that is changed under the beneficent policy of peasant proprietary. Eight million thrifty Frenchmen own the best parts of their country, and it is evident from this general distribution that French land is truly the national possession. No agrarian revolution is dreamt of, for it is not a class but the masses who practically are interested in the conservation of the existing order, and in the strict preservation of the rigid rights of property. Of course the system is not ideally perfect. It has its disadvantages and its drawbacks. The subdivision (le partage forcé) incidental to the law of succession often leads to undue parcelling of the patrimony, yet that defect could be easily remedied by legislation, and is not of the essence of the system. But industrially and socially, peasant ownership has proved itself superior to any other system yet devised. Its results are comparatively satisfactory and enduring. It is found most to serve those concerned directly in it, and the general community likewise. M. de Mornay says of it, in his general report on the results of the 'Enquête Agricole':—
'The competition of buyers is active, and sales of small lots take place on excellent terms for the seller.' And as to its universality he adds: 'In the greater number of the departments 75 per cent, are now become the owners of land. Peasant proprietary thus embraces a great part of the soil, and that part increases incessantly.' And speaking of its economic effects in 1871, M. de Lavergne writes: ' The best cultivation in France, on the whole, is that of the peasant proprietors.' And speaking of the condition of affairs before the Prussian war he estimates that five million proprietors owned on an average 3 hectares, or 7½ acres (English), each, showing the extent to which the morcellement of land was carried.
Of course this constant interchange of land is a perpetual and a powerful incentive to agricultural industry. It is happily brought about by an easy, intelligible, and inexpensive system of land-transfer and registration. A common objection urged against peasant properties is that the owners of them arc usually heavily in debt to the local shopkeeper, the loan banker or the proverbial 'gombeen
