HOLLAND'S LAND POLICY. A Country Where the Tenant Farmer Gets Rich.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 248, 21 March 1888, Page 3

HOLLAND'S LAND POLICY. A Country Where the Tenant Farmer Gets Rich.

Holland is the land of charity. You see no beggars. Their poorhoupes " are tracts of land, as at Willemsoord, Ommerschans and elsewhere, where paupers are supplied with tools and stock, and made self-support-ing. Holland has solved the Irish land question. The beklem-regt is the right to occupy a farm at a fixed annual rent, which the landlord can nover increase. This right descends to the heir, and can be devised or sold, but only to one person ; it is indivisablo. Every time, however, that it passes by inheritance, or by will, or by sale, the landlord receives one or two years' rent. The buildings belong to tbo tenant, and he may take them away ; he pays all the taxes." If the tenant defaults, Iris creditors can cause the beklem-regt to be sold, but the buyer must first pay all that is due to the landlord. This custom began in the province of Groningen, but islikely to spread all over the Netherlands. Under this system the tenant farmers become the richest and most influential class of the community ; their rent does not increase as the result of their own industry ; the labourer enjoys the fruits of his labour ; labour and capital are united as friends.