069 
 
 ' A REVIEW OF 
 
 PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIPS 
 IN OTHER LANDS. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED DECEMBER 12'rn, 1887, 
 
 KV REQUEST OE THE POLITICAL COMMITTEE, 
 
 AT THE CONSERVATIVE CLUB, LIVERPOOL. 
 
 B. L. BENAS, J.P 
 
 LIVERPOOL: 
 JAMES LOONEY, PRINTER & STATIONER, CABLE STREET. 
 
 1888.
 
 A REVIEW OF 
 
 PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIPS 
 IN OTHER LANDS. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED DECEMBER 12TH, 1887, 
 
 BY REQUEST OF THE POLITICAL COMMITTEE, 
 
 AT THE CONSERVATIVE CLUB, LIVERPOOL. 
 
 BY 
 
 B. L. BENAS..J.P. 
 
 LIVERPOOL: 
 
 JAMES LOONRY, PRINTER & STATIONER, CANLE STREET.
 
 A REVIEW OF PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIPS IN 
 OTHER LANDS. ADDRESS DELIVERED 
 DECEMBER 12ra, 1887, BY REQUEST OF 
 THE POLITICAL COMMITTEE, AT THE 
 CONSERVATIVE CLUB, LIVERPOOL, BY 
 B. L. BENAS, J.P. 
 
 THE several phases in the development of living beings 
 which Darwin describes as evolution, survival of the 
 fittest and natural selection, seem to have their counter- 
 part in the political organism of human society. Man, a 
 gregarious animal, combines with his species and forms 
 families or clusters of human beings. In its first and 
 incipient stage this is the tribal form of society. Then 
 arise factious struggles between various tribes until those 
 that are weak succumb, and those best fitted to survive 
 assert themselves. We, step by step, arrive at natural 
 selection whereby nations are formed, and those tribes 
 most fitted for companionship, by a sort of selection, 
 group themselves into larger families, and a nation is the 
 result. Thus the decline of the Feudal System in Europe, 
 slowly but surely, tended to the creation of great groups 
 forming great nations. 
 
 Feudalism picked up the shattered fragments of the 
 Old Roman Empire, and rendered a certain service to 
 civilization by bridging over the middle ages, until a new 
 form of society was evolved, which is now perceptibly 
 developing into democracy. A democracy we may hope 
 to endeavour, according to our lights, to bring into 
 harmony with the best traditions of the past. Whether 
 
 2095440
 
 this form of society in its turn is to be disturbed by new 
 Socialistic theories is not for us to speculate, we are 
 dealing with the present, and may allow the remote 
 future to take care of itself. 
 
 Out of England, European society in modern times 
 owes much to the Hanse towns, and the rich Flemish 
 corporations of the middle ages. These Burghers by their 
 keen foresight, their enterprise, their thrift and industry, 
 accumulated wealth and acquired property ; so much so 
 that Sir Thomas Gresham, in the reign of Queen 
 Elizabeth, was glad to borrow money from the merchants 
 of Antwerp, at 8 per cent, interest ; hence these munici- 
 palities were potent allies in the preservation of the rights 
 of property, and were the foremost advocates of law and 
 order, coupled with municipal liberty. 
 
 So long as feudalism was rampant, war and bloodshed 
 normal condition of relations between puny 
 
 Baronies and little village communities. Most of these 
 struggles are lost to history and buried in oblivion, but 
 this continued strife tended considerably to diminish 
 population. With the gradual development of larger 
 States, petty warfare became less frequent, and such 
 incidents as the thirty years' war and the seven 
 years' war, carried on as they were by professional 
 soldiers, were in the aggregate much less destructive to 
 human life than those incessant raids of Border Knights 
 and Princelets, whereby a constant drain of human life 
 was the result, resembling very much the scarcely felt, 
 but continuous rainfall which moistens more than does 
 the violent shower. When we see it recorded in Holy 
 Scripture how Joshua warred with thirty-one independent 
 Kings, and likewise of their wars with one another, and 
 when we take into consideration that the area of Palestine,
 
 which contained the whole of these thirty-one kingdoms, 
 was not greater in extent than the principality of Wales, 
 we can readily imagine what the unrecorded conflicts of 
 early Europe resembled. 
 
 The gradual absorption of puny potentates under the 
 suzerainty of greater sovereigns however tended in one 
 direction, population in Europe steadily increased, whilst 
 the soil which brought forth the supplies remained always 
 a fixed quantity, this generated the commencement of 
 what we term agrarian difficulties. The ground supplying 
 the food remaining stationary, whilst the mouths requiring 
 to be fed being ever on the increase. 
 
 Happily for civilization when human life becomes 
 more secure, and strife and discord are reduced to nar- 
 rower limits, and the arts and sciences begin to be cradled 
 into existence, thus the properties of the magnetic needle 
 became known, and the discovery of a new world by 
 Columbus gave, as it were, a temporary safety valve to an 
 overburdened peasantry in Europe. The art of printing 
 was ushered into existence, and the use of gunpowder in 
 warfare levelled all distinction between the cavalier and 
 the mere thrall, so far as immunity from personal danger 
 was concerned. Until then the mail-clad knight had 
 advantages in the battle field which the rank and file 
 were not possessed of, thus, paradoxical as it may seem, 
 the invention of this destructive explosive, also added its 
 quota to lessening in some degree the destruction of 
 life, inasmuch as hand-to-hand conflicts, did not then, as 
 formerly, so often decide the issue of a campaign. 
 
 So long as the tiller of the soil was intellectually 
 little better informed than the flocks and herds he tended, 
 and knew nothing of the world beyond his native village, 
 he was content to believe when famine or pestilence
 
 ravaged the land that it was his duty to suffer, he prayed 
 to his Saint for protection, but never thought of human 
 means to relieve himself of one or the other. It was only 
 when through the invention of printing that bibles and 
 books were placed within the reach of even the humblest, 
 that crass ignorance gave way to intelligence, both in the 
 landowner and his peasant, and they both began to 
 understand that it was not the cleric alone that had the 
 monopoly of book learning, and by this means everybody 
 in turn was gradually levelled up. When at last the 
 illiterate serf developed into a reading man, even Russia 
 began to find that the peasant had to be reckoned with, 
 and thus civilized society had in various parts of Europe 
 to contend with a land question. 
 
 The latter day schools of political economists have 
 endeavoured to come to our rescue in attempting to solve 
 social economical problems, but political economy cannot 
 be counted a perfect science. If human beings were 
 automatons given laws would yield certain results, but as 
 
 
 
 human nature enters into rivalry with political economy, 
 humanity is largely influenced by sentiment. This is 
 illustrated in some degree by the fondness with which the 
 Esquimaux and Laplanders cling to an icebound region, 
 where nothing but misery stares them in the face, whilst 
 emigration to miles further south, where there is ample 
 room for them, would enable them to live in comparative 
 luxury and comfort, this shows that statesmen are unable 
 to eliminate the element of sentiment from their 
 calculations. 
 
 Fortunately for England we were for a long period 
 the handicraftsmen and manufacturers to the principle 
 communities of the old and the new world, hence the land 
 question was "not of primary importance in our social
 
 economy. We gave our surplus population ample work at 
 the loom, at the anvil, or they delved in our mines, so that 
 the pursuit of agriculture became to us, not the chief 
 calling, but one of many callings. 
 
 Now, however, another evolution seems to be looming 
 in the near future. 
 
 We have educated all Europe in the use of those 
 
 machines and modern inventions, of which at one time 
 
 i 
 
 we were almost the monopolists. Our population is ever 
 on the increase, and not only have we now rival manu- 
 facturers, who, to a great extent, produce their own 
 fabrics, but our agricultural interests have to run counter 
 with the produce of boundless domains in the United 
 States, Canada, and India, where rents are either nominal 
 or the owner is likewise the tiller of the soil, hence, there- 
 fore, the land question is one that is daily coming more 
 and more to the fore. Whilst at one time we were con- 
 soled by the idea that beyond the sister isle we were not 
 likely to have this problem ever vividly brought before 
 us but the low rumblings of the Crofters in the High- 
 lands, the Welsh tithe agitation, and nearer home the 
 "three acres and the celebrated cow," make us alive to the 
 fact that we shall, ere long, have to face questions which 
 we may venture to hope " sine ira4 et studio " will engage 
 the serious attention of those who have at heart the best 
 interests of this great realm. 
 
 Those who wish to face this question with modest 
 aspirations can but make the confession, that it is 
 improbable that a rough and ready remedy, and an 
 immediate solution for difficulties which have, so to say, 
 grown upon us, can be found. Perhaps in the end they 
 may be solved by that great spirit of compromise which 
 has always proved the political salvation of this empire
 
 and it may not be unwise to see whether analogous 
 difficulties have not been confronted elsewhere in other 
 countries. We may study how they have grappled 
 with these questions, and we may decide for ourselves 
 whether the solution attained there, is one for us to 
 avoid or to imitate, or whether it may not be possible 
 to improve upon the proceedings of other countries, 
 perhaps more in attune with our national idiosyncrasies. 
 Throughout France, Belgium, all Germany, and a 
 large portion of Austria, and now tentatively in Poland 
 and Russia, the land which was formerly held either by 
 the Crown or the aristocracy, has, or is being gradually 
 transformed into peasant proprietorships or holdings, in 
 which the owners are for the most part the tillers of the 
 soil. I shall now trouble you with a few statistics showing 
 you to what extent the land in some of the Countries I have 
 enumerated haf * been subdivided. 
 
 FRANCE. Population about 36,000,000. 18,200,000 engaged in 
 Agric. ; 9,324,000 in Manuf. ; 3,8 i3,000 in Commerce. 
 Land divided with 5,550,000 distinct properties, of 
 this total the properties averaging 600 acres numbered 
 50,000 ; and those averaging 60 acres, 500,000 ; 
 whilst there were 5 millions of properties under 6 
 acres. Area, 208,865 English miles. 
 
 PRUSSIA. Area, 137,066 miles. Population, 27,279,000 ; 
 12,000,000 engaged in Agric. ; 5,000,000 landed 
 proprietors. Survey in 1858 showed 1,099,000 
 landowners, possessing less than 5 morgen, or 3i 
 acres. 
 
 BAVARIA. Area, 29,292 miles, rather less than Ireland. The 
 soil is divided among 947,000 proprietors. Emi- 
 gration in ten years, from 1870 to 1880, 54,463. 
 Population 5,284,778. 
 
 BELGIUM. 11,373 square miles. 485 to the square mile. | the 
 area of Ireland. Population 5,519,844. I engaged 
 in agriculture. 1,181,177 freehold proprietors. 21 
 per cent, of the population.
 
 9 
 
 ENGLAND <fc WAIBS. Area, 58,311 square miles, or 37,319,221 
 acres. Census 1881, 25,968,286, or 445 to the 
 square mile. 
 
 Number of owners below an acre ... 703,289 
 Above an acre ... ... ... 269,547 
 
 Total owners ... 972,836 
 
 SCOTLAND. 29,819 square miles. Census 1881, population 
 
 3,735,573. 
 Of a total area of 19,496,132 acres. 
 
 Only 5,335,100 ,, cultivated. 
 Owners below an acre ... 113,005 
 ,, above an acre ... 19,225 
 
 Total owners ... 132,230 
 
 IRELAND. Area, 35,531 square miles, or 20,819,982 acres. 
 
 Population, census 1881, 5,174,836. 160 to square 
 
 mile. 
 
 Proprietors below an acre ... 36,114 
 Above 1 acre ... '... 32,614 
 
 Total owners about 68,728 
 
 The number of separate holdings in Ireland in 1881 was 
 499,109. The number of holdings above 1 and not exceeding 
 5 acres in Ireland, diminished ?0 per cent, between 1841 and 
 1881, and the total number of holdings above 1 acre diminished 
 from 691,202 in 1841, to 472,230 in' 1881, showing a decrease 
 of 31 '5 per cent. 
 
 EMPLOYED IN TEXTILE FACTORIES, 1874. 
 
 England and Wales ... 783,022 
 
 Scotland 154,919 
 
 Ireland 67,744 
 
 Now this is a feature worthy of note, that whilst 
 towards the latter part of the last century, the peasantry, 
 especially in France, were the most turbulent and 
 inflammable portion of the population ever ready to 
 listen to agitators and political demagogues, they are 
 now throughout the countries just enumerated the very 
 back bone of conservative influences, against whom the 
 seductions of quasi reformers are practised in vain.
 
 10 
 
 In fact the peasantry of France in that volatile and 
 evei troubled country, are the one class that can be relied 
 upon to steadily support religion, law, and order. 
 
 In Germany and Austria, until the early part of the 
 century, the peasantry in their attitude towards the 
 governing element were divided into two distinct groups. 
 In North Germany until the war of liberation against 
 Napoleon's Empire, in 1814, the peasantry were little 
 better than mere serfs, such a thing as patriotism was 
 until then unknown to them. It was a sullen animal 
 existence, and to the tiller of the soil in Pommerania, 
 Brandenburg, or Silesia, when the French, under Napoleon, 
 overran and conquered the country, they merely looked 
 upon the event as a change of masters ; having no interests 
 of their own to defend, they for a long time lifted no 
 hand to relieve themselves from the French invader. 
 
 The South German peasantry were always more 
 turbulent, they were constantly chafing and discontented, 
 and many of the scenes now witnessed across the Irish 
 Channel were enacted in Suabia and Franconia, and. at 
 other periods in Saxony and Thuringia. About the middle 
 of the 16th century violent outbreaks took place which 
 culminated in what was termed the Bauernkrieg or 
 Peasants' War. 
 
 The tillers of the soil in Alsace, then a German 
 province, revolted, and in 1513 those of Wurtemberg as 
 well. John Boehme, a popular leader, declared that the 
 Virgin had announced that complete liberty and equality 
 were now to be introduced among mankind, and that the 
 earth was to be declared equally free for the use of all. 
 We see even at that period a sort of Henry George was 
 in existence, with an early edition of " Progress and 
 Poverty." John Boehme collected 40,000 militant followers
 
 11 
 
 around him, but the Roman Catholic Bishop of Wurzburg, 
 Lord of the manor, Sovereign and feudal prince of the 
 district, had neither parliament nor parliamentary 
 opposition, to deal with, hence the Bishop had the 
 courage to appear in arms against Boehme, arrested 
 and immured him in the Citadel of Warzburg. His 
 infuriated followers attacked the citadel and attempted 
 a rescue, His Lordship the Bishop, however, marched his 
 armed retainers against the insurgent peasantry, they 
 were utterly routed, and Boehme with several others were 
 executed by this redoubtable Catholic prelate. However, 
 in 1^25 the peasants rose again, and sent twelve articles 
 of complaint to Wurzburg, in which they maintained the 
 justice of their cause. Their principle points were 
 these : 
 
 1. They wanted to elect their own curates. 
 
 2. That the tithes should be appropriated solely to 
 the maintenance of their curates. 
 
 3. That feudal services should be abolished, that is 
 to say that landlords should not have the right to take a 
 peasant and compel him to work on the squires' estate 
 without pay or reward. 
 
 4. That hunting and fishing should no longer be 
 the exclusive privilege of princes and nobles. 
 
 5. That the peasantry should have it fixed by law 
 that a certain number of days to be agreed upon they 
 should have the privilege to work for themselves, besides 
 several other lesser demands. 
 
 The Bishop gave a qualified assent to these propos- 
 itions, but the peasantry not believing the sincerity of 
 the Bishop's intentions again took up arms, they marched 
 against Wurzburg, drove the Bishop to Heidelburg, and 
 burned and ravaged the property of the nobles in the
 
 12 
 
 whole districts; they were eventually defeated, and in the 
 end utterly routed at Konigshofen and Salzdorf. 9,000 
 peasants were killed or taken prisoners, and many after- 
 wards were put to death. Wurzburg was recaptured by 
 the Bishop, he entered in state with full ecclesiastical 
 pomp, June 8th, 1525. It is calculated that before this 
 disastrous rising was surpressed, not less than 50,000 
 peasants lost their lives. 
 
 As is usual with subversive and anarchical ideas, 
 they, as a rule, extend to beyond even the scope and aim 
 of the original propagandists, for once the passions of an 
 unthinking multitude are roused into action, like the 
 Frankenstein, the monster raised becomes more powerful 
 than his master. So the ideas of John Boehme were 
 carried to more extravagant excesses by Thomas Munzer, 
 for whilst John was satisfied with a revelation from the 
 Virgin, that henceforward all property was to be held in 
 common, Thomas Munzer had a wider revelation which 
 was that henceforward man had no proprietory right or 
 vested interest in their wives, but that connubial felicity 
 should also become common property. One would hardly 
 credit it that these wild and absurd theories had a 
 numerous following, until George, Duke of Saxony, Philip, 
 Landgrave of Hesse, and Henry, Duke of Brunswick, 
 were determined to hold no parley with this pernicious 
 nonsense, they sent a well equipped force and again routed 
 this new combination The insurgents lost 7,000 in killed 
 alone, besides a mass of wounded ; the ring-leader and 24 
 of his chief supporters were captured and executed at 
 Miihlhausen, in 1525. 
 
 I bring these historical incidents forward to show 
 that from time to time civilized communities have had to 
 grapple with social diseases, and forces of discontent com-
 
 bined, and that it was not always the secular arm that 
 wielded coercion the fiercest. Yet agitation and revolt 
 did not in the end bring about freedom and emancipation 
 for the German peasant, nor did it give him what he now 
 holds, the fee simple of the ground which he tills. 
 
 It was the result of long years of patience, until 
 from a combination of circumstances, mutual toleration 
 and mutual forbearance solved the question, and it is this 
 great principle which will perhaps help us to find the 
 solution of more immediate and later difficulties. 
 
 Now I wish you particularly to observe that the 
 violent method of the French system of free-holding 
 their peasantry is a lesson for us to avoid whilst 
 the mode by which a peaceful revolution took place 
 in Germany, without injury to the interests of the 
 landlords, for the ultimate happiness of the German 
 peasantry, and profit to the landlords, is one upon 
 which we may reflect, and see whether we may not 
 learn a lesson from our Teutonic kinsmen. I shall later 
 on proceed to illustrate the method they adopted. 
 
 I wish you meantime to remark an important phase 
 connected with Rhenish Prussia, and those portions of 
 Germany which were included in the dominion known 
 in the early part of this century as the Confederation of 
 the Rhine which owned the Suzerainty of Napoleon I. 
 For a long time after their release from French tutelage 
 they cherished ardent Gallic sympathies, and it must be 
 admitted that France gave them a large measure of 
 equality before the law, even though they were deprived 
 of political liberties, and that France abolished all 
 immunities formerly possessed b} the Rhineland nobility ; 
 just as in Alsace in a former century, Louis the XIV 
 gave the Alsatians privileges which he denied to French-
 
 men proper, which speedily tended to denationalise them, 
 and although German speaking, were profuse in their 
 attachment to France. So in Rhineland, until very 
 recently, they continued to use the code Napoleon with 
 such pertinacity, that Prussia, strong as she was, could 
 not venture to take it from them ; moreover they were 
 inclined to France and repelled from Prussia for a long 
 time by religious instincts. From Cologne to Mayence 
 the vast bulk of the population were intensely Catholic, 
 and in active sympathy with the French clergy and 
 religious orders. They were on the other hand chilled 
 from Berlin and its Lutheran tendencies. The North 
 German whose lot it was in the early part of the 
 century to live in the Rhineland districts, found that 
 the only thing he had in common with the people among 
 whom he dwelt was a kindred language, but socially and 
 religiously he lived as it were in an unsympathetic 
 country. 
 
 How is it that all this changed in about fifty years ? 
 How is it that Rhineland is now the most intensely loyal 
 portion of the German dominions ? How is it to day 
 that the Rhinelander has voluntarily thrown off the Code 
 Napoleon, and cheerfully adopts the common law of the 
 United German Empire ? How is it that the Imperial 
 parliament of Germany is the assembly which they now 
 loyally acknowledge, and whilst the other German 
 States retain their local landtags, at the same time 
 sending deputies to the Imperial parliament in Berlin, 
 the Rhinelanders are content with Imperial legislation, 
 and have no more desire of Home Rule for Rhineland 
 than Scotland has for a local parliament in Edinburgh ? 
 We can only venture to reply that the wise and beneficent 
 working of the Land Laws in the Rhineland removed
 
 the last real causes of grievance, and the Separists found 
 their occupation gone for ever. 
 
 Reverting to the mode of procedure whereby the 
 peasantry obtained their freeholds. 
 
 I shall not dwell long upon the French method, it 
 was utterly bad and indefensible, the landowner was 
 simply robbed by the State of his holding, his lands were 
 for the most part confiscated, and he was sent to beg his 
 bread in foreign lands. The French peasantry bought 
 the lands cheaply enough from the French revolutionary 
 government of the pre-Napoleon period by instalments, 
 the proceeds going to fill the coffers of the treasury, and 
 were used for the most part for current expenses. To 
 the credit of the first Napoleon be it said that he with- 
 drew the sequestration upon many of the unsold estates, 
 and in many instances restored them to the original land- 
 owners. Some compensation was subsequently given by 
 Louis XVIII on his restoration to the French throne 
 to the despoiled landlords, in the shape of money grants. 
 The injuiy inflicted, however, upon the social system of 
 France by the forcible ejection of so many of the ancient 
 and respectable country gentlemen is not healed to this 
 day. Society there has been unhinged, and it will require 
 several generations of political education to restore that 
 sober love of law and order which distinguishes the 
 Frenchman of Canada from the Frenchman of France, 
 the former, having escaped the Revolutionary period, 
 preserve a continuity of many good qualities which 
 have been diluted in the newer generations of the 
 mother country. 
 
 Now I have dwelt upon the political contentment 
 of the French peasant proprietor, nor do I withdraw a 
 single assertion, yet it must be admitted frankly that
 
 16 
 
 whilst rendering them politically satisfied, peasant pro- 
 prietorship has inflicted a serious economical injury to the 
 progress of population in France, they marry late in life, 
 hence, have few or no progeny at all. The temptation for 
 so doing is not to sub-divide the holdings into so infini- 
 tesimal an area, that the land could produce no living to 
 the tiller of the soil. The Germans avoid this evil by 
 emigration, and by not altogether relying upon their farms 
 for their living, but side by side with a patch of ground, 
 the peasant invariably follows some handicraft, or works 
 in a factory, leaving his wife and children to look after a 
 portion of the tillage. The French do not seem to be able to 
 combine the characteristics of both artisan and farm 
 labourer. 
 
 I now propose to enter upon the method adopted by 
 the Conservative Statesmen of Prussia in their attempt 
 to regenerate their country after the utter collapse and 
 disastrous defeats which they endured in 1806, under 
 Napoleon I., following the battle of Jena. 
 
 The limits of a paper prevent my doing justice to 
 the genius, the perseverance, and the consummate states- 
 manship of Prussia's great finance minister Baron v. Stein, 
 to whom, perhaps, as much as to any other is due the 
 secure foundations upon 'which the present German Em- 
 pire is built. A country gentleman with small patrimony, 
 born towards the latter part of last century, he found his 
 country humiliated by foreign conquests, the conservative 
 portion of the people disheartened, the great masses of 
 the agricultural population indifferent, and a very small 
 but noisy fraction of wild anarchists endeavouring to 
 leaven the masses with their revolutionary creed. He 
 had made up his mind that if Germany was to be saved 
 it must be by her conservative leaders, and upon down- 
 right honest and legal lines. It is only fair to admit that
 
 17 
 
 Baron Stein had no parliament, parliamentary opposition, 
 nor a critical press to deal with. Prussia being at that 
 period an absolute monarchy. 
 
 I recommend you to read the Life and Times of 
 Baron Stein, by Professor Seely; in vol. 1, cap. 5, page 
 463, the author remarks 
 
 " For throughout this narrative of Stein's ministry 
 the reader must bear in mind that the changes we des- 
 cribe, though vast and memorable, were accomplished in 
 silence, almost in secrecy, amid a people ignorant of every- 
 thing beyond the actual ordinances that were published, 
 for the most part completely indifferent to what they 
 knew, and accustomed if any enactment drew their at- 
 tention to attribute it to the king rather than to the 
 minister. Stein had few means of taking the people into 
 his confidence. He defended his measures in no parlia- 
 ments, at no public meetings, he published no letters to 
 constituents, no pamphlets. Those who had opportunities 
 of conversing with him, knew what he aimed at ; a few 
 officials knew, the official class generally had an im- 
 pression, but the public at large neither knew until it was 
 announced to the world by Napoleon's edict of proscription, 
 nor for the most part cared. The excitement which 
 Stein's acts caused was confined to a very small circle, 
 and to the people at large his name perhaps almost un- 
 known." Thus far the professor. 
 
 Now Stein's statemanship was not only crowned with 
 complete success, but all his details worked with the reg- 
 ularity of a well oiled machine and encountered no friction 
 during the whole process of the operation of his plans. 
 The French Revolution, and subsequently Napoleon, 
 had emancipated the Catholic peasants of German Rhine- 
 land, and had given them proprietory right to the soil,
 
 IS 
 
 partly by confiscation and in some degree by legislation. 
 Stein set himself the task, however, of emancipating the 
 Protestant peasants of North Germany, and give them like- 
 wise the freehold of their allotments. Stein would, however, 
 accomplish it without revolution, without confiscation of 
 the landlord's interests, making the incoming peasant feel 
 the satisfaction that he had paid the former landowner in 
 full, and enter into the dignity of honest possession. 
 
 Now how did this Prussian statesman set about to 
 effect this : 
 
 1. In the first place Baron Stein obtained authority 
 from King Frederick William III. to appoint a series of 
 Commissioners taken in fair proportions from the various 
 sections of the agricultural interests, and after lengthened 
 deliberation they arranged upon a fixed value of all the 
 lands they surveyed. 
 
 2. The price having been mutually adjusted between 
 landowner and tenant, and this was no small task, though 
 in the end it was accomplished, a series of boards were called 
 into existence upon which reputable men of various classes 
 were nominated by the sovereign. These again resolved 
 themselves into institutions, called " Hypotheken Bank," 
 and these societies served as a conduit pipe between the 
 landlord and the peasantry. 
 
 3. It was enacted that all landowners must be 
 prepared to sell a portion of their lands if the tenantry 
 were willing to become purchasers (a proceeding similar 
 to railway corporations with us that require land for 
 railway purposes). The landlords always having the 
 right reserved for them to retain their ancestral halls, 
 parks, and a portion of estate, free from compulsory sale. 
 
 4. If an estate, let us assume, worth a hundred 
 thousand pounds, was arranged for sale to peasant pro-
 
 19 
 
 prietors, the modus operand! was somewhat thus : there 
 were modifications here and there, but the principle 
 was almost invariably the same. The Hypotheken Bank 
 prepared a hundred -bonds of a thousand pounds each or 
 lesser denominations, similar to our Liverpool Corporation 
 Stock, or our Mersey Dock and Harbour Bonds, bearing 
 coupons or dividend warrants for semi-annual payment 
 of interest. The bonds being drawn up in legal form as 
 an absolute mortgage upon the property in question. 
 The incoming peasants became for the time being the 
 leaseholder, not of the former landlord, but of the 
 Hypotheken Bank, who arranged instalments payable 
 over a series of years calculated to extinguish by means 
 of sinking funds the whole of both capital and interest 
 due to the former proprietors. In due course when the 
 peasant had completed all his periodical instalments, his 
 lease was transformed into a freehold of inheritance. 
 
 5. As the instalments were gradually paid into the 
 bank, the bonds issued to the landowners were drawn by 
 ballot, and cancelled; and synchronising with the period 
 of the peasant's last instalments, the proprietors received 
 the full value of their lands, together with interest upon 
 their capital. 
 
 6. In case the peasant ceased paying his instalment 
 or wished to emigrate, a surrender value was allowed 
 him by a new incoming peasant proprietor who undertook 
 to fill his position. The Hypotheken Bank, however, in 
 every case re-entered possession of the land, as trustees, 
 but under no circumstances was the former landlord 
 allowed to do so, the bank always acting as his trustees. 
 
 7. The Hypotheken Bank (similar to our Liverpool 
 DockBoard)being a trust and not established for any profit 
 or dividend, did, as a rule, act generously with those
 
 20 
 
 peasants who ceased paying their instalments, or desired 
 for purposes of their own, to relinquish their holdings. 
 The bank invariably calculated a surrender value, 
 and the new incoming peasant who undertook the place 
 of the outgoing one, had to pay an accumulated rate, based 
 on the original period when the bonds were issued. 
 
 8. In times of famine, real agricultural distress, 
 or during circumstances over which the peasant had no 
 control, arrangements were made for deferred payment, 
 always providing the lack of means to pay his instalments 
 arose from no fault or want of honesty on the part of the 
 peasant. 
 
 9. Now it may be asked what security had the 
 landlords ? Did the state give these bonds a government 
 guarantee, and if this was not the case, how could a 
 landlord accept with security what at first sight might 
 appear to be only so many pieces of waste paper ? The 
 fact was the state gave no guarantee, and the Prussian 
 landowners asked for no guarantee. What better 
 security could the landowners have than a full and 
 absolute mortgage upon the property, rendered more 
 valuable every year by dint of instalments being paid on 
 capital reduction account, whilst the full mortgage 
 remained in force even though ninety per cent, of the 
 capital had been already paid. 
 
 10. When a landowner was in want of money he 
 simply took his bonds to a banker, or stockbroker and 
 obtained either an advance upon his bonds, or sold them 
 out and out on the stock exchange. These institutions 
 gladly afforded the bonds a quotation and in the event of a 
 sale, the landlord's rights were transferred to the new 
 purchaser. Practically a large number of these land 
 bonds did come into the market.
 
 21 
 
 11. Owing to the confidence inspired to capitalists, 
 by the punctual payment of the peasants' instalments, 
 and the successful working of the various Hypotheken 
 banks, the bonds very soon advanced to a premium. They 
 were deemed excellent and safe investments for trustees, 
 executors, and large public institutions. It was not long- 
 before the church began to find that no better investment 
 could be found for their surplus funds, and from that 
 moment, punctual payment of peasants instalments, 
 was a perennial text from the pulpits. So long as 
 human nature is constituted as it is, the advocacy of 
 professors of religion is a potent ally in the support of 
 law and order, especially when this coincides with the 
 material interest of the clergy, who we must be prepared 
 to admit are generally opposed to revolution and anarchy. 
 Land bonds were from time to time bequeathed as 
 legacies to hospitals, schools, convents, and monasteries, 
 always adding an element of strength to the securities. 
 " Vires acquirit eundo." 
 
 Peasants themselves later on in prosperous times 
 accumulated money, and they bethought themselves that 
 an investment in their own land bonds, would be more 
 profitable than either allow money to lie idle, tied up in 
 their stockings, or even than depositing sums with country 
 bankers, who paid little or no interest upon deposits. 
 
 By means such as these, Prussia and eventually the 
 whole of Germany, and later on Austria, accomplished a 
 tranquil but no less potent though legal a revolution, as 
 France effected with so much bloodshed, confusion, yet 
 without that political unrest to which France, even to this 
 moment is a prey. It is admitted on all hands that the 
 creation of a peasantry proprietory has been a conserv- 
 ative success in the German Empire from first to last.
 
 22 
 
 There are of course always circumstances in each 
 country, which prevent us slavishly following a given 
 method. Social changes, to be successful, must be in con- 
 formity with the predispositions of the group of families 
 or nations for whom they are to be adapted. 
 
 Our illustrious and honoured chief, Lord Salisbury 
 in his speech lately delivered at Oxford, observed, and 
 they are words upon which to reflect, worthy to be 
 written in letters of gold : 
 
 " The Act of 1881 established this that so long as 
 landlord and tenant existed together there would be this 
 conflict of their interests, that the object of the landlord 
 would be by every legal means to get rid of his tenants, 
 and the object of the tenants to conspire to prevent the 
 landlord from exercising his legal rights. Your only way 
 out of that difficulty is that the landlord and tenant should 
 be united in the same person ; your only way out of that 
 difficulty is a system of purchase, I do not say compulsory 
 necessarily, but a system, at all events, of purchase by 
 which this unfortunate duality and conflict of interests 
 upon the matter where interests should by nature coincide 
 may disappear. It is only in that way that you can restore 
 the position, the social peace of Irish rural society ; and you 
 may depend upon this that the Irish question is a rural 
 question, is an agrarian question." 
 
 Great Britain, the cradle of European liberties, the 
 mother of parliaments, the one land of all others to which 
 mankind looks hopefully as the political compass, which 
 despite the storm, hurricane, shifting rocks and sands 
 of social convulsion elsewhere, has steadily pointed in the 
 direction of true constitutional liberty, and to that un- 
 erring principle " of the greatest good for the greatest
 
 23 
 
 number," is not yet shorn of her renowned instinctive 
 political wisdom. 
 
 The utterances of our Chief and other prominent 
 leaders prove to us that there are still statesmen and 
 thinkers left who will work out the destinies of this great 
 realm, by peaceful, loyal, and conservative means, and we 
 cherish the hope that our descendants may receive the 
 beloved heritage of a united, unbroken, undiminished 
 and loyal empire. In the words of our immortal bard : 
 
 Oh, England, model of thy inward greatness, 
 Like little body with a mighty heart, 
 What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do, 
 Were all thy children kind and natural.
 
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