DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0277
LARGE AND SMALL HOLDINGS.
261
which the capital rule is preserved, that the limited owner is secure
in his own outlay, effects all the good results of a greater distribu-
tion of property, the most satisfactory result being that the more
people there are in a country who are interested in its prosperity,
the more solid and substantial is the resistance which they make to
those, who with the best intentions, perhaps, would reconstruct
society.
"The magic of property," says Arthur Young, "turns sand into
gold. Put a man into a precarious possession," he continues, " and
he will turn a garden into a desert ; put him into a state in which he
•can securely anticipate the fruit of his own labours, and he will
turn a desert into a garden." The only powers of the soil, as he
saw, which are of any value, are eminently destructible, and can
be destroyed in a very short time. The indestructible qualities
of land are those which make it infertile. If they are wholly in-
destructible, the land is absolutely barren. A granite rock, a
mountain moor, a peasant's holding in Donegal or Galway possess,
I regret to say, the indestructible powers of the soil, while the hop
lands of Farnham and Kent, the corn of Gowrie and the Lothians
have qualities which have been induced by intelligence, and may
be extinguished by the absence of that quality, even though the
modern Banquo smiles on them, and points to them as his. What
Young was thinking of was the improved and guaranteed lease of
Flanders, a system of tenure which more than two centuries ago
English writers on husbandry pointed to as the model for imitation.
By this lease the barren heather of Brabant has been turned into a
fertile garden. The process was exceedingly simple. The tenant
took a holding say of a hundred acres at a rent for twenty years.
The rent was no doubt higher than that which was procurable
for the land before he entered on it, for hope raises rent, just as
despair at fair dealing depresses it. The tenant was to cultivate
it as he pleased, and as he could, and was guaranted the difference
at the conclusion of the term between the developed value of the
land and its original rent. In other words, the unearned incre-
ment, which is really the tenant's property, was secured to him,
instead of being appropriated by the person who has in equity no
colourable right to it. The Brabant farmers and the Brabant
landowners had too much sense to be gulled by the nonsense which
261
which the capital rule is preserved, that the limited owner is secure
in his own outlay, effects all the good results of a greater distribu-
tion of property, the most satisfactory result being that the more
people there are in a country who are interested in its prosperity,
the more solid and substantial is the resistance which they make to
those, who with the best intentions, perhaps, would reconstruct
society.
"The magic of property," says Arthur Young, "turns sand into
gold. Put a man into a precarious possession," he continues, " and
he will turn a garden into a desert ; put him into a state in which he
•can securely anticipate the fruit of his own labours, and he will
turn a desert into a garden." The only powers of the soil, as he
saw, which are of any value, are eminently destructible, and can
be destroyed in a very short time. The indestructible qualities
of land are those which make it infertile. If they are wholly in-
destructible, the land is absolutely barren. A granite rock, a
mountain moor, a peasant's holding in Donegal or Galway possess,
I regret to say, the indestructible powers of the soil, while the hop
lands of Farnham and Kent, the corn of Gowrie and the Lothians
have qualities which have been induced by intelligence, and may
be extinguished by the absence of that quality, even though the
modern Banquo smiles on them, and points to them as his. What
Young was thinking of was the improved and guaranteed lease of
Flanders, a system of tenure which more than two centuries ago
English writers on husbandry pointed to as the model for imitation.
By this lease the barren heather of Brabant has been turned into a
fertile garden. The process was exceedingly simple. The tenant
took a holding say of a hundred acres at a rent for twenty years.
The rent was no doubt higher than that which was procurable
for the land before he entered on it, for hope raises rent, just as
despair at fair dealing depresses it. The tenant was to cultivate
it as he pleased, and as he could, and was guaranted the difference
at the conclusion of the term between the developed value of the
land and its original rent. In other words, the unearned incre-
ment, which is really the tenant's property, was secured to him,
instead of being appropriated by the person who has in equity no
colourable right to it. The Brabant farmers and the Brabant
landowners had too much sense to be gulled by the nonsense which