which farms are owned and managed in England at the present time
is no indication of the way land is held in France, or Norway, or
Russia, or even the United States; nor is it the same as the way in
which farms were owned in England some centuries ago. What is fitting to
one place and state of society will not necessarily be fitting in other
circumstances. We have to consider the various ways in which the
requisites of production, land, labour, and capital, are brought
together; sometimes they are all furnished by the same person; sometimes
by separate persons.

In the condition of #slavery#, for instance, as it existed in the
Southern States of North America, the owner of an estate owned the land,
labour, and capital, all at once. Strictly speaking a slave is not a
labourer, because he cannot sell his labour at his own price, and work
or not as he likes. He is more in the position of the horse which drags
the plough, a mere beast of burden. Just as a farmer owns his horses,
and cows, and pigs, as part of his capital, so a slave-owner treats his
slaves as part of his capital. Slave-labour being given unwillingly, and
without hope of reward, is usually badly given, and is wasteful; but
there is hardly any need to consider whether slavery is good or bad in
an economical point of view, because it is altogether condemned from a
moral point of view. We may show the way the requisites of production
are furnished in slavery by the following diagram--

#Slave-Owner.#
|
/---------------------------------------------\
#Land.# #Labour.# #Capital.#

In a very large part of the world, again, the government takes the place
of land-owners, and collects the rent by means of tax-gatherers. The
farming is done by poor peasants, who find the capital, so far as there
is any, and also do the work. Thus, we have the arrangement--

#Government.# #Peasant.#
| |
/------\ /---------------------------\
#Land.# #Capital.# #Labour.#

This system is called #Ryot Tenure#, and it exists at the present day in
Turkey, Egypt, Persia, and many eastern countries; also in a somewhat
altered form in British India. After slavery, it is the worst of all
systems, because the Government can fix the rent at what it likes, and
it is difficult to distinguish betwee