The Slave Trade, Domestic And Foreign Part 24

"Like a market-gardener. They have their carrots, poppies, hemp, flax, saintfoin, lucerne, rape, colewort, cabbage, rutabaga, black turnips, Swedish and white turnips, teazles, Jerusalem artichokes, mangelwurzel, parsnips, kidney-beans, field beans, and peas, vetches, Indian corn, buckwheat, madder for the manufacturer, potatoes, their great crop of tobacco, millet--all or the greater part under the family management, in their own family allotments. They have had these things first to sow, many of them to transplant, to hoe, to weed, to clear off insects, to top; many of them to mow and gather in successive crops. They have their water-meadows--of which kind almost all their meadows are to flood, to mow, and reflood; watercourses to reopen and to make anew; their early fruits to gather, to bring to market, with their green crops of vegetables; their cattle, sheep, calves, fowls; (most of them prisoners,) and poultry to look after; their vines, as they shoot rampantly in the summer heat, to prune, and thin out the leaves when they are too thick; and any one may imagine what a scene of incessant labour it is."--_Rural and Domestic Life in Germany_, p. 50.

The existence of a domestic market enables them, of course, to manure their land. "No means," says Mr. Kay--

"Are spared to make the ground produce as much as possible. Not a square yard of land is uncultivated or unused. No stories are left mingled with the soil. The ground is cleared of weeds and rubbish, and the lumps of earth are broken up with as much care as in an English garden. If it is meadow land, it is cleaned of obnoxious herbs and weeds. Only the sweet gra.s.ses which are good for the cattle are allowed to grow. All the manure from the house, farm, and yard is carefully collected and scientifically prepared. The liquid manure is then carried, in hand-carts like our road-watering carts into the fields, and is watered over the meadows in equal proportions. The solid manures are broken up, cleared of stones and rubbish, and are then properly mixed and spread over the lands which require them. No room is lost in hedges or ditches, and no breeding-places are left for the vermin which in many parts of England do so much injury to the farmers' crops. The character of the soil of each district is carefully examined, and a suitable rotation of crops is chosen, so as to obtain the greatest possible return without injuring the land; and the cattle are well housed, are kept beautifully clean, and are groomed and tended like the horses of our huntsmen."--Vol. i. 118.

The labours of the field have become productive, and there has been excited, says Dr. Shubert--

"A singular and increasing interest in agriculture and in the breeding of cattle; and if in some localities, on account of peculiar circ.u.mstances or of a less degree of intelligence, certain branches of the science of agriculture are less developed than in other localities, it is, nevertheless, undeniable that an almost universal progress has been made in the cultivation of the soil and in the breeding of cattle. No one can any longer, as was the custom thirty years ago, describe the Prussian system of agriculture by the single appellation of the three-year-course system; no man can, as formerly, confine his enumeration of richly-cultivated districts to a few localities. In the present day, there is no district of Prussia in which intelligence, persevering energy, and an ungrudged expenditure of capital, has not immensely improved a considerable part of the country for the purposes of agriculture and of the breeding of cattle."[172]

Speaking of that portion of Germany which lies on the Rhine and the Neckar, Professor Rau, of Heidelberg, says that--

"Whoever travels hastily through this part of the country must have been agreeably surprised with the luxuriant vegetation of the fields, with the orchards and vineyards which cover the hillside's, with the size of the villages, with the breadth of their streets, with the beauty of their official buildings, with the cleanliness and stateliness of their houses, with the good clothing in which the people appear at their festivities, and with the universal proofs of a prosperity which has been caused by industry and skill, and which has survived all the political changes of the times. * * * The unwearied a.s.siduity of the peasants--who are to be seen actively employed the whole of every year and of every day, and who are never idle, because they understand how to arrange their work, and how to set apart for every time and season its appropriate duties--is as remarkable as their eagerness to avail themselves of every circ.u.mstance and of every new invention which can aid them, and their ingenuity in improving their resources, are praiseworthy. It is easy to perceive that the peasant of this district really understands his business. He can give reasons for the occasional failures of his operations; he knows and remembers clearly his pecuniary resources; he arranges his choice of fruits according to their prices; and he makes his calculations by the general signs and tidings of the weather."--_Landwirthshaft der Rheinpfalz_.

The people of this country "stand untutored," says Mr. Kay, "except by experience; but," he continues--

"Could the tourist hear these men in their blouses and thick gaiters converse on the subject, he would be surprised at the ma.s.s of practical knowledge they possess, and at the caution and yet the keenness with which they study these advantages. Of this all may rest a.s.sured, that from the commencement of the offsets of the Eifel, where the village cultivation a.s.sumes an individual and strictly local character, good reason can be given for the manner in which every inch of ground is laid out, as for every balm, root, or tree that covers it."--Vol. i. 130.

The system of agriculture is making rapid progress, as is always the case when the artisan is brought to the side of the husbandman.

Constant intercourse with each other sharpens the intellect, and men learn to know the extent of their powers. Each step upward is but the preparation for a new and greater one, and therefore it is that everywhere among those small farmers, says Mr. Kay, "science is welcomed." "Each," he continues--

"Is so anxious to emulate and surpa.s.s his neighbours, that any new invention, which benefits one, is eagerly sought out and adopted by the others."--Vol. i. 149.

The quant.i.ty of stock that is fed is constantly and rapidly increasing, and, as a necessary consequence, the increase in the quant.i.ty of grain is more rapid than in the population, although that of Prussia and Saxony now increases faster than that of any other nation of Europe.[173]

The land of Germany is much divided. A part of this division was the work of governments which interfered between the owners and the peasants, and gave to the latter absolute rights over a part of the land they cultivated, instead of previous claims to rights of so uncertain a kind as rendered the peasant a mere slave to the land-owner. Those rights, however, could not have been maintained had not the policy of the government tended to promote the growth of population and wealth. Centralization would have tended to the reconsolidation of the land, as it has done in India, Ireland, Scotland, and England; but decentralization here gives value to land, and aids in carrying out the system commenced by government. Professor Reichensperger [174] says--

"That the price of land which is divided into small properties, in the Prussian Rhine provinces, is much higher, and has been rising much more rapidly, than the price of land on the great estates. He and Professor Rau both say that this rise in the price of the small estates would have ruined the more recent, purchasers, unless the productiveness of the small estates had increased in at least an equal proportion; and as the small proprietors have been gradually becoming more and more prosperous, notwithstanding the increasing prices they have paid for their land, he argues, with apparent justness, that this would seem to show that not only the _gross_ profits of the small estates, but the _net_ profits also, have been gradually increasing, and that the _net_ profits per acre of land, when farmed by small proprietors, are greater than the net profits per acre of land farmed by great proprietors."--_Kay_, vol. i. 116.

The admirable effect of the division of land, which follows necessarily in the wake of the growth of population and wealth, is thus described by Sismondi:--[175]

"Wherever are found peasant proprietors, are also found that ease, that security, that independence, and that confidence in the future, which insure at the same time happiness and virtue. The peasant who, with his family, does all the work on his little inheritance, who neither pays rent to any one above him, nor wages to any one below him, who regulates his production by his consumption, who eats his own corn, drinks his own wine, and is clothed with his own flax and wool, cares little about knowing the price of the market; for he has little to sell and little to buy, and is never ruined by the revolutions of commerce. Far from fearing for the future, it is embellished by his hopes; for he puts out to profit, for his children or for ages to come, every instant which is not required by the labour of the year. Only a few moments, stolen from otherwise lost time, are required to put into the ground the nut which in a hundred years will become a large tree; to hollow out the aqueduct which will drain his field for ever; to form the conduit which will bring him a spring of water; to improve, by many little labours and attentions bestowed in spare moments, all the kinds of animals and vegetables by which he is surrounded. This little patrimony is a true savings-bank, always ready to receive his little profits, and usefully to employ his leisure moments. The ever-acting powers of nature make his labours fruitful, and return to him a hundredfold. The peasant has a strong sense of the happiness attached to the condition of proprietor. Thus he is always eager to purchase land at any price. He pays for it more than it is worth; but what reason he has to esteem at a high price the advantage of thenceforward always employing his labour advantageously, without being obliged to offer it cheap, and of always finding his bread when he wants it, without being obliged to buy it dear!"--_Kay_; vol. i. 153.

The German people borrow from the earth, and they pay their debts; and this they are enabled to do because the market is everywhere near, and becoming nearer every day, as, with the increase of population and wealth, men are enabled to obtain better machinery of conversion and transportation. They are, therefore, says Mr. Kay--

"Gradually acquiring capital, and their great ambition is to have land of their own. They eagerly seize every opportunity of purchasing a small farm; and the price is so raised by the compet.i.tion, that land pays little more than two per cent. interest for the purchase-money. Large properties gradually disappear, and are divided into small portions, which sell at a high rate. But the wealth and industry of the population is continually increasing, being rather through the ma.s.ses, than acc.u.mulated in individuals."--Vol. i. 183.

The disappearance of large properties in Germany proceeds, _pari pa.s.su_, with the disappearance of small ones in England. If the reader desire to know the views of Adam Smith as to the relative advantages of the two systems, he may turn to the description, from his pen, of the feelings of the small proprietor, given in a former chapter;[176]

after which he may profit by reading the following remarks of Mr. Kay, prompted by his observation of the course of things in Germany:--

"But there can be no doubt that five acres, the property of an intelligent peasant, who farms it himself, in a country where the peasants have learned to farm, will always produce much more per acre than an equal number of acres will do when farmed by a mere _leasehold_ tenant. In the case of the peasant proprietor, the increased activity and energy of the farmer, and the deep interest he feels in the improvement of his land, which are always caused by the fact of _ownership_, more than compensate the advantage arising from the fact that the capital required to work the large farms is less in proportion to the quant.i.ty of land cultivated than the capital required to work the small farm. In the cases of a large farm and of a small farm, the occupiers of which are both tenants of another person, and not owners themselves, it may be true that the produce of the large farm will be greater in proportion to the capital employed in cultivation than that of the small farm; and that, therefore, the farming of the larger farm will be the most economical, and will render the largest rent to the landlord."--Vol. i. 113.

Land is constantly changing hands, and "people of all cla.s.ses," says Mr. Kay--

"Are able to become proprietors. Shopkeepers and labourers of the towns purchase gardens outside the towns, where they and their families work in the fine evenings, in raising vegetables and fruit for the use of their households; shopkeepers, who have laid by a little competence, purchase farms, to which they and their families retire from the toil and disquiet of a town life; farmers purchase the farms they used formerly to rent of great land-owners; while most of the peasants of these countries have purchased and live upon farms of their own, or are now economizing and laying by all that they can possibly spare from their earnings, in order therewith as soon as possible to purchase a farm or a garden."--Vol. i. 58.

We have here the strongest inducements to exertion and economy. Every man seeks to have a little farm, or a garden, of his own, and all have, says Mr. Kay--

"The consciousness that they have their fate in their own hands; that their station in life depends upon their own exertions; that they can rise in the world, if they will, only be patient and laborious enough; that they can gain an independent position by industry and economy; that they are not cut off by an insurmountable barrier from the next step in the social scale; that it is possible to purchase a house and farm of their own; and that the more industrious and prudent they are, the better will be the position of their families: [and this consciousness] gives the labourers of those countries, where the land is not tied up in the hands of a few, an elasticity of feeling, a hopefulness, an energy, a pleasure in economy and labour, a distaste for expenditure upon gross sensual enjoyments,--which would only diminish the gradually increasing store,--and an independence of character, which the dependent and helpless labourers of the other country can never experience. In short, the life of a peasant in those countries where the land is not kept from subdividing by the laws is one of the highest moral education. His unfettered position stimulates him to better his condition, to economize, to be industrious, to husband his powers, to acquire moral habits, to use foresight, to gain knowledge about agriculture, and to give his children a good education, so that they may improve the patrimony and social position he will bequeath to them."--Vol. i.

200.

We have here the stimulus of hope of improvement--a state of things widely different from that described in a former chapter in relation to England, where, says the _Times_, "once a peasant, a man must remain a peasant for ever." Such is the difference between the one system, that looks to centralizing in the hands of a few proprietors of machinery power over the lives and fortunes of all the cultivators of the world, and the other, that looks to giving to all those cultivators power over themselves. The first is the system of slavery, and the last that of freedom.

Hope is the mother of industry, and industry in her turn begets temperance. "In the German and Swiss towns," says Mr. Kay--

"There are no places to be compared to those sources of the demoralization of our town poor--the gin-palaces. There is very little drunkenness in either towns or villages, while the absence of the gin-palaces removes from the young the strong causes of degradation and corruption which exist at the doors of the English homes, affording scenes and temptations which cannot but Inflict upon our labouring cla.s.ses moral injury which they would not otherwise suffer." * * * "The total absence of intemperance and drunkenness at these, and indeed at all other fetes in Germany, is very singular. I never saw a drunken man either in Prussia or Saxony, and I was a.s.sured by every one that such a sight was rare. I believe the temperance of the poor to be owing to the civilizing effects of their education in the schools and in the army, to the saving and careful habits which the possibility of purchasing land; and the longing to purchase it, nourish in their minds, and to their having higher and more pleasurable amus.e.m.e.nts than the alehouse and hard drinking."-- Vol. i. 247, 261.

As a natural consequence of this, pauperism is rare, as will be seen by the following extract from a report of the Prussian Minister of Statistics, given by Mr. Kay:--

"As our Prussian agriculture raises so much more meat and bread on the same extent of territory than it used to do, it follows that agriculture must have been greatly increased both in science and industry. There are other facts which confirm the truth of this conclusion. The division of estates has, since 1831, proceeded more and more throughout the country. There are now many more small independent proprietors than formerly. Yet, however many complaints of pauperism are heard among the dependent labourers, WE NEVER HEARD IT COMPLAINED THAT PAUPERISM IS INCREASING AMONG THE PEASANT PROPRIETORS. Nor do we hear that the estates of the peasants in the eastern provinces are becoming too small, _or that the system of freedom of disposition leads to too great a division of the father's land among the children_." * * * "_It is an almost universally acknowledged fact that the gross produce of the land, in grain, potatoes, and cattle, is increased when the land is cultivated by those who own small portions of it_; and if this had not been the case, it would have been impossible to raise as much of the necessary articles of food as has been wanted for the increasing population.

Even on the larger estates, the improvement in the system of agriculture is too manifest to admit of any doubt.... Industry, and capital, and labour are expended upon the soil. It is rendered productive by means of manuring and careful tillage. The amount of the produce is increased.... The prices of the estates, on account of their increased productiveness, have increased. The great commons, many acres of which used to lie wholly uncultivated, are disappearing, and are being turned into meadows and fields. The cultivation of potatoes has increased very considerably. Greater plots of lands are now devoted to the cultivation of potatoes than ever used to be.... The old system of the three-field system of agriculture, according to which one-third of the field used to be left always fallow, in order to recruit the land, is now scarcely ever to be met with.... With respect to the cattle, the farmers now labour to improve the breed. Sheep-breeding is rationally and scientifically pursued on the great estates.... A remarkable activity in agricultural pursuits has been raised; and, as all attempts to improve agriculture are encouraged and a.s.sisted by the present government, agricultural colleges are founded, agricultural a.s.sociations of scientific farmers meet in all provinces to suggest improvements to aid in carrying out experiments, and even the peasant proprietors form such a.s.sociations among themselves, and establish model farms and inst.i.tutions for themselves."--Vol. i. 266.

The English system, which looks to the consolidation of land and the aggrandizement of the large capitalist, tends, on the contrary, to deprive the labourer

"Of every worldly inducement to practise self-denial, prudence, and economy; it deprives him of every hope of rising in the world; it makes him totally careless about self-improvement, about the inst.i.tutions of his country, and about the security of property; it undermines all his independence of character; it makes him dependent on the workhouse, or on the charity he can obtain by begging at the hall; and it renders him the fawning follower of the all-powerful land-owner."--Vol. i. 290.

The change that has taken place in the consumption of clothing is thus shown:--

Per head in 1805. In 1842.

----------------- -------- Ells of cloth............. 3/4 ............ 1-1/5 " linen............. 4 ............ 5 " woollen stuffs.... 3/4 ............ 13 " silks............. 1/4 ............ 3/8

"The Sunday suit of the peasants," says Mr. Kay--

"In Germany, Switzerland, and Holland rivals that of the middle cla.s.ses. A stranger taken into the rooms where the village dances are held, and where the young men and young women are dressed in their best clothes, would often be unable to tell what cla.s.s of people were around him." * * * "It is very curious and interesting, at the provincial fairs, to see not only what a total absence there is of any thing like the rags and filth of pauperism, but also what evidence of comfort and prosperity there is in the clean and comfortable attire of the women."--Vol. i. 225, 227.

In further evidence of the improvement of the condition of the female s.e.x, he tells us that

"An Englishman, taken to the markets, fairs, and village festivals of these countries, would scarcely credit his eyes were he to see the peasant-girls who meet there to join in the festivities; they are so much more lady-like in their appearance, in their manners, and in their dress than those of our country parishes."--Vol. i. 31.

The contrast between the education of the children of the poor in Germany and England is thus shown:--

"I advise my readers to spend a few hours in any of our back streets and alleys, those nurseries of vice and feeders of the jails, and to a.s.sure himself that children of the same cla.s.s as those he will see in [these] haunts--dirty, rude, boisterous, playing in the mud with uncombed hair, filthy and torn garments, and skin that looks as if it had not been washed for months--are always, throughout Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Holland, and a great part of France, either in school or in the school play-ground, clean, well-dressed, polite and civil in their manners, and healthy, intelligent, and happy in their appearance. It is this difference in the early life of the poor of the towns of these countries which explains the astonishing improvement which has taken place in the state of the back streets and alleys of many of their towns. The majority of their town poor are growing up with tastes which render them unfit to endure such degradation as the filth and misery of our town pauperism."--Vol. i.

198.

As a natural consequence, there is that tendency toward equality which everywhere else is attendant on _real_ freedom. "The difference," says Mr. Kay--

"Between the condition of the juvenile population of these countries and of our own may be imagined, when I inform my readers that many of the boys and girls of the higher cla.s.ses of society in these countries are educated at the same desks with the boys and girls of the poorest of the people, and that children comparable with the cla.s.s which attends our 'ragged schools' are scarcely ever to be found. How impossible it would be to induce our gentry to let their children be educated with such children as frequent the 'ragged schools,' I need not remind my readers."--P. 101.

This tendency to equality is further shown in the following pa.s.sage:--

"The manners of the peasants in Germany and Switzerland form, as I have already said, a very singular contrast to the manners of our peasants. They are polite, but independent. The manner of salutation encourages this feeling. If a German gentleman addresses a peasant, he raises his hat before the poor man, as we do before ladies. The peasant replies by a polite 'Pray be covered, sir,' and then, in good German, answers the questions put to him."--P. 159.

With growing tendency to equality of fortune, as the people pa.s.s from slavery toward freedom, there is less of ostentatious display, and less necessity for that slavish devotion to labour remarked in England. "All cla.s.ses," says Mr. Kay--

"In Germany, Switzerland, France, and Holland are therefore satisfied with less income than the corresponding cla.s.ses in England. They, therefore, devote less time to labour, and more time to healthy and improving recreation. The style of living among the mercantile cla.s.ses of these countries is much simpler than in England, but their enjoyment of life is much greater."--Vol. i. 303.

As a consequence of this, the amus.e.m.e.nts of their leisure hours are of a more improving character, as is here seen:--

"The amus.e.m.e.nts of the peasants and operatives in the greater part of Germany, Switzerland, and Holland, where they are well educated, and where they are generally proprietors of farms or gardens, are of a much higher and of a much more healthy character than those of the most prosperous of similar cla.s.ses in England. Indeed, it may be safely affirmed that the amus.e.m.e.nts of the poor in Germany are of a higher character than the amus.e.m.e.nts of the lower part of the middle cla.s.ses in England. This may at first seem a rather bold a.s.sertion; but it will not be thought so, when I have shown what their amus.e.m.e.nts are.