We must now consider what disadvantages the antients lay under with regard to populousness, and what checks they received from their political maxims and institutions. There are commonly compensations in every human condition; and tho’ these compensations be not always perfectly equal, yet they serve, at least, to restrain the prevailing principle. To compare them and estimate their influence, is indeed very difficult, even where they take place in the same age, and in neighbouring countries: But where several ages have intervened, and only scattered lights are afforded us by antient authors; what can we do but amuse ourselves by talking, pro and con, on an interesting subject, and thereby correcting all hasty and violent determinations?
Modern Italian Conditions.
(2) Bolton King and Thomas Okey, Italy today.
In Italy today, Messrs Bolton King and Thomas Okey furnish a most interesting collection of facts relative to Italian rural conditions. The extent to which the phenomena of antiquity reappear in the details of this careful treatise is most striking. Italy being the central land of my inquiry, and convinced as I am that the great variety of local conditions is even now not sufficiently recognized in Roman Histories, this excellent book is of peculiar value. In the course of (say) fifteen centuries Italy and her people have passed through strange vicissitudes, not merely political: a great change has taken place in the range of agricultural products: yet old phenomena of rural life meet the inquirer at every turn. Surely this cannot be dismissed lightly as a casual coincidence. I cannot find room to set out the resemblances in detail, so I append a short table of reference to passages in the book that have impressed me most. Supplementary to this, as a vivid illustration of conditions in a mountain district, the first three chapters of In the Abruzzi, by Anne Macdonell, are decidedly helpful. For instance, it appears that the old migratory pasturage still existed in full force down to quite recent times, but the late conversion of much Apulian lowland from pasture to tillage has seriously affected the position of the highland shepherds by reducing the area available for winter grazing. The chapter on brigandage has also some instructive passages.
References to Italy today.
Peasant contrasted with wage-earner, pp 64-6, 72, 74, 126, 166-8, 171-2, 175-6, 200, 312, and Index under mezzaiuoli and peasants. Agricultural classes, pp 164-6. Partiaries, pp 168, 173. Emphyteusis, p 173. Improvements, p 173. Farming through steward, pp 174-5. Tenancies, pp 168-74, and Index under peasants. Rents in kind, p 171. Debt of various classes, pp 182-4, 366, 376. Taxes, p 140. Gangs of labourers, pp 166, 376. Wages, pp 126, 128, 168, 174, 366, 369-71. Food in wage, p 370. Emigration, pp 371, 396. Self-help in rural districts, pp 184-6, 376. Charities, pp 220 foll, 379 foll. Socialists and Peasantry, pp 64-6, 170, 172, cf 71-2.
(3) R E Prothero, The pleasant land of France. London 1908.
Chapters (essays) II and III, French farming and Tenant-right and agrarian outrage in France, contain much of interest.
pp 91-2 Social advantages of the system of peasant proprietors. A training[1829] to the rural population. Element of stability. The answer to agitators ‘Cela est bien, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.’ Difficulties which beset its artificial creation. Métayage (under present conditions) has proved the best shelter for tenant-farmers against the agricultural storm. Need of implicit confidence between landlord and working partner.