age of fifty, began their lives under the old system, never received in their youth any education, were never taught by free institutions to feel that their fate was in their own hands, but were demoralised by contact with demoralized peasants, such as those whom Arthur Young describes." They (i. e. those of fifty years of age and those of thirty-five) belong to distinct æras of civilization; and each bear the mark of the system, under which they have grown up." Mr. Kay testifies that this same rule holds good in Germany and Holland also.

A comparative description is given of Bohemia and Saxony. The two countries lie side by side. The people in both kingdoms are of the same race, speak the same language, profess the same religion. But what is their relative social condition ? In Saxony, there is no pauperism, the houses are well built, the people intelligent, the children clean, the land beautifully cultivated. In Bohemia, pauperism is abundant, the houses wretched, the peasants ill-clothed, cultivation inferior, vast tracts of land lying waste. What causes this difference? Mr. Kay answerspeasant proprietorship and education. In Saxony, the entail laws have been repealed, and the power of acquiring landed property has been placed within the reach of every peasant. To this is superadded a first-rate system of education. In Bohemia, the Austrian ideas regarding real property prevail. The land is parcelled out amongst great nobles, who leave their estates to lessees and agents, and spend the proceeds in Vienna. There seems to be no doubt that the cause is not difference of soil; and certainly it is not difference of race.

In Prussia again, Mr. Kay refers to some statistics published in the National Zeitung of 1849, with the view of shewing, by a comparison of the statistics of the different provinces, that the larger and fewer the estates, by so much the less prosperous invariably is the condition of the peasantry. Where the land is cultivated by the proprietors, the peasantry are intelligent, industrious, and thriving. Where it is cultivated by daylabourers and tenants-at-will, the peasantry are ignorant, debased, and pauperized.

We believe that these may be considered as authenticated instances. If their correctness in point of fact be allowed, the conclusions, which may be legitimately drawn from them, are worthy of attention. It is shown that a race, which is a degraded one in its own country, where no sub-division of land exists, but where rather the very opposite distribution of real property prevails, becomes intelligent and industrious when transferred to other climes, where each may obtain, in absolute proprietorship, as much land as he can cultivate. It hardly

admits of question that, in their own country, the same race is disinclined for education or any intellectual exertion whatever; and that, in other countries, the habits of industry and prudence, acquired under a system of peasant proprietorship, endow them with great aptitude for learning, and make them fitting recipients of knowledge. It is further shown that, in conterminous countries, the respective populations are widely different in social elevation and in intelligence. In both are the race and language the same; in both are the soils alike:-but the institutions differ. In the one country, real property rests with feudal absentees; in the other, with peasant proprietors. Education is extended in both, though with some difference in quality. In four great instances it is proved, that prior to the introduction of these two institutions, viz., sub-division of land and systematic popular education, the peasantry were debased and povertystricken; and that subsequently they have become intelligent, socially elevated, and physically prosperous. Further, it is made apparent that a disparity, similar in kind, though different in degree, is perceptible between two generations in the same country, one of which has lived entirely, the other partially, under the above-mentioned institutions. Lastly, it is demonstrated that in a country, where an educational course is alike compulsory on all of every class, whether cultivator or proprietor; that the small proprietor is more intelligent than the small cultivator, learns more, thinks more, profits more by the education he receives, and is in every way a more exalted being. From these instances it is not unfair to conclude, that peasant proprietorship may be generally expected to go hand in hand with popular intelligence and morality; and that an educational system will work more successfully in a country peopled with small proprietors, than in a country swarming with the tenants and cultivators of great landlords.

For an examination into the moral and intellectual condition of an agricultural population, the consideration of their dwelling-houses is a point of the first importance. We would refer any reader, who wishes thoroughly to satisfy himself of the immorality and debasement, which result from want of room and comfort in the cottages of the agricultural poor in England, to the heart-rending details which Mr. Kay has drawn from public reports of the highest authority. Now it will be found that wherever peasant proprietorship exists, there are to be found good houses; wherever it does not exist, there are to be found indifferent houses: and, generally, where the dwellings are respectable, the poor will be found to be comparatively moral and well-conducted. It may there

fore be deduced that peasant proprietorship is, in this respect, conducive to public morality.

We would next draw attention to the facts and figures presented by Mr. Kay, which would seem to show that peasant proprietorship induces habits of prudence, forethought, and economy. It is shown by statistical tables, and enforced by the observation of experienced investigators, both English and continental, that marriages are fewer and later among the poor, and that without any increase in immorality, in countries where the land has been completely sub-divided among the peasants, than in countries where it is monopolized by a privileged class. In Switzerland and Prussia, which are living types of the small proprietor system, the age of marriage is much later than in England, and, as might be expected, the rate of the increase of population is less in the former than in the latter countries. Now, if these two points can be established with reference to any particular peasantry, it is an unquestionable sequitur' in economical science, that prudence and foresight must be prominent features in the character of that peasantry. We believe it can be proved that, in several countries where the sub-division of land has been carried out to the greatest extent, the increase of population is the slowest in Europe. The minimum rate is to be found in France, where the law forces the sub-division of landed-property. Hear the opinion of Mr. Mill* (cited by Mr. Kay) ;-" It is not to the intelligent alone, that the situation of a peasant proprietor is full of improving influences. It is no less propitious to the moral virtues of prudence, temperance, and self-controul. The labourer, who possesses property, whether he can read and write or not, has, as Mr. Laing remarks, an educated mind : he has forethought, caution and reflection, guiding every action; he knows the value of restraint, and is in the babitual exercise of it."-" If there is a moral inconvenience attached to a state of society in which the peasantry have land, it is the danger of their being too thrifty, too careful of their pecuniary concerns, and of their becoming crafty and calculating in the objectionable sense." The opinion expressed in the last sentence is supported by some instances of French peasants (and the French are often reputed to be a pleasure-loving race), hoarding up five franc-pieces in leather bags, and keeping them for whole generations, in the hope of eventually purchasing land.

The tests, now brought forward as proofs of prudence and forethought in an European peasantry, are not of course applicable

*Author of an Enquiry into the condition of the poor in Holland and Belgium.

to an Indian peasantry. With natives of India the rules of marriage are intimately connected with those of caste. These rules are universally imperative, and enforce marriage at the earliest possible age. The contract is often made during the childhood of the contracting parties. There is no reason to suppose that any social change for the worse or better, short of absolute misery and want, would affect the number or period of marriages, or that any moral consideration would check the increase of population. But, although the religious system and the constitution of Hindu society may render such tests as these inapplicable to an Indian community, yet these tests possess all the value and force of analogous inductions. If it can be shown that a certain system engenders in Europe that kind of prudence and forethought, which an European nation is capable of exercising, and which are ascertainable by the tests that apply to the structure of European society, it is not unreasonable to infer, that the same system, when introduced into an Asiatic nation, may create habits of prudence suitable to that frame of society, and discoverable by proofs deducible therefrom.

Further, Mr. Kay demonstrates from the tables given by the Prussian minister of statistics, that the consumption of the people has improved both in quantity and quality, since the subdivision of the land. In the same way, witnesses of the highest authority are brought forward to show that similar results have been attained in France, Germany, and Switzerland. It is also proved that a corresponding improvement has been effected in the clothing of the poor throughout these countries; that the character of the amusements common amongst the lower orders has been raised; and that constant occupation for leisure hours is afforded by the gardens attached to the house of every small proprietor throughout Western Europe.

We have thus endeavored to give an idea of the picture, which Mr. Kay's volumes present, of the present condition of peasant proprietors in continental Europe. His work also contains some valuable disquisitions on the economical results of sub-division of the land. This part of the question we have not noticed, as being foreign to the subject in hand. We wished to discuss peasant proprietorship, not as an economical measure, but as a machinery for moral and intellectual advancement, and to treat of any physical result, only so far forth as it might afford an index to the mental condition of a people. Without therefore in any way trenching on the controversial question, as to whether the large-estate or the small-estate system is most likely to found. and support national greatness, and most conduces to agricultural prosperity, and to the judicious distribution of wealth, we de

signedly confine ourselves to a single point-namely, Is peasant proprietorship likely to further the progress of intelligence, and to promote the cause of education among an agricultural population ?

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But, by peasant proprietorship we must not be understood to mean that excessive "morcellement" of the land, which might produce pauperism, such as the progress of sub-division in France seemed to threaten, and such as the enemies of the system always predicted would make the country a warren of paupers." For ourselves we believe that these prophets of ill were deceived, and that sub-division checks itself. However this may be, we must return to our definition of peasant proprietorship, by which we mean a system, which gives to each cultivating proprietor an amount of land sufficient for the support of himself and his family. Now, it is natural to suppose that the feeling of property must supply the strongest incentives to industry-must stimulate acquisitiveness. Let these two habits be engendered, namely, the wish to acquire and the power of bending all the energies to the furtherance of that object-then how rapidly follow many of the secondary virtues, such as the habit of calculation, of watching the present, of considering the future, of acting by judgment, and not by impulse, and of self-restraint. Even these a priori considerations (supposing them not to have been verified as yet by experience) would seem to justify Mr. Laing's opinion, that "a peasant proprietor must have an educated mind, whether he can read and write, or not." But a number of witnesses, some friendly, some hostile to the system, attest in a remarkable manner the industry, perseverance, skill and intelligence of the peasant proprietors throughout Europe. Must there not, indeed, be a spirit of independence, self-reliance, and resolution fostered in a man, who is constantly working, thinking, and economizing, because he knows that he owns the land, and may become the architect of his own fortune, who acknowledges no allegiance to any landlord or superior, and at the same time understands that he can expect support from nothing but his own exertions? And, if it can be shown from experience in Europe, where the system has had a trial of half a century, has been fully developed, and has produced its maturest results, that the moral, intellectual and physical condition of the agricultural populations has been improved thereby; that these populations are the best educated populations in the world, and almost the only well-educated agricultural communities; and, that among those communities, who live under a different system, the state of education is disgracefully low ;-then there