“Well, then, Joe, letting the law alone,—I suppose you like the custom of primogeniture?”
“Little better than the law, neighbour.”
“What security would you have then, against such subdivision of property as you have been groaning over for this hour past?”
“A security as strong as any law that ever was made,—the feelings of a parent guided by experience. Those feelings have been stifled too long by a law and a custom which neither principle nor policy can justify; but let them have fair play, and you will find that a man will be as unwilling on the one hand to prepare for his great-grandchildren being impoverished by the division of the land, as, on the other, to turn all his younger children adrift for the sake of enriching the eldest.”
“What would you do, then, if you could govern in this matter?”
“I should leave parents to dispose of their property as they would, trusting that if they had a perfect freedom of willing, they would provide for their estates being kept of a proper size, even if they could not trust their children’s prudence. There are many ways of doing this. There might be directions that the land should be sold, and the purchase-money divided; or a legacy of land left to one of the children charged with portions or annuities to the rest; or an injunction that the family should form a sort of joint-stock company, and cultivate their property by a union of their shares. There are many other arrangements, some of which have been tried, and some have not,—every one being more just and politic than the institution of primogeniture.”
“So much for the father, and his feelings and interests,” said the sergeant. “Now let the children be considered. Is it in the least likely that they should set their hearts upon making their family property yield as little as possible? Will they not be anxious to prevent their property wasting till it melts away before it reaches the third generation from them?”
“Besides,” said Joe, “it never happens that all the members of a family have a mind for the same occupation. It would be strange, indeed, if all the sons, be they soldiers, sailors, professional men, or tradesmen, and all the daughters besides, should take a fancy to leave their employments for the sake of cultivating their land themselves; and if they either sell or let it, it may as well be to a brother as a stranger. O, depend upon it they have every inducement of interest and of principle, to keep the family estate entire, and need no law to oblige them to it.”
“But Joe, the shares of rent or annuities would become so small in time by subdivision that it would have nearly the same effect as dividing the land, would it not?”
“They would be sold before they dwindled down so far,” replied Joe: “you know there is not the same dislike to selling where the legatees do not live upon their shares as there is where they cultivate them with their own hands. There are examples enough in France of such family sales among prudent heirs to convince us that people here would find it their interest to let the landed capital of the family accumulate up to a certain point.”