Political Economy [27]
for labour, and who thinks only of enjoyment. The national interest, however. sometimes also requires that property itself shall pass into hands likely to make a better use of it. It is not for themselves alone that the rich elicit the fruits of the earth; it is for the whole nation; and if, by a derangement in their fortune, they suspend the productive power of the country, it concerns the whole nation to put their property under different managers. Personal interest is, indeed, sufficient to bring about this transmission, provided the law offers no obstacle. When a soldier comes to inherit a machine for making stockings, he does not keep it long; in his hands, the machine is useless for himself and the nation; in the hands of a stocking-maker it would be productive, both for the nation and the individual. Both feel this; and a bargain is soon struck. The soldier receives money, which he well knows how to employ; the stocking-maker receives possession of his frame, and production recommences. Most of our European laws respecting immovable property, are like a law made to hinder the soldier from parting with the frame, of whose use he is ignorant. The value of land cannot be unfolded, except by employing a capital sufficient to procure the accumulation of that labour which improves it. Hence, it is essential to the very existence of a nation that its land be always in the hands of those who can devote capital to its cultivation. If it were not in any case allowed to sell a workman's implement, it would not, certainly, at least, be forbidden to make new ones for the use of new workmen; but new lands cannot be made, and so often as the law prevents the alienation of an estate by one that cannot use it, so often does it suspend the most essential of all productions. The systems of cultivation, which we have now glanced over in review, certainly cause the earth to produce, by the hands of temporary cultivators, when the permanent advances have been made; but they absolutely discourage such cultivators from making those permanent advances which, as they give a perpetual value to property, cannot be laid out except by those with whom that property is destined to continue. Legislators in general, altogether occupied with preventing the alienation of immovables, and preserving great fortunes in great families, have dreaded lest such an alienation might clandestinely be brought about by a lease, for a long term, and without return. They have eagerly attempted to defend the rights of proprietors against proprietors themselves; they have guided that class of people by forfeits and resolutory clauses; they have fixed upon a short term for farm leases; they seem continually repeating to the cultivator: "This land, on which you work, is not yours; acquire not too much affection for it; make no advances which you might run the risk of losing; improve the present moment, if you can, but think not of the future; above all, beware of labouring for posterity." Besides, independently of legislative errors, it belongs to the very nature of a farm lease never to allow the farmer to take as much interest in the land as its proprietor. It is enough that this lease must have an end, to induce the farmer, as this end approaches, to care less about his fields, and to cease laying out money for improving them. The metayer, with smaller power, at least never fears to improve the land committed to him as much as possible; because the conditions of his lease are invariable, and he is never dismissed except for bad behaviour. The farmer, again, is liable to be dismissed directly in consequence of his good management. The more he has improved his farm, the more will his landlord, at renewing the lease, be disposed to require an augmentation of rent; and, besides, as part nf the advances laid out by the cultivator, on the ground, create a perpetual value, it is neither just nor natural that they should be made by one whose interest is merely temporary. The farmer will carefully attend to the fields and meadows, which, in a few years, are to give