One of Mill's most characteristic doctrines shows conspicuously this relation.Malthus had found in Norway and Switzerland communities which flourished because they spontaneously practised his principles.'It is worthy of remark,'says Mill,(46)'that the two countries thus honourably distinguished are countries of small landed proprietors.'This coincidence was not accidental;and Mill's Malthusianism falls in with his admiration for peasant-proprietorship.He diverged in this respect from the orthodox economical tradition.The economists generally left it to sentimentalists to regret the British yeoman,and to weep musically with Goldsmith over the time 'when every rood of ground maintained its man.'Wordsworth had dwelt pathetically upon the homely virtues of the North-country statesman.(47)Cobbett had in his happiest passages dwelt fondly upon the old rural life,and denounced in his bitterest invectives the greedy landowners and farmers who had plundered and degraded the English peasant.The economists looked at the matter from the point of view represented by Arthur Young.Enclose commons;consolidate small holdings;introduce machinery;give a free hand to enterprising landlords and substantial farmers,and agriculture will improve like commerce and manufactures.Small holders are as obsolete as handloom weavers;competition,supply and demand,and perfect freedom of trade will sweep them away,new methods will be adopted,capital introduced,and the wages of the labourer be raised.M'Culloch,for example,took this view;(48)denounced small holdings,and prophesied (49)that France would in fifty years become the greatest 'pauper-warren in Europe.'A remarkable advocate of a similar view was Richard Jones (1790-1855),who in 1835succeeded Malthus at Haileybury.(50)Jones admired Malthus and accepted with qualifications the account of rent given by Malthus and West.But he denounced Malthus's successors,Ricardo,James Mill,and M'Culloch for preferring 'anticipation'to 'induction',and venturing to start with general maxims and deduce details from them.Jones deserves the credit of perceiving the importance of keeping historical facts well in view.He shows sufficiently that Ricardo's theory,if taken to be a historical statement of the actual progress of events,is not correct.He refuses to define rent,but treats historically of the various payments made in respect of land.After classifying these,he decides that rent of the Ricardian kind prevails over less than a hundredth part of the earth's surface.He considers it,however ,as representing a necessary stage of progress.It is far superior to the early stages,because it supposes the growth of a class of capitalists,able to direct labour and introduce the best methods of cultivation.Hence Jones comes by a different route to an agreement with M'Culloch.He prophesies that peasant-proprietors will rapidly fall into want and their numbers be limited only by the physical impossibility of procuring food.They were precisely in the position least favourable to the action of prudential checks.(51)Mill upon this matter dissented most emphatically both from the 'classical'and the historical champion.The point is with him of vital importance.His French sympathies had prepared him to see the other side of the question.The most unequivocal triumph claimed,with whatever truth,for the French revolution was the elevation of the cultivators of the land.Mill,at any rate,held emphatically that the French revolution had 'extinguished extreme poverty for one whole generation,'(52)and had thereby enabled the French population to rise permanently to a higher level.Contemporary English history gave the other side.
Poor-law controversies had brought into striking relief the degradation of the English agricultural labourer.The Morning Chronicle articles,to which he had devoted six months,combined with an advocacy of peasant-proprietorship an exposition of the inadequacy of poor-laws.The excellent W.T.Thornton (1813-1880)had been from 1836Mill's colleague in the India House,and was one of the few friends who communicated freely with him during his seclusion.(53)In 1846Thornton published a book upon Over Population and its Remedy,in which he declares himself to be a thoroughgoing Malthusian,and rebukes M'Culloch for saying that Malthus's work exemplified the 'abuse'of general principles.
