WHEN industry was made honorable in Holland, the feudal system began to decay. It was a system embracing large land-owners, whose tenants were military men who controlled all labor and bore allegiance to the lordly proprietor. In the new era which had gradually dawned in Holland, the owner of the soil was no longer the head of a band of armed depredators who were his dependants, but the careful proprietor of broad acres, and devoted to industry and thrift. The nobles who composed the landlord class gradually came down from the stilts of exclusiveness, and in habits and even costume imitated the working people. The latter became elevated in the social scale. Their rights were respected, and their value in the state was duly estimated. Ceaseless toil in Holland was necessary to preserve the hollow land from the invasion of the sea, and the common needs assimilated all classes in a country where all must work or drown.…
