Services Given by Farmers

¹⁷ Aside from paying the rent, the farmers were anciently bound to perform many services to the landlord.

These services were seldom specified in the lease nor regulated by any precise rule.

These services were almost entirely arbitrary.

They subjected the tenant to many vexations.

In Scotland, the abolition of all services not precisely stipulated in the lease very much improved the condition of their yeomanry within a few years.

¹⁸ The yeomanry were bound to public services which were not less arbitrary than the private ones.

One of the services is to build and maintain the high roads. It still exists everywhere with different degrees of oppression in different countries.

When the king’s troops, household, or officers passed through the countryside, the yeomanry were bound to provide them with horses, carriages, and provisions, at a price regulated by the purveyor.

Great Britain is the only European monarchy where the oppression of purveyance has been abolished.

• It still exists in France and Germany.

19 The yeomanry were subject to public taxes which were as irregular and oppressive as those services.

The ancient lords were extremely unwilling to grant any monetary aid to their sovereign. They easily allowed him to tax their own tenants. They could not foresee how much this affected their own revenue in the end. The taille still exists in France and is an example of those ancient taxes.

It is a tax on the farmer’s supposed profits, which they estimate by the stock that he has on the farm. It is his interest to appear to have as little and employ as little as possible in its cultivation, and none in its improvement.

Should a French farmer accumulate any stock, the taille will almost prohibit it from ever being employed on the land. This tax is supposed to:

• dishonour whoever is subject to it
• degrade such person below the rank of a gentleman and even that of a burgher*

No gentleman, nor even any burgher who has stock, will submit to this degradation. Whoever rents lands becomes subject to the taille. This tax hinders stock from being used in improving land. It drives away other stock from it.

• [A citizen of a town or city, typically a member of the wealthy bourgeoisie.]

The ancient Tenths and Fifteenths* were taxes so usual in England.

They were taxes of the same kind as the taille.

• [ A tax of 1/10 th of the value of moveable, personal goods in cities and 1/15 th for rural inhabitants ]

20 Under all these discouragements, little improvement could be expected from the occupiers of land

They improved land under great disadvantages. The farmer became like a merchant who trades with borrowed money. The proprietor, on the other hand, was like a merchant who trades with his own money.

With equally good conduct, the farmer’s stock always improves land more slowly than the merchant’s stock, because the large interest of the loan eats up the farmer’s profits. With equally good conduct, the lands cultivated by the farmer are improved more slowly than those cultivated by the proprietor because the rent payments eat up much of the produce. Had the farmer been the proprietor, he might have employed these payments to further improve the land.

A farmer is inferior to a proprietor.

Through most of Europe, the yeomanry are regarded as an inferior rank of people, even compared to tradesmen and mechanics. In all of Europe, they are inferior to the great merchants and master manufacturers. Men with big stocks seldom quit the superior for an inferior station.

Presently in Europe, little stock is likely to go to the improvement of land through farming. Of all countries, Great Britain has the most stock going into improvement. Some of its great farming stocks have been generally acquired by fanning the trade of farming stocks which was acquired most slowly.

After small proprietors, rich and great farmers are the principal improvers.

There are perhaps more of them in England than in any other European monarchy.

In the republican governments of Holland and Berne in Switzerland, farmers are not inferior to those of England.

21 Ancient European policy was unfavourable to land improvement either by the proprietor or the farmer because of=

• The universal prohibition of wheat exportation without a special licence
• The restraints on the inland commerce of wheat and other farm produce caused by:
  • the absurd laws against engrossers, regrators, and forestallers*,
  • the privileges of fairs and markets.

• [ A regrator is a middleman, typically a street-hawker, who buys commodities from a producer and brings them to market. A forestaller is a person who buys up or hoards commodities in advance and sells them for a higher price. ]

Ancient Italy was naturally the most fertile European country.

It was the seat of the greatest empire in the world.

Its cultivation was obstructed by:

• the prohibition of wheat exportation, and
• some encouragement to foreign wheat importation.

Such restraints on the inland commerce of wheat with the general prohibition of its exportation must have discouraged the cultivation of180 less fertile countries.