ber. The cultivation of the lands in the neighbourhood of a great town shows how much the country is benefited by the commerce of the town,' pp. 381-82.

As subsistence is prior to luxury, so the industry which procures the former must be prior to that which ministers to the latter. Therefore the cultivation of the country must be prior to the increase of the town. Towns may derive their subsistence, in part, from distant countries, which occasions considerable variations in the progress of opulence. If human institutions had not thwarted natural inclinations, the towns could nowhere have increased beyond what the cultivation of the territory in which they were situated could support. Upon equal profits most men would choose to employ their capitals rather in the cultivation of land than either in manufactures or in foreign trade. The capital employed in land is more under the command of its owner, and is less liable to accidents, than that of the trader, pp. 382-83.

Without the assistance of artificers land cannot be cultivated. These need the assistance of each other, and not being tied down to a precise spot, they form among themselves a small town or village. The inhabitants of the town and those of the country are mutually the servants of one another. The town is a

continual market, where rude produce is exchanged for that which is manufactured. This commerce supplies the inhabitants of the town with the materials of work and the means of their subsistence. The quantity of finished work which they sell to the inhabitants of the country regulates the quantity of the materials and provisions which they buy. Their employment and subsistence can augment only in proportion to the

The adoption of the Wakefield system of colonisation has afforded an experimental illustration of this in our own time. See the Editor's Questions and Exercises in Political Economy, p. 13, quest. 8, and the authorities therein quoted.

demand from the country for finished work, which demand will be in proportion to the extension of cultivation. In America, where land is cheap, manufactures for distant sale have never yet been established in their towns.1 But in countries where land is dear every artificer who has acquired more stock than can be employed in the neighbourhood endeavours to prepare work for more distant sale, p. 384.

For the same reason, where profits are nearly equal manufactures are preferred, for the employment of a capital, to foreign commerce.. In every period of

society the surplus part of the produce must be sent abroad in order to be exchanged for something for which there is a demand at home. If the society has not sufficient capital to cultivate all its lands, and to manufacture all its rude produce, there is an advantage that it should be exported by a foreign capital, that the whole stock may be employed in more useful purposes, p. 385.

According to the NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS, the greater part of the capital of every growing society is, first, directed to agriculture, then to manufactures, and last of all to foreign commerce. This natural order of things has been inverted in the modern states of Europe, owing to the manners and customs which the nature of their original government introduced, and which remained after that government was greatly altered, pp. 385-86.

This was true in 1773, but the case is otherwise now.

CHAPTER II.

Of the discouragement of Agriculture in the ancient States of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire.

WHEN the German and Scythian nations overran the western provinces of the Roman Empire, confusions were introduced which lasted several centuries, interrupted the commerce between the towns and the country, and transferred the greater part of the lands to the principal leaders of the barbarians.'

This original engrossing of the lands introduced the laws of primogeniture and entails, which prevented them from being divided (the former) by succession or (the latter) by alienation. When land, like movables, is considered as the means only of subsistence and enjoyment, it is divided among all the children of the family. Such was the law of succession among the Romans. But when it was considered as the means

The account given in the text requires some modification, but to correct it would require a long dissertation. (See Hallam, Middle Ages, cap. ii. part 1, and Guizot's History of Civilisation in France, vol. i.) For another view, much disfigured by anti-German prejudice, see Coulange's Histoire des Institutions Politiques de l'Ancienne France.

་

Neither of these practices seems to have been in vogue before the tenth century, except in so far as the Roman law may have sanctioned the latter in the form of Substitutions and Fidei Commissa. The extreme rigidity of the English and Scottish medieval custom of primogeniture was unknown, for instance, in France, where the tenure by Frerage' was common north of Loire, whilst in the south the lawyers of the Pays du Droit Ecrit' were so wedded to the rules of the Roman law that they with some difficulty admitted the custom of primogeniture with reference to feudal fiefs under colour of the privileges of the Military Testament' of the Imperial jurisprudence. See Maine's Early History of Institutions, p. 122 seq. Probably in the early history of the nations of antiquity the eldest son had peculiar privileges. For an account of these and their gradual evanescence (which afford a curious parallel to the declining influence of primogeniture in our own day) see Coulange's La Cité Antique, ii. 7, iv. 5.

of power and protection, as in those times when every great landlord was a prince, and his tenants were his subjects, it descended undivided to one. Among the children of the same family there can be no indisputable difference but that of sex and that of age. The male is preferred to the female, and the elder takes place of the younger. Hence the origin of the right of primogeniture. In the present state of Europe the proprietor of a single acre of land is as secure of his possession as the proprietor of a hundred thousand, nevertheless the right of primogeniture continues to be respected, though nothing can be more contrary to the real interest of a numerous family. Entails are the natural consequence of the law of primogeniture. They were unknown to the Romans, and in the present state of Europe nothing can be more absurd. They are founded on the supposition that every successive generation of men have not an equal right to the earth, and all that it possesses,' pp. 386-88.

For arguments in favour of the custom of primogeniture, see M'Culloch's edition of Wealth of Nations, pp. 561-70, and for arguments against it, Mill's Political Economy, ii. 2. 3–5 and v. 9. 2-3. and Rogers's Political Economy, 270.

If land be considered merely as an instrument of production, any law tending to prevent the free sale of land is absurd. But if land be looked on as a means of linking the various classes of society together (since the possession of land necessarily involves power over others), it may be well to put difficulties in the way of rapid changes in the relation of landlord and tenant. Upstart landlords are rapacious to a proverb. It is evident also that equal division, if it does not necessitate, greatly encourages frequent sales of landed estates, or if the property be nominally kept undivided, it will under such a system be burdened with heavier mortgages than under the system of primogeniture, the provision for younger children being greater.

The statement of our author that entails were unknown to the Romans admits of much doubt. The restraint put by Justinian on the number of generations during which Substitutions and Fidei Commissa should avail, looks much like a restraint on family settlements and entails (Just. Novell. clix.); and the curious reader will find under the highly Romanised law of Holland, as set forth by Burge in his Colonial and Foreign Law, vol. ii., a form of substitution answering all the purposes of an entail. In the same work will be found clear state

Great tracts of uncultivated land were thus engrossed by particular families without a possibility of their being divided. It seldom happened that a great proprietor was a great improver. In the disorderly times he was sufficiently employed in defending his own territories. When the establishment of law affords him leisure, he often wants inclination, and almost always abilities suitable for the purpose. To improve land with profit requires an exact attention to small savings, of which a man born to a large fortune is seldom capable. His situation disposes him to attend to ornament rather than profit; his revenue is not sufficient to improve his whole estate in this manner, consequently a great part will go unimproved. The present condition of large estates will show how very unfavourable extensive property is to improvement, pp. 389-90.

If little improvement was to be expected from great proprietors, still less was to be hoped for from the occupiers, who were tenants at will. They were a species of slaves, who were supposed to belong to the land; they could not marry but with the consent of their masters; and they were incapable of acquiring property. The improvement of the land was at the expense of the proprietor. The seed, the cattle, the instruments of husbandry were all his. This species of slavery still subsists in Poland and many parts of Germany.1 Imments of the forms which entail assumed among the various nations of Western Europe, those of Spain being remarkable for their variety and extent.

Notice the important distinction between villainage or serfdom and slavery. The slave was a slave in opposition to all freemen, and if injured the injury was regarded as done to the master. The serf or villain, on the other hand, was free as opposed to all but his master. There is no evidence that real slavery existed in England at the date of legal memory (1189), although it undoubtedly is to be found at an earlier period. See Hallam, Middle Ages, cap. ix. part 1.

Serfdom has now disappeared from all the countries mentioned by Adam Smith. For its nature whilst it lasted see Heineccius, Elementa Juris Germanici, lib. i. tit. 1-2, and Richard Jones's Literary Remains. In England the condition of the villain was in historical times much