The Agricultural Depression and the Land Policy of Germany in the late 19th Century

FUJISE Hiroshi

doi:10.20633/tochiseido.8.1_1

The new coures of economic policy (der neue Kurs) Caprivi began to take in the early 1890's corresponded to a new stage of German capitalism. The Great Depression affected German industries adversely and made its growth relatively weaker. The home market was limited by the long agricultural depression. Thus Caprivi chose the only possible way left for further development of German capitalism who had neither so many colonies nor so much free capital as England and France, in enlarging the foreign market through the reduction of customs duties on agricultural products by the commercial treaties. But there were required some measures for agriculture. One of them was the policy of land settlement (die innere Kolonisation). This policy, put into practice over the whole Prussia by the two acts of 1890 and 1891 (Gesetze uber Rentenguter), was the first attempt to reform the agrarian structure that had been kept since the peasant emancipation (die Bauernbefreiung) in Germany. The agriculturaltural depression was accompanied with a fall-down of corn price level by the mass inflow of cheap corn from U.S.A. and Canada into Europe. In Germany Junkers and big peasants, especially the former, who supplied the greatest part of corn demand, suffered most severely with the depression. They could not change the direction so radically from corn to another as English farmers did. Most of them as owner-cultivator were charged with heavy and fixed hypothec rent which did not fall down different from the case with English land rent, in spite of enlarged farm expense. On the other hand exploitatien of small peasants rather showed stability and increased in numder under this depression. They were able to sustain themselves with their corn-growing for their own households besides extra money income by means of their cattle-breeding or dairy-farming, vegetable-gardening, which, however inevitably accompanied their family labour. The settlement policy was a measure in accordance with these agricultural trends to help the estates and capitals of Junkers escape from agriculture and settle small peasant farms upon the former Junker estates. A large number of small peasant farms would act as a social safe-valve in the country and strenglthen cattle, milk and vegetable production in Germany. But this measure was not performed so extensively in Germany. The government remained a mere assistant for land settlement, because there was an anxiety about disturbing the property order and social balance of production. The peasant settlement did not mean the real solution of agrarian problems in Germany revealed in the agricultural depression, but rather admitted the trends under the depression. It intended chiefly to make the agricultural structure more suitable for a expansion outwards of German capitalism.

The Agricultural Depression and the Land Policy of Germany in the late 19th Century

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