Part 14
Except, therefore, along the course of the tourists' gold stream, and in the vicinity of towns, the mode of living is rude in the extreme, and the lament of the Prefect of North Bergen is in reality applicable to the great bulk of the yeomen farmers of Norway, as well as to their tenants and cotters. Nor is there any trace of that equality in the mode of living which Mr. Laing found in existence among the several classes of the rural population--'the public functionary, the clergyman, the gentleman of larger property, and the _Bonde_ or peasant.' Refinement and culture, equal to what exists amongst corresponding classes of this country, are wanting only to the yeomen farmers; and their efforts to adopt a 'higher standard of living,' and to acquire the 'comforts of life,' have in no small degree conduced to the encumbrance of their estates. From the Reports of the Prefects it is evident that the gravest symptom of the decline of the rural economy in Norway, and, at the same time, one of its principle causes, is the heavy indebtedness of the yeomen farmers, great and small. Its origin is traceable to the year 1816, when the Bank of Norway was founded, chiefly for the purpose of 'advancing on its own notes, upon first securities over land, any sum not exceeding two-thirds of the value of the property' mortgaged to it. Mr. Laing alludes to it as 'the peculiar, and for the wants of the country, well-imagined, Bank of Norway,' which 'facilitates greatly the family arrangements with regard to land.' Its capital was originally raised by a forced loan or tax upon all landed property, and the landholders became shareholders according to the amount of their respective shares. The borrower repaid half-yearly to the Bank the interest of the sum that might be to his debit at the rate of 4 per cent. per annum, and was also bound to pay off 5 per cent. yearly of the principal, which was thus liquidated in twenty years. Although Mr. Laing was of opinion that 'a circulation of paper money on such a basis is evidently next, in point of security, to that of the precious metals,' he fails to mention that the Bank was forced to suspend specie payments three years after its establishment, and that the resumption of those payments was not commenced until 1823, when the notes of the Bank began to be convertible at little over half their original value; the operation of raising them to par, on a graduated scale, having been completed only in 1842, a period since which the Bank, with an increased Reserve Fund, has maintained an uninterrupted and unimpeachable stability. But while the Bank still advances money on the security of landed property, two-thirds of its resources are now employed in the discount of mercantile bills. At the end of 1883, its loans to the landed proprietors amounted only to 626,000l.
In 1852, however, the State had come again to the assistance of the landowners for the extinction of private mortgages and the consolidation of old debts by the creation of a special 'State Mortgage Bank,' with an original capital of 291,000l., increased by successive issues of bonds representing advances on the security of real property, bearing interest at the rate of 4 per cent, (at present 4-1/2 per cent.), and repayable by drawings over a period of thirty years. The amount of the bonds issued up to 1884 was about 3,812,000l., and in 1878 about three-quarters of the bonds were held in the country itself, their market value being still almost at par.
It is principally into this Bank that the yeomen farmers have been dipping their estates at a rapidly increasing rate. Thus, while the loans on the security of real property in rural districts averaged 57,500l. per annum between 1853 and 1855, and 220,600l. between 1876 and 1880, the advances made in 1883 amounted to 396,500l. At the end of that year the balance of outstanding loans had reached the sum of 3,752,000l., of which about 77 per cent., or 2,889,000l., represented advances in rural districts, the remaining 23 per cent, having been borrowed in towns. The interest payable on those loans is respectively 4-1/4 and 4-3/4 per cent., according to whether the borrowers have been supplied with bonds bearing interest at the rate of 4 or 4-1/2 per cent. per annum; and 3 per cent. of the capital is repayable per annum until the extinction of the debt over a period of thirty years.
There is a third public source available to the landed proprietors for loans on mortgages and on bonds or bills, namely the Savings Banks. In 1884, the savings-banks, in rural districts alone, held in 'mortgage bonds' and in 'bonds and bills' a sum of about 3,553,000l.; but in what proportion that debt was incurred by local traders and by farmers, it is impossible to say. It is, however, clear that the yeomen farmers have benefited largely by the deposits made in those banks by the comparatively few who have been able to accumulate, instead of borrowing, money. Thus, the Prefect of Hedemarken reports that, 'while large amounts, realized by the sale of timber, were deposited in the savings-banks, extensive loans were made by those establishments to persons in less favourable circumstances,' and that 'the savings-banks, to be found in so many parishes, have, by the easy access they afford to loans, beguiled many into a needless borrowing of money, subsequently squandered.'
Over and above these facilities for borrowing money from public institutions, the yeomen farmers are undoubtedly heavily in debt to local storekeepers, and to merchants and traders in the towns. In fact the great bulk of the landed proprietors have been borrowing in every direction as much as they could raise by mortgage or by bill. Owing to the excellent system of registration that exists in Norway, there is no difficulty in ascertaining the extent to which the charges on real property in rural districts have increased between the years 1876 and 1880. It appears from the Reports of the Prefects that, between those dates, the balance of mortgages newly effected over those extinguished in rural districts amounted to a sum of about four millions sterling. The State Mortgage Bank is bound not to advance more than six-tenths of the value of land and buildings (forests excepted), and it is supposed that the loans have so far not exceeded four-tenths of the value of mortgaged property; but as the yeomen farmers generally contrive to borrow on second mortgages, it may safely be assumed, that their estates are charged with interest at 4-1/4 to 6 per cent. on a considerable part of the nominal value of what is not purely forest land, in addition to an annual repayment of 3 per cent. of the capital borrowed from the State Mortgage Bank. The forests, on the other hand, have been largely used up in paying the interest and capital on those loans, either by cutting them down, or by leasing or pawning them to traders, or to yeomen who have been able to keep their heads above water and to profit by the economic distress of the great majority of their fellow-landowners. The difficulty experienced by that majority in meeting the payment of interest and capital, especially at a time when the value of agricultural produce has been considerably diminished by American competition, and when also the competition of American and Baltic timber has simultaneously reduced the profits of the forest industry to a point that hardly repays the felling of trees, is clearly shown from the statistics of forced sales, of auctions and of distraints in the rural districts, and from an accompanying increase in the number of lawsuits before Courts of First Instance. It appears from the Reports of the Prefects that the sales of real property for debt have increased in every Province between the two periods 1871-1875 and 1876-1880 to an extent that ranges from 30 per cent. to 600 per cent., the greatest increase having taken place in the Provinces of Kristiansamt (600 per cent.), Norland, Nedenaes, Buskerud, Hedemarken and Akershus, where it ranged between 600 per cent. and 146 per cent. From another official source we obtain the following statement:--
1876-1880.
Number. Amount. 1. Compulsory sales of real property in rural districts. 2513 563,000l. averaging 224l. per sale. 2. Do. of personal property. 5136 134,000l. ditto 26l. per sale. 3. Distraints for arrears of taxes, &c. -- 1,089,000l.
But since real property is of comparatively low value in Norway, and personal property limited mostly to the veriest necessities of life, it is not so much the total of the amounts realized by forced sales, or the sums for which 'executions' and 'distraints' were effected, that give the measure of the depressed condition of the yeomen farmers, as the great and steady increase that took place between 1876 and 1880 in the number of those operations. Thus, while the number of forced sales of real property in towns, as well as in rural districts, was 424 in 1876, it had grown to 1378 in 1880. It is therefore not surprising to find in the Reports of the Prefects from which we have so largely drawn our figures that 'the means of meeting liabilities and of paying taxes at the proper time have grown more feeble, and recourse to legal enforcement of pecuniary claims has consequently become more frequent.' 'The condition of this Province' (Kristiansamt) 'is all the worse from a pretty widespread misuse of credit during the previous period' (1871-75). In another province (N. Bergen) we find that the depression in 1879 and 1880 'compelled those who had claims to enforce them rigorously. Mortgages, distraints, sales, &c., have therefore increased, and there has been an exceptionally, large number of suits before the Courts of Mutual Agreement. 'The value of agricultural produce has fallen, owing to a great extent to a scarcity of money and to great competition from a desire to convert as much produce as possible into money.' In the northern province of Tromsoe 'merchants have suffered from the impoverishment of their customers' (mostly fishermen as well as landowners), 'and have caused them to be made bankrupts. Credit has been misused on a large scale. Its facility induces the population to live beyond its means. It also encourages traders to set up in business and get customers with ease, without having capital or means of their own. The one misuse reacts on the other. All products are sunk considerably in value, and this fall is even greater in the case of real estate.'
The latter statement is not generally applicable to the remaining provinces, for we find that while the average value of the 'skylddaler,' or unit of assessment, was 153l.,[17] according to prices paid for land in 1871-1875, it has risen to about 180l. in 1876-1880, thus confuting Mr. Laing's theory, that the peculiar succession of property would tend to keep land at a low value. It would not, however, be right to conclude from these figures that landed property has, on the whole, increased of late years in value, despite the general indebtedness of its owners. Land in the vicinity of towns and railways must naturally become more and more valuable, and the relatively much higher prices paid for such land have no doubt had the effect of raising the total average deduced from sales of every description of landed property. It may also be assumed that the demand for land is artificially increased by the facility with which it may be purchased, since at least one-half of the purchase money generally remains on mortgage, in addition to other encumbrances. At the same time, the financial institutions, to which so large a proportion of the real property in Norway is mortgaged, are interested in maintaining its value, and attain their object by abstaining from offering at any one period too many defaulting properties for sale; and it may also be suspected that the statistics of forced sales represent only cases in which no compromise could be effected, or in which it was expedient or possible to have recourse to the ultimate means of recovery without sensibly deteriorating locally the value of landed property. Cases are, in fact, not infrequent in which the mortgagees find themselves compelled to retain the property of the defaulter, and either to place it in the hands of caretakers, with the hope of future realization on more favourable terms, or to sell it in small lots as opportunity occurs. In any case, the full and exact effect of the pawning of all the landed property of the country at a time when its agriculture has to compete with American cereals, its timber industry with supplies from America and the Baltic, and its wooden ships with iron steamers transporting cargoes at an almost nominal freight, is not yet to be found in statistical records.
The indisputable fact remains that, notwithstanding the existence of a system of land tenure which, according to Mr. Laing, was so perfect between 1834 and 1836 as to render its adoption in this country, and especially in Ireland, highly desirable, the yeomen farmers of Norway--framers of their own laws and absolute masters of their own destinies--are not only at present suffering from the commercial and agricultural depression that obtains in other countries of Europe, in which the social state is more or less differently constituted, but also find themselves, in face of that depression, with exceptionally heavy burdens on their backs in the form of pecuniary indebtedness at a rate of interest which mere agriculture, under the most favourable circumstances, cannot possibly afford to pay.
This heavy indebtedness has not, as a rule, been incurred for productive purposes, such as drainage, improved methods of agriculture, the increase of stock, &c.; and although the use of simple agricultural machinery is somewhat on the increase in Norway, yet agriculture remains very much in the same primitive condition in which it was found by Mr. Laing.[18] The Prefects attribute this backwardness to want of skill on the part of the proprietors (Romsdal), to the poverty of the soil, to the dearness of agricultural labour, and generally to the unremunerative results of husbandry since the depreciation of the value of its products. In a letter addressed last year to the 'Morgenblad,' the leading Journal at Christiania, by a native authority on the subject of agriculture, it is urged that the landed proprietors of Norway have 'for some years past been going down hill;' the hopes of improving the condition of agriculture, entertained about thirty years ago, when efforts were first commenced in that direction, being now entirely dissipated.
'It is painful,' he says 'to see how the forests are decreasing and how land once under cultivation is lying unused. When asked the reason, the proprietors reply that the prices of corn and other agricultural products are so low and the wages of labour so high, owing to emigration, that they have not the means to cultivate a large portion of the land, and could derive no advantage from it even if the means were available.'
The yeomen farmers, being therefore in a distressed condition, and their children and best hands forced to leave their homes in order to cultivate the fruitful soil of America, to the growing detriment of those who remain to till the soil of Norway--those farmers, he points out with great force of argument, must have the same protection which is accorded to the industrial classes, if agriculture is to be saved from final ruin. In fact, this remarkable letter points to an agitation in favour of the imposition of a 'fiscal duty,'[19] on corn, food of all kind, cattle, dairy produce, &c.; and supports this conclusion with the argument used by Prince Bismarck on the second reading of his recent Corn Duties Bill:
'The trade of the Baltic will suffer nothing from protective duties. As regards agriculture, I am opposed to all legislation against the subdivision of land ... but if you want to have small occupiers of land, you must vote for duties on corn.'
Account must at the same time be taken of the heavy and increasing charges that fall on landed property for the administration of rural districts in Norway. While the inhabitants of the rural communities contribute towards the support of the Central Administration only in the form of Customs and Excise duties, stamps, succession duties, and contributions towards the construction of highways, the burthen of local administration, justice, police, prisons, the Church, public instruction, poor relief, sanitary service, parochial roads, posting stations, interest on communal loans, &c., falls on their landed property. This self-assessed and self-imposed burthen has naturally been growing more heavy, from year to year, under the exigencies of modern progress. Thus, while the total communal expenditure in 1853 was 167,000l., it had risen to 497,000l. in 1880, or 197-1/2 per cent. About one half of the requisite resources is derived from a tax on the cadastral value of real property; the remaining half is raised by a tax on capital and income. In 1880 the communal impositions on land represented a taxation of about 6s. 7d. per head of the rural population. That the whole of the communal expenditure is not covered by taxation is apparent from the fact, that in the same year the rural districts had increased the amount of their total debts to about half a million sterling, from 312,000l. in 1874.
In this respect it is certainly significant to discover that Poor Relief, organized by a law passed in 1863, is the largest item of communal expenditure, being indeed very little less than half of the total annual liabilities of the rural districts, in a country in which, in the halcyon days of Mr. Laing, only the infirm were supported for a few days at a time by the yeomen farmers. He appears to have attributed this to the absence of collieries, the introduction of coal as fuel having, he argues, been coeval in England with the imposition of a rate for the poor, deprived by that industry of the work of chopping up firewood which gave so much employment to idle hands in Norway. However that might be, in 1880 and 1881 the number of persons in receipt of relief or maintained in hospital, at the charge of rural communities alone, was respectively 109,688 and about 114,000, or in both years a little over 7 per cent. of the total rural population. Inclusive of urban districts the same totals amounted in those years to 81 and 83 per 1000, or above 8 per cent. of the population of the kingdom, the cost of support having been about 3s. 10d. per head of the entire population, which contributed 2s. 9d. per head in special taxation for that object, and the balance in an indirect manner, apparently by housing paupers, &c.
These paupers include cotters and labourers, as well as the ruined among the smaller yeomen. Farmers who had previously been able to employ labour, 'no longer find their advantage in it,' and consequently--
'even able-bodied workmen (in Hedemarken) were compelled to seek relief from the Poor Fund when their families were large. The smaller farmers and the labourers are in the worst plight, since the falling off in the timber trade has made them feel the want of the usual steady demand for labour at high wages.' Further: 'it has become very difficult for the least affluent and for labourers to gain a livelihood in the prevailing money and timber crisis.... The depression must for a long time be felt by many.
We need only point out that, in the United Kingdom, the percentage of persons in receipt of relief during the year 1881 was 3 per cent. in England and Wales, 2.6 per cent. in Scotland, and 11 per cent. in Ireland,[20] involving an expenditure at the rate respectively of 6s. 3d., 4s. 6d., and 3s. 9d. per head of population.
Obviously, the relatively greater cost of relieving the poor in Great Britain is due to the more expensive character of the support afforded, and to the very heavy sums paid for salaries and other establishment charges; but it is unquestionably a damaging fact against the system of land tenure in Norway, that the pauperism by which it is in the present day accompanied, with a strong tendency to increase, is equalled only by the state of things in Ireland, which certain legislators now desire to remedy by the creation of peasant proprietors.
The relative state of matters in Great Britain and in Norway has therefore greatly changed since Mr. Laing wrote:
'The distribution of the wealth and employment of a country has much more to do, than the amount, with the well-being and condition of the people. The wealth and employment of the British nation far exceed those of any other nation; yet in no country is so large a proportion of the inhabitants sunk in pauperism and wretchedness.'
An increasing rate of pauperism is one of the symptoms of agricultural distress in Norway, but the strong tide of emigration from rural and urban districts marks with equal force the depression and congestion from which the country is suffering in the same degree as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Aided by improved and cheapened means of transport, the number of emigrants from Norway ranged between 20,212 in 1880 and 22,167 in 1883, giving an average of 1.3 to 1.5 per cent. of the total population, the contingent of the rural districts being about 70 per cent. of the total number. As in the case of pauperism, the corresponding rate of emigration from Ireland, namely 1.5 per cent., exhibits a remarkable similarity, and affords another convincing proof that peasant proprietorship is no _panacea_ for rustic indigence.
Those who have not studied the present economic condition of the yeoman farmer and agricultural labourer in Norway, or who have not taken into consideration the change that has come over the entire country, and the ambition, as distinguished from previous apathy, which education and communication with an outer world, no longer closed to them, has awakened among the classes with which we are dealing, are inclined to attribute a good part of this emigrating tendency to the influence and the material assistance of those who have gone before. Indisputably, the Norwegian emigrant, by his persevering labour and steady conduct, rarely fails to succeed in Wisconsin and other States, in which he is always a welcome settler; and consequently he soon finds himself able to transmit money for the purpose of enabling his brothers and sisters, and not seldom his father and mother, to join him. No State or other aid is afforded for such purposes to Norwegians, although it is occasionally the case, that the hard cash with which the emigrant leaves his home is derived from the proceeds of a loan raised by the head of his family for the purpose of buying out co-heirs under the _Odels ret_, adding thereby, as we have already shown, to the indebtedness with which the land is burdened. Others, also, maintain that many young men emigrate from Norway in order to avoid military conscription, which, although milder there in its demands than in most other European countries where that system exists, undoubtedly diminishes the quantity and deteriorates the quality of agricultural labour. The strongest incentive to emigration, however, is the desire to escape from the misery and penury which accompany in Norway, as in every other part of Europe, the condition of a small landowner, cotter, or labourer who is unable to find regular employment on adjoining estates that can be kept going, if nothing more, with the aid of scientific knowledge, machinery and capital.