worth, in Hertfordshire. The plan is as follows:-Funds were raised, in shares, by a joint stock company. With part of these funds an estate of several hundred acres was bought. This estate was divided into portions of two, three, and four acres, on each of which a house was erected by the Association. These holdings were let to select labourers, to whom also such sums were advanced as were thought to amount to a sufficient capital for cultivation by spade labour. An annual payment, affording to the Company an interest of five per cent on their outlay, was laid on the several holdings as a fixed quitrent, never in any circumstances to be raised. The tenants were thus proprietors from the first, and their redemption of the quitrent, by saving from the produce of their labour, is desired and calculated upon.

Should the issue of this experiment be unfavourable, which at present there seems no reason to believe, the cause of failure will be in the details of management, not in the principle. These well-conceived arrangements afford a mode in which private capital may co-operate in renovating the social and agricultural economy of Ireland, not only without sacrifice but with considerable profit to its owners. The remarkable success of the Waste Land Improvement Society, which proceeded on a plan far less advantageous to the tenant, is an instance of what an Irish peasantry can be stimulated to do, by a sufficient assurance that what they do will be for their own advantage. It is not indispensable to begin at once with a perpetuity; long leases at moderate rents, like those of the Waste Land Society, would suffice, if a prospect were held out to the farmers of being allowed to purchase their farms with the capital which they might acquire, as the Society's tenants were so rapidly acquiring under the influence of its beneficent system. It would be a boon to allow them to become purchasers of the land even at the value given to it by their own labour: and though, on the part of government, to take such an advantage of their exertions would be most ungenerous and illiberal, it would

be allowable in private capitalists undertaking a work of national benefit as an advantageous investment of capital. When the lands were sold, the funds of the association would be liberated, and it might recommence operations in some other quarter.

Nor is it only by joint-stock associations, and the introduction of English capital, that this system might be acted upon it would be most advantageous to every individual landowner in the distressed counties, who has any funds which he can freely dispose of. Under the new Irish poor law, there are no means for the landlords of escaping ruin, unless, by some potent stimulant to the industrial energies of the people, they can largely increase the produce of agriculture: and since there is no stimulant available, so potent as a permanent interest in the soil, either the present landlords, or those English mortagees to whom the estates of the more impoverished landowners must inevitably pass, would find it to their advantage, if not to grant at once this permanent interest to their tenants, at least to hold out to them the prospect of acquiring it. The government, too, into whose hands no small portion of the land of Ireland may be expected to fall, in consequence of unrepaid advances, either past or yet to come, will have a noble opportunity of rendering the acquisition instrumental to the formation of a peasant proprietary: but, to the state, it would be most discreditable to seek for profit at the expense of the peasantry; and whether the ownerships were granted immediately or only held out in prospect, the rent or price should be no more than sufficient to repay the state for its advances.

§ 8. When the formidable difficulties in which the government of this country is becoming more and more deeply involved by the condition of Ireland, shall be met instead of evaded, by men capable of rising superior both to their own indolence and prejudices and to those of others; we may hope to see, from the present lazy, apathetic,

reckless, improvident, and lawless Ireland, a new Ireland arise, consisting of peasant proprietors with something to lose, and of hired labourers with something to gain; the former attached to peace and law through the possession of property, the latter through the hope of it; while the agriculture of one-half of Ireland would be conducted on the best system of small cultivation, and that on the other half on the best principles of large farming and combination of labour. Would it be too much to hope, that when the number of hired labourers was duly proportioned to the soil on which they were employed, and a peaceful "clearing" had made the country safe for English capital to dwell in, the rate of wages would be sufficient to establish a tolerably high standard of living-and the spirit of saving, fostered by the desire of acquiring land, would prevent that standard from being again depressed through an imprudent increase of population?

In the complication of human affairs, the actual effects of causes, whether salutary or injurious, remain always far short of their tendencies. But history is not without examples of changes, similar in kind to that which I have been sketching, and the results of them are not uninstructive. Three times during the course of French history, the peasantry have been purchasers of land; and these times immediately preceded the three principal eras of French agricultural prosperity.

"Aux temps les plus mauvais," says the historian Michelet*, "aux moments de pauvreté universelle, où le riche même est pauvre et vend par force, alors le pauvre se trouve en état d'acheter; nul acquéreur ne se présentant, le paysan en guenilles arrive avec sa pièce d'or, et il acquiert un bout de terre. Ces moments de désastre où le paysan a pu acquérir la terre à bon marché, ont toujours été suivis d'un élan subit de fécondité qu'on ne s'expliquait pas. Vers 1500, par exemple, quand la France épuisée par Louis XI. semble achever sa ruine en Italie, la noblesse qui part est

* Le Peuple, lre partie, ch. 1.

obligée de vendre; la terre, passant à de nouvelles mains, refleurit tout-à-coup; on travaille, on bâtit. Ce beau moment (dans le style de l'histoire monarchique) s'est appelé le bon Louis XII.

"Il dure peu, malheureusement. La terre est à peine remise en bon état, le fisc fond dessus; les guerres de religion arrivent, qui semblent raser tout jusqu'au sol, misères horribles, famines atroces où les mères mangeaient leurs enfants. Qui croirait que le pays se relève de là? Eh bien, la guerre finit à peine, de ce champ ravagé, de cette chaumière encore noire et brûlée, sort l'épargne du paysan. Il achète; en dix ans, la France a changé de face; en vingt ou trente, tous les biens ont doublé, triplé de valeur. Ce moment encore baptisé d'un nom royal, s'appelle le bon Henri IV et le grand Richelieu."

Of the third era it is needless to speak: it was that of the Revolution.

Whoever would study the reverse of the picture, may compare these historic periods, characterized by the dismemberment of large and the construction of small properties, with the wide-spread national suffering which accompanied, and the permanent deterioration of the condition of the labouring classes which followed, the "clearing" away of small yeomen to make room for large grazing farms, which was the grand economical event of English history during the sixteenth century.

I have concluded a discussion, which has already occupied a space almost disproportioned to the dimensions of tis work; and I here close the examination of those simpler forms of social economy in which the produce of the land either belongs undividedly to one class, or is shared only between two classes. We now proceed to the hypothesis of a threefold division of the produce, among labourers, landlords, and capitalists: and in order to connect the coming discussions as closely as possible with those which have now for some time occupied us, I shall commence with the subject of Wages.

CHAPTER XI.

OF WAGES.

§ 1. UNDER the head of Wages are to be considered, first, the causes which determine or influence the wages of labour generally, and secondly, the differences that exist between the wages of different employments. It is convenient to keep these two classes of considerations separate; and in discussing the law of wages, to proceed in the first instance as if there were no other kind of labour than common unskilled labour, of the average degree of hardness and disagreeableness.

Wages, like other things, may be regulated either by competition or by custom: but the last is not a common case. A custom on the subject, even if established, could not easily maintain itself unaltered in any other than a stationary state of society. An increase or a falling off in the demand for labour, an increase or diminution of the labouring population, could hardly fail to engender a competition which would break down any custom respecting wages, by giving either to one side or the other a strong direct interest in infringing it. We may at all events speak of the wages. of labour as determined, in ordinary circumstances, by competition.

Wages, then, depend upon the demand and supply of labour; or, as it is often expressed, on the proportion between population and capital. By population is here meant the number only of the labouring class, or rather of those who work for hire; and by capital, only circulating capital, and not even the whole of that, but the part which is expended in the direct purchase of labour. To this, however, must be added all funds which, without forming a part

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