SMALL ESTATES IN LIEGE.

143

has a population of 97,544. It is in the midst of a mineral district, and is largely engaged in the iron manufacture; it is styled the Birmingham of Belgium. The province of Liege comprises an area of 289,319 hectares, or about 500,000 acres. If my memory serves me right, this is about the area of Lincolnshire. I fear your readers will consider that I am romancing, when I inform them that there are in the province of Liege 103,519 proprietors, with, on the average, 2 hectares, or 7 acres for each proprietor; at least, the official statistics attest this fact, and I confess the land is well farmed. The culture is like that of a garden, and so far from there being a diminution in the produce, there has been an actual increase. The extent under wheat in 1846 was 20,823 hectares; in 1856 it had increased to 24,947 hectares. The estimated produce of wheat in 1856 was 544,083 hectolitres; of rye, 347,573 hectolitres; of metel (mixed corn), 57,256 hectolitres; of barley, 341,973 hectolitres; of oats, 701,864 hectolitres, beside sarrasin, peas, beans, flax, and hemp ; beet-root, for sugar, and potatoes, of which the yield was 2,154,317 hectolitres. One can hardly say a country is going to ruin when the land is well cultivated and the crops so good, nor does one see any signs of ruin in the aspect of the people, who look as if they were well fed, who are certainly as well clad as similar classes in England, and far better housed. An entire province, comprising over one hundred thousand landed proprietors, whose properties do not on an average exceed seven English acres each, is certainly a marvel. The return of live stock shows that there were in 1856, 113,901 cattle, or on an average more than one for each estate or

that

farm; 83,180 sheep, or not quite one for each farm ; 70,022 pigs, or less than one for each farm. The work of the farm is principally performed by man, for the number of horses and foals were only 28,920, being about one for four farms.

The state of things in the adjoining province, Brabant, is even more remarkable. This province includes the capital, Brussels, which has a population of about 300,000, and also the towns of Louvain, Tirlemont, &c. The area of Brabant is greater than that of Liege, it is 328,313 hectares, but the number of proprietors is even larger than that of the adjoining province. There are in Brabant 149,399 proprietors, giving on the average 24 hectares, or 64 English acres to each. Yet Brussels, the capital of this minutely owned district, is one of the wealthiest and most prosperous cities in the world. The cultivation embraces a very large variety of crops.*

* The area under culture in Brabant is thus stated:-
:-

I have been thus minute, because I know English readers will be incredulous about such farms, and will not think it possible for men to live comfortably upon them. I believe it would be impossible, were it not that each man is the owner of his own farm. Thus there is, in the first instance, no deduction to be made in the shape of rent; all the produce is his own. Then he has also a stimulus to perpetual exertion, as no one can deprive him of the improvements which he makes; they are all his. It is under these circumstances that Belgian agriculture appears to flourish. The provinces which I have visited have a prosperous look.

There appears to be quite a sufficiency of live stock* on the land. During the past ten years there was an increase in cattle of 12,725, and a decrease in sheep of 2,086, and of pigs of 943. Though the area under tillage had increased, yet there is a decrease in the number of horses of 1,024. As each horse consumes as much food as will support seven human beings, the reduction in the number of horses affords food for upwards of 7,000 persons.

I called upon a very intelligent gentleman, of British descent, who was born in Brussels, and has lived here all his life. He has just removed to one of two adjoining houses, which he has erected himself. He informed me that the cost of erection was about 40,000f. each. I asked what term he had

* The following statement shows the quantity of live stock in Brabant:

Cattle
Sheep
Pigs

:

Horses.

of the land, and what rent he paid? He laughed at me, and said 'that is one of your English notions.' 'No one in Brussels,' added he, 'would build on a lease.' 'How then?' said I. They all purchase

the land,' was his reply.

May I ask,' said I,

'what such land as that on which you have built is
worth ? 'I paid,' he replied,
'six francs per
square foot, the land cost about 18,000f. The entire
expenditure will be about 50,000f. for each house.'
'If you let them,' said I, 'what rent would they
fetch ? 'Four thousand francs.' That will pay
about 7 per cent. on the outlay. The industrial
classes in Belgium are fully alive to the importance
of preserving to their families the reversion of the
property which they acquire. A lease makes the
grantor the heir in reversion of the grantee, to the
exclusion of his natural heirs. A man who takes a
piece of land, pays a rent for the use of it. If with
his own earnings he erects a house on it, he uses his
own house. Looking at the matter abstractedly, one
would say that no length of use of that which is a
man's own, should make it the property of another.
If one man lets a plot of land, his right would
naturally be, to get back that land, but he would not
be entitled to the house built upon it. The Belgians
solve this question, by purchasing the land, before
they build, thus the land and the house form one
estate, which the builder can dispose of as he wishes.
The vast amount of property which under the Bri-
tish system has passed, is passing, and will pass from
the natural heirs of those who created it to the non-
natural heirs is stupendous. The messuages of Great
Britain were, according to the income-tax returns,
valued in 1863 at 44,500,000l. In 1798 they were

HOUSE PROPERTY IN BRUSSELS.

147

valued at 6,500,000l. Therefore the annual value of this class of property created since 1798 is 38,000,0007. If this be worth 20 years' purchase, it would represent 760,000,0007., a sum nearly equal to the National Debt of Great Britain. Most of this expenditure has been made on leases, and at the expiration of the term, the lessor will succeed to the property of the lessee, to the exclusion of his natural heirs. Brussels is a very improving place, and its great advance is attributed to the ownership of the land, attaching to the person who erects the house. It is a very busy place; several railways enter from different quarters, and there is access to it from the seaboard by boat. The Belgian Government has just issued an order, prohibiting the import into, the transit through, or the export of cattle from, Belgium. This measure was dictated by apprehensions of the cattle plague. The consumers of meat said to Government, 'If you stop importation and permit exportation, you will greatly enhance the price of meat, and it is only fair if you prohibit imports of cattle that you should also stop exports.' Government has acceded to this request. I was informed that the export was very large, and that it had affected the price to such an extent, as nearly to double the cost of meat. I have not the facts now before you, but M. Glerfeyt, attaché to the Minister de l'Interieur, whose polite attention I wish publicly to acknowledge, has promised to have prepared for me a statement of the exports and imports of cattle for 1864 and 1865, showing the extent of the supply to the British markets, and I expect I shall, in a future letter, be able to make use of the information so supplied. But the question as to an advance of price may be worth considering. The