OUR LAND LAWS: WHAT SHOULD BE THEIR BASIS?

Evening Star, Issue 3996, 15 December 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

OUR LAND LAWS: WHAT SHOULD BE THEIR BASIS?

By C. W. Purnell. France. —The land system of France, like that of England, originated in a variety of customs, arising from the intermiugling of different races. The earliest period to which we need refer is the time of the irruption of the Goths and Burgundians into Gaul, the whole of which then lay under the dominion of the Romans, who had planted colonies and granted lands there upon the usnal conditions of military service. These colonies contained numbers of barbarians, who would naturally import their peculiar notions of property in land, which ideas would, when the Empire was breaking up, and the Roman law began to.be enforced with less strictness than before, influence the character of the land tenures ; while behind lay the mass of the aborigines, with their notions of common L proprietorship. The Goths and Burgundians descended upon the country, and the Roman Governors, making a virtue of necessity, gave them locations, the invaders receiving two-thirds of the whole occupied territory, and thus foreign modes of tenure were introduced into the complex system already prevailing. But the occurrence which revolutionised the agrarian system of Gaul was the advent of the Franks, who in this respect did for Gaul what the Normans did for England. The Franks came as conquerors, used the conquerors' rights, took what laud they pleased, and impressed their own laws and customs upon the country. Their land tenures present two distinguishing features—the allodial holdings and the benefices. The former approached the nature of holdings in fee simple, with the important difference that the allodialist was compelled to perform military service for his land; in other words, he was bound to protect it against foreign enemies, which principle will be found to lie at the bottom of most, if not all, European tenures, except those of Russia, which rest upon a more primitive basis. The notion of a man possessing laud as somethiug peculiarly his own property, which he can do as he likes with, and without being forced to render special public services for it to the supreme authority of the State, is entirely unknown to these tenures. It is an idea of very modern times, and, indeed, has only reached its full development in the United States and the British Colonies. The allodialist, so far as military service was concerned, stood on the* same footing as the feudalist, only whereas thelatterfollowedthebannerofhisfeudal lord, the former was led to battle by a count—that is to say, in France, with which we are dealing. The benefices—the other conspicuous feature of the Frankish renures—may be designated embryo feuds. A great deal of learned discussion has been spent upon the nature of these benefices, and historians and antiquarians still dissent from each other's views on the subject. This much, however, is conceded : that they were military holdings, and at first of limited duration. Some writers contend that they were orginally revocable at pleasure; others, that they were granted for life. The first seems the batter opinion; but it is of little consequence for the purposes if . Qui* inquiry. It suffices to k uOW

that the land did not actually belong to the benofioiary, but to the King, as representing the State, nor did the holder enjoy any absolute property in it whatever. The honor of exercising dominion over the benefice, for its protection, was the gift conferred upon him, together with the right to cultivate a liberal portion of it for his own use, and to exact certain services from its humbler occupants, whom he led in his train when called upon by his Kiug to perform military service in the field. The utmost personal freedom prevailed amongst the Franks at the period when they invaded Gaul, and amongst themßelves they would never have tolerated individual landed poßieisions of great magnitude ; or that the holder of a benefice should obtain excessive piivileges. The vanquished tillers of the soil, however, furnished a ready means of aggrandising the power of the nobles; while the dispersion of the Franks over a wide space of territory rendered it difficult for the King to strengthen his influence sufficiently to preserve the temporary nature of the benefices, which gradually lapsed into regular fiefs. This, with other causes, ultimately made them hereditary, which consummation was attained under the rule of the Mayors of the Palace. The lords of the fiefs grew strong; the vassals became weak ; while the allodial holdings were swallowed up one by ono until they all became merged inthefeuds. This was effected by the small allodialist finding himself practically defenceless in the presence of the feuds, and a kind of outcast, while at the same time special inducements were offered to him to place his land under feudal tenure, by surrendering it to a lord and receiving it back on terms of homage. Thus the whole of France was, little by little, brought under feudal tenure, and a very hard tenure it became for all save the territorial aristocracy. It would be out of place in a rough sketch like the present to discuss the causes which rendered feudal service so vei-y oppressive in France. Harsh servitudes began at an, earlier and lasted until a later date there than in any other country of Europe. They existed until the great Revolution, when they vanished in the moral hurricane which Bwept over society. Nevertheless, in the primary stages, there seems to have been no attempt __ at monopolising vast tracts of land for the exclusive use of individuals, albeit the enormous areas of territory then lying waste might have supplied an excuse for such a proceeding, if any valid excuse could bo made for it. The spirit of the feudal system forbade a monopoly of this kind. It was when tyranny got full swing that monopoly of the soil came into play ; yet even just before the Revolution, when the whole country groaned in sympathy with the peasant's sufferings, the extent of land monopolised by the nobles was not a prominent subject of complaint. His plot of ground was still left to the peasant, but he was grievously oppressed by servitudes which he was forced to render to his feudal superior. The yabelle, or tax on salt, and

the eorvee were his peculiar burdens; but at every turn dues and payments on account of manorial rights hampered his exertions and made his life one incessant round of toil for the benefit of another, who idled away his time in luxurious splendour. The deluge came; the feudal obligations and laws disappeared for ever • and when the flood subsided the country was divided into a multitude of small freeholds, in which state it still remains. According to the Hon. G. E. Broderick, writing on primogeniture in the Cobden Club Essays, 1871, there are 7,500,000 landed proprietors in France, about 5,000,000 of whom own plots averaging six acres a-piece, while only 50,000 of the holdings average COO acres each. The size of the holdings is kept down by the laws of inheritance

as defined in the Code Napoleon, under which a testatoi with a family is permitted to dispose of but a part of his property, varying in proportion to the number of his children, who take the remainder in equal shares. This system of inheritance has,- it is well known caused the Boil to become subdivided to such a degree as, while increasing its productivity, to keep the husbandman in needless poverty, while tho frequent political changes in the country, and tho mischief resulting from a severely centralized form of government, haro seriously retarded the progress of agiiculture and prevented the full benefits being obtained which would otherwise have accrued from this distribution of the ownership of th« soil—although, it may be observed, 1 am not advocating pea-

sant proprietorship. In spite of all drawbacks, Mr Sackvillo West, Secretary to the Paris Legation, reporting upon the tenure of land in France to the British Government, says,—" The prevalent public opinion as to the advantages or disadvantages of the tenure of land by small proprietors is decidedly that it has been advantageous to the production of the soil, and has tended to the improvement of the material condition of the agricultural population." [Reports from Her Majesty's Repi*e'sentatives respecting the Tenure of Land in the several Counties of responsible witnesses concur in affirming that the French peasant is better off" materially, and a man of a higher grade of mental cultivation than the English farm laborer. His personal independence is secured, and that is the first step in all human progress. {To hj continued.)