The origin of this curious variety of hereditary lease is very obscure. It seems to have sprung up in the middle ages onmonastery lands. The soil being then of little value, the monks readily granted to cultivators a certain extent of soil, oncondition of their paying a certain annual rent, and also a fine at each death. This arrangement secured a fixed income for themonastery, and also freed it from the management of property, which as a rule produced nothing. The large proprietors andcivil corporations also adopted the system. They seem to have reserved the right of ejecting the tenant every ten years butthey never exercised it, because they would have had to pay the value of buildings, and would also have had difficulty infinding a new tenant. During the troubles of the sixteenth century, the right became hereditary, or at least was declared suchby several decisions. Jurisprudence and custom settled the various points in dispute; a more definite formula was framed andgenerally accepted, and from that time the beklem- regt , so determined, has existed side by side with the Civil Code. It hasalways been respected, and been more and more generally adopted throughout the province of Groningen. What surprisesone is that this right, which seems so complicated and antiquated, can spread and gain ground even now. The explanation ofthis strange economic fact is that, in the first place, the proprietor, who wants to grant the beklem-regt over his land,receives a considerable sum, and still retains, at any rate nominally, the ownership. Again, a man who cultivates his own landand is in want of money, can sell the bare right of ownership, retaining the beklem-regt for himself. The most frequentorigin, however, of new contracts of this nature is a public sale; because, if the true proprietorship and the hereditary leaseare sold separately, a higher sum is realized than if the full property is sold at once. For this reason the polders (landrecovered from the sea), where the dams have only been constructed some twenty years, are subject to the beklem-regt .
Whoever has considered the inconveniences of the ordinary lease, will have no difficulty in understanding the advantages ofthe contract adopted in Groningen. One of the most able writers on this subject, M. Hippolyte Passy, remarks with reason:
"There is no kind of lease really favourable to the progress of production, but such as, by well conceived stipulations, makesit to the constant interest of the cultivators to neglect nothing that increases fertility either in the present or the future." Nowthe beklem-regt fulfils this condition perfectly. The tenant can undertake the most costly improvements: he is sure to derivethe full profit from them; and he is not threatened, like the ordinary tenant, with an increase of rent proportional to what hehas done to increase the fertility of the land he occupies. The legitimate reward of labour is the produce which it creates; andman labours harder when he is sure of enjoying the fruits of his efforts. The beklem-regt , assuring the cultivators the fullenjoyment of any increase in the produce, is therefore the most active stimulus: it encourages the spirit of improvement,which short leases only penalize.
M. Roscher maintains that a tenant will apply more capital to the cultivation of the soil than the proprietor, because the latterhas to devote a considerable sum to the purchase of the land, which the former can employ to increase the intensity ofcultivation. This remark is specious, but scarcely well-grounded. As a matter of fact, the purchaser of land can raise onmortgage a sufficient sum to improve the cultivation. He will then pay in the form of interest what he would have paid asrent: and will have this immense advantage, that he will profit exclusively by all improvements, without any risk of seeingthem turn out so much loss to him at the expiration of the lease. In any case, the beklem-regt is entirely free from thedisadvantage pointed out by M. Roscher. The cultivator, purchasing only a hereditary lease, obtains it at a cheaper rate, andcan devote to cultivation all the surplus which he would have had to lay out in the purchase of the hare proprietorship, whichhe now leaves to another. While only laying out a far smaller sum than he would have had to give for the entire property, heis nevertheless sure of enjoying the good results of all the work he may carry out. The belkem-regt therefore unites theadvantage, which M. Roscher attributes to the lease, with the security for the future afforded by ownership.
Another objection has been raised against the property in the soil residing in the cultivator. It is said that the proprietorcultivator, certain of his subsistence, and not being stimulated by any rise of rent, sinks into routine, and does not obtainfrom the soil all that it can produce. This objection reminds one of the quaintly cruel question in Cardinal Richelieu's will: Towhat extent are we to suffer the people to live in comfort? We cannot believe that property, which gives comfort to thelabourer, lulls his activity to rest; and we still think that no one will get more produce out of the soil than its owner. But,even if it were otherwise, the beklem-regt would again, in this case, have the advantage over ordinary ownership; for, as onealone of the children can inherit the holding, the father will be stimulated to obtain from the soil all that it can give, so as tosave the portions for his other children; otherwise it would be necessary to sell the hereditary lease to avoid its indivisibility.
We may, therefore, assert that the beklem regt is even more favourable than ownership to good cultivation, as allowing theapplication of more capital, and urging him, who cultivates it, to redouble his efforts to obtain as large a harvest as possible.
