A month in Switzerland

by F. Barham Zincke

The argument from the picturesque will not arrest the course of events. Never was the country so picturesque as when there was no cultivation at all, and the noble savage pursued his wild game through the primæval forest over hill and dale. The little hoed plots of a succeeding epoch were a great encroachment on the picturesque. The fields that came in with the plough carried the disfigurement still further. Our hedges and copses, under the existing system, are rapidly disappearing. But the human interest in the scene has always been increasing: and it will culminate when the steam-engine shall have brought in a system under which those who do the very lowest forms of labour then required will be better fed, and housed, and clothed, and paid, because it will be a system that will not admit of bad work, than was possible under previous systems, which did not depend for their success on the intelligence of the labourer, and the accuracy and excellence of his work.

Such a system would carry out to their logical and ultimate consummation the free interaction of capital and agricultural land. All such land, the implements, and whole plant employed in its cultivation, and even the labour, skill, and intelligence of its cultivators, would be represented by dividend-receiving, 10l., 5l., or 1l. share certificates, transferable merely by the double endorsement of the seller and of the buyer. The old certificate, thus endorsed, would be presented to the manager, if necessary by post; and a new certificate would be issued to the new holder. These certificates would circulate almost as freely as money; but as it would be a kind of money that would carry a dividend at the rate of capital employed in safe ventures, say four-and-a-half or five per cent., with a prospect of improvement, wherein it would differ from the low interest of Exchequer bills, the holding of such certificates would be the most attractive kind of savings’ bank to the poor, and to all. The great difficulty in the way of saving in the case of the poor, and of all who are unacquainted with business, is to find suitable, and safe, investments. That difficulty would be removed; and they would be enabled to participate, according to their means, as easily, and on the same footing, as the richest and the best informed, in the wealth and property of the country. Any labourer on any joint-stock farm, or elsewhere, any artisan, any servant girl, any poor governess, who might save a few pounds, might invest them in a share or two; and the increment, whether earned or unearned, in the value of land, and of its produce, would go to them proportionally with the wealthiest. Everyone would, in this way, have opened to him an avenue for participating, to any amount possible to him, in the possession of the land everywhere. A large proportion of the population would thus become interested in the development of its resources, and so in the prosperity of the country, and in the order and stability of society. The land would, in a sense, become mobilised; and the possession of it rendered capable of universal diffusion. Any one of the present owners, who might come to wish that any portion of his land might be held, and used, in this fashion, might receive, if he chose to be so paid, as many shares in each concern formed out of it, as would equal the value of land he might make over to it.

If the possibility of such a system could be demonstrated, the existing owners of land might be the first to wish to see it carried out. The following figures will show why. Suppose a thousand acres of agricultural land is letting at what is about the average rent of such land, that is at about 30s. an acre, the landlord will be receiving for it 1,500l. a-year, subject to some not inconsiderable deductions. But if this same land were sold to a cultivating firm at 50l. an acre, the price being received in shares, and the concern were to pay to original shareholders 10 per cent. the rent of 1,500l., subject to deductions, would have become a dividend of 5,000l. subject to no deductions. But we will suppose only 3,000l., for that will be double the present rent, and so quite sufficient for our argument.

So far as the system might be adopted would ownership of the land of the old kind cease, and in its place be substituted, in convenient amounts, dividend-receiving, easily transferable, and freely circulating capital stock certificates, within everybody’s reach, secured upon definite portions of the agricultural land of the country, representing its present value, and participating in its future advances in value. Such certificates would, also, offer an improving security for trust funds of all kinds, and for endowments.

The combination of what I have observed, during a life in the country, of the requirements of land, and of the condition and wants of the poor, with my experience of the duties of a trustee (which have devolved upon me to, perhaps, an unusually great extent), suggested to me the ideas I have just been endeavouring to present to the reader. If they are practicable they may contribute to the solution of existing difficulties of several kinds. I am aware that they cannot do this, because in that case they would be quite visionary, if they are not in harmony with the natural requirements and conditions of the era of capital. That they would have been impracticable in other times does not prove that they would be impracticable now.

But we have been enticed off the main line of our discussion to a by-path, which was offering a very interesting view into the future. We must now return to the point we had before reached, which was that of the popular misconceptions that are held with respect to our existing system. There are, then, again, others who suppose that its salient peculiarities may be explained by a reference to what is frequently spoken of as ‘The Law of Primogeniture.’ We have, however, in this country no law of primogeniture in any sense that can be intended in such a reference. There is no body of rights attaching by law to the eldest son. The extent of what may be regarded as law in this matter is the right of the eldest son of a peer to succeed to his father’s peerage; and of the eldest sons of those who have hereditary titles to succeed to their father’s titles. The power of entailing landed property only acts in favour of the system of primogeniture, because the holders of landed property themselves choose to work it in this direction; for it might be used equally in favour of equal partition. There is then no law of primogeniture in the sense supposed. A man who buys land, or in any way comes to have the absolute disposal of it, as the word absolute implies, may dispose of it as he pleases. He may, if such should be his wish, leave it all to his youngest child, or in equal partition amongst all his children. Only, should he die intestate, the law will deal with his land (but we have just been told that this is to be altered) in the way in which, looking at the conduct in this matter of English landlords generally, it may be supposed the man himself would have dealt with it had he made a will. Possibly he may not have made a will because he knew that the law would so dispose of it. The law in the few exceptional cases of this kind that arise from time to time, recognises, and acts on, the state of opinion and sentiment which has grown out of the power, it had itself given, of charging and encumbering land—a power which probably had no very glaring economical evils and inconveniences in an age when the population of the country was only a third of what it is at present, and when capital was only in an embryonic condition, and when, too, perhaps the political system this power upheld appeared to be necessary.

It is not, then, any law of primogeniture which has brought about our present land-system, but certain powers, conferred by law, which have suggested to people the desirability of acting on, and enabled them to act on, the voluntarily adopted principle of primogeniture; that is to say the power of charging and encumbering their estates. And, now that the era of capital is upon us, it is not improbable that the policy of continuing this power will be debated, for at such a time it has some very obvious evils and inconveniences. I do not mean that it will be reconsidered by the legislature before many years have elapsed, or in the first instance; for in a matter of this kind the legislature can do nothing but give form and sanction to what the circumstances of the times have already settled. If it shall be generally felt that the ill consequences of the exercise of this power overbalance its advantages, we may suppose that it will be withdrawn. This is not a question that will be much affected by any amount of speaking or writing, if that be all. If the facts of the matter are of themselves not felt as evils and inconveniences, no amount of speaking or of writing will bring people so to regard them. But should they come to be so felt, the people of this country will be desirous of dealing with them as all men, always and everywhere, have dealt with such matters, when they were seen to admit of removal. But however that may be, it is not a law of primogeniture, but certain law-conferred powers, enabling people to act on the principle of primogeniture, which are the cause of the existing state of things in this matter.

In the discussion of this subject, which ramifies in many directions, for it has moral and social, as well as economical, political, and constitutional bearings, many questions will be propounded, and will have to be considered: such, for instance, as whether, in these several respects, a comparatively small number of large landowners is better, in this era of capital, and of large cities, than a large number of landowners, holding estates varying in dimensions, according to the amounts of capital people would, from a variety of motives, be desirous of investing in land, were all the land of the country free and marketable; or, in other words, whether, in such times, the artificial condition of things we have been considering is safer than, and preferable to, the natural condition? The share-certificates, I just now spoke about, would make it free and marketable to the greatest imaginable degree.

It will also be asked whether it is fair to the land-owner, and, all things considered, advantageous to the community, that he should be obliged to provide for his widow and younger children either by saving the means for making such provision from his income, or by leaving to them, absolutely, what portions of his landed property he may think fit? Those same share-certificates would supply an easy, inexpensive, and safe method of providing for widows and younger children.

Another question will be whether in this era of capital, which means that there will always be some large capitalists as well as many small ones, the liberation of the land would really lead to the extinction of large estates? Largeness is a word of comparative signification. Of course there would be few such large estates as there are now, because that is the result of growth through many generations under the very peculiar circumstances we have been referring to: but if the interchange of land and capital were perfectly free there would be everywhere many considerable estates, though the general order of things might be estates of moderate size, descending to holdings of small extent, which might be the most numerous of all; or such holdings might not be very numerous: for in matters of this kind there is always much that is unforeseen. One point, however, may, I think, be held to be certain: we shall never, in this country, see anything approximating to peasant proprietorship. That is simply inconceivable in the era of capital. Both the land and the man can be turned, now, to better account. Its advocates are either ignorant demagogues, or members of that harmless class who, having their eyes in the back of their heads, can only see, and wish for, what has passed away. If we ever come to have share-estates, such as I have endeavoured to describe, they will, probably, average, as I said, about 1,000 acres each.