NOTES OF A RECENT TOUR IN GERMANY.

Otago Witness, Issue 63, 31 July 1852, Page 4

NOTES OF A RECENT TOUR IN GERMANY.

An article under the above head appears in a recent number of " The Journal of Agriculture," drawing a comparison between the burdens which press so heavy upon the agriculturists in Ireland and those which bear with still greater pressure upon the same class in the German States. The writer, in speaking of Ireland, says, — ■

" We think Ireland has seen the worst, and cannot therefore fall lower. On the contrary, we see every reason to predict a very decided and rapid change for the better. Channels for the investment of capital there axe opening every day ; and men of enterprise and wealth are making it the field for their industry, sowing the seeds of a rich harvest.

" It may not be uninteresting to institute a comparison between Ireland and one of the best circumstanced German States, by which it will appear that the burdens on land are not so heavy in the former country as in the latter ; while in this the prices of agricultural produce are lower, and land sells at a much higher rate.

" The Duchy of Nassau, which we select for illustration, contains 1,812,541 morgens, equal to 1,131,025 acres (the morgen is 624-1000 th of an acre, — in round numbers, about eight morgens are equal to five acres), which is a little less in area than Somersetshire, with about the same amount of population — viz., (by the census of 1845,) 417,708 individuals. The number of proprietors and tenants of land was at that time (exclusively of about 2000 owners of vineyards) 44,146; and of agricultural labourers, shepherds, &c, 18,517. The number of tenant-farmers is very trifling, and almost all the large farms — large by comparison — are in the occupation of the proprietors themselves.

" The largest farm within the radius of four miles from Wiesbaden does not exceed 300 morgens, and the average quantity occupied by agriculturists of all grades is a small fraction above 12^ acres. The minimum to which sub-

division of land may be carried is limited, by a law passed in 1809, to half a morgen ! and this limitation, no doubt, was made with a view to fiscal convenience, as it would be intolerably troublesome to collect land-rates from th* holders of more minute allotments. We shall explain the mode of levying' rates in Nassau. Taxation there is imposed by a system of rating (established about eighty years ago) called a simplum, which is increased or diminished according to the financial circumstances of the State. Last year the taxation was about onethird higher than before the Revolution of 1848 — a blessing conferred upon rate-payers generally throughout Germany, as a pleasing consequence of popular insurrections. There are 9 simplums now levied upon the land, of which 4} are for the exigencies of the State, and the remainder for church and parochial expenses. In these respects there is a legal limit to the number of simplums imposable ; and the maximum which can be levied for the expense of a parish — which includes provision for the helpless poor and for a school — is 3 simplums, and for the church from 3 to 4 simplums. For Government purposes the number of simplums is unlimited. The rates for the maintenance of the poor are not heavy, because they are orly supported by their communes (parishes) when in absolute want by reason of old age or infirmity, and if their near relatives are unable to support them.

" Under the cadastral valuation, there are six classifications of land chargeable (ad valorem) with rates. " An individual, who is a land-proprietor in the country, and a wine-merchant and householder in Wiesbaden, paid, in 1850 —

1 simplum on 21 acres, .£0 IS 4 1 do. on house, 2 1 8 1 do. for license to sell wine, ....4 6 8 £7 6 8

" These are separate shnplums, but the gentlemen was charged with nine of them, viz. — 5 for the State. 2 for the Church. 2 for Municipal purposes. He paid, therefore, nine times £7, 6s. Bd., equal to £66 for one year ; of which sum £8, ss. was the charge on 21 acres, £18, ss. on house and town property, and £39 for his license to sell wine.

" It is a curious fact that the town octroi (duty) on wine amounts to more than the freight of wine from Wiesbaden to New York. The wine-merchant pays, in Wiesbaden, 13s. 4d. for leave to bring a cask of wine from his vineyard into the town ; though he could lay down the same sized cask, if not brought into Wiesbaden, on the quay at New York at the cost of 9s. 2d. "We may state here, also, that the laws of Germany press heavily on industry and discourage competition. No tradesman can settle in any place except that of his birth, or of his wife's birth; and since the recent revolution, this

system has been most stringently enforced, to the real injury of the tradesmen, and loss to the consumers of the articles manufactured by them. For instance, an eminent shoemaker of Mayence, which is within a few miles of Wiesbaden, who supplies many of the nobility and gentry of England with shoes, and can undersell the London shoemakers,) under Peel's tariff, by which, on paying a duty of Is. per pair, foreign shoes are admissable into England,) is not allowed to take a bag of shoes from Mayence to Wiesbaden, (he may evade the penalty, however, by sending shoes in parcels to his customers there by railway,) under a fine of 10s. for the first offence, and imprisonment in case of repeated transgressions of this foolish municipal law.

" We take another case to exemplify the amount of rates and their inequalities charged on land, and also the present estimated value of the soil in the market. A farm of 187 acres of good land at Schirrstein, (some of which, in the wasteful German fashion, is in detached patches here and there among villagers' holdings,) let by the propietor, Count Bismark, to a tenant at £1, 6s. Bd. an acre, was charged last year with £36, 10s. in rates, besides the church tax, (not tithe, for this has been abolished,) — which, however, was above the average of preceding years. Fifty years ago the father of the present proprietor paid for this property, together with the tithe of the commune, (which, it has been intimated, no longer exists,) a fraction less than £1 700. If we suppose the acreable value of the farm, with the buildings on it, to have been £1 per acre, the purchase would have been made on a scale corresponding with that at which some Irish farms have been sold in Dublin under the Encumbered Estates Act — viz., ten years' purchase. But the analogy has ceased in a striking manner. If the German farm were now for sale in very small lots, the owner could get for it, from petty mechanics and peasantry — - whose anxious desire is to become proprietors — £12,000 above the original price paid.

" Now, though the market value of this land, if it were offered for sale, is so high, the rent charged for it is very moderate in comparison, yielding to the landlord, after he has paid the rates, but 335. lOd. per acre. It is impossible for us to state the average amount of rent in Nassau. The farm to which we have just alluded for the exemplification of the burden upon land is near the capital town, and its soil is of very good quality. In some localities there is more competition for farms than in others, from obvious causes. We may, however, venture to quote the rent of land capable of cultivation at from 10s. to 265. Bd. the morgen. Two per cent, upon the actual value of the land is the lowest rent we have heard of; the market value of land proposed for sale, and the amount of rent paid for it, do not bear any fixed ratio to each other."

The writer again, in remarking upon the value of the produce of both countries, says, — " The prices of beef, mutton, pork, butter, and potatoes are generally higher in Dublin than at Wiesbaden; but the quality of the meat is very inferior in the latter market. The prices of hay, oats, and straw are generally lower in Wiesbaden. Judging, then, from these facts, the Irish farmer has an advantage over the German, unless the cost of the productions be greater in Ireland than in Nassau.

" Are the rates of farm-labourers' wages higher in Ireland than in the German State with which we are instituting a comparison, and, therefore, tending to the disadvantage of landowner and tenant ? The wages of labourers in Nassau are Is, in the neighbourhood of towns, and from Bd. to lOd. in the country districts. These are precisely the rates in the best agricultural counties of Ireland ; but higher, we fear, than in the west of Ireland. Is the soil of Nassau superior to that of Ireland ? Taking the average fertility of hills and plains in Nassau, we believe that its average fertility is inferior to that of many counties in Ireland — decidedly so as regards her calcareous central ones.

" Will it be said that blights are frequent in some parts of Ireland, that the oat crop has been destroyed on the sea-coasts, and that the glory of the potato has passed away ? It may be replied, that the mischief to which the agriculturist is liable in Nassau, from thunderstorms, and heavy rains, and hail-storms, which sometimes beat to the earth thousands of acres of corn, and destroy the grain altogether — are of much more serious evil than the vicissitudes to which the Irish farmer is liable. The potato crop failed in Germany too, and, as it is now ' itself again' in that country, there is good reason for hope that it will recover its full vigour in Ireland ; though we hope it will never constitute again the sole subsistence of the peasantry.

" No doubt much of the farm economy prevalent in Germany might be most usefully introduced into Ireland, where small farmers

so much abound, if there were habits of order sufficient in the national character to carry them out steadily and systematically. The German, like the Irish peasant, is an admirer of potatoes, and cultivates them almost too generally, but with more regard to the due rotation of culture, and the regular growing of some rye and wheat for his coarse bread. As to rye, though we give the preference in Scotland to oats for supplying a nutritive and muscle-strengthening bread-meal for our peasantry, and relish exceedingly

' The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food/ and do not envy the black rye-bread of the Germans and Belgians, we are disposed to think that on poor soil, in any s part of the United Kingdom, rye ■would be more remunerative than oats. It will thrive on sandy soil, and flourish at a high elevation, and, in Continental agriculture, rates in the markets at 4 to 5. compared with the value of wheat.

" Pieverting to the consideration of the present depreciated value of land in Ireland, comparatively with the high value of land in Germany, where the value of its productions is ordinarily lower than in Ireland, we express our conviction that the market value of farms in the latter country will speedily rise, under the various circumstances which are combining to improve the political as well as the agricultural state of that country."