XVII LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 319 



the valleys of Saxon Switzerland. After giving a picture 

 of the perfect condition of the crops, the excessive care of 

 manure, and other details, he adds : 



' ' The peasants endeavour to outstrip one another in the quality 

 and quantity of the produce, in the preparation of the ground, and in 

 the general cultivation of their respective portions. All the little 

 proprietors are eager to find out how to farm so as to produce the 

 greatest results ; they diligently seek after improvements ; they 

 send their children to agricultural schools in order to fit them to 

 assist their fathers ; and each proprietor soon adopts anew improve- 

 ment introduced by any of his neighbours," 



The late William Howitt, writing on the rural and 

 domestic life of Germany, says : 



" The peasants are not, as with us, for the most part totally cut 

 off from the soil they cultivate — they are themselves the proprietors. 

 It is, perhaps, from this cause that they are probably the most indus- 

 trious peasantry in the world. They labour early and late, because 

 they feel that they are labouring for themselves. The German 

 peasants work hard, but they have no actual want. . . . The 

 English peasant is so cut off" from the idea of property that he comes 

 habitually to look upon it as a thing from which he is warned by 

 the laws of the large proprietors, and becomes, in consequence, 

 spiritless and purposeless. . . . The German Bauer, on the contrary, 

 looks on the country as made for him and his fellow-men. No man 

 can threaten him with ejection or the workhouse so long as he is 

 active and economical. He walks, therefore, with a bold step ; 

 he looks you in the face with the air of a free man, but a respectful 

 air." 



And Mr. Baring Gould, although showing how poor 

 the peasant of North Germany often is, owing to the 

 miserable system of each farm being cut up into scores 

 or hundreds of disconnected plots, and his cruel sub- 

 jection to Jew money-lenders, nevertheless thus compares 

 him with the journeyman mechanic : 



"The artisan is restless and dissatisfied. He is mechanised. 

 He finds no interest in his work, and his soul frets at the routine. 

 He is miserable and he knows not why. But the man who toils on 

 his own plot of ground is morally and physically healthy. He is a 

 freeman ; the sense he has of independence gives him his upright 

 carriage, his fearless brow, and his joyous laugh." 



In Belgium, the most highly cultivated part of the 

 country is that which consists of peasant properties 



