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. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000063216 6