Chapter 24 Contribution to Rural Improvement

The increase and prosperity of industrial and commercial cities contribute to the improvement and development of their rural areas, and there are three ways to contribute. 1. Provide a huge and easy market for the original products of the countryside, thus encouraging the development and further improvement of the countryside.It is not only the rural areas where the cities are located that benefit from this.All the rural areas that trade with the city benefit from it to some extent.They furnish a market for the native produce or manufactures of these country villages, and in consequence encourage their industry and their improvement.Of course, the rural areas close to the cities will benefit the most.The less expense of transporting the native produce of this country, the merchants, though they pay the producer a higher price than that of the produce of a more remote country, can still fetch it as cheap to the consumer.

Secondly, the wealth acquired by the inhabitants of the towns is frequently employed in the purchase of land for sale, a great part of which is often in uncultivated land.Merchants aspired to become country gentlemen.Moreover, when they have become squires, they are often most able to improve the land.A merchant is not the same as a country gentleman.The squire is used to extravagance. He only spends money, never thinking of making money.A businessman often uses money to run profitable businesses. When he uses a piece of money, he hopes to bring back some profits when the money comes back.This difference in their habits will necessarily affect their temper and temper in all business.Merchants are often brave businessmen, country gentlemen are often timid businessmen.As far as the merchant is concerned, if he feels that the improvement of land by the investment of a large capital will have any hope of increasing its value in proportion to the expense, he does not hesitate to do so at once.But the country gentry seldom has capital, and if he has some capital, he seldom dares to use it in this way.If he really sets out to improve, it will often be not with capital, but with the surplus of the annual revenue.If you are fortunate enough to live in some uncultivated commercial city in the surrounding country, you will see the merchants much more active in this direction than the country gentry.Moreover, the love of order, economy, and prudence, which the merchant acquires in business, make him more suitable for any improvement in the land, without fear of failure or loss of profit.

Third, the rural population is constantly at war with its neighbors and dependent on its superiors.However, the development of industry and commerce has gradually brought order, good government, and personal security and freedom to them.This effect is the most important, but it is not noticed by the world.So far as I know, the only writer who has paid attention to this point is Mr. Hume. In a country where there is neither foreign trade nor fine manufactures, a great landowner, having nothing to exchange for the greater part of the produce of the land which remains in the maintenance of the tiller, expends it indifferently on country hospitality.If this remainder is sufficient to feed a hundred, he uses it to feed a hundred; if it is enough to feed a thousand, he uses it to feed a thousand.Apart from this, there is really no other use.Therefore, there are often groups of servants and retainers around him.They depended on his sustenance, and without any equivalent for reward, obeyed him as soldiers obey the king.Before the expansion of European industry and commerce, the big men and the rich, from the princes to the small lords, entertained their guests more lavishly than we can imagine today.For example, Westminster Hall, for William.Rufus' dining room, however, is often full.Thomas.Burkett often spreads clean straw on the floor of the hall, so that the samurai and literati who can't sit down and eat on the ground will not stain their brand new clothes.It is said that the Grand Duke of Warwick entertained 30,000 guests in various manors every day; this may be an exaggeration, but the number must be large, otherwise it would not be exaggerated to such an extent.We know that, not so many years ago, hospitality on a similar scale prevailed in the Highlands of Scotland, and seems to have been common among nations whose commerce and manufactures are very underdeveloped.Dr. Pocock said: I once saw an Arab chief who, in the city where he sold livestock, entertained all passers-by in the street, that is, ordinary beggars, and he was also invited.

A tenant farmer is as dependent on the great lord as his servants.Even if they were not cheap slaves, they were also tenant farmers who could withdraw their rent at will.The rent they pay is not in any respect equal to the means of subsistence which the land affords.A few years ago, in the Scottish Highlands, the land rent for a family living in Weiwei was usually only one crown, half a crown, one sheep, and one lamb.In some places, this is still the case; and the money there now does not buy more commodities than elsewhere.In fact, in a country where the surplus produced by a large estate must be consumed on its own estate, it is for the convenience of the landlord that, rather than consume the whole surplus at home, a part of it be consumed not far from home, if the people who consume it , It is like a guest, a guest, and a servant who obeys his own orders.In this way, he can save a lot of trouble, the partner will not be too many, and the family will not be too large.A tenant farmer who only pays a little more ground rent than the exempt rent and occupies land that can support a family's life and who can withdraw the rent at will is subordinate to the lord, and is no different from a servant girl or a house slave.They must absolutely obey the orders of the lord.This kind of lord is no different from raising servants and domestic slaves in his own house.The food of servants and tenants came from the lord's kindness.Whether the favor continues depends on the lord's pleasure.

In this case, the great lord must have a controlling authority over his tenant farmers and domestic slaves.This authority was the foundation of all ancient aristocratic power.In peacetime, they are the judges of the residents in the territory, and in wartime, they are the leaders of the residents in the territory.They have the power to lead the residents in the territory to resist lawbreakers, so they only become the maintainers of law and order in the territory and the enforcers of the law.No one else has such power, nor does the king.In ancient times, the king was just the largest lord in the territory, and other lords only gave him a certain degree of respect for the common defense of the common enemy.If the king wants to rely on his own power to force the people in a large lord to repay small debts, and the residents there will help each other, I am afraid that the power required by the king will be almost equal to the power spent in eliminating a civil war.Therefore, he had to hand over most of the judicial power in the countryside to those who could enforce the law, and he had to hand over the power to govern the militia to those who could govern the militia.

It would be a mistake to say that this local jurisdiction originated from feudal law.Not only the highest civil and criminal jurisdiction was in the hands of the great landowners for hundreds of years before the so-called feudal law was known in Europe.Moreover, all the powers of recruiting troops, minting coins, and formulating local administrative regulations were already in the hands of the great lord at this time.The Saxon lords of England before the conquest held as much power and jurisdiction as the Norman lords after the conquest.But we cannot imagine that feudal law did not become common law in England until after the conquest.In France, it is a particularly indisputable fact that the lordship ruled only and the occurrence of judicial power preceded the occurrence of feudal law.Such powers will no doubt arise from the various institutions and customs of property mentioned above.Leaving aside the ancient kingdoms of England and France, we find sufficient evidence even in much later times that such effects follow such causes.Less than thirty years ago, in Lochbar, Scotland, there lived a gentleman named Cameron, not a noble lord, not even a large tenant farmer, but a retainer of the Duke of Argyll.He neither had a formal commission nor was he a magistrate, but exercised the highest criminal jurisdiction over his people.It is said that his trial and referee, although without judicial ceremony, was very fair.Perhaps under the local circumstances at that time, he had to assume this power in order to maintain public order.This gentleman, whose rent was no more than five hundred pounds a year, led eight hundred men in the Stoya uprising in 1745.

The purpose of the implementation of feudal laws is by no means to expand the power of feudal lords, but it can only be seen as to reduce their power.From the king down to the lowest lord, all ranks were properly established by feudal law, each with its own duties and obligations.When the lord is a minor, the rent of the land owned by the lord belongs to his immediate superior, and the right to manage the land also belongs to his direct superior.As a result, when the major lords were minors, the rent and administration of their lands also belonged to the king.For such minor lords, the king fulfilled the responsibility of protecting and educating them, and married them with the qualifications of guardians, but the choice of objects should be commensurate with their status.But this law, though it was intended to strengthen the power of the king and weaken that of the great lords, could not bring about peace, order, and good government in the country, because it could not thoroughly alter the system of property from which the disorder arose. Learn with the wind.The government is still too small, the aristocracy is still too powerful, and the aristocracy is too powerful because the government is too small.Although the feudal hierarchy system was established, the king still could not subdue the big lords.The great lord is still as violent as before.They still continued to fight at will among themselves, and often even against the king.The vast countryside was still a scene of usurpation and disorder.

However, what the feudal legal system could not do with all coercive power, was gradually realized by foreign commerce and manufacturing.The rise of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually enabled great lords to barter for all the surplus produce of their lands.The goods thus obtained are then not shared with tenant farmers and domestic slaves, but consumed entirely by oneself.To be wholly for oneself and for no one else seems to be the despicable maxim observed by masters of all ages.Therefore, as soon as they have discovered the means of consuming the whole value of the rent received by themselves, they are no longer willing to share it with others.They would rather exchange grain, or its price, sufficient to sustain a thousand men for a year, for a pair of diamond buttons, or something else equally useless and meaningless, and give them what this grain could bring them. authority has been abandoned.But the diamond button is his own, and no one shares it with him.As for the previous spending method, he had to share it with at least a thousand people.The difference is very clear, and the decision to make a trade-off depends on wise judgment.Thus, in order to gratify the most childish and despicable vanity, they at last renounced all said authority.

In a country where there is neither foreign trade nor refined manufactures, a man with an income of ten thousand pounds a year may have no other means of consumption than to support and keep a thousand families under his command.But in Europe today, a person with an income of 10,000 pounds per year does not need to directly support 20 people, and does not need to directly employ more than a dozen worthless servants, but can consume all his income.In fact, he usually does as well.He indirectly maintains perhaps as many, or more, employments than former methods of consumption employed.The amount of treasure that he gets in exchange for all his income may be small, but the workers employed to collect and manufacture it must be many.The high price of this treasure is largely due to the wages of these workers and the profits of their immediate employers.He directly pays the price of the treasure, that is, indirectly pays all these wages and profits, and thus indirectly maintains the workers and their employers.However, his contribution to each of them is only a very small part of their annual living expenses.The annual living expenses of each of them come from him alone. A few account for one-tenth of the total, many account for one percent of the total, and some account for less than one-thousandth or one-ten-thousandth of the total.Although he contributes to the maintenance of all of them, it is not necessary for them to maintain their life, so they are more or less independent of him.

When the big landlords maintain the lives of their tenants and retainers with land rent, they each maintain the lives of their own tenants and retainers.But when they maintained the merchants and artisans at their rent, they all could support perhaps as many as ever, and, with the inevitable waste of country hospitality, perhaps more now than ever.Taken separately, however, each of them contributes often insignificantly to the maintenance of each of the larger number.Every merchant or artisan receives his support not from one customer, but from a thousand different ones.He depends to some extent on each of them, but not absolutely on any one of them.

Under such circumstances, the personal consumption of the big landlords gradually increased.Therefore, the number of diners he supported had to be gradually reduced or even eliminated.For the same reason, unnecessary tenants must be gradually dismissed.The fields were enlarged, and the landlords, despite their complaints about the reduction of their tenants, reduced their number to the minimum required to work it according to the imperfect cultivation and improvements of the time.The surplus, or the price of the surplus, which the landlord receives gradually increases, by driving away unnecessary patrons, and by forcing the tenant to pay up the full value which the farm can afford.This greater surplus, the merchant and manufacturer furnish him again with means of enabling him to consume it himself, as before he consumed the rest.This factor of increased personal consumption also drives the landlords to desire a rent which exceeds that which the land can afford in its present improved state.But in this way the land will be further improved, and the tenant will have to increase his expenses. If the lease period is not long enough to enable him to recover the increased expenses and his profits, he will never agree to the landlord's demand for an increase in rent.He must extend the lease.Landlords are fond of pomp and want to increase their expenses, finally accepting the conditions of tenant farmers.This is the origin of long-term leasehold rights. A tenant farmer who is free to surrender the lease, cultivates the land, pays the full price, and is not completely subordinate to the landlord.The monetary benefits they get from each other are mutual and equal.The rent-free tenant, who does not sacrifice his life and property in the service of the landlord, becomes virtually independent when the lease is extended.The landlord does not want him to do anything other than in accordance with the lease or customary law. Now that the tenant farmers have become independent and the tenants have been dismissed, the big lord can no longer interfere with the normal execution of the law, and can no longer disturb the local public order.Their birthright has been sold, however, the purpose of the sale is not for hunger or necessity like Isau, but only for the eyes and ears, only for the entertainment of children and not for the jewels that adults should pursue diamond ring.They are therefore as mediocre as the well-to-do citizens or merchants of the city.Thus, in the cities and in the country, a normal government was set up.No one can disturb the politics of the city, and no one can disturb the politics of the country. The following matter may have nothing to do with this topic, but it might as well be mentioned here.That is to say, it is extremely rare in a commercial country to use a large amount of real estate to pass from father to son, son to grandson, and many generations of aristocratic families.On the contrary, in countries where commerce is not prosperous, such as Wales, such as the Scottish Highlands, it is very common.Arab history is full of noble lineages; there was a Tatar Khan who wrote a history, which was translated into several European languages, and it was all about noble lineages.This proves that ancient families are very common in these countries.In a country where the rich man's income can only be used to support as many as he can, the rich man seldom spends excessively, and his benevolence seems seldom so strong that he tries to support more than he can support.But when the greatest part of his revenues goes to personal consumption, his expenses are often quite unlimited; for his personal vanity is unlimited and never satisfied.In commercial countries, therefore, even with the most severe laws against profligacy, long-term prosperity is rare.But in countries where business is not prosperous, even if there are no laws and regulations to ban it, there will be more rich families.Nomads, like the Tartars and the Arabs, whose property was not easy to consume, had no possibility of establishing laws against waste. This is really a revolution of great importance to the public happiness, but it has been accomplished by two classes who have no regard for the public happiness.Satisfying the most childish vanity is the only motive of the great lord.As for merchant craftsmen, although not as ridiculous as that, they only act in their own interests.All they want is to go to a profitable place to make money.The ignorance of the great lords and the diligence of the merchants and craftsmen finally gradually completed this revolution, but they neither understood nor foreseen this revolution. Hence, throughout the greater part of Europe, the commerce and industry of the towns are the cause, not the effect, of the improvement and development of the country. But this development, contrary to the natural tendency, is of course slow and uncertain.Compare the slow progress of the European countries, whose wealth is based on commerce and industry, with the rapid progress of our North American colonies, whose wealth is based on agriculture.The population of the greater part of Europe has not doubled for nearly five hundred years.In some places in our North American colonies, the number has doubled in twenty or twenty-five years.In Europe, the law of primogeniture, and perpetual property of all kinds, make it impossible to divide large estates, and thus prevent the increase of small landowners.We know that small landowners are very familiar with their limited land and love it.He not only likes to develop it, but also likes to improve it.Of all cultivators he is the most industrious, wisest, and most often successful.Added to this, primogeniture and perpetuity, which prevent much land from being sold, often make it more expensive to buy than is available for sale, and thus often sell it at a monopoly price.The rent earned from the land is often not sufficient to pay the interest on the purchase price, let alone the cost of repairs and other accidental expenses.The purchase of land, therefore, is, in Europe, the least profitable employment of small capitals.Of course, some people who are no longer engaged in industry and commerce are sometimes willing to use their small capital to buy land for the sake of safety.There are also some professional professionals who obtain income from other sources, and they often like to invest in the purchase of land because they want to keep their savings safe.However, if a young man does not want to engage in industry and commerce, but spends two or three thousand pounds to buy a small piece of land for development, of course he can hope to live a happy life without relying on others, but if he wants to become a rich man or a famous person, he must never Impossible.Had he employed his capital for other purposes, he might have been as likely to be rich or famous as anyone else.Moreover, although such young people do not wish to become landlords, most of them do not wish to become peasants.In this way, less land is available for purchase, and the selling price of the land is high. As a result, many capitals that might have been used for land improvement and land development are not invested in this area.On the other hand, in North America, a capital of fifty or sixty pounds is sufficient to start a farm.There the purchase and development of uncultivated land is as much the most profitable employment of the largest capital as of the smallest.In a place like that, it's the most direct way to get rich as well as become famous.The land there can be acquired almost at no cost, or, if at all, much less than the value of its natural produce.Such a thing is absolutely impossible in Europe; it is impossible in any country where the land has long been private property.However, when the head of a large family dies, if the land property left behind can be distributed equally among the children, most of the land left behind will be sold.The amount of land available for sale would increase, and land could no longer be sold at a monopoly price.The free rent of the land will thus gradually cover the interest on the purchase price of the land; the purchase of land with a small capital will be as advantageous as other uses. England, because of its naturally fertile soil, because its coastline is very long in comparison with the whole country, and because of the many navigable rivers flowing through it, so that the inland parts can be easily transported by water, is therefore the same as any great country in Europe. It is just as suitable for foreign commerce as it is for the carrying on of manufactures for distant sale, and it is equally suitable for all the improvements which these circumstances may give rise to.Moreover, since the accession of Elizabeth, the English legislation has given special attention to the interests of industry and commerce; in fact, there is no country in Europe, not least Holland, whose laws are generally so favorable to this industry.Therefore, British industry and commerce continued to develop throughout this period.Undoubtedly, the development and improvement of the countryside are also making continuous progress; but the progress seems to be slower than the rapid progress of industry and commerce.The greater part of the land, perhaps, had been cultivated before the time of Elizabeth, but a large part remained uncultivated, and, as for the land which was cultivated, the condition of cultivation was, for the most part, unsatisfactory.The laws of England, however, not only encourage agriculture indirectly, by the protection of commerce, but in some cases directly encourage it.Except in poor harvest years, grain export is not only free, but also has bonuses.In a year when the harvest is average, the import of outside grains is subject to a tariff that is equivalent to prohibiting the import.The importation of live animals, except from Ireland, has always been prohibited, and was not so long ago permitted.In two of the most important produce of the land, bread and meat, therefore, the tiller of the land has a real monopoly, which no one else can touch.This reward, though, as I shall show hereafter, is illusory, it may at least be inferred from this that the English legislature had a real interest in subsidizing agriculture.And above all English law respected the peasants of the country who had done all they could to make them secure and independent.Of all the countries where primogeniture has not been abolished, where tithes continue to be levied, and where perpetuity, contrary to the spirit of the law, is sometimes in force, England is at last the country that most encourages agriculture.But the same is true of English agriculture.What would have become of agriculture, had it not been directly encouraged by laws, except indirectly through the progress of commerce, and the government had stood by and allowed the peasants to remain in the same condition as those of the rest of Europe.Elizabeth has been on the throne for more than two hundred years.This long period is the longest period of human flourishing that can normally last. About a hundred years before England became a great commercial power, France's foreign trade was considerable.According to people's assumptions at the time, it seems that before Charles' Eighth Expedition to Naples, France's navigation industry was already considerable.On the whole, however, the cultivation and improvement of the land in France is inferior to that in England.French law never gave agriculture a direct reward. The foreign trade of Spain and Portugal with the rest of Europe, though carried largely in foreign ships, is considerable.The foreign trade of Spain and Portugal with their colonies, carried in native ships, was all the more enormous because of the abundance of the colonies.This great foreign trade, however, has not occasioned in either country any great manufactures suitable for distant sale, and even the lands of both countries are still largely uncultivated.As far as foreign trade is concerned, Portugal has the longest history among the major European countries except Italy. There seems to be but one country in Europe, Italy, in which the whole land of the country has been developed and improved by means of foreign trade and manufactures suitable for distant sale.According to Guciardini, before the invasion of Charles the Eighth, not only the flattest and most fertile countryside of Italy had been cultivated, but the most mountainous and barren country had also been cultivated.The rather favorable position of this country, as well as the existence of a large number of independent small states in this country, may have contributed to the comprehensive reclamation of the above-mentioned land.However, although this wise modern historian said so, it is not impossible that the cultivation of land in Italy at that time was not as good as that in England today. In every country, however, capital acquired by trade and industry is a very uncertain property, unless some part of it is secured and realized in the cultivation and improvement of the land.It is true that a businessman does not have to be a citizen of a particular country.The question of where exactly to do business does not seem to mean much to him; if they develop a distaste for country A, even the slightest, it will enable him to transfer capital from country A to country B.With the migration of capital, the industries maintained by capital must also move.Capital can never be said to belong to a country until it has been scattered over the ground, and has become a building, a permanent improvement of the land.It is said that most cities in the Hansa League possess great wealth. Where has this wealth gone now? Except for the vague history of the 13th and 14th centuries, there is no trace of Xia.It is not even easy to determine where some of these cities are located, and to what European metropolises some of their Latin names belong.But although the disasters befell Italy at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, although the industrial and commercial decline of the cities belonging to Lombardia and Tuscany were greatly reduced, these places are still the most densely populated and most cultivated land in Europe. The place.After the civil war, Flanders was ruled by Spain again, although these extended to Antwerp.The great businesses of Ghent and Bruges, but Flanders is still the most wealthy, most densely populated and most progressive place in Europe.Wars, and general changes in politics, may easily tend to exhaust the sources of wealth of which commerce is the sole source.The source of wealth produced by more reliable agricultural improvements is much more permanent, except for the more violent upheavals lasting one or two hundred years caused by the invasion of hostile barbarians, such as the great upheavals in Western Europe before and after the collapse of the Roman Empire. , other events cannot destroy it.Title IV