Chapter 6

'the disinclination of young men of the yeoman farmer class to take permanent service is very general in this district, and is easily explained by the ease with which men in the prime of their strength obtain occupation as labourers in the fisheries. The great bulk of the day labourers do not seek with any great eagerness for work in the fields, so long as they hold previously acquired means sufficient to provide them with the necessaries of life, however scantily. As a rule, so long as want does not look in at the window, they will not engage themselves for such work, except at very good wages. The wages for a yearly labourer have doubled during the last twenty years.[11]At the same time the houseman has lost the command he previously had over his workmen, and consequently does not get the same amount of work out of them as formerly. Fishing attracts labour by a larger immediate return, acquired with less bodily exertion than in husbandry. It gives the population less taste for harder work.'

We leave Mr. Laing in doubt whether the steam-engine could 'ever be brought to perfection.' That doubt was speedily removed, and in 1852 Norway followed in the wake of other European nations by building railways, their total length in 1883 having reached very little short of a thousand English miles. Nor did their construction, with capital raised chiefly abroad and punctually repaid, arrest the improvement or the laying down of ordinary roads, to the extent of 4000 miles, between 1845 and 1875. In addition to this extensive opening-out of communication by rail and road, the introduction of steamers on inland waters and their employment as coasters and sea-going vessels, the construction of telegraphs, and development of fisheries, of ship building, of banking and other companies, and generally of trade and industry, produced gradually a wide disturbance in the social economy found by Mr. Laing. The expansion and prosperity of the towns, as well as the more refined habits of life adopted by the clergy and the officials of Government, were viewed by the yeomen farmers with a jealousy that was undoubtedly the original cause of their present radical proclivities, the old conservatism being relegated to towns, contrary to the experience of other European countries, and particularly to that of Great Britain, until the metaphorical three acres and a cow were dangled before the eyes of its rural population.

Under all these influences, and we may include among them the effect of a constantly-increasing number of travellers, equipped with the modern appliances of civilization, anddemanding accommodation and other material comforts of a more and more superior character, the Robinson Crusoe existence of the yeoman farmer, as depicted by Mr. Laing, has suffered so much invasion that it has well-nigh disappeared.

In the matter of clothing, an assimilation to general, central European dress has for years past been noticeable even in districts the most remote, to the prejudice of home-spinning and weaving. Ancient silver ornaments have been largely discarded by the women, and converted, first into money, and eventually into articles of modern use or embellishment, to an extent that now renders travellers more and more suspicious of the Brummagem origin of the objects that remain for sale. And it is the same with old furniture and with the multifarious knicknacks which travellers less recent delighted to find in the country at reasonable prices.

The value of money has become more generally appreciated since Mr. Laing admired the absence of all incentive to 'money-making and money-losing,' and the previously unambitious character of the yeoman and his sons has undergone a tolerably complete change since education has opened out the widest avenues to personal advancement, even from the plough. They no longer live by bread alone, and therefore their artificial wants have been increasing at a greater ratio than their means of satisfying them out of the produce of the land. Without entering here upon the important effect of the corn supplies from America, and of the depreciation of the value of the Norwegian timber, owing to the increased competition of America and other countries, we may sum up this imperfect prefatory sketch by stating that, from a general point of view, the Gamle Norge (Old Norway) of Mr. Laing's days has for many years been passing through a process of transformation, the latest results of which we shall now describe.[12]

Mr. Laing's contention, that when land is held in freehold, not as a rule in tenancy, the relative size or value of the estates into which the land is divided will remain the same at one period as at another, is entirely refuted by the official statistics of Norway. In the first place, the total number of properties,which was about 111,000 in 1838, had grown, in 1870, to 149,000 (34-1/2 per cent.), and is still higher at the present day, with a continued tendency to multiplication by partition. Secondly, the proportion that existed in 1838 between the various sizes of agricultural holdings has undergone a notable change, marking a very considerable increase in the relative number of small plots.

As it was found practically impossible to estimate the value of landed property on the basis of its acreage (the physical conditions of the country giving such great variety to the value of estates), the 'Cadastre' introduced in 1836, established, for purposes of assessment, a classification based on 'skylddaler,' or taxable, value. This unit of taxation was assumed to represent a mean capital value of about 89l., arrived at by estimating the net income derived at that period from the working of land during an average year.

The following statement exhibits the cadastral classification of properties,[13]and the changes that have occurred in the several groups between 1838 and 1870.

1838.1870.Estatesbelow0.2skylddalerinvalue8,86626,048"between0.2and1"31,26552,067""1"2"28,65233,427""2"5"32,85429,498""5"10"7,0436,012""10"20"1,7911,617"above20"315344Total110,786149,013

It is thus evident that, even fifteen years ago, the increase in the total number of properties, as compared with the number in 1838, had affected only the three groups of smaller holdings, and particularly the group (below 0.2) which, according to Dr. Broch, 'includes the sites of houses and cottages owned by labourers, fishermen, seamen, and artizans, but estimated to yield an average of 5-1/2 bushels of corn, 8 bushels of potatoes, and grass for half a cow. The holdings more purely agricultural, and designated by the same authority as 'small properties,' are those comprised in the two next categories, namely, parcels of land over 0.2 and under 2 skylddaler in value. In 1870, wefind that a little more than one-half of the landed properties in Norway and one-third of the total cadastral area, were included in those two groups. The average yield of those small properties is estimated by Dr. Broch at '55 bushels (20 hectol) of cereals, and 82-1/2 bushels (30 hectol) of potatoes, with fodder for four cows, seven sheep or goats, and half a horse.' He states, nevertheless, that—

'without subsidiary means of existence, the most frugal families cannot subsist on them, even when free from debt and other incumbrances. There can be no question of employing hired labour on such farms, although a domestic servant is sometimes kept. The owners or tenants of such small properties seek their principal means of existence in fishing, forest work, and a variety of other occupations.'

The group of properties more particularly admired by Mr. Laing is that which is officially classed under 'Properties of medium size,' ranging between two and ten skylddaler in cadastral value. They represented in 1870 only 24 per cent. of the total number of properties, but 59 per cent. of the cadastral area of Norway. These are the farms which can, on an average, feed fifteen head of cattle, thirty or forty sheep or goats, and a couple of pigs, and yield 30 imperial quarters of cereals, 40 imperial quarters of potatoes, and fodder for a couple of horses.

'Agriculture on these properties,' continues Dr. Broch, 'is not only the most important means of existence, but also in many cases the only resource.They suffice for a family of simple habits, provided the proprietor is not crippled with debt, that he has not to pay too heavy "föderåa"(annuities, incumbrances)and on condition that he lives as a peasant, assisting personally in the work of the firm,[14]

Estates of an assessed value of more than ten 'skylddaler' are designated as 'Large Properties.' They cover 13.4 per cent. of the total cadastral area, but represent only 1.3 per cent. of the total number of properties; and it is exclusively these that afford, according to Dr. Broch, 'easy circumstances to their possessors, who are not infrequently ship-owners, forest-owners, engaged in the fishery-trade,'&c.

It is thus manifest that, in 1878, when Dr. Broch drew up his Report for the Universal Exhibition at Paris, the diffusion of property in Norway had left only about 25 per cent. of the yeomen farmers (excluding the group of 'Large Properties') capable of maintaining themselves and their families on their freeholds on conditions which, as we shall presently show, no longer exist, and that the great bulk of the landed proprietors were in occupation of such small patches of land that their subsistence was entirely dependent upon other employments. This view is very fully borne out by the 'Reports of the Norwegian Prefects for the Quinquennial Period 1876-80.' Their observations on the growing subdivision of land as one of the causes by which the agricultural economy has been disturbed, to its great disadvantage, are well worth attention.

An increasing subdivision of land is reported from the provinces of North Bergen, Romsdal, South Trondhjem, and Tromsö. The Prefect of North Bergen points to it as one of the reasons of the unfavorable condition of the province:—

'It may,' he writes, 'with just cause be said to exist when the properties parcelled out are insufficient for the maintenance of a family, and when the farms are situated in a locality which does not afford the opportunity of some kind of subsidiary employment, or if the proprietor of such a small holding cannot attach himself to another man as a labourer for hire. When utilised, however, by the inhabitants of the coast, such subdivision cannot be regarded as excessive, for the owners of the small patches are able to obtain for themselves and their families the necessaries of life by fishing. When, however, a landowner, on account of the insignificant extent or the small productiveness of his farm, finds himself unable to subsist without seeking the wages of a labourer, his position is not better, or but little better, than that of the cotter (Husmand) alongside of him, notwithstanding that the latter is not owner of the land he cultivates. It is a matter of course that such farmers will be destitute of economical power, and unable to give the communal or the provincial exchequer any visible contribution towards the funds that have to be raised in order to meet the public expenditure. The existence of such small proprietors is not, on the whole, desirable.'

In the province of South Trondhjem the great increase of the indebtedness of the landowners is ascribed in part to the subdivision of property by the creation ofMyrmœnd, literally 'bogmen' (bog-trotters?), or men supplied gratuitously, in recent times, with small plots of waste land, for the purpose of qualifying them as voters. Subdivision has likewise resulted from the partition of holdings in common, which, according to Dr. Broch, formed, in 1870, 13.4 per cent. of all the properties in Norway; principally in the Western Provinces, from the Naze to the Fiordof Trondhjem, where they constituted at that period, on the average as much as 30 per cent. of the landed property. Under a law passed in 1857, those lands are now divisible or exchangeable, and it appears from the report of the Prefects that the demands in that direction cannot be satisfied by the Government officials with sufficient promptness. In the province of South Trondhjem, for instance, about 40 per cent. of the properties were still held in common in 1875, but between 1876 and 1880 the partition of such lands was advancing 'at the rate of about twenty farms per annum.'

The Prefect of Romsdal enumerates the causes of an increasing subdivision of landed property as follows: 1. The clearing of land for fields and meadows with the view of affording support to more families than one. 2. The desire of a proprietor to let more of his children than the nearestOdelsberretige[15]come into the possession of his estate. 3. In the case of an indebted proprietor, the necessity of parting with a portion of his land in order to get clear of his creditors; and 4. The desire on the part of persons who have no real property to come into the possession of land, especially tenants and cotters. The yeomen farmers themselves, he reports:

'bring forward as a substantial reason for the increasing subdivision of land the fact that, owing to the growing difficulty of obtaining labourers,it does not pay to remain in possession of a larger estate than can be worked by the family itself.'

Consequently, the number of holdings was increased in that province by nearly 10 per cent. between 1876 and 1880. A corroboration of this view is to be found in other Reports, particularly in the Report from the Province of North Trondhjem, in which the yeomen farmers are declared to be compelled to 'cultivate the land with the resources of their own households.' The effect of the conversion of cotters into small proprietors may be estimated from the following opinion of another Prefect: 'The burden of bad times is often felt more heavily by the proprietor than by the cotter;' and all the Reports show that 'the times' are as bad in Norway as they are in the United Kingdom, with this aggravation, that 70 to 80 per cent. of the population of Norway is settled on the land, and steeped in debt.

Most of the Prefects report unfavourably on the condition and prospects of agriculture, and on the depressing influence of American competition in corn, which began to make itselfdistinctly felt about the year 1875,[16]when also the forest industry, so intimately connected with agriculture, first encountered the effects of a greatly increased shipment of timber from America and other countries to Europe. But these are not the only reasons, over and above the subdivision of property already dwelt upon, to which they ascribe a very general decline in the economic condition of the yeomen farmer. In one province, 'habits of thrift and providence had been awakened and replaced by new habits of life, with greater demands for comforts and enjoyments.' High prices previously realized for timber had caused luxury to enter into all the circumstances of life, stimulating in many quarters a reckless waste of money earned.' In another, 'the demand for comforts of life has risen, and it is not all that have found it easy to limit the satisfaction of their wants,' and 'more has been consumed than means allowed.' The female part, more particularly, of the population of North Bergen, is reproached with an inability to withstand the temptation of buying the wares of all kinds, 'neither useful nor necessary,' which the present great number of country storekeepers insidiously placed before their eyes. 'The improved mode of living introduced during a previous, flourishing period, has also contributed to ruin the economic condition of the people, who in the harder times that have succeeded have not known how to cut their coats according to their cloth.' At the same time, the Prefect adds, 'the mode of living, taking the rural population as a whole, is very frugal; yes, far too frugal. It is very desirable that they should have more substantial food than they have at present, but they must first have the means to obtain it.' Even so far north as the Provinces of Nordland and Tromsö, a similar tendency to live beyond means, the absence of good economy, and the dissipation of money 'on no particular system,' are reported to be the present characteristics of the people who are largely engaged in the fisheries.

No one who has travelled in Norway can fail to endorse the assertion, that the fare of the yeomen farmer, however many may be his cows, is of a character which no English agricultural labourer would be satisfied with. Oatmeal cakes, potatoes, porridge, butter and milk, and of late years American pork (when within reach of the yeoman's means) are the principal articles of food; and the hardiest traveller, whether native or alien, would not venture to leave the main arteries of communication without making his own provision of potted meats, or trustingfor his sustenance to the fish and game to be killed by himself. Mr. Laing's 'salted meat and black-puddings' are certainly not to be found, except at farms that are few and far between. On the high roads, where tourists' gold circulates, the traveller suffers no deprivation, and the houses and stations are so comfortable and well-appointed, that only the most exacting foreigner can find fault with the accommodation provided. Mr. Laing's observations in this respect apply at present only to establishments of this kind, and to the very few farms at which the servants are still 'called to and from their work by means of a bell.'

Except, therefore, along the course of the tourists' gold stream, and in the vicinity of towns, the mode of living is rude in the extreme, and the lament of the Prefect of North Bergen is in reality applicable to the great bulk of the yeomen farmers of Norway, as well as to their tenants and cotters. Nor is there any trace of that equality in the mode of living which Mr. Laing found in existence among the several classes of the rural population—'the public functionary, the clergyman, the gentleman of larger property, and theBondeor peasant.' Refinement and culture, equal to what exists amongst corresponding classes of this country, are wanting only to the yeomen farmers; and their efforts to adopt a 'higher standard of living,' and to acquire the 'comforts of life,' have in no small degree conduced to the encumbrance of their estates. From the Reports of the Prefects it is evident that the gravest symptom of the decline of the rural economy in Norway, and, at the same time, one of its principle causes, is the heavy indebtedness of the yeomen farmers, great and small. Its origin is traceable to the year 1816, when the Bank of Norway was founded, chiefly for the purpose of 'advancing on its own notes, upon first securities over land, any sum not exceeding two-thirds of the value of the property' mortgaged to it. Mr. Laing alludes to it as 'the peculiar, and for the wants of the country, well-imagined, Bank of Norway,' which 'facilitates greatly the family arrangements with regard to land.' Its capital was originally raised by a forced loan or tax upon all landed property, and the landholders became shareholders according to the amount of their respective shares. The borrower repaid half-yearly to the Bank the interest of the sum that might be to his debit at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum, and was also bound to pay off 5 per cent. yearly of the principal, which was thus liquidated in twenty years. Although Mr. Laing was of opinion that 'a circulation of paper money on such a basis is evidently next, in point of security, to that of the precious metals,' he fails to mention that the Bank was forced tosuspend specie payments three years after its establishment, and that the resumption of those payments was not commenced until 1823, when the notes of the Bank began to be convertible at little over half their original value; the operation of raising them to par, on a graduated scale, having been completed only in 1842, a period since which the Bank, with an increased Reserve Fund, has maintained an uninterrupted and unimpeachable stability. But while the Bank still advances money on the security of landed property, two-thirds of its resources are now employed in the discount of mercantile bills. At the end of 1883, its loans to the landed proprietors amounted only to 626,000l.

In 1852, however, the State had come again to the assistance of the landowners for the extinction of private mortgages and the consolidation of old debts by the creation of a special 'State Mortgage Bank,' with an original capital of 291,000l., increased by successive issues of bonds representing advances on the security of real property, bearing interest at the rate of 4 per cent, (at present 4-1/2 per cent.), and repayable by drawings over a period of thirty years. The amount of the bonds issued up to 1884 was about 3,812,000l., and in 1878 about three-quarters of the bonds were held in the country itself, their market value being still almost at par.

It is principally into this Bank that the yeomen farmers have been dipping their estates at a rapidly increasing rate. Thus, while the loans on the security of real property in rural districts averaged 57,500l.per annum between 1853 and 1855, and 220,600l.between 1876 and 1880, the advances made in 1883 amounted to 396,500l.At the end of that year the balance of outstanding loans had reached the sum of 3,752,000l., of which about 77 per cent., or 2,889,000l., represented advances in rural districts, the remaining 23 per cent, having been borrowed in towns. The interest payable on those loans is respectively 4-1/4 and 4-3/4 per cent., according to whether the borrowers have been supplied with bonds bearing interest at the rate of 4 or 4-1/2 per cent. per annum; and 3 per cent. of the capital is repayable per annum until the extinction of the debt over a period of thirty years.

There is a third public source available to the landed proprietors for loans on mortgages and on bonds or bills, namely the Savings Banks. In 1884, the savings-banks, in rural districts alone, held in 'mortgage bonds' and in 'bonds and bills' a sum of about 3,553,000l.; but in what proportion that debt was incurred by local traders and by farmers, it is impossible to say. It is, however, clear that the yeomen farmers have benefitedlargely by the deposits made in those banks by the comparatively few who have been able to accumulate, instead of borrowing, money. Thus, the Prefect of Hedemarken reports that, 'while large amounts, realized by the sale of timber, were deposited in the savings-banks, extensive loans were made by those establishments to persons in less favourable circumstances,' and that 'the savings-banks, to be found in so many parishes, have, by the easy access they afford to loans, beguiled many into a needless borrowing of money, subsequently squandered.'

Over and above these facilities for borrowing money from public institutions, the yeomen farmers are undoubtedly heavily in debt to local storekeepers, and to merchants and traders in the towns. In fact the great bulk of the landed proprietors have been borrowing in every direction as much as they could raise by mortgage or by bill. Owing to the excellent system of registration that exists in Norway, there is no difficulty in ascertaining the extent to which the charges on real property in rural districts have increased between the years 1876 and 1880. It appears from the Reports of the Prefects that, between those dates, the balance of mortgages newly effected over those extinguished in rural districts amounted to a sum of about four millions sterling. The State Mortgage Bank is bound not to advance more than six-tenths of the value of land and buildings (forests excepted), and it is supposed that the loans have so far not exceeded four-tenths of the value of mortgaged property; but as the yeomen farmers generally contrive to borrow on second mortgages, it may safely be assumed, that their estates are charged with interest at 4-1/4 to 6 per cent. on a considerable part of the nominal value of what is not purely forest land, in addition to an annual repayment of 3 per cent. of the capital borrowed from the State Mortgage Bank. The forests, on the other hand, have been largely used up in paying the interest and capital on those loans, either by cutting them down, or by leasing or pawning them to traders, or to yeomen who have been able to keep their heads above water and to profit by the economic distress of the great majority of their fellow-landowners. The difficulty experienced by that majority in meeting the payment of interest and capital, especially at a time when the value of agricultural produce has been considerably diminished by American competition, and when also the competition of American and Baltic timber has simultaneously reduced the profits of the forest industry to a point that hardly repays the felling of trees, is clearly shown from the statistics of forced sales, of auctions and of distraints in the rural districts, and from an accompanying increase in the number of lawsuits before Courtsof First Instance. It appears from the Reports of the Prefects that the sales of real property for debt have increased in every Province between the two periods 1871-1875 and 1876-1880 to an extent that ranges from 30 per cent. to 600 per cent., the greatest increase having taken place in the Provinces of Kristiansamt (600 per cent.), Norland, Nedenæs, Buskerud, Hedemarken and Akershus, where it ranged between 600 per cent. and 146 per cent. From another official source we obtain the following statement:—

Number.Amount.1. Compulsory sales of real property in rural districts.2513563,000l.averaging 224l.per sale.2. Do. of personal property.5136134,000l.ditto 26l.per sale.3. Distraints for arrears of taxes, &c.—1,089,000l.

But since real property is of comparatively low value in Norway, and personal property limited mostly to the veriest necessities of life, it is not so much the total of the amounts realized by forced sales, or the sums for which 'executions' and 'distraints' were effected, that give the measure of the depressed condition of the yeomen farmers, as the great and steady increase that took place between 1876 and 1880 in the number of those operations. Thus, while the number of forced sales of real property in towns, as well as in rural districts, was 424 in 1876, it had grown to 1378 in 1880. It is therefore not surprising to find in the Reports of the Prefects from which we have so largely drawn our figures that 'the means of meeting liabilities and of paying taxes at the proper time have grown more feeble, and recourse to legal enforcement of pecuniary claims has consequently become more frequent.' 'The condition of this Province' (Kristiansamt) 'is all the worse from a pretty widespread misuse of credit during the previous period' (1871-75). In another province (N. Bergen) we find that the depression in 1879 and 1880 'compelled those who had claims to enforce them rigorously. Mortgages, distraints, sales, &c., have therefore increased, and there has been an exceptionally, large number of suits before the Courts of Mutual Agreement. 'The value of agricultural produce has fallen, owing to a great extent to a scarcity of money and to great competition from a desire to convert as much produce as possible into money.' In the northern province of Tromsö 'merchants have suffered from the impoverishment of their customers' (mostly fishermen as well as landowners), 'and have caused them to be made bankrupts.Credit has been misused on a large scale. Its facility induces the population to live beyond its means. It also encourages traders to set up in business and get customers with ease, without having capital or means of their own. The one misuse reacts on the other. All products are sunk considerably in value, and this fall is even greater in the case of real estate.'

The latter statement is not generally applicable to the remaining provinces, for we find that while the average value of the 'skylddaler,' or unit of assessment, was 153l.,[17]according to prices paid for land in 1871-1875, it has risen to about 180l.in 1876-1880, thus confuting Mr. Laing's theory, that the peculiar succession of property would tend to keep land at a low value. It would not, however, be right to conclude from these figures that landed property has, on the whole, increased of late years in value, despite the general indebtedness of its owners. Land in the vicinity of towns and railways must naturally become more and more valuable, and the relatively much higher prices paid for such land have no doubt had the effect of raising the total average deduced from sales of every description of landed property. It may also be assumed that the demand for land is artificially increased by the facility with which it may be purchased, since at least one-half of the purchase money generally remains on mortgage, in addition to other encumbrances. At the same time, the financial institutions, to which so large a proportion of the real property in Norway is mortgaged, are interested in maintaining its value, and attain their object by abstaining from offering at any one period too many defaulting properties for sale; and it may also be suspected that the statistics of forced sales represent only cases in which no compromise could be effected, or in which it was expedient or possible to have recourse to the ultimate means of recovery without sensibly deteriorating locally the value of landed property. Cases are, in fact, not infrequent in which the mortgagees find themselves compelled to retain the property of the defaulter, and either to place it in the hands of caretakers, with the hope of future realization on more favourable terms, or to sell it in small lots as opportunity occurs. In any case, the full and exact effect of the pawning of all the landed property of the country at a time when its agriculture has to compete with American cereals, its timber industry with supplies from America and the Baltic, and its wooden ships with iron steamerstransporting cargoes at an almost nominal freight, is not yet to be found in statistical records.

The indisputable fact remains that, notwithstanding the existence of a system of land tenure which, according to Mr. Laing, was so perfect between 1834 and 1836 as to render its adoption in this country, and especially in Ireland, highly desirable, the yeomen farmers of Norway—framers of their own laws and absolute masters of their own destinies—are not only at present suffering from the commercial and agricultural depression that obtains in other countries of Europe, in which the social state is more or less differently constituted, but also find themselves, in face of that depression, with exceptionally heavy burdens on their backs in the form of pecuniary indebtedness at a rate of interest which mere agriculture, under the most favourable circumstances, cannot possibly afford to pay.

This heavy indebtedness has not, as a rule, been incurred for productive purposes, such as drainage, improved methods of agriculture, the increase of stock, &c.; and although the use of simple agricultural machinery is somewhat on the increase in Norway, yet agriculture remains very much in the same primitive condition in which it was found by Mr. Laing.[18]The Prefects attribute this backwardness to want of skill on the part of the proprietors (Romsdal), to the poverty of the soil, to the dearness of agricultural labour, and generally to the unremunerative results of husbandry since the depreciation of the value of its products. In a letter addressed last year to the 'Morgenblad,' the leading Journal at Christiania, by a native authority on the subject of agriculture, it is urged that the landed proprietors of Norway have 'for some years past been going down hill;' the hopes of improving the condition of agriculture, entertained about thirty years ago, when efforts were first commenced in that direction, being now entirely dissipated.

'It is painful,' he says 'to see how the forests are decreasing and how land once under cultivation is lying unused. When asked the reason, the proprietors reply that the prices of corn and other agricultural products are so low and the wages of labour so high, owing to emigration, that they have not the means to cultivate a large portion of the land, and could derive no advantage from it even if the means were available.'

The yeomen farmers, being therefore in a distressed condition,and their children and best hands forced to leave their homes in order to cultivate the fruitful soil of America, to the growing detriment of those who remain to till the soil of Norway—those farmers, he points out with great force of argument, must have the same protection which is accorded to the industrial classes, if agriculture is to be saved from final ruin. In fact, this remarkable letter points to an agitation in favour of the imposition of a 'fiscal duty,'[19]on corn, food of all kind, cattle, dairy produce, &c.; and supports this conclusion with the argument used by Prince Bismarck on the second reading of his recent Corn Duties Bill:

'The trade of the Baltic will suffer nothing from protective duties. As regards agriculture, I am opposed to all legislation against the subdivision of land ... but if you want to have small occupiers of land, you must vote for duties on corn.'

Account must at the same time be taken of the heavy and increasing charges that fall on landed property for the administration of rural districts in Norway. While the inhabitants of the rural communities contribute towards the support of the Central Administration only in the form of Customs and Excise duties, stamps, succession duties, and contributions towards the construction of highways, the burthen of local administration, justice, police, prisons, the Church, public instruction, poor relief, sanitary service, parochial roads, posting stations, interest on communal loans, &c., falls on their landed property. This self-assessed and self-imposed burthen has naturally been growing more heavy, from year to year, under the exigencies of modern progress. Thus, while the total communal expenditure in 1853 was 167,000l., it had risen to 497,000l.in 1880, or 197-1/2 per cent. About one half of the requisite resources is derived from a tax on the cadastral value of real property; the remaining half is raised by a tax on capital and income. In 1880 the communal impositions on land represented a taxation of about 6s.7d. per head of the rural population. That the whole of the communal expenditure is not covered by taxation is apparent from the fact, that in the same year the rural districts had increased the amount of their total debts to about half a million sterling, from 312,000l.in 1874.

In this respect it is certainly significant to discover that Poor Relief, organized by a law passed in 1863, is the largest item of communal expenditure, being indeed very little less than half of the total annual liabilities of the rural districts, in a countryin which, in the halcyon days of Mr. Laing, only the infirm were supported for a few days at a time by the yeomen farmers. He appears to have attributed this to the absence of collieries, the introduction of coal as fuel having, he argues, been coëval in England with the imposition of a rate for the poor, deprived by that industry of the work of chopping up firewood which gave so much employment to idle hands in Norway. However that might be, in 1880 and 1881 the number of persons in receipt of relief or maintained in hospital, at the charge of rural communities alone, was respectively 109,688 and about 114,000, or in both years a little over 7 per cent. of the total rural population. Inclusive of urban districts the same totals amounted in those years to 81 and 83 per 1000, or above 8 per cent. of the population of the kingdom, the cost of support having been about 3s.10d.per head of the entire population, which contributed 2s.9d.per head in special taxation for that object, and the balance in an indirect manner, apparently by housing paupers, &c.

These paupers include cotters and labourers, as well as the ruined among the smaller yeomen. Farmers who had previously been able to employ labour, 'no longer find their advantage in it,' and consequently—

'even able-bodied workmen (in Hedemarken) were compelled to seek relief from the Poor Fund when their families were large. The smaller farmers and the labourers are in the worst plight, since the falling off in the timber trade has made them feel the want of the usual steady demand for labour at high wages.' Further: 'it has become very difficult for the least affluent and for labourers to gain a livelihood in the prevailing money and timber crisis.... The depression must for a long time be felt by many.

We need only point out that, in the United Kingdom, the percentage of persons in receipt of relief during the year 1881 was 3 per cent. in England and Wales, 2.6 per cent. in Scotland, and 11 per cent. in Ireland,[20]involving an expenditure at the rate respectively of 6s.3d., 4s.6d., and 3s.9d. per head of population.

Obviously, the relatively greater cost of relieving the poor in Great Britain is due to the more expensive character of the support afforded, and to the very heavy sums paid for salaries and other establishment charges; but it is unquestionably a damaging fact against the system of land tenure in Norway, that the pauperism by which it is in the present day accompanied, with a strong tendency to increase, is equalled only by the stateof things in Ireland, which certain legislators now desire to remedy by the creation of peasant proprietors.

The relative state of matters in Great Britain and in Norway has therefore greatly changed since Mr. Laing wrote:

'The distribution of the wealth and employment of a country has much more to do, than the amount, with the well-being and condition of the people. The wealth and employment of the British nation far exceed those of any other nation; yet in no country is so large a proportion of the inhabitants sunk in pauperism and wretchedness.'

An increasing rate of pauperism is one of the symptoms of agricultural distress in Norway, but the strong tide of emigration from rural and urban districts marks with equal force the depression and congestion from which the country is suffering in the same degree as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Aided by improved and cheapened means of transport, the number of emigrants from Norway ranged between 20,212 in 1880 and 22,167 in 1883, giving an average of 1.3 to 1.5 per cent. of the total population, the contingent of the rural districts being about 70 per cent. of the total number. As in the case of pauperism, the corresponding rate of emigration from Ireland, namely 1.5 per cent., exhibits a remarkable similarity, and affords another convincing proof that peasant proprietorship is nopanaceafor rustic indigence.

Those who have not studied the present economic condition of the yeoman farmer and agricultural labourer in Norway, or who have not taken into consideration the change that has come over the entire country, and the ambition, as distinguished from previous apathy, which education and communication with an outer world, no longer closed to them, has awakened among the classes with which we are dealing, are inclined to attribute a good part of this emigrating tendency to the influence and the material assistance of those who have gone before. Indisputably, the Norwegian emigrant, by his persevering labour and steady conduct, rarely fails to succeed in Wisconsin and other States, in which he is always a welcome settler; and consequently he soon finds himself able to transmit money for the purpose of enabling his brothers and sisters, and not seldom his father and mother, to join him. No State or other aid is afforded for such purposes to Norwegians, although it is occasionally the case, that the hard cash with which the emigrant leaves his home is derived from the proceeds of a loan raised by the head of his family for the purpose of buying out co-heirs under theOdels ret, adding thereby, as we have already shown, to the indebtedness with which the land is burdened. Others, also, maintain that many young men emigrate fromNorway in order to avoid military conscription, which, although milder there in its demands than in most other European countries where that system exists, undoubtedly diminishes the quantity and deteriorates the quality of agricultural labour. The strongest incentive to emigration, however, is the desire to escape from the misery and penury which accompany in Norway, as in every other part of Europe, the condition of a small landowner, cotter, or labourer who is unable to find regular employment on adjoining estates that can be kept going, if nothing more, with the aid of scientific knowledge, machinery and capital.

There is, however, yet another proof of the prevalent materialmalaisein Norway, particularly among its rural classes, and strangely enough it bears the same character as that which has brought the 'three acres and a cow' and Irish land bills, past and expected, into such prominent relief in our country of lack-lands, namely political agitation. Whatever may be its merits or demerits on this side of the North Sea, our readers will scarcely be prepared to learn that a corresponding ferment has been engendered of late years on the opposite shores. We are told this by the Prefect of South Trondhjem, one of the most important provinces of a country where, in the days of Mr. Laing, there was a dead-level of contentment, where the widest form of home-rule has been in operation since the early part of the present century, and where the Crown Administration has all that time been more pure, blameless and efficient than in any other country on the Continent of Europe. His significant words are:

'As everywhere else in Norway, particularly in rural districts, politicians (i. e. agitators) are here taking more and more hold over the minds of the people. Political unrest increases, and immature and extreme opinions are being advanced more than is desirable. The quiet, temperate, but progressive development to which Norway had previously been accustomed, and with which the great bulk of the nation had been well content, is in danger of being replaced by a progress in fits and starts, accompanied by leaps in the dark.'

No less painful and suggestive is it to find, in the Report from the Prefect of Hedemarken, that 'the Christian earnestness of the people has suffered under the influence of the many misleading writings and tendencies which have in recent times found their way into every stratum of society.' As at home, so in Norway, the question of Church Disestablishment, with all its consequences, is approaching within measurable distance of practical solution.[21]

Supported by official publications, we have now described the present condition of the yeomen farmers of Norway, and from the facts and figures we have marshalled, the following replies may confidently be given to the Socialistic theories and conclusions of Mr. Laing:

1. Notwithstanding, or rather in part owing to, the existence of the Allodial Right [which has proved in its results to be an exaggerated form of primogeniture involving a greater multiplication of encumbrances even than exists under the system of land tenure in the United Kingdom], an excessive subdivision of the land has occurred and is still proceeding in Norway, to the prejudice of estates which in 1836, and even later, afforded moderate ease and contentment to their owners, and relatively well remunerated labour to the workman and the cotter.

2. The dead-level of comfortable subsistence, attributed by Mr. Laing to the parcelling-out of land into small estates, has been converted, by the influence of irresistible economic laws, into one of general distress and discontent among the rural classes.

3. The rates of pauperism and emigration prove that the agrarian population has not, as prophesied by Mr. Laing, kept 'within the bounds of possible modern existence.'

4. The taxation of landed property, for local purposes, has greatly increased, particularly under the head of Poor Relief; and

5. The distressed condition of the yeoman farmer in Norway is strongly attested by his heavy and growing indebtedness. He may now, in fact, be classed with the proverbially derided Fife laird, owning 'A wee bit of land, a great lump of debt, and a dookit.'[22]

Such being the result of our enquiries into the economic condition of the great bulk of the yeoman farmers of Norway, the ideal fabric reared by Mr. Laing at a time when the Norse old world was still asleep, falls utterly to the ground, and there remains but one of his statements that we can with any advantage submit to the earnest attention of our readers, namely, that 'A single fact brought home from such a country is worth a volume of speculations.' We go further and say, that facts in relation to the question of land tenure collected in any other part of Europe are of equally inestimable value; and they have already been supplied in great abundance from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.[23]Nothing can trulybe more fatal to the successful solution of such intricate problems than the relief of the agricultural distress of England and Scotland, or the satisfaction of the alleged earth-hunger of the Celtic population of Ireland, than to initiate legislation on the hypothesis that circumstances alter cases, and that our own country can with impunity be withdrawn from the operation of economic laws that have asserted their supremacy throughout the entire Continent of Europe.

As history repeats itself, so are the laws of civilized development both general and inexorable. Even in the extreme case of Russia, it has been proved, in an article we published a few years ago,[24]that a heavy and ruinous price has been paid for the emancipation of the serfs on a Socialistic and partly Communistic basis, and on the erroneous assumption, that the continued existence of the 'Mir' (the ancient village community even of India) was an institution indigenous to the country itself, and therefore worthy of being perpetuated by legislation. Millions of a rural population, freed from personal servitude, were chained anew to the land by the indebtedness incurred in the expropriation of the lords of the soil. The allotments, averaging ten acres, parcelled out among them in 1861, were estimated to be sufficiently large and productive to provide not only for their support, but also, firstly, for the payment of the 'redemption dues' with which the allotted lands were charged for a limited period of years at an average rate of only 1s.9d. per acre, and secondly, for the punctual payment of the moderate poll-tax, which the exigencies of the State required them to contribute. Those expectations began to vanish soon after they had been formed, and at the present time we see the previously rich agricultural plains of Russia, abandoned, as they almost wholly are, to the slovenly husbandry of a rude and greatly demoralized peasantry, deteriorating from year to year in the quality of their produce, and thereby opposing less and less impediment to the successful competition of other corn-growing countries.[25]The great fall that has taken place in the value of Russian cereals is apparent from the fact that, notwithstanding the depreciation of the paper currency of the country to the extent of about 25 per cent. since the serfs were emancipated (and nearly 37 per cent.from the par value of the standard rouble), the corn-grower in Russia actually receives for his produce, in paper money, some 40 per cent, less than he obtained for it when the currency was less debased.

Despair, and the absence of that restraint which education, and the moral elevation inseparable from it, are establishing in other European countries, have driven the rural inhabitants of entire districts, and even provinces, into habits of drunkenness stronger and more general than those which existed before the autocratic creation of 'peasant proprietors' in Russia.

Among the earliest measures adopted in Russia during the present reign was that of a reduction and partial remission of the 'redemption dues,' which, on the 1st of January, 1885, represented the interest and sinking fund on nearly 113 millions sterling,[26]expended by the Government in the partial expropriation of the now ruined landlords of the country.[27]

During the year 1884, alone, those reductions and remissions inflicted a loss of 1,135,000l.[28]on the Imperial Treasury. The most recent measure of alleviation has been the total abolition of the poll-tax[29](to be completed by the end of the present year); and, consequently, the State-contribution of at least 85 per cent. of the population of Russia is being limited to the excise duty on drink, an item of revenue with which the Imperial Government cannot possibly dispense, since it brings in a sum more than adequate for the maintenance of the imposing military forces of the Empire.

Simultaneously, 'Peasant Land Banks' have been established by the State in order to facilitate the purchase of still more land by the ex-serfs. The Minister of Finance was authorized in 1882 to issue annually for that purpose a sum of 500,000l.in bonds, bearing 5-1/2 per cent. interest. But, by the 1st of January, 1886, these banks had already advanced over three millions sterling to 785 Communes, 1576 'partnerships,' and 359 individual peasants, representing an aggregate number of112,765 householders. On loans for 24-1/2 years the interest and sinking fund, payable by the borrowers, amount to 8-1/2 per cent., and on those for 34-1/2 years, to 7-1/2 per cent., the lands purchased by such means remaining inalienable until the extinction of the mortgages, except with the consent of the mortgagees,i. e.the banks. The effects of this new departure in the direction of providing small landed proprietors with State funds, will no doubt soon be apparent.

Whether, therefore, we examine the experience of a civilized, orderly, home-ruled country like Norway, with a steady, laborious, and, we may almost say, abstemious, population in many respects akin to our own, or that of a State still at an immensely distant stage of social development,—and under a very different form of Government,—the salient results of bolstering up, by means of State loans, or of artificially creating, equally at the cost of the State, a numerous body of small landed proprietors, have been strikingly identical in regard to the ultimate economic condition of the agrarian classes.

Insisting, as we do, on the strength of the facts we have adduced, that, in old Europe, the operation of economic laws affecting land tenure, admits of no exceptions or extenuating circumstances in favour of their violation, it appears impossible, without presumptuous sophistry or political dishonesty, to resist the conclusion, that the infringement of those laws in any part of the United Kingdom could only terminate, infallibly and speedily, in damage to the State, after ruin to the individual.

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