94 AGRICULTURAL INDEBTEDNESS 



in the matter of crops, vineyards, cattle, etc., and to 

 the peasant "obtaining possession of his holding at too 

 great a cost, and exhausting the greater part of his 

 credit in the process. He has thus to commence farm- 

 ing without a sufficient working capital, and with no 

 reserve fund on which to fall back in bad years." It is 

 only in exceptional cases that holdings purchased and 

 worked on credit can clear off their indebtedness by 

 what they produce. In exceptional places the peasant 

 proprietor may hold his own without difficulty, but 

 " when his resources are limited to the uncertain pro- 

 duce of a small holding, his position, at best a pre- 

 carious one, must become untenable when exposed to 

 the stress of bad times." He must then part with his 

 land and emigrate either to the town or to other 

 countries. These latter remarks are quoted from 

 Switzerland, but equally apply to Europe generally, 

 and go far to explain the enormous emigration from 

 Germany, Italy, etc.* 



' The above is taken largely from Parliamentary 

 Paper, Commercial, No. 5, of 1891, a paper drawn up 

 from reports from the British Embassies in Europe, 

 which, again, are based chiefly upon local official 

 information, and are sometimes mere translations of 

 official communications from the respective European 

 Governments. Hence they have the stamp of authority. 



' A body of reports on the trade and credit systems 

 of Europe, drawn up by the American Consuls, state 

 similarly that mortgages are general and very heavy 

 upon landed property — e.g., in the Silesian province of 

 Prussia, where the first land-bank was started in 1769, 



* In reading these extracts it must be remembered that Sir F. A 

 Nicholson's report (vol. i.) was completed in 1895, and that these 

 reflections upon the indebtedness of the European peasantry were 

 penned before the modern agricultural revival had made itself felt. 

 In the next chapter will be found an account of the system by 

 which the European peasant has been taught thrift, co-operation, 

 and self-help, and by which he is gradually being liberated from 

 bondage to the usurer and the land-bank. 



