however, has been much obstructed by entails;
the heirs of entail being generally restrained
from letting leases for any long term of years,
frequently for more than one year. A late
act of parliament has, in this respect, somewhat
slackened their fetters, though they are
still by much too strait. In Scotland, besides,
as no leasehold gives a vote for a member of
parliament, the yeomanry are upon this account
less respectable to their landlords than
in England.
In other parts of Europe, after it was found
convenient to secure tenants both against heirs
and purchasers, the term of their security was
still limited to a very short period; in France,
for example, to nine years from the commencement
of the lease. It has in that country,
indeed, been lately extended to twenty-seven,
a period still too short to encourage the
tenant to make the most important improvements.
The proprietors of land were anciently
the legislators of every part of Europe.
The laws relating to land, therefore, were all
calculated for what they supposed the interest
of the proprietor. It was for his interest, they
had imagined, that no lease granted by any of
his predecessors should hinder him from enjoying,
during a long term of years, the full
value of his land. Avarice and injustice are
always short-sighted, and they did not foresee
how much this regulation must obstruct improvement,
and thereby hurt, in the long-run,
the real interest of the landlord.
The farmers, too, besides paying the rent,
were anciently, it was supposed, bound to perform
a great number of services to the landlord,
which were seldom either specified in
the lease, or regulated by any precise rule, but
by the use and wont of the manor or barony.
These services, therefore, being almost entirely
arbitrary, subjected the tenant to many vexations.
In Scotland the abolition of all services
not precisely stipulated in the lease, has,
in the course of a few years, very much altered
for the better the condition of the yeomanry
of that country.
The public services to which the yeomanry
were bound, were not less arbitrary than the
private ones. To make and maintain the
high roads, a servitude which still subsists, I
believe, everywhere, though with different degrees
of oppression in different countries, was
not the only one. When the king's troops,
when his household, or his officers of any kind,
passed through any part of the country, the
yeomanry were bound to provide them with
horses, carriages, and provisions, at a price regulated
by the purveyor. Great Britain is, I
believe, the only monarchy in Europe where
the oppression of purveyance has been entirely
abolished. It still subsists in France and
Germany.
The public taxes, to which they were subject,
were as irregular and oppressive as the
services. The ancient lords, though extremely
unwilling to grant, themselves, any pecuniary
aid to their sovereign, easily allowed him
to tallage, as they called it, their tenants, and
had not knowledge enough to foresee how
much this must, in the end, affect their own
revenue. The taille, as it still subsists in
France, may serve as an example of those ancient
tallages. It is a tax upon the supposed
profits of the farmer, which they estimate by
the stock that he has upon the farm. It is
his interest, therefore, to appear to have as little
as possible, and consequently to employ as
little as possible in its cultivation, and none
in its improvement. Should any stock happen
to accumulate in the hands of a French
farmer, the taille is almost equal to a prohibition
of its ever being employed upon the
land. This tax, besides, is supposed to dishonour
whoever is subject to it, and to degrade
him below, not only the rank of a gentleman,
but that of a burgher; and whoever rents the
lands of another becomes subject to it. No
gentleman, nor even any burgher, who has
stock, will submit to this degradation. This
tax, therefore, not only hinders the stock which
accumulates upon the land from being employed
in its improvement, but drives away all
other stock from it. The ancient tenths and
fifteenths, so usual in England in former
times, seem, so far as they affected the land, to
have been taxes of the same nature with the
taille.
Under all these discouragements, little improvement
could be expected from the occupiers
of land. That order of people, with all
the liberty and security which law can give,
must always improve under great disadvantage.
The farmer, compared with the proprietor,
is as a merchant who trades with borrowed
money, compared with one who trades
with his own. The stock of both may improve;
but that of the one, with only equal
good conduct, must always improve more
slowly than that of the other, on account of
the large share of the profits which is consumed
by the interest of the loan. The lands cultivated
by the farmer must, in the same manner,
with only equal good conduct, be improved
more slowly than those cultivated by the
proprietor, on account of the large share of
the produce which is consumed in the rent,
and which, had the farmer been proprietor, he
might have employed in the further improvement
of the land. The station of a farmer,
besides, is, from the nature of things, inferior
to that of a proprietor. Through the greater
part of Europe, the yeomanry are regarded as
an inferior rank of people, even to the better
sort of tradesmen and mechanics, and in all
parts of Europe to the great merchants and
master manufacturers. It can seldom happen,
therefore, that a man of any considerable
stock should quit the superior, in order to
place himself in an inferior station. Even in
the present state of Europe, therefore, little