devoted to agricultural pursuits, and they will make enormous sacrifices in order to buy a piece of land. They are very industrious when working for themselves; but otherwise their labour is dear even at the low price they get paid for it. Therefore, under a small-farm system, a certain amount of force is utilised which would otherwise have been wasted. The Walloons are entirely different; they are more energetic, and do more justice to their employers; then they get better wages, live very much better, and have neither the hoarding propensity nor the land-mania so characteristic of the Flemish.

Although we have endeavoured to show that small farming, as a national system, is not desirable in a manufacturing country like Belgium, we are far from saying that there should be no small farms. Such an opinion would be equivalent to saying that because it is not desirable that every soldier should be an officer, therefore there should be no officers. La petite culture of Belgium is favoured by the provisions of the Code Napoleon with respect to the inheritance of property; and we imagine that the tendency of those provisions must be to gradually extend the system of small farms, and to diminish the average size of the holdings. This tendency seems to us directly opposed to an increase in the material prosperity of the country.

*

6. Land-tenure and Tenant-right.-In every part of Belgium, except the Pays de Waes, land is held under a system of short leases. The customary maximum duration of a lease is 9 years, but either landlord or tenant can terminate it at the end of 3 or 6 years by giving 6 months' notice. Occasionally one meets with a large farm held under an 18 years' lease. The date of entry varies from October 1st to May 15th in different parts of Belgium, and the covenants and customs are so variable that it is impossible to describe them in detail. Not only are he customs different in adjoining provinces, but in any one province half-a-dozen descriptions of agricultural usage may be found. Many of these customs vary with the date of entry, and refer particularly to what the incoming farmer is to be allowed to do previous to his entry, and what the outgoing farmer may do after the expiration of his tenancy. But as the present and future tenants seldom possess much mutual goodwill, these. customs not unfrequently lead to disputes. Therefore some landlords have acquired the property of the outgoing tenant in the crops which he has sown, in the unconsumed forage, and so

M. Leclerc remarks that "Landed property in Belgium tends to become more and more divided. This is the one inevitable consequence of the legislative enactment which gives to each child the right to claim an equal part in kind of the paternal heritage; it is also a conseqence of the increase of the public riches. as a large number of men who have acquired fortunes in manufactures and commerce desire to become landed proprietors."

forth; and the incoming tenant pays the outgoing one for performing those operations which he previously was obliged to do himself before the commencement of his tenancy. Then, at the expiration of his lease, the new tenant, according to covenant, is obliged to leave the farm as he found it; that is to say, to leave the landlord an equivalent of those crops which had been presented to him at the commencement of his tenancy. With regard to straw and manure the customs also vary; in some districts the farmer is obliged to leave in the barn and the midden all the straw and manure of the last year of his tenancy -these being in those cases the property of the landlord; in other districts, where they are the property of the tenant, they are paid for by his successor according to a valuation made by two experts. This leads us to the subject of tenant-right-a phrase which in Belgium is understood to mean a payment for unexhausted manures. In Flanders an incoming farmer buys everything that is not moveable of his predecessor, the growing crops, the manure applied to them, the unexhausted manure applied to the previous crop, and for work done since the previous harvest. He also buys all the hedge-row wood, if not more than 6 years old; but if above that age the outgoing farmer cuts and sells it in the ordinary way. These valuations are generally made by experts, and the money must be paid before the incoming tenant can take possession. Generally speaking, farmyard manure is valued at a higher figure than English farmers would like to buy it at, considering the food given to the beasts. It is thought to leave from one-third to one-half after potatoes, and one-third after wheat, if what they consider a full dressing has been given, otherwise only an equivalent proportion of those residues is allowed for. Liquid manure is considered exhausted by one crop, and no allowance is made for cake, whether used directly as manure (rape-cake), or for feeding. Guano is considered to leave one-fourth of its value behind. In most parts of the Polders lime is curiously estimated. Supposing it to consist of 21 parts, it is estimated that 15 remain after the first crop, 10 after the second, 6 after the third, 3 after the fourth, and 1 after the fifth. Drainage had been done by the proprietor in the few cases where we found that it had been carried out; this was on farms held by their owners. Buildings are erected by the landlord and kept in repair by the tenant.

In the Pays de Waes there is a very curious state of things. The farmhouses, with a small piece of ground, just enough for

The most general estimate of manure out of the ground is 1 centime per kilo., which in our money would be about Es. 6d. per ton.

outbuildings, and perhaps a little paddock, belong almost invariably to the occupiers. The land belongs to a multitude of small proprietors, who are very often tradesmen in the villages. A farmer of 7 or 8 acres frequently has 3 or 4 landlords; indeed almost every field belongs to a different person. There are no leases in this district; but the land is let from year to year, commencing on October 1st, and the tenancy absolutely ends that day twelve months. It is easy to see what a condition of things this brings about. Suppose that a farmer of 10 acres has 5 landlords; they will not impossibly be a tailor, a shoemaker, a grocer, a draper, and a lawyer, all living in a neighbouring town or village. The farmer is obliged to buy boots of one, clothes of another, and so on, or his tenancy will not be continued after the end of next September. On the last day of that month he will get the notice to quit on the following morning. Another danger is that a neighbour may go to one or more of his landlords, and offer more rent for a part of his farm. In any case he receives his tenant-right, namely one-half the value of the manure used for the last crop, and a fixed sum of about 6s. 8d. per acre for manure applied the two previous years. The farmer cannot, it is true, be turned out of his own house, and he has, probably, so many landlords that he will be able to get on for a year without the piece of land which he has been forced to quit, and, if he has been outbid, at the end of the year he will retaliate; then it is very likely that he may have heard of the approaching event, and provided himself with another field at the expense of his despoiler or some other neighbour. But under any circumstances the system is entirely vicious. Fortunately the district in which this practice occurs is very limited, and as tradesmen-landlords die the property is bought by farmers at fabulous prices, quite out of proportion to the rent-value.

So great is the demand for land in the northern parts of Belgium that the money-value of the fee-simple has been calculated to increase 3 per cent. per annum; and it is said to be a fact that for the last 10 years the increase, on the average, has been at that ratio, so that land is there worth 30 per cent. more than it was 10 years ago. The chief reason for this increase in value seems to be that land is the only security in which farmers will invest their money.

The transfer of land is by no means a cheap proceeding in Belgium, for the Government charge nearly 7 per cent. on the purchase money for registration of the transfer, and the purchaser pays the notary 1 per cent. for conveyance. The vendor's expenses come to more than 3 per cent. for notary's fees, advertisements and bill-posting, as every "poster" in Belgium must be

stamped. In the case of sale by auction the vendor's expenses are necessarily increased.* After a deed has been registered, its validity cannot be questioned.

Agricultural interests receive a large share of the attention of the Government. One department of the Ministry of the Interior, under the control of a Director-General, has for its function the care of agriculture and industries. There is a sub-department for agriculture, presided over by a Director, which has its executive officers and Provincial Councils in every province of the kingdom, the ruling authority being the Superior Council of Agriculture, of which the Director of the Department is the Secretary. Thus any matter requiring the attention of the Government is brought by the burgomaster of the village before the Committee of the District, by whom it is laid before the Provincial Council, and similarly sent up to the fountain-headthe Superior Council of Agriculture, the Secretary of which has the chief executive power on behalf of the Government. Although there is necessarily some amount of routine involved in such proceedings, there can be no doubt that the Government by those means holds the detailed parts of the organization in more efficient control than it could by a direct system of communication with the various burgomasters.

We have in the foregoing pages attempted to perform the task which the Council of the Society assigned to us to give a fair description of the salient features of the long-famed Belgian farming. That our Report will disappoint the admirers of la petite culture we must expect, but we hope they will feel that their disappointment is due to the nature of the subject.

POSTSCRIPT. Since this Report has been in type, I have read M. de Laveleye's paper on "The Land System of Belgium and Holland," which has just been published by the Cobden Club in a volume entitled 'Systems of Land Tenure in various Countries.' So far as regards the systems of land-tenure and land-transfer, there is no essential difference between the statements in M. de Laveleye's essay and those in the foregoing pages.—H. M. J.

* M. Leclerc makes the following statement:-"The conveyance of property encounters no serious obstacles. It is made by an authentic act, done in the presence of a notary (a public officer appointed by the King), which is afterwards submitted to the formality of registration in a special office instituted by the Government. The expenses of sale generally amount to 10 per cent. of the value of the property. The registration-fees absorb about 6 per cent.; the surplus represents the expenses of advertisements, bill-posting, deeds, and payment of the notary. These expenses are paid by the vendor. The purchaser pays in addition to the notary a sum amounting to 1 per cent. of the value of the property for the official receipt of the purchase-money."

II.-Farm Labourers, their Friendly Societies, and the Poor Law. By the Rev. J. Y. STRATTON, Rector of Ditton, Kent.

THE following article will treat of the means of improving the condition of the agricultural classes of this country, by the development of trustworthy insurances suited to their requirements. It will be necessary to our purpose to consider the bearing of the Poor Law, and the influences exerted by it in diminishing and retarding efforts which might be made by farm labourers to attain a position superior to that now commonly occupied by them, and alterations will be suggested in the mode of affording relief and collecting the rate, by the adoption of which labourers who now on their view of the rate commonly waste their surplus wages in societies, miscalled benefit clubs, may be induced and encouraged either to improve and reform their societies, or to forsake them and join better.

Burial societies, their cost and management, will form no part of our subject. A Commission of Enquiry can alone deal satisfactorily with them, and there is sufficient in the state of these societies to render enquiry under a Royal Commission desirable, even if there were no other classes of industrial insurance than burial societies in need of attention.* Neither shall we deal with the state of the friendly societies of the superior artisan and labourer, who commonly seek such advice and protection as the Registrar-General is able to afford them. The members of these institutions have for many years struggled hard to obtain a provision for their need, such as the friendly society offers, and now that many difficulties, among which want of money is not to be reckoned, have been overcome, they will find their task less arduous than hitherto. That they will succeed in the long run in securing an independent provision by insurances best adapted to their wants is not so much a matter of uncertainty as a question of time.

No such hopeful prospect, however, is in store for those whose insurances demand our special attention, and whose lot is cast within the verge of pauperism. In order to understand the construction and cost, the management and provision of their benefit societies, reference must be made to the Poor Law. And we are glad that at length the necessity of enquiry into the bearing of the Poor Law or Friendly Societies is recognised.

*The Commission on the Employment of Children, Young Persons, and Women in Agriculture, after reporting that the attention of four of the AssistantCommissioners was specially directed to the subject of benefit societies, reports that it is "one of far too wide a nature, embracing as it does the town as well as the country populations, to be capable of being exhaustively dealt with in the course of our enquiries."