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movement among the Highland proprietors is with some a matter of ambition... with some love of
sport... while others, of a more practical cast, follow the trade in deer with an eye solely to profit.
For it is a fact, that a mountain range laid out in forest is, in many cases, more profitable to the
proprietor than when let as a sheep-walk. ... The huntsman who wants a deer-forest limits his
offers by no other calculation than the extent of his purse.... Sufferings have been inflicted in the
Highlands scarcely less severe than those occasioned by the policy of the Norman kings. Deer
have received extended ranges, while men have been hunted within a narrower and still narrower
circle.... One after one the liberties of the people have been cloven down.... And the oppressions
are daily on the increase.... The clearance and dispersion of the people is pursued by the
proprietors as a settled principle, as an agricultural necessity, just as trees and brushwood are
cleared from the wastes of America or Australia; and the operation goes on in a quiet, business-
like way, &c.”
33
The spoliation of the church’s property, the fraudulent alienation of the State domains, the
robbery of the common lands, the usurpation of feudal and clan property, and its transformation
into modern private property under circumstances of reckless terrorism, were just so many idyllic
methods of primitive accumulation. They conquered the field for capitalistic agriculture, made the
soil part and parcel of capital, and created for the town industries the necessary supply of a “free”
and outlawed proletariat.
1
“The petty proprietors who cultivated their own fields with their own hands, and enjoyed a modest
competence.... then formed a much more important part of the nation than at present. If we may trust
the best statistical writers of that age, not less than 160,000 proprietors who, with their families, must
have made up more than a seventh of the whole population, derived their subsistence from little
freehold estates. The average income of these small landlords... was estimated at between £60 and £70
a year. It was computed that the number of persons who tilled their own land was greater than the
number of those who farmed the land of others.” Macaulay: “History of England,” 10th ed., 1854, I.
pp. 333, 334. Even in the last third of the 17th century, 4/5 of the English people were agricultural. (l.
c., p. 413.) I quote Macaulay, because as systematic falsifier of history he minimises as much as
possible facts of this kind.
2
We must never forget that even the serf was not only the owner, if but a tribute-paying owner, of the
piece of land attached to his house, but also a co-possessor of the common land. “Le paysan (in
Silesia, under Frederick II.) est serf.” Nevertheless, these serfs possess common lands. “On n’a pas pu
encore engager les Silésiens au partage des communes, tandis que dans la Nouvelle Marche, il n’y a
guère de village où ce partage ne soit exécuté avec le plus grand succès.” [The peasant ... is a serf. ... It
has not yet been possible to persuade the Silesians to partition the common lands, whereas in the
Neumark there is scarcely a village where the partition has not been implemented with very great
success] (Mirabeau: “De la Monarchie Prussienne.” Londres, 1788, t. ii, pp. 125, 126.)
3
Japan, with its purely feudal organisation of landed property and its developed petite culture, gives a
much truer picture of the European middle ages than all our history books, dictated as these are, for
the most part, by bourgeois prejudices. It is very convenient to be “liberal” at the expense of the
middle ages.
4
In his “Utopia,” Thomas More says, that in England “your shepe that were wont to be so meke and
tame, and so smal eaters, now, as I heare saye, be become so great devourers and so wylde that they
eate up, and swallow downe, the very men themselfes.” “Utopia,” transl. by Robinson, ed. Arber,
Lond., 1869, p. 41.
5
Bacon shows the connexion between a free, well-to-do peasantry and good infantry. “This did
wonderfully concern the might and mannerhood of the kingdom to have farms as it were of a standard
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sufficient to maintain an able body out of penury, and did in effect amortise a great part of the lands of
the kingdom unto the hold and occupation of the yeomanry or middle people, of a condition between
gentlemen, and cottagers and peasants.... For it hath been held by the general opinion of men of best
judgment in the wars.... that the principal strength of an army consisteth in the infantry or foot. And to
make good infantry it requireth men bred, not in a servile or indigent fashion, but in some free and
plentiful manner. Therefore, if a state run most to noblemen and gentlemen, and that the husbandman
and ploughmen be but as their workfolk and labourers, or else mere cottagers (which are but hous’d
beggars), you may have a good cavalry, but never good stable bands of foot.... And this is to be seen
in France, and Italy, and some other parts abroad, where in effect all is noblesse or peasantry....
insomuch that they are inforced to employ mercenary bands of Switzers and the like, for their
battalions of foot; whereby also it comes to pass that those nations have much people and few
soldiers.” (“The Reign of Henry VII.” Verbatim reprint from Kennet’s England. Ed. 1719. Lond.,
1870, p. 308.)
6
Dr. Hunter, l. c., p. 134. “The quantity of land assigned (in the old laws) would now be judged too
great for labourers, and rather as likely to convert them into small farmers.” (George Roberts: “The
Social History of the People of the Southern Counties of England in Past Centuries.” Lond., 1856, pp.
184-185.)
7
“The right of the poor to share in the tithe, is established by the tenour of ancient statutes.” (Tuckett,
l. c., Vol. II., pg. 804-805.)
8
William Cobbett: “A History of the Protestant Reformation,” § 471.
9
The “spirit” of Protestantism may be seen from the following, among other things. In the south of
England certain landed proprietors and well-to-do farmers put their heads together and propounded ten
questions as to the right interpretation of the poor-law of Elizabeth. These they laid before a celebrated
jurist of that time, Sergeant Snigge (later a judge under James I.) for his opinion. “Question 9 — Some
of the more wealthy farmers in the parish have devised a skilful mode by which all the trouble of
executing this Act (the 43rd of Elizabeth) might be avoided. They have proposed that we shall erect a
prison in the parish, and then give notice to the neighbourhood, that if any persons are disposed to
farm the poor of this parish, they do give in sealed proposals, on a certain day, of the lowest price at
which they will take them off our hands; and that they will be authorised to refuse to any one unless
he be shut up in the aforesaid prison. The proposers of this plan conceive that there will be found in
the adjoining counties, persons, who, being unwilling to labour and not possessing substance or credit
to take a farm or ship, so as to live without labour, may be induced to make a very advantageous offer
to the parish. If any of the poor perish under the contractor’s care, the sin will lie at his door, as the
parish will have done its duty by them. We are, however, apprehensive that the present Act (43rd of
Elizabeth) will not warrant a prudential measure of this kind; but you are to learn that the rest of the
freeholders of the county, and of the adjoining county of B, will very readily join in instructing their
members to propose an Act to enable the parish to contract with a person to lock up and work the
poor; and to declare that if any person shall refuse to be so locked up and worked, he shall be entitled
to no relief. This, it is hoped, will prevent persons in distress from wanting relief, and be the means of
keeping down parishes.” (R. Blakey: “The History of Political Literature from the Earliest Times.”
Lond., 1855, Vol. II., pp. 84-85.) In Scotland, the abolition of serfdom took place some centuries later
than in England. Even in 1698, Fletcher of Saltoun, declared in the Scotch parliament, “The number of
beggars in Scotland is reckoned at not less than 200,000. The only remedy that I, a republican on
principle, can suggest, is to restore the old state of serfdom, to make slaves of all those who are unable
to provide for their own subsistence.” Eden, l. c., Book I., ch. 1, pp. 60-61, says, “The decrease of
villenage seems necessarily to have been the era of the origin of the poor. Manufactures and
commerce are the two parents of our national poor.” Eden, like our Scotch republican on principle,
errs only in this: not the abolition of villenage, but the abolition of the property of the agricultural