PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP.
[See p. 167.]
I have always believed that the stimulus of proprietorship is the most powerful that can be applied to labour, and was rejoiced to find that the greatest of modern writers upon political economy (Stuart Mill), in one of the most striking and interesting portions of his great work, sums up, on the whole, in its favour.[1] He says:—“If there is a first principle in intellectual education, it is this—that the discipline which does good to the mind is that in which the mind is active, not that in which it is passive. The secret for developing the faculties is to give them much to do, and much inducement to do it. Few things surpass, in this respect, the occupations and interests created by the ownership and cultivation of land” (vol. i. p. 331).
A Swiss statistical writer speaks of the “almost superhuman industry, of peasant proprietors.” Arthur Young says, “It is the magic of property which turns sand into gold.” Michelet says it acts like a ruling passion upon the peasantry of France, and that in Flanders, the peasant cultivation is affirmed to produce heavier crops in equal circumstances of soil than the best cultivated districts of England and Scotland.
Having dwelt much on this subject, I was a good deal interested in the following simple narrative, which I believe to be strictly founded on fact.
Joseph Austin, a bricklayer, in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, had often looked with a longing eye upon a small piece of land by the roadside—a portion of what is called “The Lord’s Waste”; a term which reflects little credit on manorial rights or parochial management. He had never passed this spot without observing upon its capabilities for improvement, and being a house-builder by trade, and something of a castle-builder by nature, he constantly dreamt that he was at work in his favourite spot, with bricks and trowel.
At length, after much brooding upon his scheme, he made an application to the manor-court, and obtained a verbal permission to build there. Two of his neighbours—moved, as he said, by envy—threatened that if he began his house, they would pull it down. Upon this he applied a second time to the court, and obtained a legal permission, with the consent of all the copyholders, paying for the entry of his name on the court-rolls, and sixpence a-year quit-rent. And here we must do our country the justice to observe, that if a man of known industry and good character, like Joseph Austin, applies for an indulgence of this kind there is very little probability of its being refused.
- ↑ Chapters vi. and vii., vol. i., Principles of Political Economy.
