162 COMPARISON BETWEEN ENGLAND VIII 



serious decrease in the rural population. 1 In a word, al 

 evidence tends to prove that France is in a measur 

 experiencing the influence of that industrial revolution 

 which England underwent a century and a half ago, and 

 if France were to adopt free trade the difficulty of retain- 

 ing the peasant on the soil would soon be as great as it is 

 in England. 



The conditions in Belgium are not unlike those of 

 France. It is true that industries were early developed 

 in the Netherlands, as Belgium was then called ; witness 

 the history of its great towns. This, however, occurred 

 at a period when industries were still in their more 

 primitive form, and before the rise of the great capitalist 

 of later times ; and though to-day the number of peasant 

 proprietors is very numerous, they are chiefly found in 

 districts where market-gardening is profitable, and even 

 then in many cases the cultivators are tenants of the 

 tradesmen who own the lands. The peasant proprietor is 

 also found on the poorest soils, such as the Campine, but 

 they generally eke out a livelihood by some side industry, 

 many as pedlars in human hair, or in the local industries 

 which still exist. On the other hand the largest propor- 

 tion of the land, and certainly the most productive in 

 cereals and in stock, is cultivated by tenant farmers. 2 

 Even in Denmark a great many of the so-called peasant 

 proprietors are really tenants holding their lands on half- 

 yearly agreements. 3 





1 In 1851, 75 per cent, of the total population ; in 1886, 64 per 

 cent. The decrease has continued since then, Dumas, Econ. Journal, 

 March, 1909; see Statistical Soc. Journal, 65, 1902, p. 607. The rural 

 population is decreasing actually in Germany and France, and 

 relatively to the urban population in America, Canada, and Australia. 



2 Prothero, Pioneers, p. 142 ; Cobden Club, Systems of Land 

 Tenure, Belgium ; Lavelaye, ^conomie rurale de la Belgique. 



8 Econ. Journal, xiii. 645 ; Hasbach, Appendix. 



