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TO
M. ROCHUSSEN,
MINISTER OF COLONIES AT THE HAGUE.
Sir,—
I have taken the liberty of dedicating thislittle work to you. It treats of a subject on which Ihave made many experiments and collected many observationsin Belgium and in Holland. I have carefullyweighed the conflicting evidence of some distinguishedobservers, and the conclusion arrived at is, thatthis conflict has arisen partly from a want of due carein making the observations, partly from the extreme difficultyaccompanying all inquiries in which physiologyand pathology, health and disease, are necessarily involved.
In the course of my memoir I have endeavoured todo justice to Holland, esteeming it to be the most remarkablecountry in the world. I cannot find in thehistory of any other nation proofs so clear of the beneficialeffects of indomitable industry, directed by intelligence,over the welfare and destinies of a people; nowheredo I find evidence so convincing of the greatresults flowing from the application of practical scienceto the wants of a people; nowhere do I find to the sameextent a sound commercial and political economy, firstdeveloped and acted on in Holland, lead so directly tothe civilization and welfare of a nation. Those greatprinciples which other nations and other races discussedtheoretically and elaborated into systems, the nation ofwhich you are a distinguished citizen, discovered, adopted,applied, and enforced. To Holland, as a nation, belongseminently the character of practical. Whilst other nationsleft uncultivated as they found them, or renderedunproductive, the most fertile territories, seemingly unableto turn them to account, the country and peopleto which you belong compelled the ocean to retire from abarren, unprofitable, and untillable soil, which they convertedinto a garden; and if ever the great problem ofrendering the whole earth habitable for man be solved,I may venture to predict—with all due respect for othernations and other races—that the solution must comefrom Holland. As it would be presumptuous in me—ahumble individual—directly to address a nation, Ihave