Page:Principles of Political Economy Vol 1.djvu/622

600 of properties, averaging, according to M. de Châteauvieux, eight acres and a half, imply a great number of proprietors who have less. But there must be a proportional (though not an equal) number who have more; and it must not be supposed that this statement includes the large properties, one of which would be enough to keep up the average against a hundred extremely small ones. No properties are included which pay so much as twenty francs land-tax, corresponding on the average of France to twenty acres—on that of the south to twenty-five. When it is considered that of the whole soil of France only a third is in the hands of peasant proprietors, and that this third is not more subdivided than we now see, it will probably be thought that hitherto at least, the mischiefs of subdivision have not reached a very formidable height.

[Facts of a less conjectural character than the above have been afforded by the researches of M. de Lavergne. Of five millions of small rural proprietors, three millions at least, according to that high authority, pay less than ten francs of taxes, and possess, on an average, only one hectare (2½ acres). Two millions pay from ten to fifty francs, and possess, on an average, six hectares, or fifteen acres. These last, says M. de Lavergne, "enjoy sometimes a real affluence. Their properties are divided by inheritance; but many of them are continually making new acquisitions by purchase, and on the whole their tendency is more to rise than to descend in the scale of wealth." Respecting the amount of debts with which the peasant proprietors are encumbered, the facts are highly and unexpectedly favourable. By the latest authentic returns, the average indebtedness of the entire landed property of France, does not, according to M. de Lavergne, exceed one-tenth of the value; and in the case of rural property, it is only half that average, or one-twentieth. The burthen of interest he estimates, not at 40 per cent on the rental, but at 10 per cent only; and even this, he thinks, would now be an overstatement, "car les dernières crises ont amené une tendance générale vers une liquidation." ]

But it is not what France now is, so much as what she is becoming, that is the material point. Is the morcellement increasing, or likely to increase? The apologists of the French system have never