A month in Switzerland

by F. Barham Zincke

And now let us see how these Acts have worked. There have been instances in which incumbents of parishes have sold their glebes, and colleges some of their estates. But who have been the purchasers of these glebes and college estates? As far as I can hear, in every instance the purchasers have been large landed proprietors. And they did no wrong in buying them. Reader, had you and I been in their places we should have done just what they did. The result, however, has been that the large estates have become larger; that is to say, the amount of land that was, through settlements, practically unsaleable, is now greater than it was before; and that through legislation which had for its aim to make land saleable. The present system was so widely established, so powerful, and so ready and so able to avail itself of every opportunity, that there was no possibility of its being otherwise. The fate, then, of that portion of the previously mortmain-held land that has been sold, shows how our existing system works; and enables us to see by an instance, which, though not great in amount, is yet distinct and palpable, the tendency in our large settled estates to continue growing, and by so doing to diminish the amount of saleable land in the country. If, instead of being misled by names, we look at facts, the true mortmain-held land of this country is the settled estates.

The corporate lands are, probably, worth somewhere about 30,000,000l. An idea is afloat that there will be a proposal to sell these, and to capitalise the price. But one can hardly suppose that many, except ‘adjacent’ proprietors, will be found to support the scheme, after people have seen what has become of such portions of these lands as have already been sold under the recent Acts just referred to; and when they remember that the discharge of certain duties is attached to the revenues of these corporate and endowment estates. And if these duties are not always discharged satisfactorily, that is a matter which better superintendence might set right. At all events, it is better for the public that they should get out of these estates something, than that they should get nothing. If the public desire that it should be so, the Legislature, we may be sure, will be ready enough to see that all endowments are turned to good account.

We frequently hear the remark, and it is made as if it explained the existence and the character of our present system, that feudalism still flourishes in this country. This is very wide indeed of the mark. There are many, we may be sure, who would be disposed to think that it would be of advantage if something like the division of land of the feudal times still obtained amongst us. The records of the Exchequer give the number of knights’ fees at 60,215. Let that, however, be as it may, our system is as unlike that of feudalism as anything can be. It belongs in its whole character to the era of capital, but in the form a land-system must assume; and this is its distinguishing feature, when the flow of capital to the land has been so interfered with as practically to prohibit its investment in land, except by very rich people, in very large amounts; that is to say, by people who already have a great deal of land, or who have a great deal of capital. This is an artificial state of things belonging to the era of capital. The natural state of things in the era of capital would be the direct opposite: for that would issue in there being a multitude of owners of estates, purchased and used for all manner of purposes; and to all the land being marketable; and, indeed, to a considerable portion of it, everywhere, being at any time in the market. Both of these states, the artificial and the natural one, are equally possible in the era of capital. The first is brought about, when, as I have pointed out, the action of the law favours perpetuity, unsaleability, and agglomeration. The latter, when all the land is saleable; and everyone who has capital, no matter whether much or little, is able to buy. There is no feudalism in either of these two states of things. The former is a factitious kind of capitalism.

It may sound paradoxical, after what has been said, to announce that the change suggested in our present system would have the effect of raising the price of land: I am, however, of opinion that it would have this paradoxical effect; because, though it would largely increase the supply, it would in a still greater degree increase the demand for, and the uses of land. It would make all who have capital possible purchasers, and would be an inducement to many, particularly among those whose work is on the land, to save capital in order that they might become purchasers. It would bring into play and activity a great variety of motives for purchasing. For instance; we should then see joint-stock companies buying land which offers no particular advantages for residence, for the single purpose of manufacturing food out of it. They would pour capital into it in such amounts as only proprietors, who were also joint-stock companies, could. They would drain, mix soils, employ steam machinery for cultivation, for preparing artificial manures, and for cutting, crushing, and cooking food for cattle; they would build beet-sugar factories, or whatever else would pay when done well, and on a large scale. Other districts adapted to small properties, if such there be, we should see falling into the hands of small proprietors. Others again, which from their salubrity, or beauty, or local proximity to large towns, were adapted for residential purposes, we should see turned to this account: so that in places where now there may be one, or perhaps not one, resident proprietor, there would be a hundred, or a thousand. In these days of railways and capital all this is natural: and as it is natural it is what would be best for us. I cannot see anything bad in such a state of things; and I think it is what will be brought about eventually. If it had existed during the last fifty years, probably a large portion of the 1,000,000,000l. of capital that have been sent out of the country, would have been kept at home. If there were perfect freedom in dealing with the land, in this rich and populous country, the price of agricultural land would rise to a higher price than it has attained in Switzerland, Belgium, and parts of France, where it has long been selling for more than it sells for here. If a joint-stock company were to demonstrate that 25l. of capital per acre applied to the cultivation of 1,000 acres was a profitable speculation, would that have any tendency to lower the value of land?

I believe that some of us will live to see the joint-stock principle introduced into farming, or rather applied to the ownership and cultivation of the land. My reason for believing this is, that it has been found to answer in everything else; and that I can see no other way in which capital, to the amount required in these days, can be applied to the land; and that I can see in the nature of the case no reason why it should not be so applied to the land. I take it for granted that, at this moment, land can be cultivated more productively, and more economically, comparing the amount of produce with the cost of producing it, in farms of about 1,000 acres each, cultivated highly, and by steam machinery, than in any other fashion. If it be so, then the system must force its way to general adoption; and to the looker-on, practically, no question remains uncertain but that of time. If he is satisfied that it is the natural system in the era of capital, he knows that, sooner or later, it must come. One of its pre-requisites, which it will take time to bring about, is, that the land should be owned by those who cultivate it; probably, in each case, by a firm. Whether the firm consist of three or four partners, or of three or four dozen shareholders, will make no difference. On no other conditions will the costly plant be provided, or the inducement in the way of profits be sufficient.

The past history of agriculture will here help us in our attempt to understand its future. The aboriginal agricultural implement was, as we all know, a burnt stick—a broken branch, with its point hardened in the fire. That was in the stone era, and so the forest could not be felled. Only here and there a small plot could be cultivated with such an implement. The rest of the land, that is to say almost the whole of it, was a game preserve for wild animals, deer, wild cattle, wild hogs, &c. After nobody knows how many ages of this style of farming, and of utilising the land, came the discovery of metals. An iron hoe was then regarded as a more wonderful machine than a steam-plough is now. It was beyond the means of any individual, except perhaps here and there a great chief. Villages may have clubbed together the few articles they had of exchangeable value, that is to say became a joint-stock company, to secure the possession of one of these marvellous implements. Whatever the land had yielded to the tillage of the burnt stick, and through the game preserves, it now yielded a great deal more. The game preserves still continued: but with respect to animal food also there had been a little advance, for domestic animals now began to appear in the village. One advance always draws on others. But the domestic animals were at first kept only in small numbers, for they wandered over large expanses of land, almost exclusively forest; the game still remaining the more important of the two. This was the second stage. But as time goes on iron, and the domestic animals, become more abundant; and an ox, or so many ox-hides, can be exchanged for a hoe. It is now possible to get so much more food out of the land, that one man can raise enough for the support of two. This immediately leads to slavery, which always makes its appearance in rude societies as soon as they have reached the point at which one man can produce more food than is sufficient for himself. This advances agriculture some steps further. Cattle become abundant; labour is abundant; and a sufficiency of iron is procurable. The forest is, therefore, taken in hand, and fields, that is spaces where the trees have been felled, are formed. And now the plough appears on the scene, and civilised society is fairly under weigh. Cultivation continues to extend, and with cultivation pasturage. The forest gradually disappears, and domestic animals entirely take the place of wild game, except for purposes of amusement and luxury. And so on up to the system with which we are all familiar. Every discovery advanced matters a step, and made the land more productive. As, for instance, the introduction of artificial grasses and roots, for our ancestors in the autumn used to kill and salt the beef and mutton they would require for the winter and spring. Then came a better supply of manures, and the two together rendered the abandonment of fallows possible. The land has all along been a constant quantity. It, from the beginning, has been the same. But its produce has from the first been increasing through never-ceasing advances in the means and methods of cultivating it and of turning it to account.

And now another advance is in sight, that of cultivation by steam. This implies a great deal. In each stage there grew out of the nature of things, as they then were, a certain definite proportion between the means used and the amount of land cultivated as one concern. In the burnt stick era the little cultivated plots might have shown in the forest as the stars do in the field of heaven. In the hoe-period they were multiplied and enlarged as the stars appear to us through a telescope. Then we had peasant proprietors, and small tenants. The number and size of the luminous, that is, of the cultivated, plots were increasing, as means and appliances increased and improved. And now we suppose that a farm ought properly to be of 400 or 500 acres in extent. This means that the instruments of production and our organisation have advanced very greatly. So must it be with steam cultivation: each concern must be on a large scale. I have supposed that not less than 1,000 acres will be necessary for turning to good account the machinery that will be required for tilling the soil, and gathering in the crops, and preparing them for market, for preparing food for the stock, and for making artificial manures, &c. No existing buildings will be of any use. Everything will have to be constructed for the purposes required. Land, therefore, that has to be cultivated in this way must be regarded as quite unprovided with the necessary plant, as much so as a thousand acres of the prairie of Colorado, or of the Pampas of La Plata. And as nobody will invest all this costly fixed plant on other people’s land, the land must be owned by those who are to cultivate it in this way. But the purchasing, the providing with such plant, and the so cultivating a thousand acres will require not less than 75,000l. This, at present at all events, is quite beyond a farmer’s means. It can, therefore, speaking generally, only be done by firms or companies. If it will pay, they will do it. Lord Derby tells us the land ought to yield twice as much as it does now. We may, I suppose, set the present gross produce of good average land fairly farmed at 10l. an acre. If land highly cultivated by steam, and with the liberal application of capital we are supposing, would advance its produce to only half of Lord Derby’s supposed possible increase, the gross yield would be 15l. an acre. And this might give, after allowing one-third for working expenses, deterioration, and insurance, 13⅓l. per cent. on the investment; but we will put the working at half, which will leave a profit of 10 per cent. If this could be done, then the streams of English capital that are perennially flowing off into all countries would be profitably diverted to the cultivation and enrichment of our own land; and no small portion of the other millions we are year by year paying the foreigner for food, might be paid to food-manufacturers of our own, and so saved to the country.

France produces at home its own sugar; and, besides, sends to us 60,000 tons a-year. We do not manufacture sugar at home, because an English tenant would not spend 8,000l., if he had it, in erecting a sugar factory on another man’s land; but such firms of proprietors could, and probably would, on their own.

Capital swept away the peasant proprietor. It has almost swept away the 50-acre tenant. And it will sweep away the 250-acre tenant. But it offers to all better careers than those it closes against them. The system it is bringing upon us will employ more hands, and will require them all to be better men, and will pay them all better, both for their work and for their capital. Under it there will be openings everywhere for everyone to become what he is fit to become. This will be a premium on education; and it will do more to suppress drunkenness in the rural districts than any conceivable licensing, or permissive, or prohibitory Acts.

I do not know what, under such a state of things, will become of our old friend, who was also the friend of our forefathers—the agricultural pauper. On a farm of a thousand acres, carried on in the fashion we have been supposing, there would be no place for him. Upon its area there would not be a man who was not wanted. And all who were wanted would be well paid and well housed. There would be engine-men, and stock tenders, and horsemen, and labourers, more in number perhaps than the hands now employed on the same space, but all would be better off, and would be better men. In order, however, that this may be brought about, capital must be allowed free access to the land, that is to say, the land must be set free.