In America and Australia, the new democracies, which are growing up on unoccupied lands, should reserve in eachcommune a collective domain of sufficient extent to establish the ancient Germanic system: otherwise, when increase ofpopulation creates distress, there will have to be established a poor-rate as in England. Surely it is a thousand times better togive, instead of relief, which only demoralizes the receiver, laud an instrument of labourby which, by his own efforts and invirtue of his natural right, he can obtain his means of subsistence. A comparison between the degraded inmate of an Englishworkhouse and the proud, active, independent, and industrious commoner of the Swiss Allmend , is sufficient to illustrate theprofound difference between the two systems. In all that regards the civil law, Anglo-Saxon colonies derive their inspirationfrom nothing but the feudal law of England: they would do better if they turned a glance towards the primitive institutions oftheir race, as seen still in full vigour in democratic Switzerland.
In Europe, economic reformers have everywhere insisted on the alienation of common lands, in spite of the opposition of thepeasants and the conservative party. It was a right instinct that led the peasant to defend this legacy of the past, for itanswered a social necessity. It is often imprudent to lay the axe to an institution hallowed by immemorial tradition, especiallywhen its roots penetrate far into an age older than the establishment of great aristocracies and centralized monarchies.
Before compelling the communes to sell their property, it would have been well to examine whether it could not be turned toprofitable account, either by regularly planting woods, or by temporary grants of arable. The example of Switzerland shewsus how this would have been possible. In the author's opinion, the increase of the communal patrimony should be fostered,but improvements should be introduced in the method of its cultivation.
1. Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins , v. i. p. 391.
2. Die Rechtsverhält, am Gemeinland, in Unterwalden .
3. See A. Heusler, Rechtsverh. Am Gemeinland in Unterwalden .
CHAPTER VII.
THE GERMANIC MARK.
Village-communities with periodical division of the lands, such as are still met with in Russia and Java, existed likewise inancient Germany. The economic condition of the German tribes and the agricultural process employed by them afford aperfect explanation of these institutions so anomalous at first sight.
In primitive times, men lived solely by the chase, as the Indians of North America do at the present time; when game failed,under the pressure of hunger they sought sustenance in the flesh of their conquered enemies. The savage is a cannibal fromthe same motive which incites shipwrecked sailors on a raft to become so, namely hunger. Human bones of the stone age,discovered by Professor Schmerling in the grottoes of Engihoul, near Liége, still bear the mark of human teeth, which hadbroken them to extract the marrow. Hunting tribes are warrior tribes; they can only live with their arms in their hands, andthe limits of their hunting-ground are a constant source of bloody contests. Aristotle has caught this feature of earlysocieties. "The art of war," he says, "is a means of natural acquisition, for the chase is a part of this art. Thus war is a speciesof chase after men born to obey, who refuse to submit to slavery."When, at a later period, man has succeeded in taming certain animals suitable for his sustenance, a great change takes placein his lot; he has no longer any fears for the morrow, having the means of subsistence always at hand. The quantity of foodproduced on the same space being larger, the social group can become more numerous: and so the tribe is formed. Man hasceased to be the carnivorous, cannibal animal of prey, whose only thought was to kill and eat.
More peaceable and affectionate sentiments have come to life; for, in order to the multiplication of the flocks, there is needof forethought, care for their sustenance, attachment to them, even a sort of love for them. The pastoral system is nottherefore incompatible with a certain stage of civilization. Although the use of arms is not excluded, there is not theperpetual struggle, the combats, the ambuscades and daily massacres, characteristic of the preceding, period. The cultivationof certain alimentary plants is also compatible with the nomadic life. Thus the Tartars cultivate the cereal bearing their name,the polygonum tartaricum , or buckwheat. They burn the vegetation on the surface; sow and reap the harvest in two or threemonths, and then betake themselves elsewhere. The Indians cultivate a kind of wild rice in the same way. Such is agriculturein its earliest stage. Men do not leave the pastoral system for the agricultural from choice, the conditions of the latter beinginfinitely harder; they only do so compelled by necessity. When the population increases, agriculture is the only means bywhich it can obtain sustenance. In his excellent work on Russia, Mr Mackenzie Wallace seizes the passage from the pastoralto the agricultural life among the Bashkir and Kirghiz tribes while in actual process, and he shews how periodic partition ofthe cultivable land was originally introduced among the Cossacks. We thus see in actual development the successive stageswhich mankind has traversed. (1)
The Germans, when the Romans first came into contact with them, were a pastoral people, retaining the warlike habits ofthe primitive hunters, and bordering on the agricultural system. It seems generally admitted that the tribes of the Ayran race,before their dispersion, had no knowledge of agriculture, for the terms designating farming implements and culture of theland differ in the different branches of the Aryan languages, while words relating to the management of flocks are similar.
