Page:Principles of Political Economy Vol 1.djvu/627

Rh it is carried to so great an excess, that the number of parcelles is ten times the number of côtes foncières; and as there are supposed to be twice as many côtes foncières as proprietors, the curious fact is disclosed, that on the average of France the estate of every landowner consists of twenty fragments in twenty different places. The consequences are a subject of general and increasing complaint. Great loss of time and labour; waste of cultivable soil in boundaries and paths; the inaccessibility of many parcelles without trespassing on other properties; endless disputes and frequent litigation—are enumerated among the evils: and it is evident what obstacles the small size and dispersed position of the parcelles, and their intermixture with those of other proprietors, must oppose to many kinds of agricultural improvement.

For a considerable portion of this evil the French law of inheritance may fairly be held responsible. A certain amount of it is inevitable wherever landed properties are undergoing a double process of division and recomposition: marriages, for example, must in general bring together portions of land not adjacent. But if parents had the power of bequest, the owner of twenty parcelles, even if he adhered to the spirit of the law of equal division, would give some of the portions entire to one child, and others to another. The law, on the contrary, must divide with exact equality; and as it is generally impossible to adjust the value of patches of unequal fertility, vineyards, meadows, arable, &c., so as to satisfy everybody, it continually happens, especially in the more backward parts of France, that when the settlement is made by division instead of sale, each co-heir insists on taking a share of every parcelle instead of the whole of some parcelles; from whence, no doubt, the amazing multiplication of these little patches in many parts of France.

That French agriculture, and the condition of the peasant population, are injuriously affected by this sort of morcellement, is so far true, that it must considerably retard the improvement which might otherwise be expected, and which, in spite of all hindrances, does even now, to a great extent, take place. More than this we cannot admit. There are conclusive proofs of great and rapid improvement in some parts of France, and M. Rubichon and his reviewer have no evidence whatever of retrogression in any.

They produce tables of the average amount of different kinds