5438. MONOPOLY, Land.—
The property
of France is absolutely concentrated in a
very few hands, having revenues of from half
a million of guineas a year downwards.
These employ the flower of the country as
servants, some of them having as many as
two hundred domestics, not laboring. They
employ also a great number of manufacturers,
and tradesmen, and lastly the class of
laboring husbandmen. But after all, there
comes the most numerous of all the classes,
that is, the poor who cannot find work. I
asked myself what could be the reason that so
many should be permitted to beg who are
willing to work, in a country where there is
a very considerable proportion of uncultivated
lands? Those lands are undisturbed only for
the sake of game. It should seem then that
it must be because of the enormous wealth of
the proprietors which places them above attention
to the increase of their revenues by
permitting these lands to be labored.—
To Rev. James Madison.
Ford ed., vii, 35.
(P.
1785)
