parishes and under the control of the general council, the affairs of administration and police. They receive the taxes, regulate the employment of the communal revenues, determine the use of the common pastures, and supervise the maintenance and repair of the roads and public buildings. The jurisdiction of these assemblies extends to contests concerning all the affairs which they have the right to regulate." But for certain purposes even the parishes are divided, and these divisions are called cuarts, quarters, or wards. There are different numbers of wards in the different parishes. In San Julian there are four; in Andorre, two; in Canillo, eight; in Masana, six; in Ordino, five; but the parish of Encam is not divided. In some cases each ward has its particular pastures, but in other cases, even where the division into wards obtains, the public pastures are enjoyed in common by the whole parish. In still other cases, where there is a division into wards, the use of some of the pastures pertains to the several wards, while other lands are common.

The public authority in the ward is vested in a body composed of the heads of the families of each ward, and the meetings of this body are generally held under the presidency of one of the consuls of the parish. Their deliberations have only a limited range, dealing with the proper use of the pastures, the common revenue, and the collective obligations of the inhabitants, such, for example, as the maintaining of the roads and bridges in a proper condition. But as there are no roads in the Republic intended for wagons or carts, and no wagons or carts, in fact, and as all traffic is carried on on the backs of mules or horses, the labor and expense of maintaining ways of communication are at the minimum. By the easiest route into the Valley from the side of France the way for a large part of the distance is no more conspicuous than a cowpath in an ordinary mountain pasture. But the entrance from Spain and the lines of travel in the Valley are well-worn bridle paths, which at a few points pass over substantially built stone bridges.

'Bladé, "Etudes Géographiques sur la Vallée d'Andorre," p. 77.

The fact that there is no record of an official survey of the lands of Andorre makes it difficult to render a statistical account of the different amounts of land put to different uses. By far the larger part of the Republic is made up of mountain sides which at best can be used only for grazing. The lower slopes and the few level places along the streams are largely occupied with meadows which produce hay for the winter support of the cattle that range over the mountains in the summer. The small area which is cultivated is used for raising rye and other products which are demanded as food for the inhabitants. The fact that Andorrans have regarded themselves as politically independent and have felt that the Valley was their country, has not been without important influence on their economic affairs. Patriotism has attached them to their native soil, and helped to retain in the Valley a larger population than would have attempted to maintain itself here, had not this sentiment existed. On this account the pressure of the population on the means of subsistence which the country is able to yield has been greater than it might have been, had Andorre been simply an outlaying district of France or Spain. The political condition has helped to determine the economic and general social condition. To increase the means of subsistence, cultivation has been pushed on to soil naturally non-productive. Retaining walls have been constructed, and by a system of terraces the area of cultivation has been gradually extended up the sides of the mountains, thus illustrating the fact that, from the point of view of economics, land belongs to that list of commodities which may be increased in amount in obedience to the force of an increased demand.

Studying the institutions of the little republic in the presence of the inhabitants engaged in their daily occupations, one is moved to inquire concerning the significance of these institutions with respect to the welfare of the people. The inhabitants of Andorre have been practically independent for a thousand years, and their independence has given them a sense of their own importance which they would not have had as denizens of a remote valley under the dominion of France or Spain. They live in isolation

on the soil in which repose thirty generations of their ancestors, and this gives to their patriotism a strain of piety; but they are wanting in that uplifting sentiment which arises from the consciousness of belonging to a great and powerful nation. In the presence of their long unbroken record they have kept the conditions of the past as their ideal. They represent a society in which the advance of time has brought small increase of wants, and few suggestions of social changes. With them government activity has remained at the minimum consistent with social order. Their government does less and costs less than that of any other civilized state, and yet peace and order have been maintained. Inasmuch as they would feel immediately any burden which they might impose for the support of public works or public institutions, they have hesitated to carry on such works or raise considerable sums for the maintenance of institutions. They have, therefore, remained without roads, without important schools, and without many of those appliances by which social development is carried forward in a great nation. Had they been a part of France, they would have had roads in spite of themselves, and the effects of the comprehensive school laws of France would have been manifest even in their mountain fastnesses. They would have been drawn from their isolation, and dragged along the course of change by the progressive force of the great nation. The fine road which leads over the Pyrenees from Aix into Spain runs along near the eastern side of Andorre, but nowhere enters upon its territory. In this is a suggestion of the fact that, whatever has been done in the way of improving material and intellectual conditions by the collective wealth and energy of France, has extended to the borders of the little republic, but has scarcely affected the civilization within its limits. BERNARD MOSES.

University of California, Berkeley, Cal.

THE UNREST OF ENGLISH FARMERS.

TEN

EN years ago, the rural unrest in England was confined to the agricultural laborer, and the problem which was then presenting itself was how to keep the laborers in the country, and to stay the movement to the towns. Despite the widening of the Parliamentary franchise in 1884, the establishment of a democratic system of county government in 1888-both measures conferring new political privileges on the laborer-and in spite of legislation establishing a system of allotments and freeing the elementary day-schools, the problem of the rural laborer is as pressing as ever. For the present, however, the unrest among the laborers is overshadowed by an unrest among the tenant farmers, the like of which has never been witnessed before in England. There were periods of agricultural depression in 1879 and again in 1886; but neither of these depressions equalled in its wide-spread character and intensity the depression which has prevailed through the last two years. An agitation. among farmers so serious and so general as that which manifested itself after the general election of 1892 and which has been vigorously continued through the present year, is unparalleled in England. There have been periodic cries of depression in the past from the purely agricultural counties of the east and south, especially from those which were formerly famous as wheat growing counties; but Wales, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland, where dairy and truck-farming chiefly occupy farmers, have hitherto escaped the depression which has prevailed in the south and southeast. In the last two or three years, however, Wales and the northern counties have come within the area of depression. They have suffered almost as much of late as the counties to the south of them, where, if times were worse, rents were much lower, and it is owing to this extension of the depression, that the present agitation has assumed national propor

tions.

The stages of the agitation are easy to follow. They go back only to the autumn of last year. There had, of course, been murmurings and complaints before that time even in the north of England; but it was only in October that the first steps were taken, which led to the National Conference held in London on the seventh and eighth of December last. This conference had its origin in Lancashire and Cheshire, and owed its existence to the Lancashire Farmers' Federation. For some months before it was held, there had been frequent meetings of farmers' organizations of the two counties, at which the crisis had been discussed. Where the farmers were not fettered by the presence of the landlords' agents, they had not beaten about the bush in discussing the causes and the remedies for their troubles.

They had attributed the depression principally to foreign competition and the consequent low prices for almost all descriptions of farm produce, and to rents and conditions of tenure, in the settlement of which increasing foreign competition had not been taken into account. Wet and disastrous seasons and the increasing local taxes which have followed in the wake of the Elementary Education Act of 1871, and the County Government Act of 1888, were also put forward as contributing causes, but at nearly all the North of England meetings prior to the London conference, the greatest stress was laid upon the question of rent. It was insisted that, in view of the extent of the foreign competition in the market for wheat and live stock, a re-arrangement of rents was absolutely necessary. It was freely admitted at these meetings of farmers, that foreign competition was a permanent factor in the situation. Here and there, generally when a landlord was in the chair, there were hints that a return to protection was desirable; but at most of the meetings exclusively of tenant farmers it was conceded that it was utterly hopeless to look forward for any return to protection. Under these circumstances, the general demand of the farmers was that landlords should meet the altered conditions by permanent reductions in rent. In the North of England, farming rents range from £1 to £2 per acre, and the tenancies are on yearly agreements. On many estates, it has been the prac