[225] Varro, De re rustica, I. 10: “Bina jugera, quod a Romulo primum divisa viritim, quæ heredem sequerentur.”
[226] Pliny, XVIII. 2, 7: “Romulus in primis instituit.... Bina tunc jugera populo Romano satis erant nullique majorem modum attribuit.” Nonius, edit. Quicherat, p. 61. Festus, v. centuriatus ager.
IV.
On the application of the comparative method to this problem.
It is impossible to deny that the comparative method is not only of use but also absolutely indispensable in dealing with a subject of this kind. In order to discover the origin of property in land among mankind it is plain that every nation must be studied; at any rate every nation that has left any trace behind it. Some part of this work of comparison had already been attempted by Maurer; but he had limited himself to the Slavonic and Scandinavian countries. A great and powerful writer, Sir Henry Maine, has applied the comparative method to India. But the first to attempt what I may call “universal comparison,” is, if I mistake not, M. Emile de Laveleye, in his work, “On Property and its Primitive Forms,” published in 1874. His theory is that the agricultural groups of the whole world, from India to Scotland, for a long time cultivated the soil in common, and that “the history of all lands reveals to us a primitive condition of collectivity.” M. de Laveleye is an economist; but it is by historical evidence that he endeavours to support his thesis, and it is this evidence that I shall now proceed to test. His reputation either as economist or moralist can receive no injury from a purely historical discussion.
He passes in review one after the other (I am following the order of his chapters) the Slavs of Russia, the island of Java, ancient India, the German Mark, the Arabs of Algeria, the ancient Moors of Spain, the Yoloffs of the coast of Guinea, the Afghans, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, England, the Southern Slavs, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Here we have peoples of every race, every degree of latitude, and every age; yet this list does not include all nations. To mention only some of the ancient world, we do not find here the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Jews, or the ancient Assyrians, peoples which, nevertheless, are much better known than the Yoloffs, the Javanese, or the ancient Germans. Why are they not here? Can it be because all the documents concerning them, however far back we may go, bear witness to the custom of private ownership, and do not show a trace of community in land? It is certain that the history of Egypt shows the existence of property from the remotest times. It is certain that contracts for the sale of land have been discovered upon Babylonian bricks. It is certain, also, that the sacred books of the Jews refer to property and the sale of land as far back as the time of Abraham (Genesis XXIII.). Was it for this reason that they were omitted in the universal comparison of all nations? But as our author was seeking a general rule for the whole human race, and says that he has found it, he ought not to pass over a single people of whom we know anything. When one seeks to construct a general system, the facts which contradict it must be presented as well as those in its favour. This is the first rule of the comparative method.
Having insisted on this omission, of which every one will see the importance, I shall consider one by one the nations spoken of by our author, and verify his assertions.
1. Among the Slavs of Russia M. de Laveleye observes the mir, i.e., a village dividing its soil annually or every few years among its members. In this mir he recognises an association with common ownership of the soil. “The mir alone,” he says, “owns the land, and individuals have nothing more than the enjoyment of it, turn and turn about.” On this I have two observations to make. In the first place, the Russian mir is only a village and a small village, the population rarely exceeding two hundred souls; it always cultivates the same land; so that if this be a communistic group it is at any rate one which is confined to a narrow radius. The mir by no means represents a “tribal community,” still less a “national community.” One cannot conclude from the mir that the Russian nation follows a system of agrarian communism, or that the soil is the property of the whole nation, or that the soil is common to everyone; so that the example departs widely from the thesis that is sought to be maintained.
In the second place, if we examine the mir as it was before the reforms of the last Czar but one, we discover that the mir is not owner of the soil, but is itself owned by some one else. In the mir, lands and men alike belong to a lord; and lord and landowner are one. M. de Laveleye does not deny this fact; he even recognises “that the mir pays the rent to the lord collectively.” This single fact makes the whole theory fall to the ground. Since the soil belongs not to the mir, but to some one else, the mir does not represent agrarian communism. It is a village, like all our villages of the Middle Ages, which is the private property of a single individual; the peasants are only tenants or serfs; the only peculiarity about it is, that these peasants who pay rent for the land collectively also cultivate it collectively.
It is true that there are certain theorists who say: “It is probable that there was a time when the landlord did not exist, and when the land was possessed in common by the peasants.” This is precisely what would have to be proved. They ought first to prove that the landowner or lord at one time did not exist, and next that the peasants then possessed the land in common. Now these are two propositions in support of which no one has ever been able to bring forward proof or even an appearance of proof. On the contrary, according to M. Tchitchérin and other writers who have studied the subject, it has been proved that the association of the mir has only been in existence for three hundred years; that it was created in the year 1592; and that far from being the result of a spontaneous and ancient growth, it was instituted by the act of a despotic Government, by an ukase of the Czar Fédor Ivanovitch. Before this epoch land in Russia was an object of private property; so one is led to believe by the documents of donation and bequest quoted by M. Tchitchérin. I am aware that the question is still warmly discussed and remains obscure; but so long as documents proving the existence of the mir before the 16th century are not produced, we must continue to doubt whether the mir is an ancient institution at all. So far as we know at present, it only came into existence with the feudal period; it forms one of the wheels of the feudal organisation in Russia—a group of serfs, which the Government requires to cultivate its land in common, so as to be more sure of the payment of the rent. Far from being collective ownership, the mir is collective serfdom. That, at any rate, is what appears from the material in our possession. Theorists are at perfect liberty to hope that new documents will come to light which will show the contrary. Till then, it is impossible to bring forward the mir as a proof that the human race once practised agrarian communism.