DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0369
PEASANT AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURE. 353
agriculture. Even in these days, when the noble art has fallen on
bad times, due to intelligible causes and to mischievous agencies,
the British agriculturist is far beyond any in the world.
Upon the relics of the bad old system, Arthur Young directed
his observation and uttered his indignant comments. He was in
no sense a critic of historical causes ; all his wisdom lay in the
interpretation of the existing situation, and in this he was a
master. No Englishman has dealt with agriculture, either before
or since his time, who has shown more practical knowledge, more
untiring zeal, and more zealous devotion. A gentleman by birth
and breeding, Young has great tact and great self-respect. His
admiration for Air. Bakewell and Colonel St. Leger, though gradu-
ated according to their social rank, is profound and hearty. His
political economy is not worth much, for he preferred Stewart to
Adam Smith, and believed that the bounty and the Corn Laws
were the buttresses of British agriculture, or I must say English,
for he did not think Scotland worthy of notice, though it was
then enjoying the blessings of the nineteen-years lease, and
fastening the plough not to the necks, but to the tails of the
horses.
Even if Young had been a better historian and a better econo-
mist than he was, his agricultural zeal would have made him abhor
the occupier of forty acres in a common field with less than twenty
of enclosed land, who was wedded to the old arrangement and the
three-course system. Some special knowledge, and a very wide
experience of men in all ranks of life and in all callings has made
me, I trust, very tolerant of fools, even when I am quite aware
that their folly is hereditary or self-induced. But I think if I had
observed agriculture with Arthur Young I should have denounced
peasant occupancy, even though I might have known the causes
of its downfall. But you cannot ruin men and then claim from
them the gift of enterprise. I should have seen that these relics
of the old system were incompatible with progress, and should
have demanded full play for that competition which results
in the survival of the fittest. So much for Arthur Young's
time. In own our I should demand the exhibition of the
same political cathartic, and though I cannot here illustrate
my opinion of men and things by name, I should desire, with
24
agriculture. Even in these days, when the noble art has fallen on
bad times, due to intelligible causes and to mischievous agencies,
the British agriculturist is far beyond any in the world.
Upon the relics of the bad old system, Arthur Young directed
his observation and uttered his indignant comments. He was in
no sense a critic of historical causes ; all his wisdom lay in the
interpretation of the existing situation, and in this he was a
master. No Englishman has dealt with agriculture, either before
or since his time, who has shown more practical knowledge, more
untiring zeal, and more zealous devotion. A gentleman by birth
and breeding, Young has great tact and great self-respect. His
admiration for Air. Bakewell and Colonel St. Leger, though gradu-
ated according to their social rank, is profound and hearty. His
political economy is not worth much, for he preferred Stewart to
Adam Smith, and believed that the bounty and the Corn Laws
were the buttresses of British agriculture, or I must say English,
for he did not think Scotland worthy of notice, though it was
then enjoying the blessings of the nineteen-years lease, and
fastening the plough not to the necks, but to the tails of the
horses.
Even if Young had been a better historian and a better econo-
mist than he was, his agricultural zeal would have made him abhor
the occupier of forty acres in a common field with less than twenty
of enclosed land, who was wedded to the old arrangement and the
three-course system. Some special knowledge, and a very wide
experience of men in all ranks of life and in all callings has made
me, I trust, very tolerant of fools, even when I am quite aware
that their folly is hereditary or self-induced. But I think if I had
observed agriculture with Arthur Young I should have denounced
peasant occupancy, even though I might have known the causes
of its downfall. But you cannot ruin men and then claim from
them the gift of enterprise. I should have seen that these relics
of the old system were incompatible with progress, and should
have demanded full play for that competition which results
in the survival of the fittest. So much for Arthur Young's
time. In own our I should demand the exhibition of the
same political cathartic, and though I cannot here illustrate
my opinion of men and things by name, I should desire, with
24