loo AGRICULTURAL INDEBTEDNESS 



terms — supplied food and seed, often of bad quality. 

 A year of excessive rain or drought is the money- 

 lender's opportunity, and very pitiful tales reached the 

 writer of this study of the action of the "Jews" in parts 

 of Wiirtemberg in the drought of 1893. The societies 

 of social economy and of agriculture, the State Assem- 

 bly, the public journals and individual statesmen, 

 lawyers and economists, have made special inquiries 

 and studies of this subject, which is described and 

 discussed in much detail in a recent Congress of the 

 Society for Social Economy (1888 — " Verin fiir social 

 Politik "), and in a debate in the German Parliament of 

 the same year. In fact, in 1880 Germany enacted a 

 most severe law against usury, and Austria has fol- 

 lowed that example in 1881 — a fact which in these 

 days is remarkable and significant, seeing that the law 

 was passed upon careful inquiries and reports. This 

 law provides that judges shall examine all cases where 

 usurious interest or transactions are brought to their 

 notice, and shall determine upon a consideration of 

 the facts and circumstances in each case whether 

 usury has been practised, their judgment carrying 

 with it a fine and imprisonment. This law has been 

 amended by a law of July, 1887. 



* In Italy usury is still more rife, and the accounts 

 given by Italians, English and French economists and 

 observers, by the great report of the Agricultural 

 Commission, and by numerous writers, are very har- 

 rowing. The pages of De Laveleye and Beauclerk 

 are open to the English reader. In French and Italian 

 writers most extraordinary usury is mentioned in 

 detail. Five per cent, per month for usury is common. 

 In one village where M. WoUemborg established a 

 credit institution interest varied from 20 to 200 per 

 cent. ; in another the little bank started by the same 

 philanthropist successfully lent money at 6 per cent, 

 to pay off debts with the usurers on which 30 to 100 

 per cent, was being paid, the successful action of the 



