170 Rents, Wages, and Profits in Agriculture 



classes of landlord and tenant farmer, 

 there can be no doubt as to the advantages 

 to the people concerned ; nor, again, as to 

 the progress of agriculture under the 

 system. In the normal case, the farmer can 

 much more advantageously employ his 

 capital in farming than in the purchase 

 of land. In fact, under the " English " 

 system the farmer is able to borrow 

 the land at an extremely low rate 

 far more cheaply than would be 

 possible under the most advantageous 

 mortgage. A reference to other countries 

 shows at once the importance of this con- 

 sideration. In all of them the occupying 

 owners are burdened more or less with a 

 weight of interest on mortgages. Take 

 the case of Denmark. Nominally, the 

 peasant proprietors are freeholders, but 

 they are saddled with a mortgage debt of 

 ^"60,000,000, which represents 55 per cent. 



