Page:Landholding in England.djvu/11



PROPOSE to give a brief account of the several steps by which England has arrived at her present position of a country without peasant proprietors. The commonly accepted views contain many errors as to when and why changes took place, and several most important causes are generally entirely overlooked. As we more than other peoples love to go by precedent, it is good that we should be quite sure what precedent has been as to this matter. "Land," says an ancient Irish Tract, supposed to be a part of the Brehon Code, "Land is perpetual man." From the land comes everything which composes our bodily frame; and thus Selden explains the ancient custom of doing homage by offering earth and water—that of which the man is made.

All Englishmen are afraid of that which is new. Very many Englishmen are afraid that this country would no longer be stable if once the great estates ceased to be as large as they are at present, and if small holdings were greatly multiplied. It will be shown that whatever small freeholds are, they are no new thing, but a very old one—older far than the Norman system in which we trust. It will also be shown that the possession of a little land promotes those virtues known as "conservative," rather than 7