Volume 2

France in 1829-30 / By Lady Morgan.

  • Sydney, Lady Morgan
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: France in 1829-30 / By Lady Morgan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    for the manufacturing population and the idlers.* But in this increased consumption lies the specific advantage of the small pro- prietor. He is happier and richer because he has more to consume: and if the importation of food be not prevented, the condition of the rest of the population is not injured by the circumstance. In France, the productive power of the soil is more than sufficient for the sustenance of the people. France would naturally export corn, as she does wine, if her energies were well directed.* As it is, food is comparatively * 'This fallacy is victoriously advanced in England. But no such dense population could arise in a country tolerably well governed. In Poland and Ireland, the pauper popula- tion—too great, indeed, for existing circumstances—is far below what the actual produce of the soil would maintain, if justly distributed. Populations too dense for the soil are exclusively the offsprings of trade ; and trade would provide for their nourishment, if perfectly unshackled. * Many circumstances concur to render the condition of the French peasantry less equally, and less generally good,
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