Of all the ways in which property accumulates, in particular hands, the most dangerous is landed property; not only on account of entails, and the law of primogeniture, (which attach to land alone,) but because it is the property the most easily retained, the least liable to be alienated, and the only one that augments in value in a state that is growing rich.

An estate in land augments in value, without augmenting in extent, when a country becomes richer.  A fortune, lent at interest, diminishes, as the value of money sinks.  A fortune engaged in trade is liable to risks, and requires industry to preserve it:  but industry, it has been observed, never is to be found for any great length of time in any single line of men; consequently, there are few great monied men, except such as have acquired their own fortunes, and those can never be very numerous nor overgrown.

Besides our having facts to furnish proofs that there are no very great fortunes, except landed fortunes; it can scarcely have escaped the notice of any one, that no other gives such umbrage, or shews the inferiority men =sic= who have none so much. {108}

That there is a perpetual tendency to the accumulation of property, in the hands of individuals, is certain; for, amongst the nations

—–­ {108} If a man has wealth, in any other form, it is only known by the expenditure he makes, and it is quickly diminished by mismanagement; but the great landed estate, which is seldom well attended to, is mismanaged to the public detriment without ruin to the proprietor. -=-

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of Europe, those who are the most ancient, exhibit the most striking contrasts of poverty and riches.

Nations obtaining wealth by commerce are less liable to this danger than any others; at least we are led to believe so, from the present situation of things:  we are, perhaps, however, not altogether right in the conclusion.

In France there were, and in Germany, Russia, and Poland, there are some immense fortunes, though general wealth is not nearly equal to that of England:  so much for a comparison between nations of the present day.  Again, it is certain, there were some fortunes in England, in the times of the Plantagenets and Tudors, much greater than any of the present times. {109} England was not then near so wealthy as it is now, and had very little commerce:  it would then appear, that whether we compare England with what it was before it became a wealthy and commercial nation, or with other nations, at the present time, which are not wealthy, commerce and riches appear to have operated in dividing riches, and making that division more equal, rather than in rendering their accumulation great in particular hands, and their distribution unequal.

Before we are too positive about the cause, though we admit this effect, let us inquire whether there are not some other circumstances that are peculiar to the present situation of England, that may, if not wholly, at least in part, account for it.