Chapter XVI

AIROLO--VAL BEDRETTO--ALL’ ACQUA--THE CRUINA ALPE--THE CORNO
GLACIER--THE GRIES GLACIER--DOWN TO ULRICHEN--CONCLUSION.

So build we up the being that we are:
Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things,
We shall be wise perforce.--WORDSWORTH.

_August 25._--The _Parisienne’s_ estimate of the services that had been rendered to me was nine francs: a low estimate if compared with English charges; still for some even of it I was indebted to the communist, as I was also for my not being able to get away before six o’clock. Our destination was All’ Acqua, at the head of the Val Bedretto. As we left Altanca I found that many of the goats and cows of the place were suffering from the foot and mouth disease, that has of late years been very troublesome here among our own herds. It was sad to find such a calamity lessening the resources--and their cows and goats are their chief resource--of these hard-working and scantily provided people. The view, as we began to descend to the valley of the Ticino, was very grand, as it had been from Lake Ritom down to Altanca--far grander, indeed, than anything you can see from the valley itself. Between the village and the valley the path is all the way over very steep reclaimed grass land. To reclaim it had been the labour of many generations. The dusty road of the hot valley was a poor exchange for the Medelserthal, the Uomo, the Piora, the Ritom, and the Altanca of yesterday. We had not, however, much of it, for we were to leave it at Airolo. At Airolo, however, I was provokingly detained for half an hour by my thirsty and lazy attendant, who could not, after a walk of only an hour and a half in the early morning, pass a wine-shop without turning into it. The long main street of Airolo was up, just as if it had been Cheapside, in order that an iron water-main might be laid down in it, in anticipation of its coming wants, when the railway beneath the St. Gothard shall be opened.

A troop of artillery passed through the place. They had been out somewhere near Andermatt for their summer manœuvres. Yesterday at Piora we had heard the booming of their guns. I thought of them, and of the national force to which they belonged, in connection with the railway. Switzerland was strong when it was self-contained, and when a large part of the country was almost inaccessible. This was what enabled it to establish its independence. It could support itself, and its enemies could not get at it. Now, however, it is not self-contained, for it is very largely dependent on trade and travellers. It can no longer produce its own food, but must look to trade and travellers for the means of purchasing a large portion of its daily bread. If, then, the railways that bring these travellers, and the cotton, the wool, and the silk its factories work up, and carry to their markets the manufactured fabrics, and which, too, bring a considerable proportion of its daily bread, were held by an enemy, the country would be starved into submission. This might be done in two or three years without firing many guns, or much fighting. Nor if an enemy should desire to invade it, would any part of the country be inaccessible. Railways and roads have opened the whole of it. Either, then, it might be starved into submission by having its supplies cut off, or the enemy might take advantage of the means of communication it has already constructed, and to which it is still adding, to make himself master of its strongholds, and chief centres of population. Modern Switzerland, therefore, is now no stronger than any other part of Europe: indeed, not so strong as many of its more behindhand districts. All the grand appliances of modern science, wealth, and organization, such as railways, gas-works, water-works, large factories, extensive commerce, banking facilities, must in future wars be so many sources of weakness to the weaker powers, that is to those who are not strong enough to protect the costly material mechanism of modern civilization. The strength with which nature had endowed Switzerland under the old condition of things has under their existing condition been well-nigh completely cancelled. This may in proportion be applied generally to the whole Continent, with the single exception of its strongest nation, for the weaker are now in a degree and manner peculiar to these times at the mercy of the strongest. This suggests the question, what will be the eventual result of the developments of science and wealth having made the weaker nations almost powerless, and the strongest nation almost omnipotent?

It was pleasant on this sunny morning to get out of the stifling heat of Airolo. Before we could enter the Val Bedretto we had to cross the Ticino, close to the mouth of the railway tunnel. Here was presented to us a very busy scene, which showed how much work was doing, and would have to be done. No sooner had we entered the Val Bedretto than we were met by a current of crisply fresh air descending it. There is nothing to a cursory glance particularly striking in this valley. Still it has its own features; but if I were to attempt to put them into words the description would appear to be not unlike that of many another Alpine valley. This, however, would be an injustice; its pathway, its forests, its villages, its mountains, the rents in its mountains, some of them very deep, and from the colour of the rock almost of a pure white, the main valley itself, its laterals, and its broad pebbly stream, have each and all their own character, and quite enough to interest and satisfy the mind; at least I have never found a Swiss valley, and certainly did not find the Val Bedretto, uninteresting; even though, as it happened, I had to stop for a quarter of an hour at Fontana, and again for half an hour at Villa for those ever-craved, and never-satisfying _chopines_ of wine. This annoyance, however, even if in some degree it amounted to that, was one of very small dimensions: it was not, for instance, to be compared in respect of any inconvenience that attended it, with a high wind, or a smart shower, or even an overclouded sky, or still less with a battered foot. At all events, all is well that ends well; and so I thought, as early in the afternoon we reached our day’s halting place at All’ Acqua, though not at first knowing the good-fortune that was awaiting me there; for I had now, without the least anticipation that it would be so, heard the last of those unconscionable _chopines_ of wine.

Here, then, I am in my last little mountain inn. I have now had my last dinner of macaroni soup, and of crude beef, and am sitting outside in the bright sun, very pleasant at this height, and am noting the composition of the scene. The little house stands some hundreds of feet above the Ticino, on the left bank. The stream, though lost to sight, is still heard from down below. Beyond it, on the opposite side, are steep mountains, clothed on their lower flanks with more or less detached larch, tufts of dwarf alder, and patches of grass, to the upper limit of the tree line, and then up to the summit with open grass and rocks. On my side, around me, the foreground is open pasture strewn with rocks. It is studded with a few large venerable larch. A small stream threads its way down it to supply the house with water. This open, rock-strewn pasture rises into a near line of wooded mountains, with a few patches of grass. These constitute the middle distance, beyond the immediate foreground. They are backed by another quite distinct line of mountains, which are the background of this part of the panorama. The second range is in complete contrast to the first, for it is much loftier, and steeper, and absolutely naked. Its summits are in the forms of pyramids, peaks, and cliffs, and grandly dominate the interposed green range. It is against the sky line. Down the valley are the snow-patched finials of the St. Gothard group. Up the valley are dark scantily-turfed slopes, tipped with snow. In that direction will lie my path to-morrow.

I returned to the house with three Italians, who had come from Domo d’Ossola by the Falls of the Tosa. Their coloured scarfs, patent-leather buskins, and the rest to match, were more elaborate, and more designed for artistic effects, than would have been considered appropriate for mountain work by any people from the north of the Alps. But they were engaged in a great undertaking, and this get-up would magnify it in their friends’, and, too, in their own, eyes. While they were at dinner the landlord came in to ask me, if I would give up to them my guide, who in that case would accompany them as their guide and porter in the afternoon back to Airolo, adding that he would himself, to-morrow, take my man’s place with me. I was only too happy to hear the proposal. I declined, however, to have anything to do with the pecuniary part of the arrangement: that the two men must settle between themselves. I would pay my man the whole sum for which he had agreed to go with me across the Pass to Ulrichen, and he must pay the landlord for taking his place for the day. This would be a gain in more ways than one to him, for he would be paid by the Italians for returning with them this evening to Airolo, and I would give him two days’ pay for returning, whereas he could return from Airolo to Dissentis in one day easily, having nothing but himself to carry. He would thus get home two days sooner, get all I had agreed to give him for the longer time, and what the Italians would give him for a day, having only, _per contra_, to pay his substitute for one day. At this proposal he burst into a storm of wrath, and demanded three days’ pay for returning. This I told him would be contrary to the contract, even had he gone to Ulrichen. In his rage he denied that there had ever been any contract. I produced it. He then took his money; and much to my satisfaction, I saw no more of ‘the most intelligent, and in every respect the best guide in Dissentis.’

The family of the inn comprised six little bare-footed, bare-headed children. The eldest could hardly have been more than eight years old; the youngest was an infant in arms. Their confidence was readily won by a distribution of ten cent pieces. The infant clutched his piece as tenaciously, and appreciated it as highly, as the eldest. The good-natured signora was pleased to find that her little ones were regarded with some interest, and not as nuisances. I spent half an hour in the evening in the dairy to witness the economies of the butter, and of the cheese making. The good man had a sturdy female assistant, with broader shoulders than his own, who accompanied him to the alpe to milk the cows and to bring home the milk, which was immediately curded over the fire, and set for cheese of the Pioresque kind. The milk that had been set for cream, was now skimmed for butter. The sturdy assistant churned the cream, while the good man converted the skimmed milk into meagre cheese. The whey from both the fat and the meagre curd, was set to the fire a second time, for the production of the second curd. This is too soft and poor for cheese. In French Switzerland it is called serré; here it goes by a name which is pronounced muscarp, but written _mascarpa_. The thin watery whey expressed from this is given to the pigs, who stand outside, with their snouts thrust in at the door, to claim their rights. By the time the whey is ready for them it is almost dark, only just enough light remaining to enable you to see that, as they silently absorb gallon after gallon of the liquid, they are ‘visibly swelling before your eyes.’ The muscarp is then carried into the house in a wooden keeler, and the good man, his prolific wife, the sturdy female attendant, and the six children, the two eldest of whom had, to the extent of their capacities assisted at the butter and the cheese making, sit at the table round the tub, and with wooden spoons address themselves to its contents. I take a spoonful. I had not tasted curds and whey since I was a boy in the West Indies, where the mess goes by I suppose the Scotch name of bonnie clabber. To encourage the family party, for the junket does not quite equal my fancied recollections, I pronounce it to be good. ‘But,’ quoth the good man, ‘you would not think so, if it were all your supper every evening.’

_August 26._--At 5 A.M. was off with Clemente Forni. It was as fresh and bright as could be wished for one’s last morning among the mountains. The way was over short rock-strewn turf, by the side of the infant Ticino, with near mountains right and left and before me. Clemente was of the kind of men you take to at once, and who give you afterwards no reason--I will suppose this of him--for changing your opinion. Everything around, and within, promised well for a pleasant day on the Gries glacier, which both last year, and the year before, I had looked at over the head of the Valais, from the top of the Grimsel, with a desire for a nearer acquaintance. From what I had seen of Clemente yesterday he seemed industrious, thoughtful, gentle, honest, one who had a head, a heart, and a conscience. Indeed, the stream of his discursive talk, fed from these fountains, never ran dry. This made him a man whom it was pleasant to walk and to talk with. His only scheming was how he might by his own hard labour bring up his six little folk, and as many more as might come. In about an hour and a half we reached the cheese _châlet_ of the Cruina alpe, in a little mountain-locked bay, well sheltered from every wind. The sixty-four cows kept upon it had all been milked, and with but a few exceptions here and there, were all again lying down, knowing that they should not be taken for the day to pasture, till the four herdsmen had made the cheese, and had their own breakfast.

We entered the _châlet_. The milk of the sixty-four cows was being curded in a gigantic copper caldron, over a clear smokeless cembra fire. A man of about six-and-thirty, not tall, but broad and bony, of iron frame and massive muscles, was in charge of the caldron. At another fire was another of the party, preparing a pot of polenta made with cream. The other two were lying on thick gray blankets at the further end of the single room. The polenta was soon ready, and was carried, in the pot in which it had been made, outside the _châlet_--there was no room for the party within--and six one-legged stools set round it for the four herdsmen, my guide, and myself, and a round-bowled spoon brought out for each of us. We ranged ourselves on the one-legged stools around the pot. One who hails from the south of the Tweed will probably prefer polenta made with cream to oatmeal porridge. When they had finished the polenta, each dipped with a miniature wooden keeler, which does duty for dish, plate, and basin, out of a large wooden tub as much muscarp as he would require for supplementing his first course of polenta. A great deal of muscarp is made from sixty-four cows, and it is the work of one of the herdsmen to take this down daily to All’ Acqua, from whence it is sent on upon another back to Bedretto. The man who takes it down to All’ Acqua returns with a load of wood. On leaving the party I had some difficulty in persuading the broad-shouldered, brawny-muscled cheese-maker to accept a franc for his hospitality.

As we passed through the herd one of the cows that was on her legs came up to us, and rubbed her head against my guide. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is my cow.’ While she was thus expressing, in her dumb fashion, her satisfaction at seeing him--there was no hypocrisy in this recognition--two dun yearling heifers rose from the ground, and coming up to him, as the cow had done, began to lick his hand. These also, I needed not to have been told it, were his. Here was irrefragable evidence of the gentleness of the good man. What a pleasant sight to the cow was the familiar form and dress! How often had those yearling heifers eaten from that hand! They had never been cuffed, or kicked, or sworn at. The wife and children, too, then, had had, and would continue to have, done for them all that man could do at All’ Acqua; and so would all who might come in the good man’s way. Who could help liking and respecting one, for whom his beasts were showing such confiding regard, or could fail to be reminded of very different scenes he had witnessed elsewhere? When a horse shrinks from the man who has charge of it, you need not be told in words how he is in the habit of treating it. No further evidence is needed. On this occasion I, too, came in for some share of attention, for a goat that was kept with the herd ran up to me, and, rubbing her nose on my hand, begged for a pinch of salt. How gladly would I have complied with her request! Were I ever again to visit the alpe of Cruina I would not go without a pinch or two of salt.

We were now near the head of the Pass. The grass was beginning to thin out. The marmots were abroad for their morning feed. As we disturbed them, they wriggled home with a slow and awkward movement, for their bodies are long and their legs short; and when they had reached the door of their runs, so that they could feel somewhat secure, paused for a moment or two to make out the designs of the intruders. Just before us was the Corno glacier to which we were approaching, and on to which a few more steps would take us. We had ascended about 3,000 feet from All’ Acqua, and were now at an elevation of 8,000 feet. ‘The little sinuous paths of earthly care’ were far below, and around us were some of ‘the flowers that embellish’ the pedestrian’s way, and ‘the springs that refresh’ him at these heights. One of the former was a pale sky-blue gentian, a flower that still embellishes memory, as it did on that day my path, and from one of the latter I had a rare draught, at the spot where it welled out of the rock a little below the glacier. And now we are upon the Corno glacier, itself. It has some peculiarities. First it is in the form of a saddle, or the segment of a circle, with the glacier for the arc of the segment, the chord being underground. In a word it is convex. This double inclination is one peculiarity. Another is found in its _moraine_. As it has no lateral glaciers to cause medial _moraines_, you would suppose that it would have two lateral _moraines_, and nothing more. It has, however, nothing of the kind on either side, but, instead, one large, well compacted, wall-like _moraine_ some considerable way from the margin. And now we are struck with another peculiarity. The glacier on the Gries side is depressed along the middle in the axis of its length. As, then, the _moraine_ is not on the margin, we should have expected to find it following the line of greatest central depression, whereas it runs along the face of one of the inclines midway between the margin and the line of greatest depression. These, then, are the questions the sight suggests to us; Why are there not two _moraines_, one on each margin of the glacier? How comes it that the single _moraine_, which must have been formed from the mountains above, seeing that it is not on one of the margins, is not in the line of the central depression? How comes it to be so compactly and cleanly built along the middle of the descent of one side towards the central depression? And what has produced this central depression? Clemente from his knowledge of the locality was able to answer all these questions, I think, satisfactorily. In winter the glacier is buried in snow to a great depth. At that season, and in the spring, the snow-inclines from the two mountains meet not above the line of longitudinal greatest depression in summer, but exactly along the line of the _moraine_. Here in winter and spring is the line of greatest depression. Every rock, therefore, that falls from either mountain rolls down to this line, and is added to the _moraine_. As a general rule rocks only fall in winter and spring. This accounts for their being nowhere except along this line, that is to say for the strange position of the _moraine_ along the flank of an incline of ice. In the early spring, when the snow is beginning to melt, and for some time longer, the _moraine_ continues to be the line of greatest depression. At this time, therefore, all the surface melting flows along it through its open pile of stones: this accounts for their being washed clean and kept open. As the summer advances, and the sun becomes more vertical, the snow is melted away to some distance below the _moraine_, and the line of greatest depression is advanced considerably, along which, as long as there is any surface snow melting, there is a stream flowing, which, as long as it lasts, aids in deepening the central depression. This accounts for the summer line of depression along the middle of the glacier, far below the _moraine_. This glacier, then, as we said at first, is, when regarded as a whole, of a convex form; but a transverse section of it on the Gries side, and taken at a point alongside of the _moraine_ would be concave. Its position explains its convexity. It descends on the summit of a gentle ridge, or if you prefer so to state it, is formed on the summit of a gentle ridge; it naturally, therefore, flows down each side of this ridge. I have given Clemente’s explanation of the singular position of the _moraine_, and of the central concavity of the western limb of the glacier.

Having left the Corno we got upon the Gries by passing along the flank of the last spur of the mountain to the north of the Corno glacier. At its extremity, with the Corno on your left, you command a grand view of the broad expanse of the Gries. To this we now descended. It here presents a smooth surface, rising to the south-west. We passed the line of poles, each fixed in a counterpoise of rock to keep it erect, which mark the horse track across the glacier from the Upper Valais to Domo d’Ossola. We spent about an hour upon it, walking up it, in the direction of the lofty, massive, smooth-faced, umber-coloured mountain, which protrudes through it to the west of the track to Domo d’Ossola. We then recovered the path to Ulrichen.

One goes on a glacier, or goes to see anything, for the sake of the thoughts the sight will awaken. This is as much the case with the man who is unconscious, as with the man who is conscious, of thinking; as much with the clod as with the philosopher; with the man who sneers at thought, that is to say all thought but his own, as with the man who knows that thought is his life, and himself. Now one of the thoughts that interest the mind as you stand on this mighty mass of ice, and know that, as you stand upon it, you and it are being invisibly, imperceptibly, and regularly moved on together, is what moves it? That the movement of the Gries is for local reasons unusually slow, even for a glacier, heightens the interest of the question submitted to your thought. I had at that time a wound on one of my finger-nails, which had been caused by the bite of a dog two months back. It had originally been at the root of the nail. But now it had in the course of those two months advanced almost to the outer edge of the nail, that is to say it had with the utmost slowness, but also with the utmost regularity, travelled from the inner to the outer edge, a journey of an inch in two months. Now what had caused it to move in this way? It was evident that the whole nail, which appears to be firmly fixed to the finger, had moved on with it. Day and night the movement had been going on; but what was it that had been making it move? I suppose the pressure from behind caused by the growth of new matter. This growth of new matter at the root of the nail had caused continuous pressure from behind. This continuous pressure had been propagated throughout the whole extent of the nail, and so had obliged it to move on. Is not the growth of the upper snow-field, and the consequent pressure from it, exactly analogous? Is it not equally continuous? And is it not similarly propagated throughout the whole glacier? And, too, with the same result, that is to say is it not this pressure which obliges the whole mass to move on in the line of least resistance? The wounded point in the nail marked the rate of advance, just as a rock on the surface of the glacier might.

We may see an instance of what continuous pressure will do in the case of a tree growing near an iron fence. They at last come in contact, and the pressure being from the direction of the tree bends the iron. The comparatively soft bark is not cut into: it is the iron that gives way. If the pressure had been in the reverse direction, that is from the iron, the tree would have been cut into. So with the root of a tree in an old wall. The pressure being continuous from the root cracks the wall, though the root is soft and the wall hard. Some ilexes, which a few years back I saw growing on the ruins of the Palace of the Cæsars on the Palatine, supplied good instances of the effect of this continuous action of soft on hard substances. Their roots had rent and lifted large masses of what had previously been solid blocks of the firmest masonry, that had stood uninjured through so long a series of centuries, and, had it not been for these roots, would still have been solid and unmoved. So also with the expansion of water when freezing in the cranny of a rock, the expansion of the soft material burst the hard one. The propagation then of continuous pressure throughout the mass of the Gries glacier, although it is four miles long, and one mile broad, and no one can say how thick, may possibly be sufficient to account for its being moved on in the line of least resistance. And if the principle be correct may it not be applied to glaciers of twenty times the magnitude of the Gries? that is to say to all glaciers? In the instances referred to, the formation of new matter at the root of the nail, and of new wood upon the trunk and on the root of a tree, the pressure comes from what is soft, and is applied effectually to what is hard: so may it be with the action of the snow-field on the glacier.

We left the Gries by the same mountain by which we had reached it, with the difference that we now, instead of traversing its southern, had to descend its northern side. First, however, we had to ascend for a few hundred yards. When you have reached the highest point of the path, you look upon a large expanse of the Bernese Oberland. You may find among the Alps many views that are more extensive, and many that in some one feature, or other, are more striking than this. What, however, is before you from this point is in a very high degree impressive. It is a wondrous scene of Alpine architecture, simple in its elements, but grand in its simplicity. To your left is one of the exits of the Gries. The branch glacier in it terminates abruptly, not after a gentle declivity, such as that of the body of the glacier, but in the mid descent of a precipitous outfall. The previously smooth surface is here ruptured with many deep, yawning, transverse seams. Beyond the glacier--to you its further boundary--is a mountain so steep that you may suppose, and perhaps rightly, that no human foot could ascend it. This glacier gorge at your side is a lateral of the transverse valley below you, a valley of enormous depth, scantily clad with humble Alpine pasturage. You can just make out the herd that is grazing in it. On looking over the long steep-sided mountain which forms its opposite range, at the foot of which the cows are grazing, the south-eastern region of the Bernese Oberland is spread out before you. It is at that distance at which the field of vision may comprise many objects, but every object is still seen distinctly. In this wide, verdureless field, there is no suggestion of life. The midday sun, which is shining brightly upon it, brings out nothing but the gray of the summits of rock, which, when not in the shade, show of a pale ash colour, and the white of the summits of snow, which gleams and dazzles in its purity. This dark gray, pale ash, and gleamy white are the only colouring. The gray and pale ash predominate in an endless variety of forms--mountain walls, ridges, battlements, bastions, and escarpments. Every here and there above these is a dome, or a tower, or a pinnacle of gleaming white, just as the domes, and towers, and pinnacles of a great city rise above its other buildings. This is a city of the world’s Builder in which every building is an Alp.

You continue your descent, and soon lose this grand view. But the mountain side, down which your way lies, is grander than usual, longer, and steeper. Your path takes you by intrusive dykes of gneiss and of a black basaltic-looking rock. We here overtook two professors, a botanist with his cases, and an entomologist with his net. They had been beaten by the ascent, and were retracing their steps, fagged, crestfallen, and disappointed. They had our sympathy for their pursuits, and our condolence for their disappointment. Poor fellows! they had just made the painful discovery--may it not have been made too late--that in their mode of life there had been too much desk work, and not enough field work. When human physiology shall be better understood these sad mistakes will not be so frequent. You have now got down into the valley. You look up at the mountain you have been descending. Its height, its steepness, its mass, its ruggedness, its hardness, its inexorableness are so overpowering that your eye shrinks from the effort to aid you in constructing an image of it. At the foot of that high, overhanging, cloud-cleaving upheaval of adamant, you feel very small, very feeble; to your present apprehension your bones are no more than straws, if so much. For a time you allow these impressions of the locality to run their course. Your way is then along the deep valley. As you advance down it you give more heed than usual to the hurrying dashing stream, and you note with more observance than usual the reappearance of the first trees, and of the first _châlets_, and even the form and size of the detached rocks, for the thought is in your mind that these sounds and sights are being presented to you, for this year at all events, now for the last time. And so about midday you reach the little flat of Ulrichen, and your Month is ended. Your walk will have taken you over between 300 and 400 miles, comprising more than a dozen Passes of one kind or another; and you will have seen much of nature and of man to awaken thought, and to interest you. Every day will have been worth living, and not least so the last. But whatever your capacity for being benefited, or interested, by what you may have seen, you will be but slightly, if at all, indebted for it to that eight-parts-of-speech lore, the study of which, though it formed the chief occupation of all the days of our blessed youth, did not issue in enabling all of us to know so much, or so little, as the names of those eight parts of speech.

NOTE TO CHAPTER XIII.

_SOME REMARKS ON THE HISTORY AND EFFECTS OF OUR POOR LAW IN CONNEXION
WITH PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP._

I relegate this note to the end of the volume, because its introduction into the body of the work would have been too great an interruption of the continuity of the narrative.

A little comparative history may add to the interest of the picture which the Prätigäu presents. In that valley, as in many others in Switzerland, the peasants are ready to give so high a price for an acre of land that large properties have become impossible; that is to say, there cannot be, as the general rule, any proprietors in localities so circumstanced excepting peasants. In England, however, where an acre of agricultural land does not sell for more than, or for as much as, half of what an acre sells for in these valleys, there are no peasant proprietors. Here, notwithstanding the cheapness of land, it is the small properties that have become impossible, and the general rule is that there can be none but large proprietors. The difference is diametrical. Can it in any way be accounted for?

The question suggested to us is, How has it come about that, while the peasant proprietors have extinguished the large proprietors in the Prätigäu, the large proprietors have extinguished the peasant proprietors in England? As respects the case of the former there can be no difficulty in seeing that, if the peasant cultivators will give more for land than those who would buy for investment could afford to give, then those who would buy for investment must disappear from the market, and that already existing large properties will gradually melt away under the action of this solvent. As respects ourselves the answer usually given is that the land in this country is too dear for peasant proprietors. This supposition, however, as I have just noticed, is the very reverse of the fact. In Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, and in parts of Germany and of Italy peasant proprietors give a great deal more for land than it would cost them in England. It may, therefore, be true that in England the cheapness of land has been one of the conditions that has contributed to the formation of large estates; but it is quite impossible to maintain that in this country the dearness of agricultural land has extinguished the class of peasant proprietors, because here the price of land, so far from being an obstacle to the existence of the class, has presented, and at this moment presents, quite exceptionally favourable conditions for its maintenance and increase.

Can any other reason be alleged? In the Chapter to which this note is appended I have pointed out that the English agricultural labourer does not possess the knowledge and the habits of thought and life, which are indispensable in a peasant proprietor. They are indispensable in him, because they it is that enable him to live as a peasant proprietor. This, if it be true, must be a serious impediment to the re-establishment of the class amongst us, but cannot be regarded as the primary cause of its extinction, because Englishmen were as capable as other people of this knowledge and of these habits. What was really and primarily in fault was not the decay of this knowledge and of these habits, but that which engendered and brought about this decay amongst us alone of all people.

If, then, the cause is neither in the present price of land here, nor in any inherent incapacity in Englishmen, that is to say, if it be neither in the land, nor in the men, where else can we look for it? There remains no other direction in which we can look but law, and the interpretation of law. In the Middle Ages we had the peasant class of those times fully developed here. There were in this country, as was perhaps the case everywhere then, variations in the possessions and rights of the class, but still at that time peasant proprietors pretty generally, if not quite universally, formed the basis of the English village community. Why did they cease to do so? I think the answer is that in this country, from a combination of exceptional causes, legislation and the interpretation of law and custom became adverse to the maintenance of the class. The exceptional causes were, first, the strength of the governing class (locally represented by Lords of manors), which was a consequence of the Norman conquest; and the great rise in the money value of cheese, hides, and wool, especially the last, consequent on the influx of silver from the New World during the sixteenth century, while for the production of these articles the climate, and for their export the easily traversed surface of the country, nowhere far from the coast, and numerous excellent harbours offered pre-eminent advantages. There was, therefore, both a strong motive for the extinction of peasant properties, and power sufficient for effecting it. Peasant properties, which everywhere implied rights of appurtenant common pasturage, made the formation of large runs for numerous flocks of sheep, or for a large combination of cattle breeding with arable culture, impossible. They were, therefore, apparently in the interests of the community, gradually rendered valueless to their owners, absorbed, and extinguished. This process, though it commenced at an earlier date, was chiefly carried out in the reign of Elizabeth. Events in this matter only took the direction and course which might have been expected.

But it is clear that if the right of the peasant to maintain himself from the produce of a piece of land which he himself cultivates for the support of his family is abrogated, he must either cease to exist, and then the cultivation of the land would be impossible, or he must be maintained in some other way. For centuries wages, the alternative method, were not universally, or even generally, sufficient for this purpose. The operations of agriculture were not at that time as continuous as they are now; the demand for any amount of agricultural produce was not as unfailing as it is now; and the farmer had not access to such stores of capital as exist now. Under these circumstances the alternative was insufficient. What then was to be done? How was the existence of the peasant to be maintained? He could not be allowed the hide of plough land and the common pasturage rights of his forefathers, for these were obstacles to the formation of sheep farms, and to large culture; nor could wages be relied on continuously. The method hit upon showed the inventiveness of the English mind quite as much as any one of the many institutions and discoveries for which the world is indebted to the inhabitants of this island. It was to give to the dispossessed peasantry, who were henceforth to become agricultural labourers, a claim on the parishes, in which they resided and laboured, to the amount requisite for the support of themselves and of their families, when through failure of work or of wages, through sickness or age, they became incapable of supporting themselves.

Three centuries ago this was the _rationale_ of the English poor law, and it is so at this day. It was a substitute for peasant proprietorship, and it aided in utterly extinguishing it. If a little bit of land is the only means of supporting the life of a family, the family will, however great the cost in labour, support itself by this means. But if you make wages, supplemented by a claim on the produce of the land, an alternative means; and at the same time bring into play causes which shall partly dispose, and partly drive, the peasantry to accept this alternative; they will accept it, and peasant proprietorship will cease. This I think is in a few words the explanation of the unique fact that in this country there is no class of peasant proprietors. Our legislation favoured the consolidation and accumulation of large estates. It did not favour the maintenance of peasant properties: with respect to them its action and pressure were in the opposite direction; while at the same time it gave the peasants an alternative means of support. The tendency of events, and the pressure of circumstances were irresistible; and the whole class either became disposed, or was driven, to accept the alternative; and so the class of peasant proprietors was utterly extinguished. Had circumstances, legislation, and the interpretation the law put on the rights of the class favoured its maintenance in this country, we should have had here a peasant class similar to that of Switzerland, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and other countries. The existence here of exceptional conditions had an exceptional issue.

The extinction of the class has been followed by many large and important consequences. Of these the most obvious is the difference between the class that has been introduced as the basis of our social system, that of agricultural labourers, and the class that was extinguished, that of peasant proprietors. No greater difference can exist between men. Peasant proprietors in their industry, tenacity, and stability have just the qualities which might have fitted them for constituting an useful element in the foundation of so artificial and ill-balanced a social fabric as that of England, for as to their narrowness of view, their chief defect of character, that in so rich a community would have been of little detriment in any way; and besides, too, in this country we must compare what their narrowness would have been with the far greater narrowness of our agricultural labourers. On the other side agricultural labourers are a very poor foundation for the social fabric, and most especially in a commercial and manufacturing community, which already from these sources has a dangerously numerous _prolétariat_. As a class they are improvident, thriftless, shiftless, have no sense of self-dependence, and not much of self-respect, their self-acting effectual education having been that which results from the teaching of wages, supplemented by a poor law.

The question of peasant proprietorship, as now discussed among ourselves, is generally restricted to economical considerations. It is asked, as if this contained the whole question, whether the economical results of peasant culture are as satisfactory, acre for acre, as those of large farms? This, though an important part of the question, is not the whole of it: perhaps it is not the chief part of it. The character of the basis of our social fabric may be a matter of more consequence to the nation than even the amount of produce per acre. It will explain what is contained in this remark, if I say that I suppose that everybody would think that to admit to our parliamentary constituency a million voters, whose sentiments and ideas were in the main those of peasant proprietors, would be a less hazardous operation than to admit a million pauperized agricultural labourers, who, possibly, might endeavour to use the franchise for the purpose of securing a more liberal administration of the poor law. And, practically, there would be some justification for such an attempt, if made by them, for the poor law may be regarded historically as the compensation given to their class for the extinction of commonable rights in the land, and, together with those commonable rights, of peasant properties; for it is clear that if those common rights, and the associated peasant properties, had been retained, there would so far have been no occasion for a poor law.

It is obvious that the improvidence and misery of our agricultural labourers have for many generations given us a large supply of labour for building up our manufacturing and commercial establishments, and for peopling the New World, and our Australian and other colonies. The same cause may also have enabled us to maintain our military force by voluntary enlistment. But as the same amount of land in the hands of peasant proprietors maintains four or five times as large an agricultural population as it does when cultivated by hired labourers, it is quite possible that we might have received even a better supply from the alternative system. At all events, now, in consequence of a largely increased demand for men, contemporaneously with an actual decrease of our relatively small agricultural population, which under existing circumstances is our chief nursery for recruits for all purposes, we are beginning to be pressed hard for men. We are now suffering from a want of men, and would be glad if there were some element in our agrarian system which made that ingredient of our population far more considerable than it now is. Another evil consequence, then, of a mistake made three hundred years ago has begun to manifest itself.

The price of labour is closely connected with its supply, insomuch that it may be argued that if a system has hitherto produced an abundant supply it must also have lowered its cost. It is obvious, however, to remark that the value of labour depends not so much on the amount of wages that are paid, as on the amount and character of work that is done. This is so much the case that it has come to be regarded as a general rule that holds good all over the world, that labour is least productive where wages are lowest; and there have been some who have thought that this might have been said in their proportion of our agricultural labourers. As a matter of fact, however, wages have been higher in this than in neighbouring countries. Nor, in estimating the cost of our labour, would it be allowable to leave out of our calculation the amount of our poor rate. That has for centuries been raised for the purpose of supplementing wages, and so is practically a part of the wages of the labouring class, levied on the owners of land and houses. By the way, we often hear this limitation of the incidence of the poor rate complained of; but if our account of the _rationale_ of the origin and action of the poor law be correct, it may be questioned whether the incidence of the rate ought not, in rural districts, to have been restricted entirely to land, because the motive of the law was to enable large estates to be formed, and to be cultivated by a poorly paid class of labourers, who for many generations were by the law tied to the land they cultivated.

Another consequence of the obliteration of the class of peasant proprietors, which is well worthy of notice on account of its wide and deep effects, is that it has prevented the price of every acre of agricultural land in the country from rising beyond half the sum it would now have reached had this class continued to exist amongst us. In far poorer countries than England peasants will gladly give for such land twice as much as is its market price here. If we had this class here, its members would do the same here. But, as this class has been eliminated here, those, who in this country purchase land as an investment for capital, have it all their own way. The class who would bid twice as much for the land as the capitalist now gets it for does not exist amongst us. The consequence is that he buys his land cheap, very cheap indeed. This will be seen, if what he gets for his money is compared with what other people get for theirs when it is put into consols. The latter get a little more than 3 per cent. with some prospect of depreciation of the capital, and with a certainty in these days of depreciation in the purchasing power of the 3 per cent. interest. The capitalist, however, who invests in land gets for the present a little less than 3 per cent., but besides this immediate percentage he gets the safest of all investments, plus the most improving in the long run of all investments, plus the social and political status the possession of land confers, plus several minor advantages. Investors, therefore, in land in this country have no reason to complain of the price they give for their land, or of what they get for their money.

For this they are indebted to the extinction amongst us of the class of peasant proprietors. Just as the people who buy ships are the people who want ships for the business they understand and are engaged in, and the people who buy factories are those who want factories for the business they understand and are engaged in, and those who buy stock in trade of any kind are those who understand and are engaged in the trade for which the stock they purchase is necessary, so those who are most eager to buy land are those who understand how to get a living out of the land by the application to it of their own labour. They are the class, who may be regarded as, _par excellence_, the natural purchasers of land. This class, however, has in this country been extinguished. The market, therefore, has been completely cleared for those who would wish to purchase land as an investment, and they, under the present condition of things amongst us, are limited to those who are able to invest largely, or who buy with the view of adding their purchases to properties that are already large. They, therefore, in buying land have it all their own way; and this is the reason why they get their land at a price which yields an immediate return of something less than 3 per cent., plus many other valuable considerations. If the peasant proprietor class existed here to such an extent as to effectually compete with them, they would have to give a price that would not yield 1¹⁄₂ per cent. for agricultural land. They do, then, get their land very cheap, which is a result, perhaps one that was not originally foreseen, of the action during three centuries of our poor law. The extinction of the class of peasant proprietors has thus very effectively aided the practice of settling and charging estates in bringing about the large agglomerations of landed property, together with all the resultant peculiarities, which distinguish our agrarian system from that of any other country.

But if those who buy land get it at half its value, those who sell it get for it only half of what they otherwise would. This suggests the question whether it would be better for the country that the value of the agricultural land of the United Kingdom should be doubled? This may be answered by the question whether it is not better for us to have land at its present price of say 60_l._ an acre, than it would be to have it at 30_l._? If 60_l._ is better than 30_l._, then I suppose 120_l._ would be better than 60_l._

The facts and considerations that have been now referred to may throw some light on a question of which a great deal has been heard lately--that of what is called tenant rights. It may, of course, be asked whether the progress of time has endowed tenants with any new rights? How can the tenants of to-day have rights of which the tenants of yesterday had no conception? Or, to speak broadly, can a tenant, as a tenant, have any right except that of entering into a contract with a landowner, and of invoking the law for the enforcement of the provisions of his contract? But if it were answered that time can give him no new rights, and that he can have no rights but those for which he contracts, still what is really meant by the question would not be settled. By a process of legislation the land of the country having been formed into estates of such dimensions that their owners cannot possibly cultivate them, and small proprietors having been extinguished, the tenants are now presented to us as the only producers of food for the community. Under these circumstances the question arises whether it would not be for the advantage of the community that the position of the tenants should be so improved as to lead to their investing more money than they can at present with safety in the cultivation of the soil, that is to say to their producing a great deal more food for the community? This improvement in the tenants’ position can be conceded only at the cost of the existing legal rights of the landowners, and can be refused only at the cost of the imprescriptible natural rights of the community; for of such a character is the right of the community to the greatest amount of food the soil of the country can be made to yield. This is in a sense the highest of all rights, for it is the right of a community to existence. It was in the name, and for the sake, of this right that under the conditions of past times the rights of individual proprietorship, which were not primeval, were first conceded. They had become necessary for the cultivation of the soil, and, therefore, were allowed to be established at the expense of the previously existing common rights. In this view tenant rights are not rights which the tenants can claim in law, but rights which it may be supposed belong to the community, and the concession of which to the tenants the community may demand for the general advantage, it may be even for the general safety. The two years’ notice which the present Premier is said to regard with favour is precisely a concession of this kind. It is a curtailment of the rights of the landowners, to which the tenants can have no legal, or rightful, claim: it is, however, a concession which, presumably, would promote the advantage of the public, and which, therefore, public policy may require. If improvements of this kind in the position of the tenants would increase the produce of the country by one half, then that addition of a half to the produce of the country is exactly the weight of the argument in favour of the concession of tenant rights so called: to endow the tenants with these rights would add, every year, one hundred million pounds’ worth of food to the produce of this country, that is to say to the subsistence of the community.

This list of the consequences of the working for three centuries of our English poor law might be greatly increased; for instance, the division of the people it has helped to bring about into a comparatively small class who are very rich and a very large class who have not, and never can have, any real property, accounts for the elsewhere unheard of demands that are made on the charity of the small class, and which demands are complied with because of their obvious necessity. Again also the great bulk of the agricultural land of the kingdom being held in large estates--a result in part of the working of the same law--the owners of these large estates can afford to spend no inconsiderable part of the rent of the whole kingdom in London, which to a very appreciable extent accounts for the vastness of London. The poorness, and almost meanness of life in our provincial towns are also to be accounted for by a reference to the same fact. The rent of the land around these towns is not spent in them, but in London or elsewhere: at all events the adjacent landowners rarely live in, or contribute anything towards the embellishment of the life of, these towns. Enough, however, has been said to show that the endowment and establishment of pauperism, as an integral part of the British constitution, as much so as the Crown, or the Peerage, has had very extensive effects. It could not have been otherwise, for it was the elimination from the constitution of society, as far as the mass of the people were concerned, of the old elements of self-dependence and property, and the substitution in their place of dependence and of public doles. These were new conditions to which all the arrangements of society in their endless ramifications had to accommodate and adjust themselves, and to which the future progress of society had to conform.

The course of events, then, taking the words in their widest sense, is what has given to the Prätigäu its ten thousand peasant proprietors, and it is what has extinguished the class amongst ourselves. If the course of events affecting each of us had been interchanged their condition might have been witnessed in this country, and our condition might have been theirs. Whether it be possible in these days, in the face of emigration, of high wages, of settled estates, of the demoralization of the agricultural labourer, and of a poor law, to recover the lost class may well be doubted. But however that may be, it cannot be good policy to maintain any artificial, that is to say any legislative, obstacles in the way of the reappearance amongst us of the class, if that be possible, any more than it can be to maintain any arrangements that might be having the effect of hindering capital from being employed on the largest scale, and to the greatest profitable amount per acre, in increasing the produce of the soil. Food-factories, of at least 1,000 acres each, appear to be a natural result of the combination of capital and science now possible. Let us, therefore, have a clear stage for these. That, however, is no reason why we should not at the same time have a clear stage for peasant proprietors also. Let nothing be done with the view of favouring and nursing either one or the other, but at the same time let nothing be maintained that is a hindrance to the existence of either. There appears to be no ground for supposing that our present land-system favours either; it may not, however, be equally beyond controversy that it is not a hindrance to both.

INDEX.

Acletta, 26

All’ Acqua, 333
Family of landlord at, 335

Altanca, 323

Alveneu, 59

Andeer, 94

Andermatt, 17

Animals, domestic, at Dissentis, 27

Atmospheric effects in the Upper Engadin, 157

Aversthal, 97-136

Barons, the old, 66, 73, 257, 283

Blue flowers, abundance of, 246

Bormio, 223

Braulio, Val di, 225

Burial, an early, 59

Buying cheap and selling dear, 82

Campsut, 103

Capital, uses and effects of, 75
What it requires, 79

Carpenter, a, of Altanca, 327

Casaccia, 143

Castles, old feudal, 66

Caterpillars, a colony of, 11

Cembra, what destroys forests of, 107
The Livigno candle, 207

Châlet, the first, 271
The smallest, 307

Church-going in winter, 93

Circumnavigator, a Grison, 37, 164

Clemente Forni, 336
Recognised by his cattle, 338
Accounts for the peculiarities of the Corno glacier, 341

Clemgia, 262

Cloud-effects, 275

Coire, 35, 298

Communism, historical, 73

Communist, a, 301
Parting with, 334

Corno glacier, peculiarities of, 341

Cresta, 104-125

Cristallo, M., 232

Cruina alpe, 337

Cruschetta, 262

Davos am Platz, 53

Davos Dörfli, 271

Dentro, V. di, 222

Dinner at Peist, 46
At Juf, 129
At Tauffers, 250
At Schiersch, 286

Dissentis, 25, 300

Earth-pillars, 43

Electric telegraph at Dissentis, 30

Engadin, Upper, 150
Lower, 266

Etruscan, the Septimer an--trade route, 139

Fauna of the Grisons, 127

Ferrera, Inner, 99
Ausser, 100

Flies, correlation of--to properties, 202

Fluela, the, 268

Forcellina, the, 132

Fountain at Dissentis, 29

Frenchman, the only--met, 308

Gadmenthal, 9

Gatherings of men of different epochs, 166

Geese, live--sent by post, 114

Geologic history, 89

Germans in Switzerland, 81, 110
Exceptional, 193
At Santa Maria, 228
At Tarasp, 265
At Coire, 298

Glacier motion, 343

Glaciers, the Stein, 14
Of Upper Engadin, 159
The Roseg, 173
La Pischa, 181
The Morterasch, 185
The Grialetsch, 267
The Corno, 341
The Gries, 343

Glurns, 245

Göschenen, 17

Grass-cutter, a--at Tauffers, 255

Gries glacier, 343

Grison fortune-seekers, 20, 152, 187

Grüsch, 288

Guest, welcome the coming, 65

Gunpowder, unforeseen uses of, 85

Haymaking in the mountains, 311

Hen proposed for supper, 49

High-level road, 42

Hohen Rhätien, 66

Honesty, connexion of--with property, 241

Hypsometry of the Grisons, 177

Impassivity, English, 299

Inference, a comfortable--from excess, 119

Instinct, an--with a human motive, 116

Italian influences at Casaccia, 144
Tourists, 333

Juf, 128

Kirchet, the, 3

Klosters, 274

Kublis, 284

Lakes of the Upper Engadin, 159

Land, efforts to obtain, 5
Reclamation of, 259, 261
Loss of, 262, 291

Lapland in central Europe, 121

Leuthold, Henri, 13, 17

Life, correlation of vegetable--to human, 34

Livigno, 201-220
Inn at, 205
The host at, 207
Festa at, 211
Lapland at, 215

Lunghino, Monte, 161

Maloja, 149

Marmots, 132, 197, 339

Meienthal, 16

Meiringen, 2

Milk, a tub of, 103

Morterasch, the--glacier, 185

Mummy beef, 47, 117, 216, 286, 309, 325, 332

Nature, love of, 169

Natures, sixteen--to feed, 251

Neve, M. della, 221

Nolla, the, 64

Ober Alpe, 21

Ortler, 238, 260, 261

Parisienne, a, 326

Passes, Susten, 15
Oberalp, 23
Strela, 52
Splügen, 98
Forcellina, 133
Septimer, 136
Maloja, 149
La Pischa, 181
Stretta, 199
Foscagno, 222
Stelvio, 232
Cruchetta, 262
Fluela, 268
Davos Kulm, 274
Lukmanier, 301
Uomo, 317
Gries, 346

Pasteur of Cresta, 105

Peasant, sentiment of a, 204
Proprietors, 278-284

Peat, 23

Peist, 45

Perdatsch, 305
Inn at, 307

Pfäffers, 294

Pigs at Cresta, 123

Pines, adaptation of form in, 86
A large, 292

Piora, 317

Pischa, La, 179

Piz Languard, 175

Polenta, 213, 338

Pontresina, 165
High prices at, 189

Poor Law, an alternative to peasant proprietorship, 351
Has substituted agricultural labourers for an independent
peasantry, 355
Has affected the supply of labour, 357
Has kept down the price of agricultural land, 358
Has made our food-producers a tenantry, 361
Other consequences, 362
Legalized hindrances bad, 363

Porter, a circumnavigator, 19

Post in Aversthal, 112

Prätigäu, 277

Prayer, labour is, 97

Property, connexion of--with honesty, 241

Providence, 11

Race against time for life, 125

Ragatz, 297

Rheinthal, Vorder, 33
Across the, 293

Rhine, 24, 26, 307

Riches, the best, 13

Ritom, Lake of, 319
New hotel at, 321

Road, new--in Scanfiggthal, 41
In Davosthal, 58
Proposed in Aversthal, 112
Across the Foscagno, 244
Swiss roads, 305

Rock-eroding power of running water, 3, 88

Romansch, 33, 110

Roseg glacier, 173

Sabbath, a daily, 96

Saints, the island of, 35

Salt-carriers, 316

Santa Maria on Stelvio, 227
On Lukmanier, 315

S. Moritz, 162

Scanfiggthal, 37-50

Schamsthal, 91

Schiersch, 285

Schools, 92
Of Oberland Aversthal, 110

Schyn, the, 61

Selection in human society, 79

Septimer, the, 136

Snow-way for timber, 62

Soup, 49, 250, 309, 326

Spöl, halt on the, 199

Spy, a Prussian, 314

Stein glacier, 14

Stelvio, 233

Strela, 51

Stretta, 199

Sun in summer life in winter, 95

Süs, 266

Susten, 9

Snow, summer, 109, 203, 233

Tarasp, 263

Tarns, mountain, 198, 317

Taufers, 247-261

Telegraph at Dissentis, 31

Telegrams _v._ letters, 65

Thusis, 63

Tourists, future, 167

Trafoi, 237
Chances of, 243

Trees, the first, 269

Ulrichen, 348

Uomo Pass, 317

Urbach, the valley of, 7

Val Avigna, 259
Bedretto, 331
Di Dentro, 222
Del Fain, 183, 198
Medels, 313
Piora, 317

Via Mala, 83

Vulpera, 263

War and material progress, 329

Wasen, 16

Watersheds, 161

Watersmeet, a mountain, 101

Weather, one day’s, 272

Zillis, 92

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

Transcriber’s Notes

In the list of other books by the author, “arefully pondered” changed to “carefully pondered” and “Switzer-and” changed to “Switzerland”

Page 172: “MORTERASCH” changed to “MORTERATSCH”

Page 185: “Morterasch glacier” changed to “Morteratsch glacier”

Page 356: “poor aw” changed to “poor law”