives an English example. In a district of Westmoreland a large class of small yeomen survived to comparatively modern times. They owned between them 25,000 acres. They were all gradually bought out, under the direction of the will of a man who two generations before made a fortune in trade, and whose only daughter married a nobleman. There were in all 226 different purchases, nearly all from "statesmen," as these holders are called in the dales. Now, instead of 226 owners, there is but one. This is exactly what Mr Barham-Zwincke saw would happen under the same system in the Val d'Anniviers.
The same sort of thing going on all over England for the last two hundred years has resulted in 2250 persons owing half the total area of agricultural land in England and Wales.[1] Every one of these 2250 persons holds more than 2000 acres—the average is 7300 each. As there are about 12,000 rural parishes in England and Wales, these 2250 persons hold between them on an average two and a half parishes each. This does not include land held in cities and towns, or waste and common land, or woods and plantations, or land devoted to public purposes, such as roads, railways, and
- ↑ The total agricultural area of England and Wales is 37,320,000 acres, of which 33,031,000 only are accounted for in the Return of Landowners of 1870.
