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PUBLICATIONS OF 
 
 The American Academy of Political and Social Science. 
 
 No. 39. 
 
 Recent Tendencies 
 
 —IN THE— 
 
 Reform of Land Tenure 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD P. CHEYNEY, 
 
 ASSISTANT PROFESSOR IN HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 A PAPER SUBMITTED TO THE 
 AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 France: Larose et Forcel, rue Soufflot^, Paris. Germany: Gustav Fischer, Jena. 
 Italy : Direzione del Giornale degli Economist!, Rome, Via Ripetta 102. ", 
 
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 RECENT TENDENCIES IN THE REFORM 
 OF LAND TENURE. 
 
 Frenchmen are fond of speaking of the great revolution of 
 a century ago as if it were the source from which all subsequent 
 European reforms have sprung. But each country has its own* 
 germs of development, and the strongest historical influences 
 have been from within the nations, not from without. Yet it is 
 true that the French revolution was to a most wonderful degree 
 a microcosm of modern history. Scarcely a form of subsequent- 
 political or social experience in any western country is without 
 its type in France in those turbulent years. An instance ofthis 
 is found in one of the earliest movements of the revolution, 
 the series of reforms in landholding. This was not only one 
 of the first institutions of French society to feel the effects of 
 the revolution, but during that whole period it was the object 
 of much legislation and administrative attention. Since that 
 time it has never been long out of discussion. What began thus 
 early in France, began at somewhat later dates in every other 
 country of Europe. Questions of land tenure have been 
 among the constantly recurring problems of internal policy in 
 each of those countries. In this course of discussion and legis¬ 
 lation it is curious to note that notwithstanding all the differ¬ 
 ences of national institutions and national character, the ques¬ 
 tions connected with landholding have taken much the same 
 form in the whole group of western nations, and the solutions 
 themselves, in as far as they have been reached, have a con¬ 
 siderable degree of similarity. 
 
 A century ago, at the beginning of the French revolution, 
 landholding in every country in Europe retained the stamp 
 which the middle ages had impressed upon it. Although the 
 feudal system as a form of government had long before given 
 
 [309] 
 
22 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 place to more centralized monarchical power, yet in many of 
 its social and economic elements it still remained dominant over 
 the life of the people. This was especially true of landholding, 
 the privileges of which had been left to the nobility as a partial 
 equivalent for the political power they had lost. The system 
 of land tenure moreover had the marks not only of feudalism 
 but also of the earlier communal system on which feudalism 
 had been imposed. In France the slow, insensible effect’of 
 economic growth had modified the earlier conditions more 
 than in most countries, but even here the apparent possessors 
 of much of the soil held it in very incomplete ownership, and 
 subject to many feudal burdens, Primogeniture was the legal 
 rule of descent, mortmain , through the church, had its clutch 
 on almost one-third of the soil of the country, and another 
 third was in the entire possession of the seiz?ieurs. The com- 
 munes still held a great deal of undivided land. This condi¬ 
 tion of things was attacked in the first great series of reforms 
 of the revolution, the legislation initiated on the night of August 
 4, 1789. By these decrees the remains of serfdom in France 
 were abolished, all rights of the lords over holders of land in 
 their manors were either abrogated outright or made redeem¬ 
 able, and the exclusive right to all game and fish on lands lying 
 within the borders of their manors taken away. A wdiole 
 series of old burdens on landholding was removed and the 
 actual occupants of the soil in France were emancipated from 
 much of the pressure of effete feudalism. Three months after¬ 
 ward the National Assembly declared the estates of the church 
 national property, they were sold and thus taken out of the 
 trammels of viortmain. In 1793 lands belonging to emigrant 
 nobles and persons convicted of political offenses were con¬ 
 fiscated and sold, thus lessening to a great degree the applica¬ 
 bility of primogeniture. Subsequently the communal lands 
 also w r ere largely divided and sold. Another measure of re¬ 
 form was the breaking of entails, prohibition of primogeniture 
 and substitution therefor of equal division of land as well as 
 other property among all the children. This law of -bequest 
 finally settled into the condition perpetuated by the Code Na- 
 
Reform of Land Tenure. 
 
 23 
 
 poison, by which all lands must be divided either equally 
 among the children or with one extra portion disposable at 
 the wish of the testator. Although Napoleon in the exigencies 
 of his political system allowed a slight return towards entails 
 yet this was infinitesimal in its effect on the land system of 
 France. Thus in the twenty-five years of the revolutionary 
 period the land of France had been freed from almost all the 
 remains of feudalism and communism, and had been put into 
 the complete ownership of its possessors. 
 
 The surrounding nations were not quick to borrow from the 
 French during the revolution, but nevertheless sooner or 
 later most of them succumbed to its influence on their land 
 systems. The incorporation of the portions of Germany west of 
 the Rhine, and of Belgium into France, involved the assimila¬ 
 tion of their land systems, and this remained a permanent 
 change. In Holland and the parts of Germany annexed for 
 a shorter period, the alteration of the land system was only 
 temporary, though its influence was permanent. In the States 
 of the Confederation of the Rhine the immediate effect was 
 only appreciable in a few States, such as Westphalia and the 
 Grand Duchy of Berg, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau, and only 
 in certain respects, such as the abolition of serfdom, and the 
 abrogation or redemption of some feudal dues and impositions. 
 Prussia also was influenced, indirectly perhaps, by the move¬ 
 ments of the time, and in the Stein-Hardenberg legislation of 
 1807 and 1811 serfdom was abolished, free purchase and sale 
 of land granted, permission to break entails by a family agree¬ 
 ment given, and other reforms introduced. In Germany the 
 communal elements of the mediaeval manor had remained in 
 much greater strength than in the countries further west, and 
 a dissolution of the double ownership between lord of the 
 manor and tenant of the manor had to be one of the first steps 
 of reform. The completion of the ownership of the soil by 
 the peasant, in such cases, was provided for by requiring the 
 cession of one-half or one-third of his holding as the condition 
 of his becoming full owner of the remaining portion. Austria 
 alone among all the States of Germany seems to have felt no 
 
 [3”] . 
 
24 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 effects on its system of land holding from the French revolu¬ 
 tion. Joseph II, before this time, had introduced modifica¬ 
 tions of the worst personal elements of the feudal manor, but 
 as a land system it had been and long remained practically 
 untouched. In the Italian Peninsula land tenure at the 
 beginning of the revolutionary period was of a distinctly 
 mediaeval type, except indeed, in Tuscany, where the “ en¬ 
 lightened despotism” of Leopold I, as of his brother Joseph, 
 in Austria, had already introduced some modern reforms. In 
 1774, for instance, in his code of provincial regulations, he 
 had given peremptory instructions to all local bodies to alien¬ 
 ate their communal lands, either by sale or by the form of 
 perpetual lease known as allivelazione . In 1782 he modified 
 entails and primogeniture, and in 1789 abolished them alto¬ 
 gether. In some of the other Italian States the panic resulting 
 from the news of the actions of the National Assembly in 
 France, led the governments to introduce some reforms, 
 among which were modifications of primogeniture, and of 
 some of the other abuses of feudal landholding. But these 
 were of little importance compared with the changes brought 
 about by the results of the French invasion. In the ephemeral 
 lepublics into which Italy was then divided, and in its some¬ 
 what more permanent organization as French departments, 
 and the Kingdom of Italy, the French code was introduced as 
 civil law. Under its provisions, over all northern Italy, the 
 burdens of feudalism were removed from the landholders, 
 primogeniture ceased to be the rule of descent, and strict set¬ 
 tlement of estates was abolished. In the kingdom of Naples 
 the sovereigns of the house of Bonaparte set themselves to the 
 same work, which was carried out between the years 1806 and 
 1812 by a “ feudal commission.” A great mass of the Italian 
 peasantry, before this time only occupants of the soil, now 
 became its real possessors. 
 
 In Spain the revolutionary Cortes of 1811 began the work 
 which had been done twenty years before in France. The 
 lords of manors were deprived absolutely of all purely feudal 
 control of the land, and after indemnification were deprived of 
 
 [3 12 ] 
 
Reform of Land Tenure. 
 
 25 
 
 all previously irredeemable rights. In England the economic 
 development of the country had made the purely feudal rela¬ 
 tion of the land holders of comparatively little importance. 
 The original communism of the manor as represented by the 
 “commons,” was also to a great extent a thing of the past. 
 The old feudal and manorial constitution still existed, but 
 attracted little attention, and during this whole period received 
 no legislative modification. The land system of England was 
 sufficiently full of abuses, but they were not directly traceable 
 to feudalism or the manorial system. The same absence of 
 land legislation applies also to the countries dependent on 
 England. Thus during the twenty-five years between 1789 
 and 1814, the land system of Europe as it had existed before 
 the beginning of that period had, with some exception, been 
 radically changed. Feudalism as a system of land tenure was 
 abolished, and the remains of the old communal organization 
 were very much lessened. Private property in land had 
 become a familiar conception where before it had hardly 
 existed. Complete and individual ownership, dissolution of 
 joint claims, freedom of purchase and sale, bequest to all chil¬ 
 dren instead of to a single heir, were more or less fully intro¬ 
 duced into all the States of central Europe. 
 
 But this'development of the land system of Europe had been 
 made in the midst of a great period of political upheaval and 
 reorganization. That period was now at its close, and it re¬ 
 mains to be seen how close was the connection between the 
 political movement and land tenure. As the course of land 
 legislation is traced further, it becomes evident that just as the 
 period succeeding the downfall of Napoleon in 1814 was one 
 of political reaction, so in the economic sphere, and especially 
 in landholding, it was a period either of return to old condi¬ 
 tions, or at best of cessation of reform and development. 
 
 In France, the code and the constitution stood in the way of „ 
 any radical return to pre-revolutionary land conditions, but even 
 here modifications in the way of reaction were introduced. In 
 
 1817 the right to make bequests of land to the church was restor¬ 
 ed, in 1819 the right to institute majorats or entails, restored by 
 
 [313] 
 
26 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 Napoleon for the sake of his new nobility, was extended to all 
 the constitutional peerage of the restoration, and in 1826 the 
 right to make strict settlement to one generation allowed by 
 article 1048 of the code was extended to two generations. This 
 policy culminated in the attempt of the government of Charles 
 X to carry a law making the extra disposable portion allowed 
 by the French legislation in bequests of land go always in 
 cases of intestacy to the oldest son, instead of an equal divi¬ 
 sion taking place. This being clearly a departure from the 
 spirit of the land laws, and an attempt to reintroduce rights of 
 primogeniture, was so strongly opposed by all the liberal ele¬ 
 ments in France that the attempt was given up. In Prussia a 
 law of 1815 restricted the operation of the Plardenberg legis¬ 
 lation to large farms, and in 1821 the calculation of indemnity 
 to be paid by peasants to lords of manors in order to become 
 full owners was again made on the basis of the whole group 
 of old feudal dues, instead of the normal one-half or one- 
 third. In the other German States the process of land en¬ 
 franchisement that had been going on so rapidly during the 
 last period came to a sudden stop. In the States of the Italian 
 Peninsula the same reaction took place. In Piedmont the old 
 regime was introduced as completely as possible. In Lomba.rdo- 
 Venetian provinces the Austrian code, one of the most back¬ 
 ward in Europe in its land legislation, was enforced by the 
 courts ; in Modena absolutely all of the old feudal parapher¬ 
 nalia were brought back. In Tuscany and Parma alone was 
 there an enlightened land system. In Spain Ferdinand VII, 
 along with his abrogation of the constitution, repealed the 
 law of 1811 and re-established, in 1814, all of the old feudal 
 rights over the soil. 
 
 As this period of retrogression in land tenure reform was an 
 accompaniment of political reaction, so the European revolu¬ 
 tions, which instituted political advance, led to renewed pro¬ 
 gress in land legislation. In 1820, 1830, and 1848 the peoples 
 of the continent made successive efforts to gain liberty, and a 
 resumption of the work of enfranchising the soil from mediae¬ 
 val conditions followed in the wake of each of these movements. 
 
 [314] 
 
Reform of Land Tenure. 
 
 27 
 
 The earliest instance of this close connection between political 
 and economic reform was when the Spanish revolutionary- 
 government in 1820 confiscated the mortmain lands of the 
 church, limited entails, and re-established the old law of 1811.. 
 But the most striking instances are in some of the Italian States. 
 The Sardinian government, for instance, as a result of the 
 risings of 1820 and 1821, turned its attention to reforms, 
 though the only actual result was a law for the public registry 
 of mortgages. After the revolution of 1830 a new code was 
 formulated in which the division of intestate lands left forever 
 the old basis of primogeniture, and settlements and entails were, 
 very much limited. In 1832, an edict gave to communes per¬ 
 mission to alienate their joint possessions, and at the same 
 time feudal rights and communal holdings were abolished in 
 the Island of Sardinia. In a third step, immediately after the 
 revolution of 1848, entails and all other rights of primogeniture 
 were abolished, and in 1851 the work for that kingdom was 
 practically completed. Similarly in France, the law of 1835. 
 forbade future creations o i majorats or entails, and that of 1849 
 provided for the speedy extinction even of those already exis¬ 
 ting. This law abolished the right of making substitutions or 
 strict settlements altogether. In Germany the more backward 
 States which had withstood the earliest movements, all suc¬ 
 cumbed as a result either of 1830 or of 1848, and followed the 
 main lines of early land tenure reform, abolition of serfdom 
 and feudal dues, modification or abolition of primogeniture in 
 its various forms, division of communal rights, introduction of 
 allodial and individual holdings in place of joint holdings on a 
 feudal basis. For instance, in Hesse-Darmstadt and Wiirtem- 
 berg the long, dragging discussion of feudal burdens remain¬ 
 ing from the Napoleonic period, was roused into life by the 
 events of 1830, and in the year 1836 radical laws cleared them 
 away altogether. Still more promptly after the revolution of 
 1848, we find liberal land laws in Bavaria, Baden, Hesse Cassel 
 and Prussia, before that year was finished. In Austria and 
 Hungary since the attempted reforms of Joseph II, as has been 
 already noted, land legislation had lagged behind almost all 
 
 [315J • 
 
28 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 the rest of Europe, and this notwithstanding general recogni¬ 
 tion of the character of the land system as an anachronism. 
 In 1835, proposals for change had been made by the land- 
 holding nobles themselves, but the government with its well- 
 known reluctance to enter upon innovation shrunk from the 
 task. In 1846, however, a peasant rising in Galicia directed 
 the eyes of all Europe upon the land system of the Austrian 
 States, and the Imperial government at last issued a series of 
 decrees facilitating voluntary arrangements between the peasants 
 and the lords. Here, however, it stopped and no effective 
 changes had been made when the storm of revolution in 1848 
 swept down upon the country. A month after the March 
 risings in Vienna, the emperor promulgated a constitution 
 for the empire which would have necessitated the ultimate 
 enfranchisement of the soil, but soon the new assembly took 
 the matter out of the hands of the sovereign, and on the 4th 
 of September, 1848, decreed the immediate and entire abolition 
 of the whole feudal regime including the burdens and restric¬ 
 tions on land. 
 
 After the reactions of 1849, it might have been expected 
 that the recent reforms in land tenure would be reversed, as in 
 1814. But the century was too far advanced; the risings 
 of 1848 had been almost as much economic as they had been 
 political, and an element had entered into them which had 
 little place in the revolutions of 1820 and 1830. This new ele¬ 
 ment was a demand not for more political rights only, but for 
 greater material prosperity and economic opportunity for the 
 mass of the people. Therefore, although the political reforms 
 failed, at least temporarily, yet the accompanying reforms in 
 landholding were permanent. 
 
 In England the land system had gone through a unique 
 development, and had long resisted any influences from the out¬ 
 side. But even here the spirit of the age was at last felt, and 
 the old citadel of English conservatism, the land system, was 
 attacked. But this work scarcely began before the middle of 
 the century. Up to that time the communal holdings in the 
 .form of manorial commons and intermixed fields had been 
 
 [316] 
 
Reform of Land Tenure. 
 
 29 
 
 gradually decaying, it is true, partly under the influence of 
 economic forces, partly as the result of direct legislation. The 
 private acts for the enclosure of commons had been super¬ 
 seded in 1801 by a general enclosure act, and this had been 
 extended and developed in 1845. The feudal burdens had be¬ 
 come shadowy, and, with the exception of the few “ copyhold ” 
 tenures, almost obsolete. Nevertheless, the advantage of these 
 changes had not gone to the peasantry, nor to small farmers 
 of any kind, but to a class of landholding families owning the 
 land in large tracts, and having a grip on it stronger than any 
 other class in Europe. Legislation and the theories of the 
 common law had all been developed to perfect the control of 
 this class over the land, and to keep it within their possession. 
 Entails still existed, the custom ofstrict settlements made prac¬ 
 tical entails over a large part of the country, in intestate divis¬ 
 ion primogeniture was recognized; there was no public land reg¬ 
 istry, the formulas of wills and ofdeeds had become long, com¬ 
 plex and doubtful in meaning, all legal actions relating to 
 landholding were slow, cumbrous and dangerous. The land 
 therefore remained for the most part in the hands of its few 
 owners, and sales were difficult and unusual occurrences. The 
 peasantry had been reduced to a hopeless and helpless class of 
 day laborers, and the intervening class, the tenant farmers, 
 paid a competitive rent to the land owners. The first propo¬ 
 sition for changes in the English land system were made after 
 an investigation by a board of real property commis¬ 
 sioners about 1830. Little by little after that time minute re¬ 
 forms were carried out. These were principally in the direction 
 of simplification of the processes of purchase, sale, mortgage, 
 and bequest of land, and of its assimilation to other forms of 
 property. In 1838 a means was suggested by which copy- 
 hold estates could be transformed into actual property. In 1841 
 a large step towards this was taken and in successive laws, es¬ 
 pecially those of 1852 and 1858, the change was practically 
 completed. The net result of all the land legislation of Eng¬ 
 land to this time was absurdly small, yet its general direction 
 was unquestionably the same as that of the contemporaneous 
 
3 ° 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 legislation in the continental countries. The Irish land ques¬ 
 tion was brought into recognition by the report of the Devon 
 commission in 1845, and was elevated into the prominence 
 it has never since lost by the famine immediately following 
 that year. But the measures for reform introduced into 
 parliament representing the views of Irishmen were all re¬ 
 jected and the only resulting legislation was the creation of the 
 Encumbered Estates Court, in 1849. This court had large 
 powers for the selling of estates, even when settled by be¬ 
 quests, if they were heavily encumbered, on the appeal either 
 of the holder or of the creditors. 
 
 During the whole revolutionary period and the early part of 
 this century, the principal incentive to reform of land tenure 
 was the feeling that the feudal system and communal holdings 
 were unjust, a tyrannical abuse, a privilege of the few at the 
 expense of the many. In abolishing this system the liberal 
 governments simply felt that they were attacking an old in¬ 
 justice. Subsequently, however, the movement toward the 
 enfranchisement of land was reinforced by a second influence, 
 that is, by the strong bent of the economic thought of the time 
 toward individualism, freedom of contract, and absolute owner¬ 
 ship. The political economists had no mercy on entails, 
 primogeniture, communistic holdings, government interference 
 or any other limitation to freedom of sale and bequest, or 
 the readiness of disposition and use of land according to the 
 supposed laws of demand and supply. The group of views 
 held and taught by the most influential political economists of 
 the first half of this century therefore worked in the same di¬ 
 rection and gave added force to the movement of land reform 
 already long in progress. This influence as it affected the 
 land question may be considered to have reached its height in 
 the decade after 1850. 
 
 During that period, in nearly every country in Europe, laws 
 were passed requiring the registry of mortgages and other 
 land operations, facilitating the purchase of encumbered lands 
 by the peasantry, and simplifying judicial procedure in fore- 
 closure and ejectments. Such laws presupposed the abolition 
 
Reform of Land Tenure. 
 
 3 i 
 
 of the feudal system, and were simply improvements in the 
 new order of landholding. Instances of the first of these 
 classes of laws are found in the Belgian law of 1852 and the 
 French law of 1855, and of the second class in the legislation 
 of Saxony, Prussia, Baden and Hesse, to help the peasants to 
 pay the necessary indemnity for their farms, in 1850 and 1851. 
 The Irish acts of 1854 and 1858 are instances of the third class 
 of reforms. Probably it is a mere chance co-incidence that in 
 America, in the State cf New York, in the same period, the 
 combined action of the legislature and the courts dissolved the 
 double ownership of the landlord and the tenant in the so- 
 called leasehold districts. But the clearest instance of the 
 influence of economic theory on land legislation was in the 
 Iribh land law of i860. This act introduced the simple principle 
 of absolute free contract into the complexity of Irish land con¬ 
 ditions. At one stroke it changed the whole relation of land¬ 
 lord and tenant from one of statics to one of contract. With 
 studied care it disregarded entirely that “tenant-right” which 
 was claimed and believed in by the great mass of Irishmen as 
 the foundation of their tenancy, and which was half acknowl¬ 
 edged by earlier, and entirely recognized by later legisla¬ 
 tion. Before this time the Irish courts had been looked upon 
 as performing the function of determining the relative rights 
 of landlord and tenant; by this law they were restricted to the 
 sole duty of enforcing contracts entered into between landlord 
 and tenant. Thus an attempt was made to put land owning 
 and land renting in Ireland on the same footing as any mercan¬ 
 tile operations. The influence of economic teaching on the 
 minds of the English legislators of that time could hardly be 
 shown in a more striking manner than by the passage of such 
 a revolutionary law, reversing the whole development of Irish 
 land history up to that time, and trying to make its system 
 conform immediately to a preconceived theoretic model. A 
 few years later, another example of such influence was found 
 in the new Portuguese code of 1867, and its effect in destroy¬ 
 ing the old system of land tenure known as aforamento. This 
 was a kind of perpetual lease, introduced by the Benedictine 
 
 [319] . 
 
32 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 monks in early centuries on their domains, and gradually be¬ 
 came the prevailing form of landholding in southern Portu¬ 
 gal. A farm held on these conditions could not be divided, 
 and the tenure provided for the payment of a fine on every 
 alienation, either by sale or by bequest. The code of 1867 
 was professedly based on that of France, and intended to 
 liberate the soil and reconstitute absolute property in land. It 
 prohibited, therefore, payments on occasions of an alienation, as 
 being a feudal recognition, and forbade bequest of all the land 
 of a father to any one child. These two provisions struck at 
 the primary characteristics of the tenure mentioned above, and 
 under their action aforamento has since been rapidly passing 
 away. The same influences in Spain have led to the division 
 and sale of much of the property of the communes. 
 
 Down to as late a period as i860, at least, the tendency 
 of land legislation was all in one direction. This was toward 
 making land an object of individual and uncontrolled owner¬ 
 ship, of free contract and free disposal ; toward making it the 
 object of possession, use, and exchange in just the same way 
 as a piece of furniture, a horse, money, or any other article of 
 personal possession is at the disposal of its owner. Within a 
 period of three quarters of a century the mediaeval bases of 
 landholding had been destroyed and an individualistic form of 
 tenure substituted. Private property in land had been created; 
 land had been brought into the category of objects of personal 
 ownership. The laws of the middle of the century, moreover, 
 over all central Europe, seemed to tend toward a further 
 development of the characteristics of the new system. 
 
 If, however, we abandon the method of tracing the course 
 of land legislation from the French revolution downward, and 
 beginning with the most recent laws and proposals for laws, 
 trace legislation upward through the last decade or two, we 
 will find ourselves in the midst of a strikingly different tendency. 
 For instance, in last winter’s session of the French chambers 
 of deputies, three distinct laws were introduced providing 
 for the compulsory payment by the landowners to an outgoing 
 tenant of the amount by which he has made the farm more 
 
 [320] 
 
Reform of Land Tenure. 
 
 33 
 
 valuable. A law of the same effect was passed in England in 
 1883, and one of much the same import as early as 1875. The 
 principle was introduced in Scotland in 1885, in the crofters acts, 
 and in Ireland in the land acts of 1870 and 1881. An act for 
 the same purpose was debated in the Belgian parliament in 
 1888, and although it failed to pass, was only defeated on an 
 unessential argument. In all of these laws and projects of 
 laws the landlord and tenant are forbidden to contract them¬ 
 selves out of their provisions. The normal case therefore 
 would be one where the tenant independently of the landlord, 
 without his participation and even possibly without his consent 
 would put any such expense upon the land as he could make 
 appreciable and then at the expiration of his tenancy collect 
 the proper indemnity from the landowner. There is in this 
 case a considerable deduction from the landowner’s complete 
 control of his land. Indeed such a principle when admitted 
 exactly reverses the former policy of assimilating land to other 
 forms of property, and introduces an element of joint double 
 ownership, instead of absolute single possession. Coming 
 from an entirely different origin, it brings in practically the 
 same combined rights to property in the soil as those which 
 existed in the feudal manor. 
 
 Again, t{ie Prussian lower house, in September, 1890, 
 passed a law allowing the formation of Rentenguter . That is, 
 it permitted the establishment of what are practically perpetual 
 tenancies, on aground-rent irredeemable except by consent of 
 both parties. This legislation, if completed, would be a return 
 toward such tenures as the Portuguese aforamento , Italian 
 allivelazione , American lease-holds and ground-rents, and 
 others, which were the especial objects of destructive effort in 
 the legislation of the first half of the century. The idea that 
 land should be tied up in a form difficult of alienation, and in¬ 
 capable either of being resumed by its original grantor or freed 
 from incumbrance by its holder, is one utterly repellent to the 
 spirit of the legislation already discussed, and yet it is the de¬ 
 liberate object of more than one recent proposal. 
 
 Still a third instance of reversal of policy is in the matter of 
 
 [321] . 
 
34 
 
 Annals of the American Academy. 
 
 communal lands. In England there were few of these left, but 
 their preservation, instead of enclosure and division, has been 
 the object of successive acts reversing the previous policy, 
 beginning with the “metropolitan commons act” in 1866. 
 The English allotments act of 1886 enabled local authorities 
 to acquire land by compulsory purchase for the purpose, 
 among others, of forming common pastures. On the continent 
 the same feeling has shown itself in an appreciable diminution 
 in the process of selling communal holdings, and a study of 
 the possibilities of utilizing such as remain in a more profitable 
 way. Such a movement is, of course, quite contrary to the 
 old effort to make land an object of ready division and sale. It 
 seems to acknowledge that there are some uses of land which 
 are better served by keeping it in the hands of the community 
 than by distributing it to individuals. 
 
 Interferences between landlord and tenant by which the 
 community, as a whole, sees to it that the tenant secures better 
 terms than mere competition has been found to give him, are 
 numerous in recent legislation. The Irish land act of 1870 
 gave compensation to the tenant for disturbance as well as the 
 compensation for unexhausted improvements already men¬ 
 tioned. The law of 1881, in addition, provided for a govern¬ 
 ment estimate of what was a fair rent, and this the landlord 
 was bound to accept. The same provisions were incorporated 
 in the Scotch crofters acts of 1885 and 1886. The latter also 
 gave the authorities power to take land from the landlords and 
 add it to the crofts of the peasants at an official, not a competi¬ 
 tive, rent. Similarly, the allotments act of 1886 gave power to 
 acquire land by compulsory purchase in order to let it to small 
 cultivators. Still more radical propositions have been made 
 by a commission of parliament recently appointed to investi¬ 
 gate the question of the distribution of land. These measures 
 certainly represent a very different principle from that typified 
 by the Irish land act of i860, very different from a r6gime of 
 pure contractual relation between landlord and tenant. 
 
 Thus in at least four different aspects of landholding, recent 
 laws have shown themselves to be of a directly opposite ten- 
 
Reform of Land Tenure. 
 
 35 
 
 dency to that of the first half of the century. If these measures 
 of reform of land tenure are followed up they will prove to have 
 this new tendency since about the year 1870. This then was 
 the turning of the tide. Consciously or unconsciously, at one 
 time in one aspect of landholding, at another time in another, 
 agitation, interest, legislation have departed from their old 
 ideas and turned toward new. We have apparently ceased to 
 try to treat land exactly as other forms of property. Recog¬ 
 nizing its intrinsic peculiarities, society is struggling with the 
 problems involved in its more just and at the same time equally 
 productive distribution and use. And this, like the earlier 
 movements, is practically contemporaneous in all the countries 
 of Europe. Just as the process of early enfranchisement 
 followed the same general fortunes in each of the countries dur¬ 
 ing one period of modern European history : just as land 
 tenure in the several countries was affected nearly alike by the 
 political currents and countercurrents of the time : just as the 
 influence of political economy came to reinforce the movement 
 in all the countries—so the cessation of the older course of 
 laws came at nearly the same time, and the tendency of recent 
 legislation has been strikingly alike in all Europe. 
 
 The movement away from individualism in land owning 
 must therefore be considered as a general one, not confined to 
 any particular country. It is part of the great social move¬ 
 ment of our time, turning away from mere freedom of the 
 individual and seeking for a reorganization of the community, 
 disavowing the rule of selfishness however “enlightened,’’ and 
 insisting on some degree of associative action, control and 
 enjoyment. 
 
 E. P. Cheyney. 
 
 University of Pennsylvania. 
 
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 Publications of the Academy. 
 
 1890—91. 
 
 I. ANNALS OF THE ACADEMY. Vol. I. Four Numbers. Fp. 754, with Supple¬ 
 ments, Pp. 1117. Price of Vol. I, including Supplements, $6. Special Rate to Libraries 
 and to Members of the Academy $5. Price of separate numbers, except No. 1 , $1 
 each. No. 1 of Vol I. is sold only in orders for the Volume. For prices of bound 
 copies of publications 1-5, see p. x. The first Volume includes Papers from the fol¬ 
 lowing Contributors: 
 
 Prof. Charles M. Andrews, 
 Prof. W. J. Ashley, 
 
 E. v, Boehm-Bawerk, 
 
 Hon. J. G. Bourinot, C. M. G.j 
 Prof. J. B. Clark, 
 
 Dr. Roland P, Falkner, 
 
 Prof. F. H. Giddings, 
 
 F. H. Holls, Esq., 
 
 Prof. William C. Morey, 
 
 Prof. Simon N. Patten, 
 
 Prof. C. Stuart Patterson, 
 
 D. G. Ritchie, A.M., 
 
 J. G. Rosengarten, Esq., 
 
 Dr. James Harvey Robinson, 
 Leo H. Rowe, 
 
 Prof. Fred M. Taylor, 
 
 Prof. C. A. Tuttle, 
 
 Stuart Wood, Esq., 
 
 Bryn Mawr College. 
 
 University of Toronto. 
 
 Ministry of Finance, Vienna, Austria. 
 
 Ottawa, Canada. 
 
 Smith College. 
 
 University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Bryn Mawr College. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 Rochester University. 
 
 University of Pennsylvania, 
 
 Law School of the University of Pennsylvania. 
 Oxford University (England). 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 University of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Fellow Wharton School of Finance and Economy. 
 University of Michigan. 
 
 Amherst College. 
 
 Philadelphia. . 
 
 2. PUBLIC HEALTH AND MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. By Dr. John 
 
 Billings. Supplement to Annals, 1891. Pp. 23. 50 cents. 
 
 3 . HISTORY OF STATISTICS. By Prof. August Meitzen, Translated from the 
 German, by Dr. Roland P. Falkner. Supplement to Annals, 1891. Pp. 100. $ 1 . 25 . 
 
 4. HANDBOOK OF THE ACADEMY. Supplement to Annals, 1891. Pp. 97. $2.00 
 
 5. THEORY AND TECHNIQUE OF STATISTICS. By Prof. August Meitzen 
 
 Translated from the German, by Dr. Roland P. Falkner. Supplement to 
 Annals, 1891. Pp. 143. $1.50. 
 
 1891—92. 
 
 6. ANNALS OF THE ACADEMY. Vol. II., No. 1., July, 1891. Pp. 144. 81.25. 
 
 7. ANNALS OF THE ACADEMY. Vol. II., No. 2. September, 1891. Pp. 144 
 
 and 21. Price $1.25. Contained: 
 
 Recent Constitution-Making in the United States. Francis Newton Thorpe 
 Economics in Italy. A. Loria. 
 
 Present Condition of the Peasants in the Russian Empire. Vicomte Combes 
 de Lestrade. 
 
 Statistical Publications of the United States Government. Wm, F. Wil¬ 
 loughby. 
 
 Personal Notes ; Book Reviews ; Miscellany: The Congress of the Learned 
 Societies of Paris. Leo H. Rowe. 
 
 List of Accessions to Membership in the Academy. 
 
 8. ANNALS OF THE ACADEMY. Vol. II.-, No. 3, November, 1891. Current 
 
 Number. 
 
AMERICAN ACADEMY 
 
 OF 
 
 Political and Social Science. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
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 EDMUND J. JAMES, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania. 
 
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 400 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. 
 
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 Prof. C. F. BASTABLE, 
 
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 J. G. BOURINOT, C.M.G., LL.D., D.C.L., 
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 Prof. J. K. INGRAM, 
 
 Dublin University. 
 Prof. J. S. NICHOLSON, 
 
 Edinburgh University. 
 Prof. HENRY SIDGWICK, 
 
 Cambridge University. 
 
 Prof. WILLIAM SMART, 
 Glasgow. 
 
 Dr. C. K. ADAMS, 
 
 President of Cornell University. 
 
 Dr. E. B. ANDREWS, 
 
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 Dr. JAMES B. ANGELL, 
 
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 Prof. F. W. BLACKMAR, 
 University of Kansas. 
 
 Prof. J. W. BURGESS, 
 
 Columbia College. 
 
 Hon. THOMAS M. COOLEY, 
 
 Interstate Commerce Commission. 
 
 Prof. R. T. ELY, 
 
 Johns Hopkins University. 
 
 Prof. HENRY W. FARNAM, 
 
 Yale University. 
 
 Prof. W. W. FOLWELL, 
 
 University of Minnesota. 
 
 LYMAN J. GAGE, Esq., 
 
 Chicago, Ill. 
 
 Prof. FRANK GOODNOW, 
 Columbia College. 
 
 For the United States. 
 
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 Cornell University. 
 
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 University of California. 
 
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 New York City. 
 
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 Harvard University. 
 
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 New York City. 
 
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 Mobile, Alabama. 
 
 Prof. J. B. THAYER, 
 
 Harvard Law School. 
 
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 University of Pennsylvania. 
 
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 Prest. of Mass. Institute of Technology. 
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 Princeton University. 
 
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 Washington, D. C. 
 
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