15G Rural LVviiuiin/ of tlic Netherlands. 



preier to remain farmers, and in fact by so doing' tliej can obtain 

 a g-reater profit on their capital. 



M. do Laveleye points out a new practice which threatens to 

 interfere with the action of this tenure. The value of agricul- 

 tural productions has been very much increased since England 

 became a customer, and the profits of the farmers have grown so 

 large, especially in the case of those who pay a low rent, that 

 they have adopted the practice of sub-letting their land under 

 the conditions of an ordinary lease. The land thus carries a 

 double rent, and the advantages which hitherto attended the 

 hereditary tenancy cease to exist, because the farmer is no longer 

 the actual lessor but an under-tenant. So the heklem-rerjt seems 

 likely to become a dead letter in consequence of the success 

 which has attended it.* 



Nowhere, perhaps, is intelligence so generally diffused as in 

 these countries. Most of the farmers are accustomed to engage 

 m theological debates. Many of them belong to the Mennonitcs, 

 who are the Quakers of Holland. " One day," says M. de 

 Laveleye, " I remarked four fine farms one after the other. I 

 asked the landlord of an inn at which I was stopping, to whom 

 they belonged." " To Quakers," was his answer, " they are 

 wealthy, each is worth not less than 26,000/." (three tonnes). 

 " I have heard the remark that there are no poor among the 

 members of that fraternity, is that the case here?" "Yes," 

 says mine host, " they have only a single poor person among 

 them, and when he dies there won't be one ! " Severe manners, 

 work and mutual assistance, have banished want from these little 

 communities, where every one is known, all are cared for, and 

 each one helps the other. 



The other half of the Low Countries, with a similar area of 

 9,750,000 acres, offers a striking contrast to the former. It is a 

 belt, naturally sterile, extending on the one side to the Belgian 

 "Campine" or plain, and on the other to the sands of Prussia, 

 being on an average about 50 feet above the level of the sea. It 



* An educated Englishman can hardly fail to recognise the strong resemblance 

 between the Bekleni-regt and our own free or copyhold tenures, under the lord of 

 a manor, at an earlier stage of their existence. With us the sums fixed for 

 reserved or quit rents are so small, because they are of such ancient date, and the 

 fine iipon transfer is so considerable, -whenever it is set upon the irresent annual 

 value, that to our view the rent is quite eclipsed by the fine, and left out of 

 account — yet it represents an old English Beklem-rcgt. 



This resemblance may remind us of the days when England -was distinguished 

 fiom other European nations mainly by her yeomanry, but it must also teach us 

 that no mere law of tenure can permanently resist the changes which time and 

 circumstance promote. For ourselves, it has become a matter of congratulation 

 that, in spite of the lawyers, we are getting rid of the trammels of copyhold 

 tenure, now thoroughly antiquated. — P. H. F. 



