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quite as aristocratic as the others, and tending more directly to the perpetuation of hereditary wealth, because it deprived the first heir, in so far, of the right of disposal, was regarded with less abhorrence than the simple provision regarding the preciput in an intestate succession. The discussion was long, and in the Chamber of Deputies, violent. There the debate lasted three days, and was finished on the third only in consequence of several members who had inscribed their names, declining, from the impatience of the Chamber, to exercise their right. The opponents of the project, when they quitted rhe torical and sentimental declamation, had little to say against it, except that it was contrary to the manners and feelings of the people, and that the existing system had not produced, and would not produce, any mischievous subdivision of property. To the argument drawn from the example of England they answered: The English are an emigrating people; they have their East and West Indies, their Australasia, their Canadas; their possessions are scattered all over the globe, and in these they quarter their younger sons. But we have no such resources: our cadets must either starve, or be quartered upon the public; and the church and army, as before the revolution, become the exclusive property of the sons of great families. The speech of M. Villèle contained almost all the sound sense that was spoken on the subject, and his statistical details furnished irrefragable proof of the practical consequences of the system. "We are asked," said he, "for proof of that excessive parcelling out of lands which this project is to remedy? But is

there need of proofs for such a fact? Is it not the Chamber itself which has pointed out its dangers to the attention of government? The deliberations of councils general every year cry out for a prompt remedy for an evil, the progress of which is immense. What proprietor is there who does not see country houses taken down, and lands divided into pieces all about them? In whatever direction you traverse France, the influence of this indefinite division must be remarked, and the traveller must observe it even in the abandonment of the means of transport suitable to the wealth of great proprietors alone. Nevertheless, precise details are looked for:but the minister would not have waited till they were asked for, if, in producing those which he could collect, he was not afraid of committing, in some sort, an act of Charlatanism, unworthy of the good faith of the king's government. In such a matter, however exact may be the returns and the tables of figures, they cannot furnish a proof incapable of being disputed. The documents collected to day cannot give information, unless we could compare them with returns made at a former period. It is, therefore, without the hope of any great advantage, that government has ordered researches to be made; and it is also without the hope of founding any argument on them, but merely to satisfy the desire of several speakers, that it has produced that information which it was able to procure. The returns have been made from the registers of several departments, presenting altogether an average population of 363,580 individuals. Out of this number the registers

of 1815 present 149,311 taxable of them, 116,433 pay less than 20 francs (16 shillings) impost 9,616 pay from 20 to 30 francs. (16s. to 24s.)-9,243 pay from 30 to 50 francs. (24s. to 40s.)7,519 pay from 50 to 100 francs (21. to 41.)-5,623 pay from 100 to 500 francs (4l. to 20l.)—578 pay from 500 to 1,000 francs (201. to 401.) and 302 pay 1,000 francs (401) and over.

In 1826, the results are as follow, from the same registers :161,739 are taxable, of whom 133,903 pay less than 20 francs8,983 from 20 to 30-7,915 from 30 to 50-6,083 from 50 to 1003,649 from 100 to 300-(this new class has been formed on account of the electoral census, to which the old tables paid no attention) 580 from 300 to 500-411 from 500 to 1,000-and 206, 1,000 francs and upwards. It may be true that the registers do not give the exact number of proprietors; but, if it be taken for granted that the comparison of the two returns may give an exact idea of the progressive division of lands, it will be found that, in ten years, the number of persons paying under twenty francs has increased about a ninth-while those who pay above one hundred francs has diminished a third, which is far from offering a satisfactory result.

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contained dispositions advantageous to the children; the others were bequests to strangers. By this it may be judged what has been the operation of equal partition, and whether it is necessary to prevent its effects. England is spoken of-but what other country offers an example of equal industry, co-existing with the greatest accumulation of landed property? The resources which she offers to her cadets are talked of-but is France less fertile in resources of the same kind? has she not even this additional advantage, that all the outlets opened to her industry are her own; that the products of her manufactures are consumed in her own interior, while England is obliged to look for consumers from abroad? France then, in this point of view, has no reason to envy England, and nothing hinders her, after the example of her neighbours, from attempting to introduce within wise limits, a little fixedness in properties and families. Of what consequence, it is said, is this fixedness to their fortunes, which decrease and perish, and are replaced by others which spring up and augment without there being any necessity that society should disquiet itself about the change? If fortunes in money are spoken of, the minister agrees that the losses of one are compensated to a certain point by the gains of another; but if fortunes interfere one with another, it is very different with landed properties. Lands may be very easily divided, but, after they have been divided, it is not easy to reunite them. The greatest sacrifices will sometimes be ineffectual to obtain success in such an undertaking. A man becomes naturally attached to the soil which

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he has purchased, or bretot of inherited, small TTRS 8 WIS properties; from his enough of moderate properties The smaller enough" ancestors. the inheritance, the stronger very often is his desire of retaining it. You may cover it with gold without prevailing on him to yield it. Therefore, nowhere see a a great property formed out of the fragments into which it had been divided and it may be truly said, that in all countries the great domains have been generally formed at the epoch of a conquest. Small properties are not an evil; but it is necessary that moderate properties should be preserved, and that great properties should not be entirely dismembered. Such is the intention of the law. All the effect expected from it is to arrest a little the progress of the evil, and maintain for a longer time the actual state of things, or a state something resembling it. In order to appreciate this, we must know what that state is. During the course of the Revolution, the properties of the clergy and the old corporations were sold, and have passed into the hands of 666,000 purchasers; 440,000 in dividuals have purchased the lands of twenty-seven thousand emigrant families; the properties of communes have been shared among 110,000 persons; finally, 100,000 hectares of forests have been sold since the restoration in short, in consequence of these sales,1,222,000 new proprietors have succeeded 30,000 old proprietors, without speaking of the purchasers of the forests, or the consequences of later divisions.

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"From this statement it may be judged, that we need not fear too great a concentration. Division has produced all the effect that any one could desire. France beyond contradiction has enough of

she has perhaps some great properties, in addition to what she has, might be porno It is because the actual necessary state of things has produced so much comfort ort among the people, such a security for government, such an extension to our commerce, that we desire to maintain it without alteration. To its maintenance, besides, is is attached the security of our political institutions. The limited monarchy, under which we have the happiness to live, cannot in reality do without the influence of great properties, of this necessary bond which attaches the different parts of the social edifice to one another of this indispens able support of the throne and public liberty, which the indefinite division of properties leaves in isolation, feebleness, and abandonment. Cultivation itself loses more than may be thought by the parcelling out of great properties. The small proprietor cultivates at greater loss, and, if we compare what his acre costs him with what the acre costs the great proprietor, it will be seen that the spade is more expensive than the plough, that cultivation is like all other branches of industry, and the more it is restrained the less profitable it is. On the other hand, it is ba not the small properties, but the large, which provision the markets, and it is the goods brought to market that support the population of cities, and all the manufacturing part of the nation. Small properties, no doubt, swell the population; but this excess of population absorbs all the products of the earth which it brings into existence, and there remains nothing to assist the wants of the remainder of society.

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the whole of the portion of which the deceased might have legally disposed, was rejected by a majority of 120 to 94. With this alteration, the law passed; the last clause which allowed the testator to name the heir of his heir among that heir's children, being carried by an overwhelming majority. A man has an interest in extending his own powers over his property, which he does not feel in enabling the law to make such a division of it, as perhaps would not have been accordant with his own wishes and feelings. So great, however, was the triumph supposed to have been gained by the popular voice in the rejection of the first provision, that many quarters of Paris were illuminated, and, in the intoxication of victory, the opponents of the minister were reckoning on his downfall. But the question was no party or political question. Perhaps the measure was urged with too much precipitancy, when so loud a clamour had been excited against it; for such changes ought always to be introduced gradually, and with much deference even to the prejudices of the people; but M. de Villele was no more interested in the law of primogeniture than the most vehement of his opponents, and a failure to carry a measure not essentially ministerial could scarcely be fatal to the existence of the ministry itself.

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dubitable that the traffic was still carried on in her colonies to a very considerable extent, in despite of the naval force which was stationed to prevent it; but a much more serious and dishonouring fact was, that in Nantz, Bourdeaux, and other French ports, vessels were fitted out for slaving voyages, and were allowed, by the carelessness or the connivance of the authori ties, although the mode of their equipment told every one the purposes for which they were intended, to proceed unmolested to their destination. Either the law was too feeble and imperfect to meet the boldness and expedients of the traders; or those to whom the execution of it had been intrusted, winked at its violation. The precautions adopted by go vernment to secure the due execu tion of the law, certainly did not at present justify the suspicion that o they had been taken merely as a covering against the disgrace of an avowed encouragement of the trade, under which the colonial market might still be supplied, without compromising the character of the mother country. France, indeed, had not followed the example of Britain and America, în declaring the trade to be piracy; the French politicians objected to such a mea sure that it would expose their flag to the insult of subjecting the vessels which bore it to be visited by British cruisers; but the force stationed abroad, and the regulations established, and proceedings carried on, at home, were fair proofs [R]

Although for several years, the Slave Trade had been formally abolished by France, though she VOL. LXVIII.

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that government was anxious to suppress the trade, however much they might have been mistaken in the efficacy of their means, or the honesty and vigilance of the sub ordinate officers. On the coast of Africa were stationed a frigate, a sloop of war, and six smaller vessels; and another frigate, with three smaller vessels, cruized off Cuba, for the purpose of intercepting slave-ships. The governors of French colonies and naval officers commanding in the West Indies, Cayenne, and Madagascar, had received injunctions to use all due vigilance, and to seize all French vessels which might attempt to trade in slaves: orders had been issued from the depart ment of the marine, addressed to all king's ships on their leaving French ports, to assist in the repression of the traffic, by boarding and searching all French vessels suspected of engaging in it, and to detain those whose lading and equipment furnished proof of their being slave-ships. There was held out to the captors a premium of 100 francs head-money, for every slave brought in, to be employed in the public works; and the French consuls on the western coasts of America were authorized to sequester any French ship convicted of trading in slaves, with orders to send her to the nearest French colony for adjudication. At home, the naval authorities in the different ports were required to throw every obstacle in the way of the clearance of any vessel, whose outfit and general equip ment might appear suspicious: they were commanded to be vigilant in preventing the shipment of manacles for fastening slaves together, as also of a greater number of water cocks or boilers than might

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be strictly necessary for the crew, and not to deliver the musterroll in cases where the number of the crew exceeded that usually employed in vessels to which no suspicion attached. All contraventions of the laws prohibitory of slave-trading were judicially provided against; and since 1817, 153 cases had been submitted to the courts abroad and at home, which led to 53 convictions and 74 acquittals, leaving 26 in which the legal procedure was not yet finished.

But whatever the good faith of the government might be, either their plans were badly seconded by those to whom the execution of them was confided, or the law itself was unable to grapple with the evil. The trade continued, and the harbours of France were disgraced by being the scene of the preparations made for it. The law of Britain might be violated occasionally in a remote colony; but it was never suspected that slave ships were fitted out from Liverpool or Bristol; while in France, both the public voice, and judicial proceedings, proved, that individual love of gain was too powerful for the law. The very number of prosecutions which had been brought, implied a strong belief of being able successfully to evade its prohibitions; and such a belief cannot exist, or, at least, continue to exist, where good law is faithfully and diligently administered. A petition from the merchants of Paris and Havre was presented to the Chamber of Deputies, praying for the enactment of severer laws, stating that the traffic was carried on daily under the French flag, with scandalous effect and activity, and that the law intended to suppress it had only increased its horrors. So long,

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