THE LAND SYSTEM OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND 469 



Thus in Lower Luxembourg the labourer's wages are double 

 what they are in Flanders, although most articles of food, espe- 

 cially meat and potatoes, are cheaper in the former province. 



The farmers of Holland lead a comfortable, well-to-do, and 

 cheerful life. They are well housed and excellently clothed. 

 They have chinaware and plate on their sideboards, tons of gold 

 at their notaries', public securities in their safes, and in their 

 stables excellent horses. Their wives are bedecked with splendid 

 corals and gold. They do not work themselves to death. On 

 the ice in winter, at the kermesses in summer, they enjoy them- 

 selves with the zest of men whose minds are free from care. 



The Belgian farmer, we have shown, is neither as rich as his 

 Dutch neighbour, nor can he enjoy himself in the same way. 



One reason is that in Holland the townspeople have at all 

 times invested their savings in public securities, and generally 

 left landed property alone, which has thus remained entirely in 

 the hands of the peasants. In Belgium, on the contrary, the 

 nobility have retained large landed property, and capitalists have 

 eagerly bought estates. Hence a good number of the peasants 

 have become mere tenants. 



To meet with the ideal of rural life, you must look for it in 

 Groningen or in Upper Bavaria. 



Pliny's saying, Latifiindia perdidere Italiam, has sounded like 

 a warning voice across centuries. The latiftmdia of the Roman 

 aristocracy first devoured the small estates, then the small propri- 

 etors, and, when the Barbarians made their appearance, the 

 empire had become a solitude. 



The estados of the grandees of Spain have also destroyed 

 the small landowners, whose place has been taken by bandits, 

 smugglers, beggars, and monks. 



Tiberius Gracchus was the only Roman who understood the 

 economic situation of his country. Had the laws proposed by 

 him been adopted, the decline of the Republic might perhaps 

 have been prevented. 



It is the glory of England to have remained free from the 

 consequences usually attending the large-property system. Great 

 Britain possesses a class of landowners and tenants alive to the 



