XVII. CHAP. replaced Napoleon on the imperial throne, was, at the close of the Restoration, obliged to import annually from 37,000 to 40,000 horses to mount the cavalry, at an expense of seven or eight hundred thousand pounds. * 1830. 129. burdens on France. Small as is the produce of the soil, under the present Immense system of cultivation and division of property in France, the land in in proportion to the extent of arable land in the country, the proportion of that produce which is really enjoyed by the owners and cultivators of the soil is still smaller. Such is the weight of the direct taxes, in that country rendered unavoidable by the known impossibility of levying an adequate revenue by the indirect, and such the magnitude of the burdens attaching to the soil in the shape of government burdens, interest of mortgages, expenses of conveyances and judicial sales, and law charges consequent on its division among such a prodigious multitude of separate proprietors, that not a third of the entire produce of the land remains at the disposal of the proprietors. The land-tax is about 300,000,000 francs (£12,000,000) annually. The mortgages on the land amount to the enormous sum of 11,000,000,000 francs, or £440,000,000; the interest of which, with the relative charges, is 600,000,000 francs, or £24,000,000. The law expenses connected with the judicial sales and transfers of landed property cost annually 200,000,000 francs (£8,000,000) more. † This leaves only 480,000,000 francs, or £19,200,000, to be enjoyed by the 5,500,000 proprietors of land, or less than FOUR POUNDS A-YEAR *In ten years, from 1831 to 1840, there were imported into France, 346,181 horses-or annual average, Cavalry horses bought abroad in 1831, Which cost 17,808,343 francs, or, £712,000 Do. bought in 1848, 38,164 7,997 37,038 37,643 Which cost 23,138,253 francs, or, £920,000 -Statistique de la France-Agriculture, pp. 127, 210; MOUNIER, ii. 110. + The enormous taxes levied on succession and transfer of land in France, and the law expenses consequent on them among such an immense body of small proprietors, is one of the greatest evils bequeathed to France by the confiscations of the Revolution. In 1837 and 1838, the number of properties EACH PROPRIETOR. XVII. 1830. On this miserable pittance are to be CHAP. maintained 24,000,000 persons engaged in the cultivation of the soil! In these circumstances, it is not surprising that there is so little surplus produce left to be employed in encouraging the industry of the four millions of persons who inhabit thirty-nine of its principal towns, including Paris the only thing to be wondered at is, Agric. de la how the rural inhabitants can exist at all. In fact, they In fact, they France, i. 170, 295, could not do so were it not that, as is the case with the 296; ii. 81; ryots of Hindostan, or the fellahs of Egypt, necessity France had taught them the means of supporting life upon the 270, 289. smallest possible amount of subsistence.1 1 Mounier, Stat. de la (Agric.), the inhabi from these causes. Not only does this ruinous division of land, and conse- 130. quent impoverishment of the rural population, preclude Crowding of the possibility of any improvement in the cultivation of tants of the soil, or the commencement of any undertakings which towe require capital to carry them on, but it operates in the most serious manner, and with overwhelming force, upon the urban population. Unable to find employment in the country, the rural inhabitants, who have not land enough to maintain them and their families, are driven by necessity to take refuge in the great towns, where alone there is any regular provision established for the poor. In the rural districts there is none. Thus the towns, and especially the capital, become burdened with. an immense mass of needy persons, clamorous for bread, transferred in France by compulsory sale and succession, and the sums realised by them to the exchequer, stood as follows: -Rapport du Ministre des Finances, 1839; MOUNIER, i. 130, 131. Value of lands transferred in France from 1825 to 1835: —Tableau du Ministre des Finances (M. Martin), 1837; Mounier, i. 111. XVII. 1830. CHAP. who have permanently left the country, and taken up their abode there, in search of employment, legal relief, or charity. This evil is felt, in a certain degree, in all the great cities of old and long-civilised communities; but it was experienced in an extraordinary degree in France, in consequence of the combination of circumstances which had deprived labour of its ordinary encouragement in the country, and driven it into the great towns. And when there, the same circumstances deprived it of the employment which it otherwise would have found in the expenditure of the nobility and wealthy landed proprietors; for their estates were all swept away, and divided among a swarm of indigent peasants, who, so far from having any surplus produce to expend on the luxuries, could barely find the means of existence in their own habitations. 131. Effect of Two other circumstances, of overwhelming importance, contributed in a powerful manner to the same disastrous the destruc- result. The first of these was the almost entire destrucmercial tion of commercial and manufacturing capital in France, ing the Re- from the profuse issue of assignats during the Revolution, tion of com capital dur volution. the confiscation of two-thirds of the national debt at one blow in 1797, and the long-continued stoppage of foreign commerce from the English blockade during the war. Such was the effect of these concurring circumstances, that almost the whole wealth existing in France in 1789 had been swept away, and the only capital which existed in the country was in the hands of a few bankers, who had made fortunes during the terrible game of hazard of the Revolution, and a great number of tradesmen, who had made money from the expenditure of the Government employés, the diplomatic body, and the affluence of strangers since the peace. The second circumstance which told with disastrous effect upon the national industry was the loss of nearly all their colonies, partly by the insane emancipation of the negroes, in 1790, in St Domingo, and partly from the English conquests during the war. XVII. 1830. When it is recollected that the colony of St CHAP. Domingo was in so flourishing a state in 1789, that its exports to France were to the value of 119,000,000 francs, or £5,000,000 sterling nearly, and its imports 189,000,000 francs, or £7,567,000; and that the trade between the two countries maintained 1600 vessels and 27,000 sailors-more than double the trade of the whole West India islands to Great Britain at this time,-it may be conceived how serious has been the loss to the Dumas, mother country from the train of disasters which has Hist. of Europe, c. deprived her of this invaluable vent for its surplus popu- ii. § 7. lation.1 1 viii. 112; 132. general tion, and state of The result of this disastrous combination of circumstances was an excessive, and to the poor most ruinous, Excessive degradation of situation in the labouring classes. Excessive competi competition was the grand characteristic of the period which wretched succeeded the Revolution. It pervaded all classes, pene- the worktrated all ranks, affected all situations. In the more ele- ing classes. vated in station or affluent in circumstances, it appeared in an unbounded and insatiable thirst for Government employments; in the burgher class, in an incessant struggle for business; in the working, in a terrific strife for employment. In all it was produced by one cause, perfectly sufficient to explain the phenomenon, and of universal application-viz., absolute inability to procure a livelihood in any other way. The middle and working classes had cast down the barriers which heretofore had guarded with unjust and jealous care the exclusive domain. of the aristocracy; the portals were thrown open to all, but the multitude which rushed in at the vacant entrance encountered a still greater difficulty in the struggle with each other. Multitudes were pressed to death or trodden under foot in the strife at the doorway; those whose robust frames enabled them to make good their entrance, found themselves, when they had got in, squeezed and jostled by a clamorous crowd in as needy circumstances as themselves. There was not a single trade, profession, XVII. or employment which was not choked by multitudes threefold greater than could be provided for. To such a 1830. length did this go in beating down the wages of labour and degrading the condition of the working classes, that the earnings of workmen in Paris were not half of those enjoyed during the same period in London, even when the difference in the price of provisions was taken into account; and two-thirds of the whole inhabitants of Paris died in public hospitals.1* 1 Louis Blanc, iii. 90, 92. 133. The causes which have been mentioned arose from such Want of deep-rooted sources of evil, and were so obviously the sentation of consequence and punishment of the sins of the first Rethe working volution, that it is probable that no legislative measures any repre classes. of any sort could have afforded the nation any sensible relief. But in addition to all this there was a peculiar evil, felt with acute suffering by the working classes: they had not even the comfort of complaining. By the constitution of the Chamber of Deputies, as fixed at the Restoration and by the coup d'état, 5th September 1816, * In Paris, in 1841, there were 105,087 persons admitted into the public hospitals, of whom 15,583 died there. The total deaths in the metropolis in that year were 24,524, so that nearly two-thirds of the deaths were in public hospitals. Statistique de la France, (Administration Publique), 227. "Que de désastres! Les gros capitaux donnant la victoire dans les guerres industrielles, comme les gros bataillons dans d'autres guerres, et le LAISSEZFAIRE aboutissant, de la sorte, au plus odieux monopole ; les grandes exploitations ruinant les petites; le commerce en grand ruinant le petit; l'usure s'emparant peu à peu du sol; la féodalité moderne pire que l'ancienne; la propriété foncière grévée de plus d'un milliard, les artisans qui s'appartiennent faisant place aux ouvriers qui ne s'appartiennent pas: les capitaux s'engouffrant sous l'impulsion d'une avidité honteuse : tous les intérêts armés les uns contre les autres, les propriétaires des vignes contre les propriétaires des bois, les fabricants de sucre de betteraves contre les colonies; les provinces du Midi contre celles du Nord, Bordeaux contre Paris: ici, des marchés qui s'engorgent, désespoir du capitaliste; là, des ateliers qui se ferment, désespoir de l'ouvrier; le prolétaire valet d'un millionaire, ou, en cas de crise, cherchant son pain entre la révolte et l'aumône; le père du pauvre allant à soixante ans mourir à l'hôpital, et la fille du pauvre forcée de se prostituer à seize ans pour vivre, et le fils du pauvre réduit à respirer, à sept ans, l'air empesté des filatures pour, ajouter au salaire de la famille : le lit du journalier, imprévoyant par la misère, horriblement fécond, et le prolétariat menaçant le royaume d'une inondation de mendiants. Voilà quel tableau présentait alors la société.”— LOUIS BLANC, Dix Ans de Louis Philippe, iii. 90, 91. A picture of the effects of revolution, by one of its most ardent supporters. |