Rural Economy of the Netherlands. 155 



which the landlord cannot increase. This passes to the heir 

 both in a direct or collateral line ; the tenant can devise it, sell 

 it, lease it, or mortgage it without consent of the lessor; but 

 whenever the lease changes hands by heritage, or sale, the pro- 

 prietor claims one or two years' rent. One of the essential charac- 

 teristics of this hereditary tenancy is that the holding cannot be 

 divided, but must be held by one individual ; consequently one 

 of the heirs must take it as his portion. When a tenant fails, 

 the beklem-regt does not go to the liquidation of his debts to 

 the full amount of its value ; the creditors have power to sell it, 

 but the buyer is bound to pay any arrears due to the landlord. 

 This kind of contract which dates from the middle ages is not 

 without analogy in other parts of Europe. M. de Laveleye cites 

 the life contract (contratto di Livello) of Lombardy ; in France 

 even we have long had something equivalent in the " tenancy 

 subject to notice " (domaine cotif/eable) in use in Brittany. One 

 can also find remote traces of a similar custom in what is called, 

 in some cantons of Picardy, the " ill-will " (/c viauvais gre). 



Only in Brittany the landlord has the right to give notice to 

 quit when he pleases, paying the tenant a valuation on any 

 buildings he has erected ; whilst in Groningen this right does 

 not exist, or exists no longer, for it seems the landowners did 

 reserve it originally, but in the midst of the revolutions of 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it fell into disuse. 



The opposite appears to have happened in Brittany, where 

 formerly the occupiers did not admit the right of dismissal. On 

 the one hand the interest of the farmer has prevailed, on the 

 other the right of the landowner. It is a natural consequence of 

 this discrepancy that in Brittany the domaine congeahle is going 

 out of use, whilst in Groningen according' to M. de Laveleye 

 the heklem-regt becomes more general. The Dutch economists, 

 he says, have unanimously pronounced in its favour, and in a 

 recent agricultural congress, after an exhaustive discussion, they 

 came to the conclusion that it Avas desirable to adopt the custom 

 in other provinces. These facts deserve the more attention, 

 because they are entirely opposed to the ideas which prevail 

 elsewhere in Europe. 



With complete ownership land sells for 80/. an acre in 

 Groningen. But it often happens that when the hereditary 

 tenancy is of old date, the annual rent payable to the landowner 

 does not exceed os. 2d. to 2>s. lOd. an acre. In that case the 

 farmer may be considered the real proprietor, since he pays only 

 a trifling rent, about equal to the tax he pays to the state. These 

 rich countrymen seldom care to become purchasers and to 

 combine the ownership with the cultivation of the land. They 



