3), 'in general makes the inferior sort of people dissolute and poor. The inhabitants of a large village, after having madeconsiderable progress in manufactures, have become idle in consequence of a great lord having taken up his residence intheir neighbourhood.' And Mr. M'Culloch, whose fidelity and intelligence as an observer may be relied on, states, as theresult of his own experience, that in Scotland the estates of absentees are almost always the best managed.. Much, ofcoarse, depends on individual character; but I am inclined to believe that in general the presence of men of large fortune. ismorally detrimental, and that of men of moderate fortune morally beneficial, to their immediate neighbourhood. The habitsof expense and indulgence which, in different gradations, prevail among all the. members of a great establishment, aremischievous as. examples, and perhaps still more so as sources of repining and discontent.. The drawing room and stabledo harm to the neighbouring gentry, and the housekeeper's room and servants' hall to their. inferiors. But families of.moderate income, including under that term incomes between 500 l, and 2000 l, a year, appear to be placed in the stationmost favourable to the acquisition of moral anal intellectual excellence, and to its diffusion .among their associates anddependents. I have no doubt that a well-regulated gentleman's family, removing. the prejudices, soothing the quarrels,directing and stimulating the exertions, and awarding praise or blame to the conduct of the villagers round them, is amongthe most efficient means by which the character of a neighbourhood can be improved.. It is the happiness of this country,that. almost every parish has a resident fitted by fortune and, education for these services; and bound, not merely byfeelings of propriety, but as a matter of express and professional duty, to their performance. The dispersion throughout thecountry of so many thousand clerical families, each acting in its own district as a small centre of civilization, is anadvantage to which, perhaps, we have been too long accustomed to be able to appreciate its extent.
Still, however, I think that even the moral effects of absenteeism have been exaggerated. Those who declaim against the12,000 English families supposed to be resident abroad, seem to forget that not one-half, probably not onequarter, of them,if they were to return, would dwell anywhere but in towns, where their influence would be wasted, or probably not evenexerted. What does it signify to the Connaught, or Northumbrian, or Devonshire peasant, whether his landlord lives inDublin, or London, or Cheltenham, or Rome? And even of those who would reside in the country, how many wouldexercise that influence beneficially? How many would be fox-hunters or game-preservers, or surround themselves withdependents whose example would more than compensate for the virtues of their masters? Nothing can be more rash than topredict that good would be the result of causes which are quite as capable of producing evil.
The economical effects have been still more generally misunderstood; and I have often been tempted to wonder thatdoctrines so clear as those which I have been submitting to you, should be admitted with reluctance even by those who feelthe proofs to be unanswerable, and should be rejected at once by others, as involving a paradox too monstrous to be worthexamination.
Much of this, probably, arises from a confusion of the economical with the moral part of the question. Many writers andreaders of political economy forget that wealth only is within the province of that science; and that the clearest proof that absenteeism diminishes the virtue or the happiness ofthe remaining members of a community is no answer to arguments which aim only at proving that it does not diminish theirwealth.
