3 o6 RURAL DENMARK 



copious and comprehensive report; and a proposal for 

 the establishment of holdings for agricultural workers was 

 formulated and brought before the Folkething (the House 

 of Commons) on the ioth December 1896 by the Agri- 

 cultural Secretary, Mr. Sehested. The main point of this 

 proposal was that the State should enable the agricultural 

 labourer to become the possessor of land by providing 

 him with cheap loans. In order to obtain the loan, how- 

 ever, the agricultural labourer had to be the possessor of 

 one-fifth of the value of the property concerned, and the 

 size of the lot was fixed at 3 to 4 tondeland of average 

 quality. The Treasury might lend 1,300,000 kroner 

 yearly in five years, and the loans were to carry interest 

 at the rate of 3J per cent. 



This proposal, considered as an experiment, may be 

 said to offer good terms to the borrower. But it did not 

 find any encouragement in the Folkething, as the agita- 

 tors had promised the people much more. The u Left " 

 majority demanded that the yearly sum should be raised 

 to four million kroner, and the interest be fixed at only 

 3 per cent., and, finally, that the borrower's own capital 

 need only amount to one-tenth of the value of the pro- 

 perty. A u Left " minority wished to go still further, but 

 it could not compete with the Socialists, who offered six 

 to seven million kroner yearly at an interest of 2 per cent., 

 and at the same time demanded that all land belonging 

 to parsonages (glebes) should be seized for the purpose 

 of joint-farming experiments. The result was that the 

 Folkething carried the proposal of the majority and sent 

 it to the Landsthing (the Upper House). 



It is quite instructive to follow the proposal on its 

 further way and to observe how the more sober legislators 

 allowed themselves to be dragged from one position to the 

 next by the agitators. On the main points the Lands- 

 thing adhered to the Government proposal, and the Agri- 

 cultural Secretary declared that his intercession between 

 the Houses would be quite useless if the Folkething held 

 to its views. But when the scheme had wandered to and 



