HIE LAND SYSTEM OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND 



447 



highlands man makes the very soil. He builds terraces along 

 steep inclines, lining them with blocks of stone, and then carry- 

 ing earth to them on his back, in which he plants a mulberry- or 

 walnut-tree, or a vine, or raises a little corn or maize. 1 Whoever, 

 after paying for the labour, should take a lease of the ground 

 thus created would not get one-half per cent from his outlay, and 

 therefore a capitalist will never do it. Hut the small cultivator does 

 it ; and thus the mountain and the rock become transformed. So, 

 too, under la petite culture, even when aided not by proprietorship, 

 but only the kind of tenure to which the name of cmphytcusis has 

 been given, and which corresponds to a long lease, the most un- 

 grateful land has been reclaimed in Flanders. The tenant, being 

 secure of the future, builds a house, clears the ground, manures and 

 fertilises the rebellious soil ; and though he will not reap the same 

 benefit from it that a peasant proprietor would, he reaps much more 

 than either a large farmer or a large proprict< >r \v< >uld. 



Notwithstanding all the arguments of the most distinguished 

 economists in England, especially Mr. John Stuart Mill, to the 

 contrary, peasant property in land seems still to be regarded there 

 as synonymous with wretched cultivation, and large estates with 

 rich and improved farming. The reason is obvious ; the English 

 are accustomed to compare the farming of their own country with 

 that of Ireland. In fact, however, both England and Ireland arc 

 exceptions, one on the right, the other on the wronj; side-. In 

 land there exists a class of well-to-do and intelligent teiunt-tarmers 

 such as are not to be found anywhere else. In Ireland, on th< 

 trary, there is no peasant property^ but only la :es in combina- 



tion \vith small tenure, of ten with a middleman between the la; 

 and the cultivator of all ;is the most \\reulu-d. 



Added to this, many centuries of oppression and n unent 



the Irish people more improvident than the inhabitants ..t anv 

 other country in the civilised world ; thus what with a land system of 

 >rst kind, and the general condition of the country, the case 

 of Ireland is surely an exceptional one. All over the contin* 

 Europe there is more live stock kept, more capital owned, more 

 produce and income yielded by small farms than large estates. 

 1 See my " Economic ruralc de la Suiwc et de la Lorn bardic," p. 71. 



