THE LAND SYSTEM OF BELGIUM AND HOLLAND 459 



Arthur Young has said : " Give a farmer a nine years' lease of 

 a garden and he will make a desert of it." It is to the honour of 

 the small farmers of Flanders, and of la petite culture, that they 

 have falsified this maxim. 



Among the various systems of tenure of land in the Belgian 

 and Dutch Low Countries, there is none more interesting to the 

 student of agriculture than the Beklem-regt, in the province of 

 Groningen. This is a kind of hereditary lease, something like 

 fixity of tenure. The landlord can never raise the tenant's annual 

 rent. The tenant, on the contrary (called the Beklemde-meyer), 

 may bequeath his right of occupation, dispose of it, mortgage it, 

 provided only he does not diminish the value of the land. The 

 Beklem-regt is indivisible, and can be held only by one person. 

 Whenever it changes hands the landlord is entitled to a fee called 

 propinen, which amounts to one or two years' rent, and is fixed 

 beforehand. This system dates from the Middle Ages, and is 

 still constantly practised in Groningen, even on lands recently 

 reclaimed, on polders, and on lands put in cultivation in the 

 turf-bog region. It arises in the following manner : Some land- 

 owners being in want of money, and not wishing to mortgage 

 their lands, give hereditary leases of them for a sum of money, 

 thus remaining nominally proprietors ; they never part with the 

 fee-simple. Moreover, when the land is sold, the fee-simple and 

 the Beklem-regt are disposed of separately, and a higher price is 

 thus realised. 



All Dutch economists are alive to the advantages of the 

 Beklem-regt, of which the principal ones are as follows : 



1st. It gives the tenant absolute security for the future, thus 

 encouraging him to make improvements. 



2nd. The tenant purchasing the right of occupation has less to 

 pay for it than he would for the fee-simple, and yet acquires the 

 same security. The higher the rent, the less money he pays. In 

 Ireland, on the contrary, no real right is obtained by purchas- 

 ing the goodwill or tenant right, and the new tenant must pay 

 the same rent as others. In Groningen an hereditary right of 

 occupation is acquired, and the rent to be paid is moderate and 

 invariable. 



