96 AGRICULTURAL INDEBTEDNESS 



paying off usurious debts, of finding cheap capital to 

 pay off his coheirs, of combating, by cheaper capital, 

 the terrible fall in the prices of produce and the con- 

 tinuous rise of expenses, rather than capital to be 

 sunk in permanent improvements or invested in the 

 higher agriculture. 



' No statistics and little information are obtainable 

 regarding the debts under personal and chattel credit. 

 These must be enormous, since the "Jews" of Europe 

 play to the full the part of the Indian money-lender in 

 making advances on crops and on general status, in 

 selling to the peasants cattle and goods at credit prices, 

 while the poor, as everywhere, purchase all neces- 

 saries upon credit at very high rates. Further notice 

 of this matter will be found below, in considering the 

 action of the money-lender upon indebtedness. 



'To resume, the landed proprietors and tenants of 

 Europe are deeply mortgaged, especially the small 

 folk, who, moreover, have large debts on personal 

 credit which are not easily calculable. 



' These debts have increased in a greater degree than 

 the value of the property, which, on the other hand, is 

 far above that of fifty years ago. The causes of these 

 debts which have long existed, though not in the same 

 proportion and to nothing like the same amount, are — 

 (i) the purchase of land on credit; (2) the operation of 

 the laws of inheritance, by which a property is either 

 split up amongst the heirs, or, as is usual in the case 

 of small proprietors, taken by one heir, who pays his 

 coheirs the value of their shares, raising the sum by 

 a mortgage on the estate ; (3) great losses by season 

 and disease ; (4) a lowering of prices due to foreign 

 competition in produce ; (5) the weight of taxes, suc- 

 cession duties, previous debt, etc. ; (6) the action of 

 money-lenders ; (7) facility of borrowing ; (8) the 

 necessity — due to the increasing pressure of popula- 

 tion — for intensive agriculture, with its attendant need 

 for a larger working capital ; and (9) the social and 



