obviated in Germany by a provision allowing a remission 

 of duty to the exporters of corn in the shape of certifi- 

 cates entitling the holders to a rebate of equal amount on 

 certain articles — coffee, petroleum, flour, and corn — im- 

 ported from abroad. Thus, supposing one exports 1,000 

 tons of wheat, the exporter gets a certificate of the value 

 of 5,500 marks, which is the amount of duty which that 

 quantity of wheat would pay if it were imported. The 

 certificates can then be sold to an importer of coffee at 

 the usual discount, and the rebate is turned into an export 

 bounty. In this way the corn market is effectually relieved 

 from a superfluity of corn which might have reduced the 

 price, and the corn grower, even when selling abroad at 

 the world's market price, pockets his duty.* 



So far so good — not, indeed, for the consumer, but for 

 the corn grower. But who is that fortunate person who 

 is always secure of his additional "earning" of 5 marks 

 or 5 marks 50 pfennig per ton? Is it the small farmer? 

 Not in the least. Prince Hohenlohe, in the course of the 

 Agrarian debate in the Reichstag on March 29, 1895, 

 spoke as follows : f 



"Such proposals will by no means benefit all the 

 farmers. The major portion of farming concerns will 

 derive no benefit from them, and there are many which, 



* Report on Frankfort for 1908, pp. 17-19 ; Wurm, I.e., pp. 141-142. 

 This clever contrivance is operated under the cloak of the law, which 

 permits the free importation of goods intended for re-export, provided 

 they carry with them a proof of their identity. In the case of corn, 

 however, this latter provision was abolished in 1894, as a result of which 

 corn is exported as if it has been previously imported. The State loses 

 by this veiled system of export bounties enormously, the exports being, 

 of course, much larger than the imports. Thus, between August 1, 1908, 

 and July 1, 1909, the duty on rye yielded to the Exchequer ,£540,000, 

 and the expenditure in connection with the issue of the remission certificates 

 amounted to .£1,940,000. The difference — the taxpayers' money — was 

 pocketed by the exporting landlords. Recently the Government made an 

 attempt to justify the system in a Memorandum submitted to the Reichstag. 

 The arguments were torn to shreds by the Association of German Millers 

 in a counter Memorandum. See " Kolnische Zeitung," May 31, 1910. 



t Wurm, I.e., p. 133. 



