2 4 o PEASANT PROPRIETARY ABROAD 



substantial economies in their purchases, to produce 

 under better conditions, to market their supplies to 

 greater advantage, and to secure profits on a higher 

 scale than would otherwise be possible. So they 

 manage to make a living, and they even prosper, more 

 or less, under conditions in which the British farmer, 

 as an individualist, would hopelessly fail ; but this they 

 do in spite of, rather than because of, a system of 

 peasant proprietary which I, for one, would certainly 

 not care to see reproduced here. 



I will not attempt to deal with all the other countries 

 of Europe where the widespread ownership of small 

 properties has led to minute subdivision, burdensome 

 mortgages, chronic indebtedness (now relieved some- 

 what by agricultural credit banks), and lives of grinding 

 toil. But the case of Denmark is one which claims 

 special notice, inasmuch as that enterprising little 

 country has attracted so much attention of late years. 

 In regard to agricultural education and organization, 

 she has certainly secured remarkable results ; but when 

 one comes to look more closely at her much-boasted 

 system of land tenure, one finds some of the darker lines 

 of an otherwise pleasing picture. 



Nominally, the peasant proprietors who constitute so 

 important a section of the Danish people are ' free- 

 holders ' ; practically, they are saddled with a mortgage 

 debt estimated at about 60,000,000, and representing 

 55 per cent, of the value of their farms, with buildings, 

 stock, and improvements. This debt is largely, though 

 not entirely, due to certain Credit Associations which 

 were formed in Germany in the fifties to enable the 

 Danish agriculturists to purchase their farms or hold- 

 ings, mortgages up to 50 or 60 per cent, of the purchase 

 price being granted, with repayment extending over 

 periods of from 50 to TOO years. So the Danish farmers 



