*9 



the value of the estate has thus increased 200 per cent. 

 Similarly, an estate in Mecklenburg, recently acquired by 

 Prince Schaumburg-Lippe, was bought in 1890 by a 

 certain baron for 80,000 marks. He sold it a few years 

 afterwards for 200,000 marks, and now the prince has 

 bought it for 1,000,000 marks.* It is simply a case of 

 capitalisation of the Agrarian duties, and nothing more. 

 How, then, does the small farmer fare amidst this enormous 

 growth of land values ? It is evident that it is of no 

 advantage to him so long as he lives, because, should he 

 sell his land, he would cease to be an agriculturist and 

 lose his sole source of income. He is not like a large 

 landowner, who can sell his estate and, realising a good 

 sum, invest it in some more profitable undertaking. But 

 when he dies, what becomes of his land ? It cannot feed 

 his several sons, seeing that it only fed him alone with 

 great difficulty. It is the practicef in German peasant 

 families that one of the heirs should get the land and pay 

 out the others in cash. But if the land values are high, 

 the shares of the co-heirs will be equally high and will 

 entail on the new proprietor a correspondingly heavier 

 expenditure — in the majority of cases a debt just at the 

 beginning of his new career. This, in the best of cases, 

 when the land is the peasant's own. Should, however, 

 his land, or a portion of it, be rented, it stands to reason 

 that he has nothing to gain from the high land values, 

 but everything to lose. He can neither increase the size 

 of his farm nor, perhaps, retain his old one, and his 

 position will proportionately deteriorate. The growth of 

 land values, consequent upon the high protective duties, 

 is thus no help but a great hindrance to the development 

 of small estates and small farming. 



It may, then, be asked, what is the evidence supplied 

 by statistics with regard to the movement of landed 



* " Frankfurter Zeitung," June 8, 1910. 

 f Gothein, I.e., p. 14. 



