INDEBTEDNESS OF SMALL PROPRIETORS 87 



are very severe, amounting often to 1 1 per cent. 

 Under the law of equal partition among heirs, it is 

 necessary, since many estates are too small to sub- 

 divide, for one of the heirs to take the property and 

 pay the value of the shares to the coheirs ; this money 

 he raises by mortgage at heavy interest. Hence the 

 land itself is a very costly article, and absorbs, in its 

 mere acquisition, often far more than the peasant's 

 available capital, which is supplemented, therefore, by 

 heavy mortgages at high interest. Again, owing to 

 the pressure of population, intensive cultivation, with 

 its expensive implements, manures, and methods, is 

 necessary ; this demands a large working capital, while 

 the incessantly increasing taxes, imperial, provincial, 

 and commercial, whether on the land itself, on the 

 houses, or on succession, registration, etc., continually 

 involve greater expenditure. Losses, moreover, are 

 very frequent ; abnormally bad years are known in 

 Europe as in India, while the diseases of the vine and 

 silk worm, the ravages of drought, excessive rain and 

 hail, have caused incredible loss,* only to be counted 

 in hundreds of millions sterling, all of which, together 

 with the loss of produce and heavy fall of prices for 

 many years, has to be borne by the farmer-proprietor. 



a sale price of ^1,000 ; a gift at marriage is taxed at about 3^ per 

 cent, of the value if to a son, at about 7 per cent, if to a nephew, 

 and at 11J per cent, if to a more distant relative or stranger; an 

 inheritance is charged with succession duty of i^ per cent, if to a 

 son, and at rates up to iij per cent, in other cases; the capital is 

 arrived at in cases other than sale by multiplying the rent or real 

 income of the estate by 25. The above are simply the transfer 

 duties, and are exclusive of other fees, whether notarial or State. 



* For instance, it is stated that in France alone, in the two years 

 1879 and 1880, no less than 2,147,500 acres of vineyards were 

 entirely destroyed by the Phylloxera and frost. In Prussia, in the 

 three years ending 1880, 37 per cent, of the villages were, on the 

 average, damaged, in many cases seriously, by natural disasters not 

 capable of prevention, such as frost, drought, floods and wet, plant 

 diseases, vermin, etc. 



