The Failure of Agrarian Capitalism: Agrarian Politics in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA, 1846-1919

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

Agriculture is a highly sensitive industry. Throughout our century national governments have intervened in and protected agricultural sectors. The problems of competition in agriculture have been continually illustrated by disagreement over the European Community’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and, more recently, by attempts to reform farming policy in the last round of the GATT negotiations. The Failure of Agrarian Capitalism presents a comparative analysis of agrarian policies in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA from 1846– 1919. The author examines the evolution of agricultural policy and factors that motivate it. These factors are discussed in the context of the repeal of the Corn Laws to the First World War. This period was crucial in the failure of agriculture to establish itself as a profitable industry independent of government. Dr Niek Koning is an agricultural sociologist with particular interest in farming policy and economics. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Wageningen Agricultural University.

What, then, does the proposed creation of a State Department of Agriculture portend? Does it imply that our system of large estates, with their corresponding duties and obligations, has collapsed? Does it mean that English landlords are forced, by want of money, to abdicate their position as agricultural leaders? . . . Is it the first step towards a legislative creation of that class of small peasant proprietors which are the justification of similar institutions in other countries? . . . here as well as abroad, State assistance, State direction, State intervention are part of the price a nation pays for a peasant proprietary. Rowland Prothero, ‘Is an Agricultural Department desirable?’ 1889

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM Agrarian politics in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA, 1846–1919

Niek Koning

London and New York

First published 1994 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York NY 10001 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2001. © Niek Koning All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Koning, Niek, 1948The failure of agrarian capitalism: agrarian politics in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and the USA, 1846–1919/Niek Koning. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–415–11431–4 (Print Edition) 1. Agriculture and state–Europe–History–19th century. 2. Agriculture and state–United States–History–19th century. 3. Agriculture and state–Europe–History–20th century. 4. Agriculture and state–United States–History–20th century. I. Title HD1918.K66 1994 338.1’84–dc20 94–3979 CIP ISBN 0–415–11431–4 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-203-03124-5 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-15698-6 (Glassbook Format)

CONTENTS

List of figures List of tables Preface and acknowledgements

vii viii x

1 INTRODUCTION Agricultural price support and the social scientists Plan and method of the study

1 1 5

2 AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE Agricultural markets in the age of the first Industrial Revolution Growth of agrarian capitalism Changes in the age of the second Industrial Revolution Decline of large farms Effects on the demand for farm policies Agrarian politics and the general political evolution

11 11 14 19 25 29 37

3 MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS Agricultural growth in the Railway Age Farm structures and technical progress Liberalizing tendency in farm policies Wealth-controlling rural classes and the liberalization of agricultural trade Institutional bases of farm progress Few reasons for indulgence with small farmers and farm labourers Agrarian capitalism and the rise of classical liberalism

40 40 43 50

4 c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED Agriculture and the ‘Great Depression’ Repercussions on farm output and productivity Set-back for large farms Government intervention along diverging paths United States, the Netherlands and the blessings of comparative advantage

71 71 74 81 84

v

56 59 62 65

90

CONTENTS

United Kingdom, Germany and the determinants of free trade or protection Bourgeois fears, defence of ground rents, and the turn to land reform Agricultural crisis and the decline of liberalism 5 LATE 1890s TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AGRICULTURE AND NATIONAL EFFICIENCY Economic expansion and revival of agricultural markets Evolution of farm structures Farm output and productivity Government and the beginnings of agricultural Taylorism Increase in land reform Delay in social policies for farm labourers Agricultural trade policies: the United States and the Netherlands Tariff question in the United Kingdom and Germany: the struggle over national destiny Ambiguities of agrarian corporatism Swan song of the Old Regime

96 103 107 113 113 114 121 127 131 135 137 139 144 146

6 THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND BEYOND Introductory remarks Agriculture and food supply during the war After-effects

154 154 155 162

7 DISCUSSION Recapitulation Neo-classical economics and the landlord-blame view Landlord political power: need for reconsidering?

167 167 169 174

APPENDIX: Statistical data on agricultural development in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, 1850–1913

177

Notes References Index

188 241 278

vi

FIGURES

2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

Wheat prices (5-year moving average) and farm wages, England and Wales, 1850=100 Wheat prices (5-year moving average) and farm wages, United States, 1850=100 Wheat prices (5-year moving average) and farm wages, Germany, 1850=100 Price of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1850–1873 (1900=100) Terms of trade farm/non-farm, 1850–1873 (1900=100) Volume of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1850–1873 (1900=100) Price of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1873–1897 (1900=100) Terms of trade farm/non-farm, 1873–1897 (1900=100) Volume of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1873–1897 (1900=100) Land productivity, 1873–1897 (1900=100) Labour productivity in agriculture, 1873–1897, (1900=100, UK 1901=100, Netherlands 1899=100) Price of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1897–1913 (1900=100) Terms of trade farm/non-farm, 1897–1913 (1900=100) Volume of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1897–1913 (1900=100) Land productivity, 1897–1913 (1900=100) Labour productivity in agriculture, 1897–1913 (1900=100, UK 1901=100, Netherlands 1899=100) vii

22 23 24 41 42 44 73 74 75 76 77 114 115 122 123 124

TABLES

1.1 Stages of international capitalism and some characteristics 3.1 Annual growth rates of direct caloric production per male active in agriculture, 1800–1850 and 1850–1870 3.2 Wheat prices per quarter in England and Wales, and in Prussia, 1815–1848 4.1 Annual growth rates of value added in constant prices per man-year in Dutch agriculture, coastal and inland provinces, 1850–1880 and 1880–1910 4.2 Share in agricultural area of different farm size classes in England and Wales, 1885 and 1895 4.3 Share in agricultural area of different farm size classes in Germany, 1882 and 1895 4.4 Numbers of land users in different farm size classes in the Netherlands (thousands), 1883 and 1898 4.5 Farm labourers as percentage of active farm population in the United States, 1870 and 1890 4.6 Expenditure for wage labour as percentage of gross value of agricultural output in the United States, 1870 and 1900 4.7 German tariffs for important farm products, 1865–1892 5.1 Percentage change in the total area of crops and grass occupied by holdings of 300 acres and over in England and Wales, 1885–1924 5.2 Ratio of land users with 20 (10) hectares and over to all land users with 1 hectare and over in the Netherlands, 1897 and 1921 5.3 Farm labourers as percentage of active farm population in the United States, 1890–1920 5.4 Expenditure for wage labour as percentage of gross value of farm output in the United States, 1900–1920 viii

7 43 58

80 81 81 81 82 82 85

116

116 118 118

TABLES

5.5 Percentage change in the share of the agricultural area occupied by farms of 100 hectares and over in Germany, 1895–1907 and 1907–1925 5.6 Percentage change in crop yields in Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, 1895–1899 to 1909–1913 5.7 Cattle and pig population in Germany and Great Britain, 1900 and 1913 (millions) 5.8 German tariffs for important farm products, 1892 and 1906 6.1 Food supply in the United Kingdom, 1909–1918 (billion Calories) A.1 Price of gross domestic product in agriculture (1900=100) A.2 Terms of trade farm/non-farm (1900=100) A.3 Volume of gross domestic product in agriculture (1900=100) A.4 Land productivity (1900=100) A.5 Labour productivity in agriculture (1900=100, UK 1901=100, Netherlands 1899=100)

ix

121 125 126 142 159 181 182 184 185 186

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For twenty years I have been trying to come to grips with the paradoxical nature of farming. Its small firms involved in perfect competition seem to conform to a classicalliberal vision. However, other aspects contradict the notions of equilibrium and autonomy which are implicit in this. Farm incomes seem chronically depressed, the vitality of family farms often seems to be based on underpaid labour rather than efficiency, and the independence of farmers is undermined by agri-food corporations, including co-operatives that nominally belong to the farmers themselves. Moreover, far-reaching government interference with agriculture conflicts with the classicalliberal image. Indeed, there are few other private sectors where government seems so omnipresent. To understand this confounding reality, I had to free myself from the idea of intersectoral balance that characterized so much economic thinking, orthodox and Marxist alike. Influenced by economists like Frank and historians like Wallerstein, I began to suspect that the deviant nature of farming was caused, apart from agronomic peculiarities, by the differentiating dynamics of the industrial-capitalist world system itself. I supposed that, after an initial phase from about 1750 to 1875, in which capitalist firms also emerged in the farming sector, these dynamics had led to a profitability crisis in agriculture, in which large farmers gave way to family farmers who accepted a lower remuneration. This necessitated systematic government intervention in order to remedy the disadvantages of family farms for increasing productivity, and to secure sufficient margins for investments. In 1984, Jerrie de Hoogh invited me to work for a year in the Agricultural Economics Department of Wageningen University. He sensed an affinity between my ideas and the views that he himself had developed during his life as a farm economist, and he wanted me to further elaborate my analysis. At that time, farm policy discussions in the European Community concentrated on the question whether to counter farm surpluses by supply management (as had recently been done with milk) or by reducing price supports (as was to be done shortly after with grain). In x

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

my view, a return to free market policies could not lead to a workable equilibrium, so that it was to be expected that government interference with farmers’ decisions about production volumes would increase (as indeed happened with the MacSharry reform in 1992). However, unlike some who advocated more interference, I did not believe that this would bring the long-cherished aim of income parity for agriculture any nearer. It motivated me to investigate a number of historical cases in which governments had tried to return to free market policies for agriculture or had attempted to pursue parity aims by increased intervention, and to explain why these attempts had all failed. For a critical sociologist like me, working in the Agricultural Economics Department was a peculiar experience. Apart from Jerrie de Hoogh who had a more institutionalist inspiration, most of its members had adopted a standard microeconomic approach, and they had much more confidence in market-oriented policies than I. This gave me the opportunity to become more familiar with mainstream agricultural economics and to sharpen my own ideas. One of these economists, Arie Oskam, encouraged me to use my historical case studies as stepping stones to a more encompassing study of the history of farm policies in selected countries. The Economic Research Foundation in the Netherlands was willing to sponsor the project. As well as from Jerrie de Hoogh, I also received support from Ad van der Woude and Meindert Fennema. Ad van der Woude was head of the well-known Department of Agricultural History in Wageningen, and it was a great help to have this excellent research team so close at hand. Through Meindert Fennema I became acquainted with the Amsterdam school of political science, and more familiar with neo-Marxist regulation theory. Meanwhile, current developments worked to enhance the significance of the central episode of my study – the turn to interventionist farm policies at the end of the nineteenth century. In the farm policy discussions in the EC and the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations, advocates of back-to-the-market solutions were gaining influence. Their arguments were quite similar to those of opponents of agricultural protectionism around the turn of the century. Moreover, part of their intellectual stock-in-trade was the view that agricultural protectionism at that time was enforced by agrarian elites who benefited at the expense of all others. In my study I gave much room to a critical reassessment of this view. It appeared to have consequences that I myself had not expected. Several historians are convinced that disasters such as the First World War and the Nazi rise to power are to be blamed on a reactionary landlord class. An important element of this belief is the above view of agricultural protection before 1914. My criticism of this placed me willy-nilly at odds with the more general interpretation, too. During the course of my research, I became indebted to many people. In addition to those already mentioned, I would like to mention Kees van der Meer, who put at xi

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

my disposal his set of time series on agricultural development in several countries, and also Merijn Knibbe, who provided me with the supplementary data for the Netherlands on which he was working. Kees van der Meer also gave critical but stimulating comments during various phases of my study. Of my colleagues in the Department of Agricultural Economics, who welcomed me as a scientific stranger in their midst, I must mention Olga Hitters, Wilbert Houweling and Aafke Stomphorst, who all gave me technical and administrative support. Furthermore, I would like to thank Mark Ritchie of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis, Jan Bieleman and Anton Schuurman of the Department of Agricultural History and Rien Munters of the Department of Sociology in Wageningen, Margery Rigg-Lyall who made corrections in the English draft texts, and all others who helped me in one way or another. I am also grateful for the help I received from Berton Henningson† who introduced me to certain aspects of the farm policy history of the United States. Finally, I want to thank the audiences of farmers to whom I have so often explained my views. I hope that a greater understanding of agrarian politics will contribute to more sympathy for the predicament of many of them.

Niek Koning

xii

1 INTRODUCTION

AGRICULTURAL PRICE SUPPORT AND THE SOCIAL SCIENTISTS This study is concerned with agrarian politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although this is clearly an historical subject, I am not an historian, but a rural sociologist with a keen interest in current farm policy discussions. In fact, it is these discussions which prompted me to undertake this study. As is well known, in recent years there has been a mounting criticism of existing farm policies, especially of the protection of agricultural prices. Economists have been emphasizing that price support hampers a necessary adjustment of agriculture and causes growing surpluses of farm products. They have produced model studies demonstrating how much these policies reduce general welfare and harm taxpayers and consumers. They have also pointed out that the dumping of surpluses injures agricultural exporting countries as well as the modernization of farming in developing countries, while the associated government costs drain resources away from policies for assisting disadvantaged farm regions in the countries committing this dumping.1 Instead of suggesting the prevention of surpluses by a control on production, as advocated by some people, most economists have been looking for a solution through the cutting down of agricultural price supports.2Their views have been echoed in recent farm policy discussions in the European Community, in the Uruguay round of GATT negotiations, and in advice given to post-Communist governments in Eastern Europe. Politically, however, the support of agricultural prices has proved very hard to eradicate. As a reaction, some economists have set out to analyse the agricultural policy process itself. Their conclusion has usually been that the persistence of price support is caused by the political power of agrarian pressure groups, especially of more comfortable farmers. Referring to concepts borrowed from public choice theory, they have argued that farmers, by their smaller number and by 1

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

the similarity of their situations, can more easily organize themselves than taxpayers and consumers. Moreover, their organizations can benefit from corporatist relations with ministries of agriculture, through which they exert a considerable influence on farm policy-making.3 In this way, agricultural price support has received bad publicity. This raises the question as to how this whole situation could have arisen. A reconstruction from a similar neoclassical perspective of the previous history of agricultural price support has also been undertaken. In his influential book Government and Agriculture in Western Europe, Michael Tracy has argued that the current problems originated in a wave of agrarian protectionism in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.4 This protectionist surge was a reaction to a protracted fall of agricultural prices, especially grain prices. According to Tracy, this ‘agricultural crisis’ reflected a shift of comparative advantage in extensive arable productions to new countries outside old Europe, and would have called for an adjustment of European agriculture rather than protection. In his opinion, farmers should have specialized in more labour-intensive productions like dairying or horticulture, which benefited from a more elastic demand and required a closer proximity to the place of consumption. Where this was impossible, farm production should have been extensified, and labour and capital transferred to the growing industrial sector. However, Tracy believes that this adjustment, so desirable for the public good, was opposed by landed aristocrats and large farmers, who had vested interests in traditional arable production. In many countries they used their formidable political leverage to achieve tariff protection for the grain and other products on which they depended. They formed coalitions with protectionist manufacturers but, if necessary, enforced their will against industrial opposition. Thus they pushed through a policy that had harmful effects for consumers and probably for the mass of small farmers too. The former had to pay more for their food, while the latter saw their feed costs rise and consumer demand for their products restricted. Moreover, agricultural protection hampered farm progress and caused allocational distortions which reduced national welfare. Tracy continues by saying that, once it was introduced, agricultural protection reinforced the conditions that had first provoked it. On the one hand, it hampered a structural adjustment of agriculture, leading to the survival of many farms which would not have survived under free market conditions. On the other hand, it kept too much labour in agriculture and encouraged an excess supply of products like grain. During the Great Depression of the early 1930s, a new and more general wave of farm protection followed, which prolonged the depression on international agricultural markets and led to a further reinforcement and institutional entrenchment of agricultural protectionism in the postwar period. Thus, in Tracy’s view, the seed sown in the late nineteenth century had grown into the ineradicable jungle of agricultural protection with which politicians are wrestling today. It was the political power of 2

AGRICULTURAL PRICE SUPPORT AND THE SOCIAL SCIENTISTS

agrarian interests which kept the vicious circle going, the role of traditional landed elites being gradually taken over by well-organized pressure groups of commercial farmers. Actually, this reconstruction of the evolution of agricultural price supports is not new. It has an historical precedent in the criticism by Cobden and the Anti-Corn Law League of the British Corn Laws before 1846. Moreover, it fits in with an influential interpretation of European history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed, many historians have emphasized the continuity of the hegemony of landed elites in European society. They maintain that, rather than having been broken by the French Revolution or the 1848 uprisings, landed dominance would have remained intact until the eve of the First World War.5Its roots would have been in political privileges handed down from the ancien régime, and in leading positions occupied by aristocrats in government bureaucracy and the army. In this more general historiography one likewise finds the idea that landed elites used their political power to enforce a tariff protection to buttress their threatened economic positions. Moreover, in this reading of the situation, agricultural tariffs had more fatal effects than welfare losses alone. They gave a new lease of life to a reactionary aristocracy which used it to imbue the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie with an ultra right-wing ideology, and to throw the European powers into a great war. In the final analysis, agricultural protection would have helped to set the stage for the Nazi rise to power.6 In the wording of Rosenberg, Bismarck’s turning to agricultural protection in 1879 was ‘one of the great mistakes of the German and therefore also the European history of the nineteenth century’.7 In this study, I argue that the neoclassical and traditional historical explanation of agricultural price support is based on a false impression of the evolution of agriculture within the general economic development. According to this impression, the integration of agriculture in the industrial market economy encouraged a structure with modern family farms. These farms required government care for farm research and the like but, as efficient units of production, they did not need systematic government support of their incomes. The powerful landlords and gentlemen farmers who were calling for such support, however, are seen as essentially premodern classes. It was their pre-modern qualities that made them vulnerable to the new phase of economic development, leaving them no other choice than to appeal to the state for protection.8 I believe that this interpretation needs correction. During its first stages, industrial capitalism did not weaken but strengthen the economic position of the wealthcontrolling rural classes. This was not because landlords and large farmers were protected by the state, but because market tendencies worked to make agriculture a prosperous undertaking. Indeed, the expansion of markets, the rise of proto-industry, the demographic upturn and the Industrial Revolution all tended to make 3

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

agricultural products scarce while keeping farm labour abundant. It resulted in favourable agricultural prices and low and flexible agricultural wages, which left ample margins for farm profits and land rents. Besides, under these circumstances, large farms gained the upper hand, because they benefited from economies of scale and advantages for technical progress. It led to the ascent of new entrepreneurial types in agriculture: capitalist yeoman or tenant farmers, large estate farmers or planters, and improving landlords who reorganized farm structures and encouraged innovations on their estates. These categories can hardly be characterized as premodern. Moreover, the landlord class itself did not remain unchanged. The profitability of agriculture induced many middle-class well-to-do to become landowners, and even the economic base and practices of the old aristocracy significantly altered. This growth of agrarian capitalism continued from about the mid-eighteenth century to the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Then international migration, a second Industrial Revolution, and the end of the demographic transition caused farreaching changes in rural labour markets and the markets for agricultural products. The protracted fall of agricultural prices in the last quarter of the nineteenth century marked the beginning of this new evolution. This episode did not just reflect a shift of comparative advantage between countries, as the neoclassical explanation asserts: it also revealed a more fundamental alteration in the global supply and demand trends for agricultural products. Together with more inflexible or rising farm wages, it created a squeeze on agricultural capital incomes which led to a crisis in agrarian capitalism, and a new growth of family farms. However, this latter was not because family farms were more efficient, but because in this situation, the income claims of small farmers’ families dropped further behind the prevailing level of agricultural wages. This hypothesis has far-reaching implications for understanding the evolution of agrarian politics. For one thing, it means that the idea of a traditional landlord class that had long since outlived its economic rationale but could still retain a formidable political power has to be qualified. It is true that the landed nobility retained considerable political power by traditional privilege. Nevertheless, it was not so obviously a pre-modern class as it has been depicted. Until well into the nineteenth century, its power was reinforced by its new capitalist aspects. Moreover, the landed nobility was assisted by bourgeois landowners and large farmers, whose influence was primarily based on their role as capitalist entrepreneurs. On the whole, the wealthcontrolling rural classes did not use their power in an anti-liberal direction at this time. Rather, they were interested in a liberal reform of traditional structures which were hampering their entrepreneurial activity. As for trade policies, the fall of grain prices after the Napoleonic Wars did indeed provoke a protectionist reaction in some 4

AGRICULTURAL PRICE SUPPORT AND THE SOCIAL SCIENTISTS

countries. However, this was a rather isolated episode. In general, landlords and large farmers tended to be on the side of the free traders. Only with the change in agrarian fortunes in the last quarter of the nineteenth century did the attitudes of landlords and large farmers radically alter. In many countries, indeed, they called loudly for tariff protection. However, this coincided with a rapid decline of their political power. By this time, the urban middle classes, the manufacturers and the government bureaucracy had all gained considerable influence. Besides, the crisis of agrarian capitalism strongly undermined the material base of the political power of the wealth-controlling rural classes. This effect has been underrated in the historiography already referred to: an historiography which, by its false understanding of the preceding stages, tends to exaggerate the durability of a purely political power of the landed gentry. In reality, in most countries landlords and large farmers could no longer enforce a policy of protection by themselves. The introduction and maintenance of such policies was critically dependent on other interests. Many smaller farmers also needed agricultural price support. Moreover, such support was openly or tacitly endorsed by influential non-agrarian interests as well. In part, these were prompted by tactical considerations, like urban well-to-do looking for a rural counterweight against the rebellious urban poor, or manufacturers looking for allies in the pursuit of protection for their own products. Besides, non-agrarian interests were driven by fears for the effects of agrarian misfortune. There was a fear that agricultural stagnation would affect the domestic market, the trade balance or food security, or that agrarian distress would precipitate a rural exodus which could exacerbate tensions in urban society. As a matter of fact, such threats could only be countered by far-reaching government intervention. Part of the response was government sponsoring of farm research and education. In addition, agricultural price support was necessary in many countries to cushion the drop of agrarian buying power or to curb the exodus of farm labour. Moreover, sooner or later such support became a precondition for securing continued agricultural growth. Without it, even the self-exploitation of family farmers did not leave enough margins for investments. PLAN AND METHOD OF STUDY The aim of this study is the reconsideration of agrarian politics in the crucial period between the repeal of the Corn Laws (1846) and the First World War. It was between these two points in time that the change in the agrarian evolution took place. While the repeal measure heralded the culmination of liberal farm policies, by 1914 government intervention in agriculture had become firmly established.

5

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

The evolution during these seven decades is examined by an interpretative literature research. I have not looked for new empirical evidence, but have based my ideas on the available store of surveys and monographs. By confronting and linking together evidence and insights produced by more specialized authors, I try to arrive at a new interpretation. In doing so, my perspective is that of the theory of capitalist regulation developed by Aglietta, Gordon and others,9 and the strategic-relational state analysis by such authors as Jessop.10 I have freely drawn on their framework, supplementing it by concepts borrowed from other approaches, like the protoindustrialization theory,11the evolutionary theory of technical change12 and older accounts of industrialization such as that of Landes.13My basic idea is that the history of industrial capitalism can be conceived of as a sequence of politico-economic configurations characterized by distinctive sets of key institutions (industrial structures, labour market institutions and suchlike), technological paradigms, types of politics, and patterns of demographic and economic growth. From this viewpoint, I first analyse the growth and miscarriage of agrarian capitalism, which is still understudied by these other writers. I then use this enlarged general perspective to investigate the evolution of agrarian politics itself. Periodization The conceptual and temporal frame of this study is outlined in Table 1.1. The first column gives a rough time line starting in the middle of the eighteenth century. The second column indicates the politico-economic configurations that have followed each other, with some catchwords added to indicate their general characteristics. Thus, in the mid-eighteenth century, much of Europe had a proto-industrial configuration. Its industrial economy consisted largely of a putting-out system with rural poor engaging in commercial household production for merchant employers. This cottage industry interacted with an upturn in population growth. Politically, absolute monarchy and mercantilism were important. From about the turn of the century in Britain, and some decades later in other countries too, this proto-industrial configuration was gradually displaced by the classical factory capitalism of the nineteenth century. In this, industrial labour was concentrated in factories using the simple mechanical technologies of the first Industrial Revolution. The size of these factories was still moderate, and industrial markets remained competitive or became even more so. Population growth further accelerated. In politics, this was the time of the ascent of laissez-faire liberalism. From the last quarter of the nineteenth century, this configuration was in its turn superseded by one which, for want of a better label, I call classical ‘monopoly’ capitalism.14Industrial structures were affected by a farreaching concentration coupled to the introduction of the new productions and technologies typical of the second Industrial Revolution (steel, chemicals, electricity, 6

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

internal combustion engines), and to the introduction of routine-like labour processes that reduced required skills and provided more managerial regulation over the pace of production. Population growth first remained high but then began to slow down. Laissez-faire liberalism gave way to concepts of ‘national efficiency’ and to social imperialism. From the 1930s, this configuration was again succeeded by the Fordist ‘mixed economy’ of the post-Second World War period, but that is beyond the scope of this study. This outline is very schematic. For details and theoretical foundations the reader is referred to the literature indicated above. What is important for the subject is that the historical evolution of agrarian capitalism can be connected to this succession of general politico-economic configurations. The growth of agrarian capitalism concurred with the proto-industrial configuration and classical factory capitalism, while its miscarriage coincided with the transition from the latter to classical ‘monopoly’ capitalism. This is indicated in the third column of Table 1.1. In the next chapter, which deals with the agrarian evolution in the long term, I argue that, indeed, the fortunes of agrarian capitalism were decisively influenced by characteristics of these general configurations. The analysis in this chapter adopts a long-term view, contrasting the entire age of the proto-industrial configuration and classical factory capitalism (i.e. the mid-eighteenth century to the last quarter of the nineteenth century) with the new age that came after it. In the subsequent chapters, which concentrate on the evolution of agrarian politics, the focus is less wide-angled. Here the periodization is based on a traditional Kondratieff-type breakdown into alternating periods with a more dynamic and stable, or a more sluggish and instable growth of the Western world economy (see fourth column of Table 1.1). However, I do not claim that this variation pertains to a regular long wave, nor do I think that it is generated by cycles in capital markets, innovations or the terms of trade between primary and industrial products.15 In my view, the variation in growth derives from the rise and decline of the politico-economic configurations referred to above.16 The first period, from the mid-1840s to about 1873, was the consolidation phase of classical factory capitalism. Similarly, the third period, from the late 1890s to the First World War, was the consolidation phase of classical ‘monopoly’ capitalism. Both these periods were characterized by stable and dynamic growth. In the intermediate period, international economic growth was somewhat more sluggish and much more unstable. In these years, classical factory capitalism fell into crisis, while classical ‘monopoly’ capitalism only began to arise out of the search for new technological perspectives and the clash between interest groups. Again, this periodization provides a meaningful breakdown of the agrarian evolution (see fourth and fifth columns of Table 1.1). Between the mid-1840s and 8

AGRICULTURAL PRICE SUPPORT AND THE SOCIAL SCIENTISTS

about 1873, high agricultural prices and low and flexible farm wages led to the buoyant final phase of the age of incipient agrarian capitalism. In these years, farm policies showed a liberal tendency, while the wealth-controlling rural classes contributed to laissez-faire liberalism in society at large. In the subsequent period, the development of agrarian capitalism was broken off by a protracted fall in agricultural prices and the new inflexibility of farm wages. These years saw a change to interventionist farm policies. Between the late 1890s and the First World War, the crisis of agrarian capitalism was perpetuated by the rise of farm wages in most places. At the same time, a continued development of interventionist farm policies became connected with concepts of ‘national efficiency’ that arose in this period. Countries examined Whereas the long-term evolution of agrarian capitalism can be examined directly at the global level, this is not very suitable for the analysis of agrarian politics, which was, after all, integrated in national political systems. Therefore, I compare the evolution of agrarian politics in a number of exemplary countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. There are several reasons for this selection. To begin with, these countries form a good sample for representing the general evolution of industrial capitalism. The United Kingdom was the cradle of the first Industrial Revolution. The United States and Germany became the leading industrial countries from the late nineteenth century. The Netherlands provides some variation, as a once-leading country which specialized in export-oriented agriculture while lagging somewhat behind in industrial development. Besides, the political evolution in these countries showed some variation. In the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States, a parliamentary system developed at an early date. In the United Kingdom, it conveyed the dominance of the landed elite, and in the Netherlands, that of a bourgeoisie in which the trading interests of Holland and Zeeland were prominent. In both countries, popular participation was allowed only very gradually, with a widening of the franchise in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the United States, on the other hand, universal male suffrage was already established by the 1860s. A political upheaval was here brought about by the Civil War (1861–1865), when the urbanindustrial and yeoman interests of the north defeated the planter elite of the south. In Germany, political unification was finally achieved with the establishment of the Reich in 1871. Although it involved the granting of universal male Reichstag suffrage, democratic control over the Imperial government remained rather restricted. The structure of the Reich favoured the influence of Prussia and its landed elite. The two should not be equated, however, if only because the Prussian state had long since contained landlord power. 9

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Apart from these general characteristics, the countries exhibited a great deal of diversity in agriculture and agrarian politics. Britain was the classical country of agrarian capitalism, with a three-tier structure of large landowners, capitalist tenants and farm labourers. In the Netherlands, although there were capitalist yeomen and tenants, family farms were more common. Germany and the United States had a more mixed situation, with regions with large estate farms or plantations as well as regions with smaller farms. Furthermore, the United States was the foremost immigration and land-reclamation country. Its growing grain exports precipitated the agricultural crisis in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands were exposed to this flood of cheap grain. Germany reacted from the outset by introducing agricultural protection. The British government remained largely inactive, although it did introduce tenant protection and land reform measures. The Dutch government launched agricultural development policies, which were also embraced by the American government for various reasons. In the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and, de facto, in the United States, agricultural protection was postponed until the 1930s. The composition of this study is as follows: Chapter 2 explains the growth of agrarian capitalism since the mid-eighteenth century and its failure from the last quarter of the nineteenth century; Chapters 3 to 5 analyse the evolution of agrarian politics in the three periods between the repeal of the Corn Laws and the outbreak of the First World War; Chapter 6 is a postscript about that war, in which food supply and farm policies played a decisive role; Chapter 7 consists of a discussion, in which the conclusions of the study are challenged by existing views.

10

2 AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE

AGRICULTURAL MARKETS IN THE AGE OF THE FIRST INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION There were two developments in the eighteenth century that were to alter the face of society. In the first place, population growth, which had for a long time been sluggish, accelerated again. While death rates began to fall, birth rates remained more stable or even increased. Especially where rural industries were developing, natality was raised by a lower age of marriage. In the second place, tensions arose which affected existing industrial structures. Demographic growth induced an increasing demand for manufactures. Within the proto-industrial system, however, a rapid growth of manufacturing output was hampered by problems of controlling a large number of outworkers. It was also hindered by technical impediments like the sensitivity of water mills to drought or frost, or the difficulty of increasing the output of iron. The response took the shape of the textile mills, the coal-fired blast furnaces, and the steam power of the classical Industrial Revolution. This began in Britain in the decades around 1800, from where it crossed over to the Continent and the United States during the nineteenth century. Effects on agricultural prices Much has been written about a preceding ‘Agricultural Revolution’ that enabled this demographic growth and industrialization.1 In their turn, however, these latter developments had critical feedback effects on agriculture itself. To begin with, they generated a considerable increase in the demand for farm products. Population growth already stimulated the demand for food and fibres, and this was reinforced by the Industrial Revolution. Central to this was the mechanization of textile production, which accounted for as much as three-quarters of industrial employment 11

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in England by around 1840. By cutting down production costs, the new spinning machines and power looms greatly boosted the demand for textile fabrics, and so for the raw materials.2 The demand for cotton skyrocketed. Wool, flax and hemp also found buoyant markets, as did dye plants like indigo and madder. In addition, the economic changes led to a growing demand for horses and horse-fodder. Although in the factories horsepower was gradually replaced by steam, the use of horses for transport increased dramatically. The coming of the railways only increased the demand for horses for short-distance transport. It has been estimated, for example, that in Britain the horse population increased from 1.3 million in 1811 to a peak of 3.3 million in 1901, and that by that time, fodder consumption of town horses alone accounted to some 12 per cent of gross agricultural output.3Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution involved few industrial substitutes for farm products. True, buttermilk for bleaching textile was displaced by chlorine, while saltwort as a source of sodium alkali was partly replaced by a synthetic product based on common salt.4However, on the whole the demand for farm products was little affected by substitution. Synthetic fibres and dyes were still in the future, as was the displacement of oil-bearing seeds or horse-fodder by mineral oil and electricity. While the demand for farm products was thus stimulated by demographic growth and the Industrial Revolution, supply could not so easily respond. Agriculture remained confined by an organic, manure-intensive technology. Where new land was lacking, farm output could be increased only by the kind of intensified land use which had been developing since the Middle Ages in some pockets of high population density and advanced urbanization.5 Central to this were the introduction of new crops and rotations, elimination of fallow, and a better integration of livestock. These alterations could only be carried through by a drastic increase in labour. Indeed, the growth of agricultural output in this age was partly due to an increase in the workload per agricultural worker and was sometimes paid for with a decrease in labour productivity.6 After some time the Industrial Revolution helped to limit this toll of labour. Its metallurgical innovations enabled a considerable improvement in the quality of existing farm tools. Traditional wooden ploughs were replaced by improved variants that were increasingly made of iron. Also, industry produced new implements like the threshing machine.7 These innovations permitted a continued intensification of land use without requiring massive additional injections of labour which would have hampered a further industrialization.8 However, they did not help farmers to break out of the organic technology that limited the increase of farm output. The increase in yields, in particular, hardly exceeded that of previous centuries.9New farm inputs which enabled a further increase in land productivity only made their entrance in dribs and drabs. Affordable tile drains, which helped to increase the productivity of heavy clay soils, were not introduced before the 1840s. 12

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Neither did regular imports of Peruvian guano begin before the same decade. Other artificial fertilizers, like superphosphate or Chile saltpetre, were only sparsely available. The gap between supply and demand could not be filled by the European colonies or ex-colonies either. Imports from these areas were hampered by considerable transport costs. Although freight rates were falling, it was only at a moderate speed. Indeed, it took some time before the Industrial Revolution transformed the international transport system. Watt’s steam engine had become operational in 1776, but the first public railway was not opened before 1825, while steamships still represented only 14 per cent of commercial naval transporting capacity in 1840.10In the first half of the nineteenth century, the development of transport remained largely dependent on new canals and roads, and on innovations in sailing. Besides, large parts of the temperate zones outside Europe had not yet been opened up for commercial agriculture. To sum up, while demographic growth and the Industrial Revolution boosted the demand for farm products, the impetus they gave to supply was much more restricted. The effect was obvious: a rapidly increasing demand which ran up against a less dynamic supply resulted in rising agricultural prices.11Indeed, agricultural prices rose in the second half of the eighteenth century and, apart from one major disturbance around 1820, generally remained at a high level until the 1870s. Influence on farm wages At the same time, buoyant conditions in agricultural product markets had little effect on the markets for farm labour. Demographic growth caused an increasing population pressure on the land. Whether it led to a fragmentation of small holdings or not, in both cases an increasing number of rural poor ended up with too little land for independent subsistence.12This proletarianization of the lower strata of rural society was sometimes reinforced by enclosures, which eliminated grazing and gleaning rights of the poor and, in some cases, reinforced a decline of small landownership.13The result was an ample supply of agricultural wage labour which led to low and flexible farm wages. This situation was not affected by industrial developments. Rural industries hardly interfered with agricultural labour requirements as their production rhythm adapted itself to the agricultural seasons.14 Rather than competing with large farms, cottage industry, by encouraging early marriages and thereby the increase of the rural poor, helped to create a reserve of harvest labour.15 Initially, the Industrial Revolution did not seriously affect agricultural labour markets either. At first, the decline of cottage industries even increased the supply of 13

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cheap farm labour in some places.16 Besides, the share of factory employment was still too small to have much impact. Before the middle of the nineteenth century, even in England, industry did not expand fast enough to absorb rural underemployment.17 It was only in the third quarter of the century that the pull of the factories together with an increased demand for farm labour began to create tensions in rural labour markets in several regions of Western Europe. However, these could still largely be contained by hiring labourers from other places and by simple labour-saving devices like substituting the scythe for the sickle. Where the pull of the factories was strongest, farmers resorted to threshers and reapers.18Although it did not prevent a rise in farm wages near the industrial centres,19 the extent of it remained modest. Manufacturing profits themselves depended on low wages and long working hours, as financial and industrial structures allowed only a limited increase in productivity.20All this is illustrated by Figures 2.1 and 2.2, which show the development of farm wages and wheat prices in England and Wales and in the United States. As appears from these figures, until the 1870s, farm wages and wheat prices moved neatly together. It indicates an endogenous wage determination within the farm sector itself, without significant external interference. To sum up, while demographic growth and the Industrial Revolution led to favourable prices for agricultural products, they allowed farm wages to remain low. Obviously, they boosted the incomes of the wealth-controlling rural classes. Not without reason, Ricardo, Marx and other nineteenth-century economists highlighted rising land rents while assuming parity between agricultural and industrial profits. Indeed, for farm entrepreneurs and progressive landlords between about 1750 and 1875, agriculture was a remunerative undertaking. GROWTH OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM One question that arises is how the structure of farm production was affected by these developments. As a matter of fact, agriculture in the European world economy showed a complex hierarchy of farm types.21The top of the pyramid was formed by the vast estate farms or plantations in some regions. Under these came capitalist peasant farms big enough for the farmer to specialize in management and marketing. Then followed smaller types of capitalist peasant farm, then family farms, and finally the various types of semi-proletarian smallholder. In this study, which is on a very general level, I make a simple distinction between two farm types: ‘large farms’, which employed a considerable amount of outside labour, and ‘small farms’ or ‘family farms’, in which labour was predominantly that of the farmers’ families themselves. It is important to keep in mind that the use of the labels ‘large farms’ and ‘small farms’ refers to employment, not farm area. On the one hand, there have been periods 14

AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE

in history, notably the secular downturns of the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which farm areas increased in many regions without any increase in labour employed. On the other hand, it is possible to perceive that the number of workers on farms increased, even while the farms decreased in area. Secondly, the term ‘outside labour’ employed on large farms is used as a catch-all for very different types of labour. These can vary from unfree slave or bonded labour to free hired workers or some types of dependent sharecroppers. Thirdly, owner occupancy or tenancy is not used as a criterion to distinguish large and small farms, nor is the extent of integration in markets, other than for labour. In my view, these aspects are not fundamental to a distinction between capitalist and household production.22 Fourthly, a dichotomy of ‘large farms’ and ‘small farms’ leaves the question of the empirical boundary between the two farm types. If pressed to give a more specific definition, I tend to draw the line where more than half of the work is done by outside labour. In most cases, however, the tendency of outside labour to increase or decrease is more significant than its exact share in one moment in time. Finally, below the fully fledged family farms which I call ‘small farms’, there were smaller holdings which could not support a family. These minifarms were, in fact, a reservoir of outside labour for larger farms, and should be distinguished from regular ‘small farms’. The relative advantage of large farms Bearing these comments in mind, I now want to examine how the prospects for large and small farmers were influenced by the broad developments that have already been discussed. In the proto-industrial stage, before mechanization, economies of scale were limited both in agriculture and industry. Such economies as existed were chiefly based on more efficient management of labour.23 Large farms and non-mechanized ‘manufactories’ could assign simple tasks to cheap unskilled workers, skilled tasks to specialized craftsmen, and bulky tasks to teams. As well as this advantage in labour use, larger firms had both somewhat lower costs of capital goods per unit of production and a better bargaining position in various markets. In addition to economies of scale, which are defined under a given level of techniques, larger firms had an advantage in technical development. They had more room for experimentation, they could better inform themselves about innovations elsewhere, they had a broader financial base for investments, and they could bear larger risks. In many cases, they were the ones to benefit most from an innovation. This was true not only for industry, but for agriculture. Indeed, historical studies on the diffusion of agricultural innovations indicate that large farmers were ‘early adopters’.24This means that the productivity advantage of large farmers was reinforced because they were pushing forward a technological frontier while small farmers lagged behind.25 15

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

However, industrial and agricultural household producers could bring their own competitive advantage to bear. Using little outside labour, they had low contracting and supervision costs. Moreover, they could employ their own family labour and savings at less than the prevailing market price.26 In an age in which jobs were insecure and social safety nets poorly developed, people valued the security provided by an independent existence. They invested their savings in it at a lower return than they could receive lending to another. They also worked hard for it, for hourly earnings under the existing wage level. As a consequence, large farms or non-mechanized factories were not automatically more competitive than family farmers or independent craftsmen. A kind of balance existed between household producers and larger firms. By accepting more toil and low returns, the former could often compensate for the larger productivity of the latter. Especially in labour-intensive productions that required little capital, like horticulture or small stock in agriculture,27 or spinning or weaving in industry, the labour price advantage of household producers could be decisive. In industry, this balance between large and small enterprises was broken by the Industrial Revolution, the technical and organizational innovations of which boosted the returns to scale beyond what independent craftsmen could compensate for by increasing their ‘self-exploitation’. No matter how much the cottage spinners or weavers tightened their belts, in the end they had to surrender. However, the new technologies had no comparable result in agriculture. Actually, these technologies did as much for the improvement of manual as for mechanical farming methods.28 The background was that farming was based on biological processes, which made it more difficult for technical innovations to revolutionize the returns to scale. For one thing, the succession of growth phases ruled out the organization of farm production as a continuous operation. Ploughing, sowing, weeding and harvesting could only be done one after the other. It restricted the scope for a further division of labour and limited the advantage of machines. Moreover, biological processes could less easily be brought under technical control, causing agriculture to remain more dependent on craftsmanlike care. The variability of the soils, and the unpredictability of weather and pests made it necessary to have an especially responsible type of labour, which was less likely among the outside workers on large farms. This was even more so because the biological base of agriculture also kept it bound to the land, giving large farms a spatial extensiveness which considerably complicated the supervision of labour. Moreover, spatial extensiveness made a larger scale involve rapidly increasing internal transport costs.29 As a result, competition in agriculture between large and small farms remained more even. My hypothesis is that, because of this balanced situation, the evolution of agricultural prices and wages had a decisive influence on farm structures.30 By 16

AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE

affecting the relative advantages of large and small producers, this evolution could tip the scale from one side to the other. To begin with, high prices and low wages made agricultural improvements more profitable and easy to finance.31It encouraged the adoption of innovations already known at earlier times or in other places, and stimulated new inventions.32As a result, the technical development of large farms further accelerated. Large farmers rapidly adopted new crops, rotations, and plant and animal varieties. They were the first to adopt tile drainage, new implements, and the first artificial fertilizers that came on to the market.33Admittedly, small farmers did not sit around doing nothing; they also innovated, though enticed not so much by profits as by the fragmentation of their farms. If an innovation suited their economic circumstances, small peasants were not slow to adopt it.34 But as large farmers were the earlier adopters, an acceleration of the technical development will have generally increased their technical lead. As a consequence, although there was no large increase in returns to scale, the productivity advantage of large farms nevertheless became larger. It was difficult for small farmers to make up for this. As wages on large farms were very low, the supply price of family labour on small farms could hardly move far under it. Actually, this supply price was governed by the logic of household producers. These did not maximize profit, but were balancing the marginal utility of income and disutility of labour.35The fragmentation of small holdings reduced small farmers’ earnings and made increasing their incomes more urgent for them than avoiding the drudgery of more toil. This incited small farmers to step up their labour efforts.36It meant a decrease in their labour supply price, as additional labour spent on a given piece of land yielded decreasing returns. This effect, however, was counteracted by two other factors. In the first place, family farmers also sold part of their output.37 High prices increased their proceeds, which attenuated the urgency of additional income. In the second place, opportunities for supplementary employment gave small farmers a kind of a safety valve. Instead of toiling harder on their own piece of land, they could hire themselves out to local employers. They could do seasonal work for large farmers who, reacting to high prices and low wages, increased their labour demand. Or they could engage in cottage industries which, in spite of the Industrial Revolution, did not disappear overnight. The factories ruined household production in some places, but created new opportunities for supplementary household production elsewhere. Cottage industry generally preserved a considerable scope for innovation.38 Besides, the factories themselves were still being established in small towns rather than in large cities,39 enabling small farmers’ families in the vicinity to supplement their earnings by factory labour. Both supplementary employment and favourable agricultural prices limited the necessity for ‘self-exploitation’ for small farmers. This was fortunate for the farmers 17

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themselves, but less so for the competitive position of their farms. It limited the labour price advantage of small farms which because of the low wage level was difficult to keep up anyway. The result was that the factor price advantage of small farms did not outweigh the enhanced productivity advantage of large farms. It gave large farms a competitive edge, which enabled them to outbid family farms in the land market. Geographic differences in the increase of large farms In my opinion, this was the background for an increase of large farms, coupled in many cases to a fragmentation of small farms into semi-proletarian dwarf holdings. Although national statistics of farm structures are sparse for this age, the existence of this dynamic is evidenced by numerous regional historical studies.40However, it appeared in a variety of concrete forms, depending on natural and socio-economic conditions. In the more peripheral zones in south and east Europe, landlords were still largely dependent on agriculture. They exploited their land by demesne farming, or a mixed system of demesne farming and allowing the peasants to farm for themselves, exacting tribute from them in some form or another. In the more favoured agricultural areas in these zones, the dynamic towards large farms chiefly took the form of an expansion of the estate farms. Besides this, a differentiation of the peasantry could lead to a class of capitalist peasants. Large estate farms or plantations also increased in the European colonies and ex-colonies. Here their development normally depended on slave or bonded labour to prevent the abundance of land from pushing up the supply price of labour. In Europe too, the increase of estate farms was easier where peasants were still unfree. Above a certain demographic pressure on the land, however, the development of estate or plantation farms was no longer limited to this condition, and could continue after the commercialization of labour relations. In the core zones of Western Europe, landlord-peasant relations had long been commercialized, while new economic prospects and other temptations had often lured landlords to the cities. Apart from the collection of rents and some marginal supervision, farming was left to the farmers themselves. A similar situation mostly developed in the white settler countries too. The dynamic towards large farms in these various regions took the form of a further differentiation of the farming community, sometimes reinforced by landlord efforts to create and preserve larger holdings. Especially on more fertile soils, it led to the rise of capitalist yeoman or tenant farmers, who employed a considerable number of labourers. In less favoured farming areas both in the core and the periphery, the rise of large farms was less pronounced. Even so, the dynamic was still present. In some regions, small farms were displaced by capitalist ranches engaging in extensive cattle- or sheep18

AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE

raising. In other regions, there was an increased use of hired labour within what still largely remained a family farm structure. In the industrializing regions, there was often a proliferation of very small farms, with workers using industrial earnings to bid high prices for the additional security of a small piece of land. These dwarf holdings did not easily develop into fully fledged family farms, but rather evolved into labourers’ gardens.41 Alongside these, a segment of large farms able to profit from the ample labour supply fostered by cottage industry developed in many cases.42 In a nutshell, agriculture and industry were developing according to a comparable pattern. It is no wonder that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century agronomists and economists generally expected agricultural progress to be based on large farms. In both sectors, larger firms with outside labour were profitable and were gradually displacing household production. Nevertheless, small farms kept a considerable share of the agricultural area in most regions, and most ‘large farms’ were small enterprises by today’s standards. For an adequate comparison, however, the development of industry should also be looked at in its proper dimensions. Here, too, the scale of enterprise was still small, and a large part of the output still came from household production. CHANGES IN THE AGE OF THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, farm profits remained favourable and large farms continued to increase in size. Then industrial capitalism entered into a new age. In the third quarter of the century the railway surge and the increase of steamships had revolutionized the global transport system. Now, together with a takeover of Britain’s industrial leadership by the United States and Germany, a second Industrial Revolution began to change industrial development. The focus shifted from textiles, iron and steam to steel, chemicals, electricity and the internal combustion engine. Cut-throat competition provoked waves of mergers and cartels that gave birth to a new giant form of enterprise. The rise of trade unions hastened the introduction of serial production techniques and routine-like labour processes, which enhanced entrepreneurial control over production and enabled a more rapid increase of labour productivity. Supply and demand for farm products These changes radically transformed the conditions of agricultural development. To begin with, they had an enormous influence on the supply of farm products. A decisive factor was the revolution in transport. Between 1850 and 1913 the railway 19

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system expanded from 0.04 to 1.11 million kilometres, while the share of steamships increased from about 25 per cent to 95 per cent of commercial naval transporting capacity. Transport costs were rapidly falling. While maritime freight rates were halved, land freight rates were probably reduced to something like one-tenth.43 This transport revolution greatly widened the opportunity for long-distance trade in farm products.44 At the same time, it facilitated international migration. As a consequence, the rural poor in Europe had a chance to escape. From 1841 to 1900, 25 million people left the continent, most of them peasants or farm workers. They moved to the temperate zones of other continents – most to the United States, others to Canada, Argentina, Australia and New Zealand. By 1910 around 5 million farmers in these countries were immigrants or first-generation immigrants’ children.45 Moreover, immigration stimulated agricultural settlement in a more indirect way too. By raising land prices and moderating wages in the coastal areas of the receiving countries, it encouraged children of the earlier immigrants to move away and build new farms further inland.46 Either way, the exodus of rural poor out of Europe fuelled an unprecedented reclamation of land in the new countries that until then had only been extensively used by indigenous populations. This clearing movement was sometimes hastened by territorial competition between new states in the coastal areas.47 The movement was also greatly expedited by new farm equipment. A farm implements industry developed in the immigration countries, and responded to the scarcity of labour in relation to land by developing new labour-saving farm machinery. The first reaping machines were introduced in the United States in the 1840s. In the second half of the century, mechanical reapers and self-binders came into widespread use in the new settler countries, helped by innovations in steel and serial production techniques.48 This mechanization enabled a drastic reduction of labour requirements, allowing a strong increase of the area cultivated by a given supply of labour. It has been calculated that in the United States between about 1830 and 1900, the area of wheat that could be produced by one worker increased sixfold.49 Mass migration and mechanization together led to a rapid expansion of the global area of commercial farming. From 1870 to 1910, the arable area in North America, Argentina, Uruguay and Australia increased from 82 million to 185 million hectares.50 Meanwhile, in Europe a development took place which some authors have called a ‘second Agricultural Revolution’.51 New inputs became available which allowed an escape from the confinements of an organic husbandry. American maize, Russian barley and import-based oilseed cakes allowed a big increase in livestock numbers and manure production. There were also artificial fertilizers. In the middle of the century, chemists like Gilbert, Lawes and Liebig had attempted the production of the first artificial mineral and lime fertilizers. The further development of these in 20

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the second half of the nineteenth century was closely bound up with the ascent of the chemical and steel industry – the latter because it gave basic slag as a by-product. In the closing years of the century new methods for fixing atmospheric nitrogen opened the way for the large-scale industrial production of nitrogenous fertilizers. From the late nineteenth century, the use of artificial fertilizers was clearly increasing. From little more than zero in most West European countries (except the United Kingdom), it rose to about 10 kilograms per hectare between 1870 and 1913, with peaks of 30 kilograms or more in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.52A more far-reaching increase had to wait for the breeding of plant varieties capable of absorbing more nutrients later in the twentieth century. From the outset, however, the adoption of artificial fertilizers caused a significant growth in land productivity. It had a considerable effect on yields which now increased about three times more rapidly than before.53 In short, developments in this age worked to raise farm production in various ways. The outcome was a substantial increase in supply. From 1.6 per cent between 1850 and 1872, the annual growth rate of world farm output mounted to 2.5 per cent between 1872 and 1886, and remained at 2.1 per cent between 1886 and 1913.54 The output of the single most important farm product, wheat, rose from 2,391 to 3,731 million bushels in the quarter century between 1885–1889 and 1909–1914 alone. Of this increase about one-fifth was realized in Europe (excluding Russia), largely by an increase in land productivity. The remaining four-fifths were realized outside Europe (or in Russia), principally by an expansion in the amount of land used for wheat cultivation.55More generally too, massive reclamations in the white settler countries were the most important factor in the increase of global farm output. As the new countries exported a large part of their product, this increase in supply was coupled to an even more rapid expansion of agricultural trade. In the 1850s, annual world exports of foodstuffs were still less then 4 million tonnes. By the 1880s they had quadrupled. By the eve of the First World War they had increased tenfold.56 This rapid increase in the supply of farm products was not matched by a rise in demand. Demographic growth in the Western countries remained at a high level until the First World War, but then began to slow down. Before that time, from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the second Industrial Revolution had already included the introduction of new materials and innovations that were substitutes for farm products. Mineral oil, aniline and rayon began to compete with vegetable oils, dyestuffs and fibres. Tramway electrification and the internal combustion engine began to displace horses and horse-fodder. Moreover, industry learned to use and refine lower-grade farm products. The substitution of vegetable oils for animal fats in candles, soap and lubricants, which had already begun in the first half of the nineteenth century, was pushed further. After Mège-Mouriès’s invention this was followed by the production of margarine. Besides, new industrial processing methods 21

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pushed back the waste of farm products. Not least, the refrigeration of meat, begun in the 1870s, ended the traditional losses of marketing cattle on the hoof.57 The result was the reversal of the long-term relation between demand and supply of agricultural products, which has already been pointed to by Schultz.58 Instead of lagging behind, supply now moved ahead of demand and this led to a downward pressure on agricultural prices. From the 1870s grain prices fell, first in the new areas of European settlement, then in Europe itself. It was soon followed by a price fall in other farm products, including livestock products. Until the mid-1890s, agricultural prices remained generally depressed, although this was more serious for grain prices than for farm products with a more elastic demand. Some relief was brought in the closing years of the century by the depletion of virgin lands and by the rapid increase of domestic consumption in the United States. This was reinforced by a worldwide economic upswing which stimulated demand for farm products. Nevertheless, until

Figure 2.1 Wheat prices (5-year moving average) and farm wages, England and Wales, 1850=100 Source: Mitchell (1975, pp. 191–195; 1988, pp. 756–757)

22

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about 1905 the recovery of agricultural prices remained sluggish. The First World War caused a temporary peak in agricultural prices, but new price falls followed in the 1920s and the early 1930s.59 The evolution of agricultural prices is illustrated in Figures 2.1 and 2.2 which show nominal wheat prices in England and Wales and in the United States. (The figures use a logarithmic scale, so that a similar percentage change is indicated by a similar slope.) From these figures it is clear that, between the 1870s and the Second World War, wheat prices were more unstable and, on average, lower than in the preceding age.

Figure 2.2 Wheat prices (5-year moving average) and farm wages, United States, 1850=100 Sources: Mitchell (1983, pp. 187–188); US Bureau of the Census (1976, pp. 207–209)

Farm wages As well as the decline in wheat prices, Figures 2.1 and 2.2 also show a striking change in the evolution of agricultural wages. Whereas until the 1870s farm wages moved

23

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neatly together with wheat prices, after that they diverged from them. The same phenomenon was true for other industrializing countries too. Figure 2.3 suggests this for Germany, although comparing the two periods is difficult as the data for before the 1870s cover only a small part. The reason for the divergence between agricultural prices and wages is that industrial competition on the agricultural labour markets was strongly increasing. This was not just because of industrial expansion, but because of the transformation of the industrial sector. Serial production techniques and improved control over labour allowed a more rapid rise of industrial labour productivity which, together with the increased market power of giant enterprise, permitted higher wages and a reduction of working hours. At the same time, the introduction of routine-like labour processes made industrial jobs more accessible to the rural poor.60As a result, employment alternatives for farm workers became both more attractive and more widely available. At the same time, industrial and

Figure 2.3 Wheat prices (5-year moving average) and farm wages, Germany, 1850=100 Sources: Hoffman (1965, pp. 552–554); Mitchell (1975, pp. 191–193)

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agricultural employment became less easy to combine. The second Industrial Revolution entailed a de-industrialization of the countryside, as modern industry was now concentrated in large urban centres rather than in small towns, while cottage and other small-scale rural industries were rapidly ruined.61As a consequence, agricultural and industrial labour markets became more strongly separated. Increasingly, when a worker took up an industrial job, he would move to the city with his family, so that its labour capacity was no longer available for the farm sector. The results of these developments can be gauged from the movement of farm wages in the above figures. When agricultural prices fell from the 1870s, wages did not adjust themselves as they had done in the past. Although farmers substituted casual and female labour for permanent male labour, and stepped up labour intensity by piece work and other devices, farm wages only marked time after some rise in the preceding decades. As the increase of wages and the reduction of working hours in industry showed more continuity, the gap between agricultural and industrial employment conditions became wider.62 As a reaction, farm labourers left the countryside for the cities in great numbers. This rural exodus was further swelled when the growth of industrial employment recovered after serious depressions. Large farmers and landlords tried every possible means to stop this flight from the land. They fostered smallholdings and allotments as a means of retaining their workers. They recruited workers from more peripheral regions. Sometimes they went so far as to attempt to repress the free movement of labour. However, these strategies could not stem the tide. Smallholdings and allotments proved not very effective as a cure for rural depopulation,63 the repressing of labour mobility was mostly politically infeasible, and farmers had to look to ever new regions to find cheap immigrant labour.64Sooner or later, therefore, an adjustment of agricultural wages in most cases became inevitable. DECLINE OF LARGE FARMS Until the 1880s, large firms had been developing in agriculture as well as in industry. In agriculture, however, this tendency was much more fragile. It had been based not on economies of scale, but on market conditions. These now radically altered. Large farms were confronted with rising wages and lower prices, which squeezed favourable profits and rents. Theoretically, this could have been countered by a drastic concentration and modernization of production, thus eliminating the weaker firms. This was the standard process by which industry overcame its crises. In agriculture, however, the scope for such a reorganization was much more restricted. A rapid concentration of production was hindered by the scattered ownership of land. Returns to scale remained limited, the more so as the new artificial fertilizers could

25

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also be used by small farmers, while electricity and the internal combustion engine enabled a more divisible mechanical technology than steam power. Anyway, available farm technology permitted no revolutionary reduction of production costs in the short term. Changes in the advantages of large and small farms As a result, large farms could not defend themselves against the profit squeeze. Returns on innovations became lower, and innovative investments became more difficult to finance. Although, as classical Marxists and a few liberal economists maintained, large farms remained best equipped for innovations, their resources and incentives to use this advantage diminished. The effect was to limit the technical lead of large farms, and thereby their productivity advantage over small farms. The rise of wages also played into the hands of small farmers. It made it easier for them to keep their income claims under the prevailing farm wage level. Actually, the supply price of small farmers’ family labour was influenced by various factors. On the one hand, artificial fertilizers increased earnings on small farms also.65 On the other hand, low selling prices reduced these earnings, making small farmers push up their toil in spite of lower marginal returns to their labour. The de-industrialization of the countryside and the restriction of labour demand by large farms reacting to the wage– price squeeze had a similar effect. Because the opportunities for supplementary employment were reduced, small farmers were compelled to work harder on their own fields. On balance, therefore, the labour supply price of small farmers tended to remain at a relatively low level. Of course, urban growth and the expansion of industry set a minimum to it. Under this, a small farmer would move to the city and work in the factory rather than struggle along on his farm. When urban-industrial conditions of employment improved, the minimum acceptable for these farmers also increased. However, it did not do so to the same extent. Rural people still valued the relative security provided by access to land. Moreover, small farmers were emotionally attached to their farms. This was blended with resistance to proletarianization and fear to leave the familiar environment. Therefore, small farmers were prepared to sacrifice income and sweat to preserve their holdings. The underpayment they accepted for it rose as incomes increased, the values mentioned having something of the nature of luxury goods. In this way, the supply price of labour and savings on family farms began to lag further behind those of wages and profit claims on large farms. While the productivity advantage of large farms was curtailed, the factor price advantage of small farms was reinforced. As a result, the former no longer outweighed the latter, so that the 26

AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE

competitive balance between the two farm types was tipped to the other side. The effect was once again mediated by the land market. According to classical economic theory, a cost–price squeeze in agriculture was absorbed by land rents. Rents would fall, so that the profitability of farming itself – apart from the income of land ownership – would remain intact. But classical theory had not reckoned with the self-exploitation of family farmers. Now that these had a competitive advantage, they were prepared to pay more for land than a calculating capitalist farmer. During the agricultural crisis from the 1870s to 1890s, small farmers kept paying relatively high rents and land prices even where large farms could no longer be rented or sold.66 In the following decades, rising agricultural wages enabled small farmers to keep doing so in many regions. Land rents and land prices gradually adjusted to these higher bids for family farms. As these ‘overrated’ prices also applied to large farms, the profitability of the latter was drained. Other explanations In my opinion, these effects of changed market conditions on the balance between large and small farms were the basic cause of the decline of large farms.67 Other factors aided the process: the shift to more labour-intensive livestock and horticultural productions, the establishment of co-operatives, and the introduction of technologies that were less sensitive to scale or that increased the attainable size of family farms more than scale returns.68However, by themselves these factors can hardly explain why the decline of large farms occurred in traditional arable farming too.69 Neither can they account for the fact that this decline had already begun by the 1880s, when the diffusion of artificial fertilizers was mainly limited to large farms,70 and the rise of agricultural co-operatives had still to begin. Moreover, if it is true that the technical and institutional development became more adapted to small farms, the causal direction of the relation still needs to be established. It seems quite possible that it was the stagnation of large farms itself which hampered the development of more scalesensitive techniques.71We know, for example, that the evolution of tractor design was adapted to the prevailing small size of farms, and that the potentiality for this adjustment was important in the very success of the tractor.72,73As far as institutional development is concerned, it is striking that, from the end of the nineteenth century, farmers’ co-operatives mushroomed in many parts of the western world economy, while before then they had hardly existed.74 This cannot be sufficiently explained by the new concentration in industry and commerce, for in many cases co-operatives were established in environments with traditional middlemen.75 Indeed, it seems probable that the new direction of the technical and institutional development was not a cause of the structural evolution of agriculture, but was induced by it. What 27

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

remains true, however, is that the scaling down of techniques and the rise of cooperatives were reinforcing feedback mechanisms, which helped to perpetuate the competitive advantage of family farms in the following decades. Geographic differences in the decline of large farms Like their rise, the decline of large farms took various forms. Most of the capitalist yeoman or tenant farmers in the core zones continued to farm. In the economic makeup of the late nineteenth century and twentieth they were second-class capitalists, with only limited investment alternatives. Increasing difficulty in paying the rising costs of hired labour, however, compelled them to reduce their use of it. Where possible, they seized upon mechanization for that purpose. For these farmers mechanization was more than a simple substitution of capital for labour. By mechanizing without enlarging their farms, they substituted not only capital for labour, but family labour for hired labour.76 By eliminating hired labour, capitalist yeomen or tenants tended to be transformed into family farmers. The speed of this development varied in time and place, depending on distance from industrial centres, the rhythm of industrial growth, and other factors that affected the equalization of employment conditions between agriculture and industry. In the end, however, the grandsons or greatgrandsons of farmers, who in their time had employed a dozen hired labourers, themselves became family farmers. In the more peripheral zones landlords likewise lacked investment alternatives – not always because they were second-class capitalists, but because industry remained underdeveloped. A crucial difference with the core zones was that farm workers lacked alternatives, too. As a consequence, agricultural wages remained lower, which limited the advantage of small farms. This is why the large plantations or estate farms in these regions did not disappear overnight either. Instead, landlords adapted themselves to lower agricultural prices by extensification and disinvestment – the notorious negligence of the latifundios.77This reaction was reinforced because the low buying power of the working classes in these parts generated little demand for new, labourintensive products. On the other hand, the lack of industrial employment led to a rising land hunger among the rural poor. If the sharp conflict inherent in this situation did not cause a revolution or provoke a pre-emptive land reform, in the end a modernization of the large estates normally followed. This occurred when the technical development lowered the price of machinery, when domestic or export demand for new farm products increased, or when migration or overdue industrialization raised the price of farm labour. As a reaction, the largest latifundios were broken up, while smaller ones entered into a process of mechanization. In many instances this was conditional on a takeover by another type of entrepreneur who was 28

AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE

more dynamic precisely because he was less aristocratic, and therefore had fewer economic alternatives.78 While large farms thus declined both in more central and peripheral areas, agricultural labourers and semi-proletarian smallholders, if they did not leave agriculture, began to work their way up to become small farmers. Apparently, the proletarianization of the agricultural workforce was reversed. This was reflected in the occupational distribution, which showed a decrease in the share of hired farm labourers and dependent sharecroppers in the active farm population.79 In Europe, the whole evolution was also reflected in the distribution of farm area which, from the late nineteenth century, was first reasonably monitored by national statistics. At the end of the nineteenth century and during the first decades of the twentieth century, a levelling to smaller areas became evident as the share in the agricultural land of farms with large areas decreased.80In many countries the share in the agricultural land of farms with the smallest areas also declined, revealing the disappearance of semi-proletarian miniholdings. It can be concluded, at this point, that the evolution of agriculture under industrial capitalism passed through two phases. In the age of the classical Industrial Revolution, agricultural and industrial structures underwent a more or less parallel development. In the age of the second Industrial Revolution, the two sectors diverged. The importance of this can hardly be over stated. Had agrarian capitalism continued developing, agricultural technology would have evolved in a more large-scaled direction. ‘Farmers’, even in the most modern, technologically equipped sense, would not have survived. They would have been superseded by medium-sized satellite firms of big agri-food corporations, if not by these corporations themselves.81In fact, large farms declined. At the same time as industry took the path towards oligopoly, agriculture began to return to a structure of household production. The causes of this divergence lay not only in natural characteristics of agriculture, but in macroeconomic changes leading to a squeeze on farm profits. Contrary to much current thinking, modern family farms are not a precapitalist structure resisting the penetration of a dominant capitalist complex centred in industry,82 but rather a product of the industrial capitalist system itself. EFFECTS ON THE DEMAND FOR FARM POLICIES The evolution of agriculture described above influenced the demand for farm policies. Between about 1750 and 1875, the prosperity of agrarian capitalism reinforced the power of the wealth-controlling rural classes. It gave rise to a new agrarian bourgeoisie of big yeoman or tenant farmers. It also strengthened the traditional landlord class, while fusing it with new blood from other classes. Indeed, 29

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

from the mid-eighteenth century, there was a general resurgence of the landed aristocracy. Contrary to what is sometimes thought, this continued well into the nineteenth century, in spite of the revolutionary occurrences of 1789.83 Agrarian capitalism and the demand for liberal farm policies While strengthening the position of the wealth-controlling rural classes, however, agricultural development in this age gave them little need for government intervention. An important exception was the reform of the semi-collective structure of traditional village agriculture. Although more flexible than often assumed,84 this structure involved several drawbacks for the increase in productivity pursued by landlords and large farmers. Common ownership of pasture encouraged neglect and overgrazing while hindering selective breeding. Fragmented open fields and collective grazing on fallow or stubble hampered the adoption of new crops, rotations, underdrainage and convertible husbandry.85 To overcome these impediments, landlords and large farmers pushed for enclosure. This was a package reform including the division of the commons, the consolidation and fencing of the fields, and the abolition of communal rights. Pursuing this objective, however, the wealth-controlling rural classes met with the opposition of the smaller peasants. For these peasants the consolidation of the fields was too expensive. Moreover, the commons and communal rights were vital for small peasants and cottagers to supplement their wage incomes and the proceeds of their own small fields.86 In some peripheral regions, landlords had little difficulty in breaking this resistance. Peasants were legally weak, while landlords not only had economic power but controlled the local administration and jurisdiction. More often, however, the peasants had rights that were guaranteed by the state and could not simply be brushed aside. Therefore, the wealth-controlling rural classes called for new legislation that would repress the individual veto and the say of users with weaker titles. In that way, enclosures could be enforced, even if some, or even a majority, of the local peasants opposed them.87 Apart from enclosure laws, however, it can be assumed that the conditions of agricultural development in this age gave landlords and large farmers little need for government interference. The state of agricultural markets was mostly quite satisfactory. The fall in grain prices in the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, and more generally in the 1820s, gave rise to protectionist sentiments, but it was no more than a temporary episode. Neither did agricultural development give landlords and large farmers a strong need for the government sponsoring of agricultural research. Farm innovations were financially promising, while their production did not yet require large-scale organization.88 To adopt these 30

AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE

innovations, it is true, large tenants needed clear titles to their investments. In many cases, however, these were provided for without legislative action. As substantial tenants were few, they had a strong enough bargaining position in the land market to get reasonable safeguards integrated into customary law or private agreements.89 What can be assumed for the wealth-controlling rural classes can also be surmised for non-farm businessmen, princes and statesmen. In spite of the confinements of an organic husbandry, agricultural supply was mostly not so inflexible as to cause serious problems in the food supply or the balance of payments.90To encourage an increase in supply, non-farm interests could endorse the demand for enclosures, but the need for more far-reaching measures seemed not very pressing. Even in the United Kingdom, with its rapid growth of population and industry, the increase in dependence on food imports was still limited. The rise of agricultural prices requisite to induce the supply response turned the terms of trade against industry, but this was partly made good because the increased buying power of landowners and large farmers widened the domestic market for industrial products.91 Understandably, in this situation manufacturers had little incentive to support agricultural protection, which seemed unnecessary for economic growth and likely only to boost raw material costs and industrial wages.92 Meanwhile, the degradation of the lower strata of rural society made possible the abundant labour supply and the oppressive labour conditions on which industrial development at this stage depended. To get the rural poor to the factories, the traditional bonds that tied them to the land had to be broken. This gave rulers and manufacturers reason to attack patriarchal remnants that hampered labour mobility. Where peasants were still unfree, the desire to break these traditional bonds made rulers and manufacturers advocate the commercialization of agricultural labour relations. This did not mean that landlords were altogether opposed to peasant emancipation, however. Actually, reforms were often supported by a faction of the landowners themselves.93One reason was that the growing pressure of the population on the land was raising the attractiveness of rights in land compared to those in people.94The evolution of landlord attitudes in this field was no unilinear development, however. As a first reaction, rising agricultural prices often incited landlords to reinforce their rights over the peasants to push up labour dues.95Indeed, unfree labour long remained profitable in some regions.96 In most cases, peasants’ emancipation was granted by governments, not as a response to a wish of the landowners, but because of the need to broaden the tax base, for fear of peasant uprisings, or under pressure from free workers or their employers who felt disadvantaged by the existence of an unfree labour system.97 When emancipation became unavoidable, landlords normally tried to bend its conditions so as to further the development of their estate farms. Governments, 31

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

however, were more likely to further the development of peasant farms, if only because peasants were easier to tax than large landowners.98 It did not mean that governments agreed with the idea of small farms. They were keen on preserving viable holdings. In practice, if not by design, they favoured the development of bigger peasant holdings rather then small farms proper.99 To sum up, the evolution of agriculture in this phase steered the politically effective interests towards government restraint. If government intervened at all, it had to be in the liberal sense of breaking the fetters for private initiative – normally meaning the initiative of landlords and large farmers. Squeeze on farm profits and the call for government intervention This entire state of affairs changed radically from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when farm profits and land rents were squeezed and large farms began to decline. This new development caused landlords and large farmers to look anxiously for ways to stem the tide. For that, theoretically, five avenues were open to them. 1.

2.

3. 4. 5.

They could attempt to curb the rise of farm wages. This could be done by restricting industrial development, by policing the workers and repressing their freedom to move, by recruiting cheap immigrant labour, or by encouraging smallholdings to preserve a pool of cheap labour. They could try to prevent the fall of domestic agricultural prices by restricting foreign competition. If necessary, this could be coupled to a control of domestic supply or, where export surpluses existed, to a price discrimination between domestic and export markets. They could endeavour to reinforce their competitive advantage on foreign producers and enforce new export outlets abroad. If tenants, they could attempt to shift the burden to the owners of the land by a reduction of rents. If landowners, they could sell or rent land to small farmers to benefit from the relatively high prices the latter were prepared to pay in spite of the falling profitability of agriculture.

These various options had one thing in common: they required government intervention, or at least made it strongly desirable. By themselves, the wealthcontrolling rural classes were not in a position to restrict industrialization or police their workers. Neither could they restrict foreign imports or break foreign protectionism. Moreover, although they established co-operatives to force dominant buyers or sellers to competitive pricing, a co-operative monopoly that further improved prices by restricting domestic supply was precluded by a free rider problem.100 Similarly, large farmers and landowners could hardly reinforce their international competitive position without government assistance. At this time, farm 32

AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE

innovations became increasingly based on large-scale professional research. This was outside the reach of large farmers, and also it was not readily financed by large landowners who were plagued by a squeeze on their rents. Moreover, big agri-food companies likewise failed to undertake the necessary research. Especially with biological and chemical farm innovations, property rights were hard to establish, so that private investors had difficulty in recovering their costs.101 Furthermore, a reduction of rents to shift the burden from tenants to landowners was likewise impossible without legislation. The reallocation of land to small farms was largely a matter of private initiative. However, it could be expedited by government subsidization, which also increased the effectiveness of such a reallocation for keeping up land rents. Contrary to popular ideas, large farmers and landowners were not always opposed to land reform measures so long as their interests were duly respected. If the new evolution of agriculture gave large farmers and landowners an urgent need for government intervention, however, it also reduced their power to enforce it. Indeed, the depressed profitability of farming sapped their political resources. Moreover, it made the entrepreneurial behaviour of landlords give way to extractive strategies for defending their rents. They squeezed their workers and sapped their estates, using the revenue for keeping up private consumption or portfolio investments. As a consequence, the ‘parasitic’ character of large landowners, long since denounced by urban liberals, became a manifest reality that could only too easily be turned into a political weapon against them. While the power of the wealthy rural classes was thus being eroded, other social forces were rapidly gaining strength. The role and dimension of the government machinery were considerably extended, and mergers and cartels boosted the power of the new captains of industry. Working-class movements appeared and had to be accommodated or contained by the political system. Increasingly, the demands of the wealth-controlling rural classes could only be realized if these were endorsed by other interests too. The feasibility of different types of government intervention was vitally affected. The defence of the free movement of labour by manufacturers, trade unions and related politicians strongly narrowed the opportunities for labour control policies aimed at keeping down farm wage costs. As a consequence, such policies could succeed only in peripheral countries, or had to rely on local government in regions where the wealth-controlling rural classes were still dominant. Similarly, agricultural price support stood little chance if it were only in the interest of large farmers and landlords. However, agricultural depression was also feared by the urban bourgeoisie in many cases, as it threatened to swell the rural exodus which exacerbated the problems of crime and class struggle in the big cities. Also, falling agricultural prices reduced the buying power of farm households. Unless it was compensated by the demand effects of a rise of farm output and exports, as was often

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the case in the new settler countries, it resulted in a restriction of industrial sales. Where industry depended on a home market largely made up of agrarian buyers, the loss could well outweigh the positive effects of low agricultural prices on wages and raw material costs.102 Therefore manufacturers sometimes had direct economic incentives to endorse a support of farm incomes. These could be added to by tactical considerations, as agrarian protectionism opened new coalition prospects to protectionists in industry itself. For governments, in their turn, considerations of ‘food security’ could be important as economic development was increasing the dependence on food imports in many countries. External security required that this dependence did not exceed certain safety lines. This is why governments often reached for protectionist measures to prevent low farm prices from hampering the growth of domestic farm output. Other forms of government intervention could count on even wider support. Government efforts to reinforce the competitive advantage of national agriculture and to enforce new outlets abroad promised to improve the balance of payments, to benefit agri-food companies, and to stimulate the domestic market for industry generally. Land reform measures could likewise expect a much wider backing. Now that large farms were saving on labour, it was hoped that small holdings and allotments would help curb the disruptive pace of urbanization. In peripheral areas, where a landless underclass collided with large owners ‘neglecting’ their land, a redistribution of land titles could be necessary to prevent tensions from bursting into a revolution that could drag many other interests with it.103Admittedly, the kind of land reform considered by the urban bourgeoisie could radically differ from that desired by the landed elite. Whereas the latter wanted to be bought out on generous terms, the former was inclined to let landowners foot the bill by restricting their property rights without complete compensation. Similarly, a legal reduction of rents was often supported by the urban bourgeoisie as an opportunity for making landowners pay for continued farm progress. Family farms and the new model of agricultural development Eventually, it became clear that large farms could no longer be relied on as the chief foundation for agricultural progress. A further increase of farm output and productivity required another economic foundation. In this respect it was important that, where large farms failed, family farms continued. These were also able to continue to intensify production where large farms resorted to extensification and disinvestment. However, as was rightly pointed out by Marxists and other advocates of large farms, family farms had serious drawbacks for further development.104Apart from disadvantages arising from small-scale production, they were not well equipped 34

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for rapid technical development. Their organizational and financial base was too narrow. Also, small farmers had a weaker bargaining position in various markets. Being less attractive for wholesalers, manufacturers or bankers, they were often left to traditional circuits of local middlemen, who failed to supply modern processing or marketing facilities. Moreover, although small farmers were open to innovations that suited their situation, their precarious situation did not allow them to take large risks. In particular, debt avoidance was a major risk-reducing strategy of these farmers. The problem was complicated because, as large farms declined, their traditional demonstration function withered away. Small farmers could no longer reduce their risk by watching the outcomes of experiments by large farmers or improving landlords. As agrarian capitalism was no longer profitable, however, there was little alternative but to accept the family farm as the new frame for development. As well as cushioning the fall in land rents and agrarian buying power, new institutions were expected to obviate the weaknesses of family farms for further farm progress. One way of accomplishing this was found in private initiative, especially the establishment of co-operatives. These were not only needed as a countervailing power against big agrifood companies, but for modernizing the economic environment on which small farms depended.105 Even more importantly, however, the new model of agricultural development based on the family farm required a new boost of government intervention. Government-sponsored agricultural research had to be further increased and more geared to the needs of small farms. It had to be extended by education and advisory work to give small farmers an understanding of modern technology and take over the demonstration function of large farms. These services were also expected to help break the ‘traditionalism’, i.e. risk aversion, of small farmers. This intention was not always well received by small farmers themselves, who disliked being hurried into changing traditional practice, and who hated the condescension they sensed in educational and advisory projects.106 Things were different, though, with a more dynamic upper stratum of family farmers, who could expect more advantages from innovations and were therefore more open to the teachers and advisory agents. Productivity of family farms could be raised to a certain level by the use of variable inputs like fertilizers and improved seeds, or by hiving off activities such as fodder or dairy manufacture to factories. Further progress, however, became dependent on the adoption of new capital goods like machinery and new buildings. To induce farmers to invest in such goods, agricultural prices had to show some stability. Moreover, it was vital that prices did not drop too low, otherwise even the self-exploitation of family farmers would not leave enough margin for investments.107 In time, it gave governments and other non-farm interests a longer-term motive for supporting

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agricultural prices. Even if such support had started as a stopgap to alleviate the plight of large farmers and landlords, it ended as a requisite for the new, family farm-based development. Moreover, the new model of agricultural development strengthened the demand for land reform policies. To arguments for encouraging small holdings it added the importance of small farms for land productivity. In a later phase this consideration was to give way to the need for a scale enlargement of family farms to accommodate a more far-fetched mechanization. Until the interbellum period, however, the demand for land reform remained powerful. Finally, the new development model also reinforced the demand for tenant protection. Investments by small tenants were often hampered by their weak position in the land market. To remedy this drawback, legislation was needed to provide more security of tenure, a limitation of rents, and the right for compensation of unexhausted investments. As well as economic consequences, the ascent of family farms also had critical political effects. The deproletarianization of agricultural labour generated a cleft in the working-class movement. Farmers and urban workers organized themselves – or were organized – into separate organizations, with different outlooks and demands. It gave the dominant classes strategic opportunities for mobilizing the farmers as a counterbalance to urban labour. At the same time, both the landed elite and the urban bourgeoisie looked for support from family farmers in their own rivalries. Thus, a double competition could start for small farmers’ support. On the one hand, urban liberals held out land reform promises to mobilize small farmers against landlord conservatives and vice versa. On the other hand, urban liberals and landlord conservatives both hoped that a mass of small owners would strengthen the defence of private property against expropriatory socialists. The wish to mobilize the peasantry as a counterbalance against urban labour could also become an additional incentive for the urban bourgeoisie to accept farm protection. Moreover, in those instances where the gap between urban labour and the farmers’ movements could be bridged, land reform, tenants’ protection, agricultural price support and government support of farm progress were also likely elements of their coalition programme. In conclusion, it can be said that the new evolution of agriculture induced a broad demand for government intervention. While repressive labour policies were only demanded by landlords and large farmers themselves, agricultural development policies, land reform and tenants’ protection received much wider support. Under certain conditions, this was also true for farm income support policies. Contrary to current ideas, agricultural protection was not always opposed by the urban-industrial interests, just as land reform measures were not always resisted by the wealthy rural classes.

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AGRARIAN POLITICS AND THE GENERAL POLITICAL EVOLUTION Through its effect on political demands, the evolution of agriculture had a decisive influence on actual policy-making. Whereas the growth of agrarian capitalism set the stage for a liberal trend in farm policies, its crisis induced a general turn towards state intervention. Indeed, some mix of the above-mentioned policy ingredients has since appeared in all developed countries. The first steps were taken during the fall of agricultural prices in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Before the First World War government intervention in agriculture had already considerably increased, thereby clearly predating the growth of government interference in industry, which only gained real momentum in the 1930s and the post-Second World War period. The drifting apart of agriculture and industry thus led to a divergence of government policies for both sectors. Once governments began to intervene in agriculture, this had a reinforcing feedback effect in the political structure. For effective intervention, governments needed specialized bodies with decentralized organs capable of dealing with the atomistic structure of agriculture. Farmers for their part formed their organizations so as to match these government bodies. In this way, they tried to maximize their influence. For an effective pursuit of their own aims, both farmers’ organizations and government bodies needed some kind of mutual understanding. It fostered dual relations of negotiation and co-operation, which condensed into webs of agrarian corporatism, and expedited further government intervention. In its turn, government intervention retroacted on the evolution of agriculture itself. By minimizing the weaknesses of family holdings, it helped to limit their productivity disadvantage compared to large farms. By stimulating the growth of farm output, it contributed to a continued downward pressure on agricultural prices. Both effects helped to perpetuate the conditions which had caused the squeeze on farm profits and the decline of large farm enterprises. In this way, government intervention tended to reproduce the conditions which had first provoked it. In these various respects, the development of farm policies was quite similar in different countries. Indeed, the new evolution of agriculture was a global phenomenon, and so were the problems posed and the political energies released by it. Nevertheless, this basic evolution caused only a general increase of government intervention in agriculture. It in no way determined the concrete timing and forms of this intervention, which were strongly influenced by other factors too. One of these was national differences in the conditions for agriculture. In the new settler countries, land was abundant and blessed with an accumulated stock of natural fertility. Although these countries did not escape the squeeze on farm profits and the decline of large farms, it gave them more margin for a family farm-based adjustment. The 37

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same was true for some countries in Europe. Indeed, the Netherlands and Denmark were on the efficiency frontier of European agriculture, had a good location for supplying the growing urban centres in surrounding countries, and were already diversifying their agriculture in the direction of livestock.108At the same time, they lagged behind in industrial development, which helped to moderate the increase in farm wages. Here and in the white settler countries, governments took vigorous action to reinforce the competitive position of their farm sectors, but they could, at least for some time, do without farm income supports. Conversely, the problems were worse in those regions in Europe which lay in a more eccentric Thünian circle, where natural conditions hampered a shift to other productions, or where agriculture was dominated by large farms confronted with inflexible or rising wage costs caused by the pull of nearby industrial centres. In these regions, agriculture could hardly adapt itself without some measure of income support. Apart from differences in farm situations, national processes of policy formation were also important. Although they took a divergent course, farm policies were not created in isolation, but followed from wider government programmes. That is to say, they were part of comprehensive concepts of control that guided the hegemonic project of some class in coalition with other classes.109In both phases of the evolution of agriculture, therefore, farm policies were strongly influenced by questions such as whether the various agrarian interests participated in or were excluded from the ruling coalitions, or what the functions assigned to farm policies in the overall economic and geo-political programme were. As a result, the economic structure of a country, its political make-up and its place in the world system could all make a difference for the farm policies it pursued. Finally, the integration in national processes of policy formation had much wider effects. The global evolution of industrial capitalism threaded its way through these processes, with all their national differences. As I have said before, industrial capitalism has passed through a sequence of configurations in the course of its lifetime. These have been characterized not only by their technological paradigms or private institutions, but by their political structures and concepts. Thus, the absolutism and the mercantilism of the proto-industrial configuration were displaced by the laissez-faire liberalism of nineteenth-century factory capitalism. This was superseded in its turn by the social imperialism and ‘national efficiency’ pursuits of the ‘monopoly’ capitalist configuration of the early twentieth century. The ties that bound agrarian politics to national politics bound it to this general evolution too. On the one hand, it gave farm policies much more general functions for the overall regulation of the economy and the society. On the other hand, it caused the specific evolution of agriculture to influence critically the broader political evolution. In the first stages of industrialization, with agrarian capitalism prospering, the wealth-

38

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controlling rural classes vitally contributed to classical liberalism. John Locke himself was an exponent not of a mercantile or manufacturing bourgeoisie, but of large farmers and capitalist landowners.110 The crisis of agrarian capitalism at a later stage made the landlord class turn to reaction. But the same crisis eroded its influence on the political course of society. Before I come to that, however, I wish to examine agrarian politics at the time when the power of the wealth-controlling rural classes was still at its height.

39

3 MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

AGRICULTURAL GROWTH IN THE RAILWAY AGE In the second half of the 1840s, Europe was scourged by poor harvests and revolution. A quarter of a century later, in 1873, Europe and North America were shocked by a wave of bank failures which sparked a severe depression. Between these dramatic events, the Western world economy had passed through a long period of prosperity and expansion. Economic historians have mostly concentrated on the development of industry, the broad facts of which are well known. In the United Kingdom, where factory production was already well established by the beginning of this period, industrial growth made a new leap forward from the late 1840s. It was encouraged by the growing export demand for British manufactures, which was generated by the liberalization of international trade, worldwide railway construction and improvements in shipping. Meanwhile, in the United States and in Germany, factory production began to develop rapidly in the same period. By 1873, these countries were well on their way to catching up with the United Kingdom as manufacturing nations. Though still lagging behind in absolute figures, they had higher industrial growth rates. However, the Industrial Revolution seemed to bypass the Netherlands – the United Kingdom’s predecessor as the hegemonic power and leading country in economic development – and by 1873, a modern manufacturing sector was still in its infancy. However important these facts may be, they convey only one half of the story. Economic progress pertained not only to industry, but to agriculture. In all four countries, commercial farm production was stimulated by a growing domestic demand. In Germany, the Netherlands and the United States this was added to by a rapid increase in grain, livestock and cotton exports to Britain. Thanks to this expansion of markets, after farm depressions in the preceding decades, agricultural prices recovered and remained favourable for most of the period. An impression of it is conveyed by the figures below. Figure 3.1 shows the evolution 40

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

of the (nominal) price component of the gross domestic product in agriculture in the four countries. Figure 3.2 gives the development of the terms of trade between agriculture and industry plus services. These figures, and all subsequent figures in this study, are based on data compiled by van der Meer and associates from several original studies, supplemented for the Netherlands by data from a study by Knibbe. For definitions, sources and methodological remarks, the reader is referred to the appendix. Because of deficiencies in nineteenth-century statistics and the heterogeneity of the original studies, the data are crude, and should only be used to infer very clear tendencies. Nevertheless, they can illustrate some broad aspects of agricultural development in the four countries. On the one hand, they show that in the United Kingdom the price of farm production remained stable after the mid-1850s (Figure 3.1), while the terms of trade between agriculture and the rest of the economy slightly decreased (Figure 3.2). As a matter of fact, British grain prices, which had been comparatively high, continued to decline somewhat after the Corn Law duties, which had effectively protected domestic producers,

Figure 3.1 Price of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1850–1873 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

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THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

were abolished between 1846 and 1849.1In Germany and the Netherlands, on the other hand, the price of farm production kept increasing.2 In Germany agricultural terms of trade remained more or less stable. For the Netherlands no terms of trade are available, but approximate data indicate a similar development.3For the United States, information in Figures 3.1 and 3.2 is scarce, but likewise suggests stable or increasing prices and terms of trade. In its turn, the favourable development of agricultural prices stimulated investments in farming. One effect was to raise the productivity of agricultural labour. This is showed by Table 3.1. In all four countries the growth rates of labour productivity in agriculture increased. The highest growth rates were found in Germany, which still lagged considerably behind the other countries in efficiency.4

Figure 3.2 Terms of trade farm/non-farm, 1850–1873 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

42

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

Table 3.1 Annual growth rates of direct caloric production per male active in agriculture, 1800–1850 and 1850–1870 1800–1850 0.54 0.94 0.35 0.21

United Kingdom Germany Netherlands United States Source: Bairoch (1989a, p. 329)

1850–1870 0.88 1.67 0.66 0.70

Favourable prices were also one factor that encouraged an increase in total farm production. Besides, this was influenced by the development of the farming population. The result is shown in Figure 3.3. In spite of a rise in agricultural labour productivity, total farm production in the United Kingdom increased comparatively little (as the base year is 1900, not the levels but the slopes of the graphs are important). This was because comparative advantage pushed here towards specialization in industry, which led to a decrease of the farm population.5Nevertheless, the limited agricultural growth achieved was not unimportant, as it mitigated an increasing dependence on food imports. It helped to contain the costs of living at a time when food imports could probably not have been raised much more rapidly without a considerable increase in prices.6 In Germany, the Netherlands and the United States agriculture remained a major engine of economic development. Agricultural growth here was considerable in its own right. This was especially important for the Netherlands, where a comparative advantage stimulated national specialization in agriculture.7 Also, rising farm incomes helped fuel the domestic markets for manufactures, giving vital impulses to the industrial development of central and southwest Germany and the American northeast.8 FARM STRUCTURES AND TECHNICAL PROGRESS A survey of farm structures and agricultural progress in the four countries can best start from a regional basis. Within each country, large differences existed in agriculture between one place and another. Besides, industrial and agricultural development was itself coupled with regional differentiation.9 While some regions turned to the new factory industry, others specialized in commercial farming. This latter was not a sign of backwardness, but rather of a comparative advantage in agriculture. The United Kingdom In the United Kingdom the core agricultural regions were found in eastern England and lowland Scotland. From early modern times, but especially from the eighteenth century, an endogenous differentiation of the peasantry had here been reinforced by 43

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

Figure 3.3 Volume of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1850–1873 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

landlords who sought to enlarge holdings so as to increase net rents.10 By the mid1840s, agriculture in these regions had already become dominated by capitalist tenants employing landless labourers as a workforce. The consolidation of holdings continued in the following decades.11 It was large farmers who, stimulated by remunerative agricultural prices, proceeded to ‘high farming’, the height of agricultural progress in this period.12This ‘high farming’ can be seen as the beginning, within large farms, of the second Agricultural Revolution.13 It marked a transition from a proto-industrial, ‘manufactory’ type to a more truly industrial type of agriculture. While maintaining a high use of labour in proportion to land, the employment of capital was intensified, using the newest agricultural technology. In addition to new rotations, fodder crops and convertible husbandry, all of which had already characterized earlier phases of the Agricultural Revolution, farm techniques now began to include new fertilizers, purchased feeding stuffs and underdrainage.14Besides, high farming included a more far-fetched mechanization. 44

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

In part, this was a reaction to an initial scarcity of labour, generated by the intensification of agriculture itself and by migration to the towns. This migration was especially felt in lowland Scotland, close to expanding industrial centres such as Glasgow and Edinburgh.15To use labour more efficiently, beginning in Scotland, farmers introduced labour-saving machinery like threshers, mowers and reapers. By 1871, more than a quarter of the grain harvest in Great Britain had already been mechanized.16 The biggest farmers also adopted steam power, first in stationary uses and then also for ploughing. The result was a new type of labour organization in which a larger share of unskilled labour was combined with the skilled labour of the ‘machinists’.17Migration to the towns went together with a decrease in the share of labourers in the active farm population.18 However, this did not yet represent a real substitution of farmers’ family labour. Rather, it reflected a disappearance of underemployment, a substitution of capital for labour, and an increased use of seasonal workers from other regions.19 The Netherlands In the Netherlands the bulk of agricultural production, also that for export, came from the coastal provinces. Although large landowners seeking to consolidate holdings were far less common here than in the United Kingdom, the interaction of population growth, inheritance and marriage patterns had nevertheless also produced a differentiation of the peasantry.20By the mid-1840s, a class of large yeoman or tenant farmers had emerged in this region. However, its position was less marked than in east England, and unlike the latter, there was no further consolidation of holdings during this period. Nevertheless, large farms intensified their production, thereby still increasing capital and the amount of labour employed.21 Here, too, large farmers were leading the new phase of agricultural progress. The traditional idea that high prices generated inertia among Dutch large farmers, who were said to have become ‘rich while sleeping’, has been disproved.22 Stock farmers improved their grasslands, fed oilcakes to raise milk production, and, in the 1870s, organized herd-books to support cattle breeding.23 Arable farmers adopted underdrainage, fertilizers and new implements. In the north, they improved grain production by ley farming, soil improvement and row cropping, while in the southwest, they increased industrial crops like madder and flax and began to grow sugar beet.24 The fact that large farmers in the Netherlands lagged far behind their British counterparts in adopting machines was a sign not of inertia but of a greater abundance of labour. When labour became less easily available in the course of the 1860s, Dutch farmers also began to mechanize.25 45

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

Germany In Germany commercial and export-oriented farm production was found mainly in the northeast of the country, beyond the River Elbe. Here farm structures had evolved in a different way from those in the Netherlands and in Britain. From the late Middle Ages, East Elbian aristocrats had reintegrated peasant holdings into their demesnes, subjecting the peasantry to serfdom. In the first decades of the nineteenth century, reforms that liberalized the land market and labour relations had opened up the way for a new expansion of the estate farms.26 By placing the peasantry under heavy burdens of redemption, these reforms had led to a large-scale loss of peasant land to the Junkers. According to a conservative estimate, this amounted to one million hectares in the eastern provinces of Prussia.27From the 1840s, rising agricultural prices once more brought prosperity to East Elbian estate farms. Encouraged by the growing demand for their products, Junkers of bourgeois origin and large domain tenants especially became dynamic innovators.28 They enclosed their fields, introduced ley farming and new fodder crops and increased cattle numbers. Especially in the more western parts of East Elbia they pioneered the adoption of fertilizers, underdrainage and new farm machinery, while in regions such as Saxony, they also began growing sugar beet. This innovative activity reinforced the competitiveness of the estate farms, enabling a further expansion of their total area from 6.25 million to 7.15 million hectares in Prussia between 1851 and 1861.29,30As well as the estate farms, a stratum of larger peasant farms had already developed in the eighteenth century, in spite of the serfdom that then existed.31These farmers gradually copied the Junkers, taking over those innovations that suited them.32The number of their holdings remained more or less stable after the heavy land losses to the Junkers in the preceding decades.33 The United States In the United States, the traditional core of commercial agriculture was found in the South. In colonial times, British demand for tobacco, sugar and indigo had encouraged the rise of plantations in the old southeast. Problems of labour supply had been overcome by importing bound labour – first white indentured servants, then negro slaves.34From the late eighteenth century, the demand for cotton from British textile mills had fuelled an expansion of this plantation economy into the rich lands of Alabama and Mississippi. During the following decades, the size of plantations in this new area strongly increased.35In the 1850s, the cotton belt as a whole saw a further concentration of slaves in larger plantations.36 Indeed, in this period, plantations flourished. Meticulous research by the ‘cliometric’ school has refuted a long-held idea

46

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

that the plantation economy was technically backward and would have lost its profitability by the eve of the Civil War. Conrad and Meyer have shown that the plantations were profitable, and Fogel and Engerman have asserted that they were the most productive farm enterprises in the United States.37 This latter conclusion is a controversial one, but the authors have supported it with strong arguments.38In any case, the planters were prominent improvers. They introduced the new cotton varieties, cotton gins and bale compresses that enabled American cotton to displace the Indian product on the British market.39They also led the adoption of steam power in American agriculture,40 and experimented with new methods to retain soil fertility and combat erosion.41Their most significant innovations, however, were in the field of labour organization. Here they pioneered, admittedly within a slave system, principles which partly prefigured industrial labour management in later periods.42 Although the Civil War put an end to slavery, this did not mean the end of large farms. In the first postwar years, existing labour relations often continued on the base of wage contracts.43 On capitalist yeoman farms, this remained so for the rest of the period: contrary to what is often assumed, by 1880 many blacks were still wage labourers.44On the big plantations, meanwhile, workers and planters increasingly became engaged in sharecropping relations. At first sight this appears to be a disintegration of plantations into small holdings,45 but that is an illusion. In reality, many plantations remained intact, with sharecroppers working in a collective labour process that was organized and supervised by the planters.46Although plantations survived, however, they were no longer vehicles of agricultural progress.47 Planters were paralysed by the after-effects of the northern blockade, and by the severely reduced solvency caused by the loss of their slaves. Before they could recover, cotton prices declined, so that the difficulties of the planters faded into the worldwide agricultural crisis.48 Other regions within these countries It can be concluded that in the core agricultural regions of the four countries there was considerable farm progress, coupled to a further development of large farms. There was a similar tendency in other regions. Sometimes this was very marked, as in California, where favourable natural conditions and a permissive system of public land disposal encouraged the rise of vast grain farms, with thousands or tens of thousands of acres.49Pressed by a relative scarcity of labour, Californian ‘bonanza’ farmers became pioneers of mechanization, adopting the gang plough and the header, and trying out the first experimental combine harvesters.50 Even where circumstances seemed less favourable for large-scale agriculture, the tendency was still present. For one thing, the nearness of modern industry did not 47

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

necessarily hinder the development of large farms. In a region such as southwest Lancashire, near to Liverpool, rising wages encouraged early mechanization, which enabled a reduction of the share of hired workers in the agricultural labour force.51 However, in Warwickshire, close by Birmingham, no such decrease occurred.52 In western Massachusetts, in the United States, neither the small-scale local industrialization nor the booming industrial towns at some distance were able to prevent an increase in hired workers per farm with the introduction of tobacco.53In Hesse, in Germany, west of the Elbe and not far from the growing industrial areas in middle and west Germany, even large estate farms often remained viable and dynamic, high farming being embarked on to meet rising wages.54 Similarly, abundance of land with free labour, although not conducive to proletarianization, could only temporarily retard the ascent of large farms. In the northern United States, population pressure behind the frontier increased, leading to the emergence of a class of people who were permanently dependent on working for wages. In the northeast, part of this class was siphoned off by the industrial economy, but this effect was dampened by immigration. Census data show an increase in the share of ‘farm labourers’ in the active farm population from 29 to 35 per cent between 1860 and 1870.55 Farm accounts that have been saved from this period show that on the upper third of northeastern farms, most of the cash outlays were spent on wages.56 The same farms were adopting improved seed varieties, fertilizers and new cultivation methods, and were specializing in dairy or truck farming, leading the adjustment needed to meet competition from the midwest.57 Even the midwest itself was no pure domain of family farming. Access to farm ownership at the frontier was less open than is often assumed.58Even when land could be acquired free under the Homestead Act (1862), reclamation and farm building costs were high enough to prevent many newcomers from acquiring their own farm. Although it was possible to rent a farm and earn the necessary capital by working for a few years for someone else, as the frontier moved further west, the rungs of this ‘agricultural ladder’ became harder to climb, and social relations between farmers and workers became more unequal.59 In 1860, the share of farm labourers in the active farm population in the midwest was still smaller than in the northeast. But in subsequent years it was the midwest that showed the biggest increase, and in 1870 the regions were level.60 Here, too, this facilitated the rise of larger-than-family farms. A limited number of very large farms, similar to those in California, was also established.61 These vast farms are normally seen as a frontier phenomenon which disappeared as further settlement raised land prices. However, many of them continued intact, with a shift from ranching to arable farming. Even in the eastern prairie states such farms did not decline before the 1880s.62 Again, it was large farms 48

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

that were in the forefront of farm progress, introducing reapers and other laboursaving machinery which greatly raised labour productivity in this region. Less favoured agricultural regions Finally, there were the poorer farming regions where it was difficult to realize an economic surplus on the exploitation of outside labour. Here rising population pressure led to a drastic fragmentation of small farms, often with a high level of selfexploitation. Where an escape was found in industrial development, this fragmentation process could continue, resulting in mini-holdings that were little more than labourers’ gardens. The Realteilung areas in Baden and Württemberg in south Germany are an example of this pattern.63 Where industry failed to materialize, however, besides the fragmentation of smallholdings, a weak reflection of the evolution in more favoured regions often became apparent. In the upland regions of northern England there was a tendency towards extensive sheep- or cattle-rearing farms, often tenanted by large lowland farmers who employed shepherds to live on these farms and undertake the routine management.64On the sandy soils in the Dutch southeastern provinces, larger peasants, though not moving far beyond a family farm structure, still increased their use of wage labour.65 A much more dramatic development occurred in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands and Islands. As elsewhere, large landowners here tried to resist the fragmentation of holdings and to bend the farm structure towards higher profitability. Because of price movements that encouraged sheep holding and local conditions that discouraged investments, this meant not only larger farms, but extensive farms, employing little labour per acre.66In the Scottish Highlands and Islands, landlords had already cleared large stretches for capitalist sheep farming before 1846, displacing their tenantry to small semi-subsistence ‘crofts’.67 Further clearances, in Ireland, were catalysed by the potato blight in the second half of the 1840s. Its impact was especially disastrous in these regions, because the lack of agricultural employment and the decline of industrial employment had created a large pauperized class, subsisting on potatoes grown on small plots. In Germany and the Netherlands, crop failures occasioned distress and an upsurge of emigration.68 However, in West Ireland and the Scottish Highlands and Islands, these failures led to mass starvation. This was worsened because landowners evicted a large number of smallholders who became a burden on the poor rates, and it was followed by a desperate exodus of hundreds of thousands to the United States.69At first sight, this purge of a marginalized underclass seems a disappearance of agricultural wage labour, and so an evolution towards a family farm structure.70 However, this is not true. Those who departed were not regular farm labourers; they were underemployed paupers who 49

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

until then had subsisted in a precarious self-sufficiency supplemented by some casual wage labour.71 Their removal did not lead to a family farm structure, but cleared the way for large farms. The land they left behind was rented to larger tenants, including capitalist graziers and sheep farmers, who exploited large tracts of land, leaving their herds to wage workers.72,73 LIBERALIZING TENDENCY IN FARM POLICIES After this review of agricultural development itself, let us now take a look at government policies. In this period there were differences in farm policies between countries that were connected with a wide variation in politico-economic backgrounds. These differences were stressed by contemporaries. Nevertheless, with hindsight, we can see a considerable measure of correspondence between the four countries. There was a general liberalizing tendency, in agriculture no less than in other sectors. Unfree labour status, traditional obligations, collective rights in land, and ‘dual ownership’ were abolished. Government care and protection, partly still stemming from mercantilism, were cut back. Farm policies became geared towards laissez-faire and reliance on private initiative, particularly that of large farmers and landowners. Although it was clearest in the United Kingdom, the cradle of commercial liberalism, the same tendency could be seen in all four countries, including Germany where the old order proved to be the most resistant. Agricultural trade policies This liberal trend appeared in the first place in agricultural trade policies. The controversial Corn Laws in the United Kingdom were repealed in 1846. The import duties on grain, which had been on a sliding scale, were reduced. From 1849, only a low revenue duty of 1 shilling per quarter was maintained, and this was abolished in 1869. In the Netherlands, corn duties (also on a sliding scale) had already been suspended in 1845. In 1847, they were replaced by low fiscal duties, of 8 guilders per last (30 hectolitres) for wheat. These were further reduced in 1853. The trade in animal products was also liberalized in these two countries, in 1846 and 1845 respectively.74 Although a disguised protection of beet sugar was introduced in the Netherlands in 1858,75 this was the only significant exception. An early liberalization of farm trade was prompted in these countries by non-farm interests. In the Netherlands, the old trading interests were still prominent, and hoping for a revival of the international grain traffic.76In the United Kingdom, manufacturers had grown less dependent on domestic agriculture for their outlets.

50

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

Their lead in the Industrial Revolution had given them a strong export position, while the importance of farm incomes for domestic demand had decreased. By the 1840s, agriculture’s share in the gross domestic product of Great Britain had shrunk to little more than one-fifth. As a consequence, British manufacturers were primarily interested in low food prices, which would consolidate their competitive position in the world market by limiting the subsistence costs of their labour.77 In Germany and the United States, however, no such extra-agricultural impulse to liberalize farm trade existed. Manufacturers in these countries strove for protection against the overpowerful British competition, and were looking for allies. Not surprisingly, therefore, a liberalization of agricultural trade was slower to occur. Nevertheless, Germany followed the same path, though some distance behind. From 1848, the subsidization of wool exports through the Prussian State Development Bank (Seehandlung) was cut back.78 In 1857, the grain tariffs of the German Customs Union (Zollverein) were drastically diminished, the duty on wheat being reduced from 11.77 to 4.71 marks per tonne, and on rye from 12.50 to 1.25 marks per tonne. In 1865 livestock duties were likewise reduced, and grain duties completely cancelled. Five years later livestock duties were terminated too, except for a moderate tariff on hogs.79The only meaningful exception was beet sugar, to which I shall return later. In the United States, the evolution of farm trade policies was rather more complex. In a first phase, agricultural protection was reduced by tariff acts in 1846 and 1857, and a treaty with Canada in 1854.80 From the Civil War, however, a surge of industrial protection also involved an increase in farm tariffs. In particular, import duties for wool were increased, e.g. by a Woollens Act in 1867.81 Yet, across the board, the actual level of farm protection was only moderately affected. This was because, just like southern farmers earlier, northern farmers also became dependent on exports. Consequently, final prices became increasingly determined in the world market, with the result that import duties became less effective.82 Agricultural development policies Like agricultural trade policies, agricultural development policies became geared to a liberal pattern. In all countries the first task of government was seen to be the creation of room for private initiative. In the United States this meant continuing the abolition of Indian land rights which had begun under Jackson. In Europe it meant removing institutional obstacles to development which remained from the ancien régime. Most important for this was the encouragement of enclosures. In Britain, enclosures by private acts of parliament had already made much headway in the preceding decades. The legal procedure was simplified by a General Enclosure Act in 1845.83 In the Netherlands, a royal decree of 1837 had marked the beginning of more 51

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

effective efforts to divide the commons.84The German states saw a new spurt of enclosure laws. Acts were issued in Prussia and Hanover in 1850, in Baden in 1856, in Hessen in 1857, in Bayern in 1861 and in Württemberg in 1862.85 Apart from commons and open fields, other remnants of the old order were likewise done away with. In Germany, where many traditional institutions had survived into the middle of the nineteenth century, the ‘revolution’ of 1848 accelerated their termination.86In the Netherlands, in other ways rather modern, unreformed tithes still existed. The first, though only partially effective redemption act was passed in 1872.87 Apart from removing traditional obstacles, however, agricultural development was chiefly left to the initiative of farm entrepreneurs themselves. In the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, government was most reluctant to intervene in this field. An exception was public loans for underground drainage in the United Kingdom, provided as a compensation for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Although landowners gratefully seized this opportunity, the total amount was fairly limited, and it soon appeared that similar loans could also be secured from private sources at a moderately higher interest.88Apart from this, government support of agricultural development in these countries was hardly existent. Official bodies that had been established to promote farm progress were abolished. The English Board of Agriculture had already been discontinued in 1822,89 and the Dutch provincial Boards of Agriculture shared the same lot in 1851.90State sponsoring of agricultural research and education remained extremely restricted.91Significantly, the first public agricultural schools were not established in the Netherlands until 1876, and in the United Kingdom until 1894. Government reticence in these countries can at least partly be explained by lack of need. Technologically, southeast England, lowland Scotland and coastal Netherlands were the most advanced farming regions in the world. American farm productivity, however, rested more on a favourable manland ratio than on an advanced technological level. The pressure of western competition felt by older farm regions in the east provided incentives for more active government intervention.92 Responding to it, state governments subsidized agricultural societies and, in some cases, installed Boards of Agriculture. From the 1850s a few states also established agricultural colleges.93Yet this state funding of farm research and education remained generally quite meagre. Meanwhile, the growth of federal government activity was hampered, at least in the antebellum period, by a political deadlock between the agrarian interests and the commercial–industrial interests of the northeast.94As a consequence, government care at this level remained practically limited to the dissemination of foreign seeds and plants by the Patent Office.95The Civil War brought an increase in federal activity. In 1862 the United States Department of Agriculture was established. In the same year the Morrill Act enabled the general establishment of agricultural 52

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

colleges by assigning large land grants to the states to subsidize higher education. Yet the significance of these measures should not be overrated.96 The establishment of the US Department of Agriculture was more a political reward for the farmers’ support of the Union than a real change in policy.97 Essentially, the USDA remained the agricultural branch of the Patent Office in a new coat. It was denied representation at cabinet level, and its tasks and staff were only slowly expanded.98As for the Morrill Act, this was still only a modest beginning of government funding of agricultural colleges. Besides, the purpose of these colleges was still anything but clear.99 If government encouragement of farm progress went further in the United States than in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, in Germany it was certainly the most extensive. Indeed, state support of farm progress in that country became the shining example for contemporaries abroad. German governments imported foreign breeding stock and farm machinery, organized farm credit, and sponsored model farms and agricultural schools.100Germany was also the first country to subsidize a network of agricultural experiment stations.101A Prussian Ministry of Agriculture was established as early as 1848. Not only Boards of Agriculture but, to some degree, agricultural societies themselves in Germany had originated closely with the state.102 The greater activity of German governments was stimulated by an awareness of an agricultural lag, and fitted into a more active state support of economic development generally.103Yet even in this country, government encouragement of farm progress remained supplementary to private initiative. The famous experiment stations were all private, and government subsidies covered only a small part of their costs.104Most agricultural schools and colleges were, likewise, private institutions and received no more than limited state aid. In Prussia, subsidies for agricultural colleges were even temporarily reduced after 1848.105 Model farms received state aid and instruction, although they were managed by private entrepreneurs. During this period, however, the emphasis shifted to premiums for improvements by individual farmers.106Lastly, agricultural societies distanced themselves from the state after 1848, taking up a more independent position.107,108 Land policies and ‘emancipation’ Policies concerning property rights also fitted the liberal model. In the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, landlord–peasant relations had long been commercialized. In Germany, peasant emancipation had begun at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The popular uprising of 1848 hastened new legislation to complete the commercialization of legal relations. In the American South, slavery was eventually abolished in 1863–1865. In this case, the terms were much harder for the landlords. Whereas the Junkers had been well indemnified by the peasants, the 53

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planters were dispossessed of their slaves without compensation. Of course, the Prussian reforms had been carried out when the Junkers were a powerful class, while abolition in the United States followed the planters’ defeat in the Civil War. Although liberal reforms involved a commercialization of landlord–peasant relations, they did not include a redistribution of land to small farmers. Land reforms in that sense were virtually absent in this period. In Europe smallholders were disadvantaged by the enclosures, even if the effect was less detrimental than has sometimes been assumed. In Britain, although the Enclosure Act of 1845 enabled the parcelling out of ‘allotments’ to compensate the rural poor, little use was made of this provision.109 Even in Lincolnshire, where many allotments had been created during enclosures, the practice had disappeared by the 1830s. Allotments were still rather widespread in this county, but they had decreased in size, and were mainly labourers’ gardens provided by farmers to discipline their labour force.110 The Irish part of the United Kingdom was no exception. A traditional interpretation sees a continuous line between the Great Famine, the land acts of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth, and the present family farm structure of Irish agriculture.111In reality no such continuity existed. The Irish Land Acts of 1860 increased the power of the landlords, helping them to evict small tenants so as to create larger holdings.112The Land Act of 1870 granted outgoing tenants a right to compensation for improvements and disturbance.113Even if it had been effective, which it was not, it would in the first place have helped larger tenants, who were interested in a higher mobility of land and security of investments.114In fact, the significance of tenant rights in Ireland was not very dissimilar to that in the rest of the Kingdom, where it is clearly recognized as fitting into a development based on large farms.115 Small farmers were also not favoured in continental Europe. In Prussia, an act of 1850 enabled a broader class of peasants to buy off traditional obligations and become full owners. The smallest peasants, however, remained excluded from it. A further regulation in 1853 for Pomerania and part of West Prussia made the criteria even more stringent.116By comparison, American land policies, operating in a frontier situation, appeared to be more friendly towards small farmers. Indeed, small settlers could buy cheap land from the public domain. If they squatted on land not yet opened for settlement, they were generously treated by the Preemption Act (1841). Larger concessions were made during the Civil War. In 1862, the Homestead Act was passed, providing free land to small settlers.117Yet in spite of all this, American land policies hardly hindered the establishment of large farms.118Before the Civil War, apart from preemption, no limitation to area acquired was set. The free acquisition of land under the Homestead Act was bound to a maximum of 160 acres, but the original intention of the act was soon eroded.119Little was done to stop fraudulent bypassing of the size 54

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

limitation. Also, right from the beginning the scope of the act was restricted by the Morrill Land Grant College Act. The large tracts of land it conferred to the states could, without restriction, be sold to the highest bidders. The same was true for the vast area given to railway companies as a subsidy for the construction of new lines. The alternate public sections along the railway lines were closed for settlement until the company land had been sold. Furthermore, large parts of the public domain, still increased by land purchases from the Indians, were kept open for public sale without limitation to size. In the final account, of all the land disposed of by government after 1862, only a very small fraction went free to actual homesteaders.120 Equally significant was the abortion of land reform plans for the South.121During the Civil War, the Union army tried to enlist the support of the blacks by the prospect that they would get land of their own. In some places plantations were actually confiscated and sold to blacks on easy terms, and acts were issued promising distribution of land on a wider scale. In January 1865, General Sherman reserved a 30mile strip along the Atlantic coast and the St Johns River in Florida for negro settlement on 40-acre tracts. This project, which was apparently endorsed by Congress by the Freedmen’s Bureau Act in March of that year, was the most ambitious land reform project of the entire period. However, when the war was over, the whole plan evaporated. For some time the future of land ownership in the South remained unresolved, but a majority of Congressmen allowed the issue to drop. Planters were restored in possession of their land, so black workers were still in a dependent position.122 Farm labour policies Like land reform, social policies for farm labourers were non-existent. Farm labourers were left to the mercy of the market, and legal measures more often than not worked to restrict their bargaining power in it. Indeed, this was true for illiberal laws and liberal reforms alike. In Prussia, a Servants and Agricultural Labourers Act in 1854 threatened farm workers with criminal clauses against disobedience, breach of contract, and combination to strike.123This was clearly an illiberal law. Yet Prussian farm labourers had little reason to envy their fellow workers in England who were exposed to the workhouse system established by the liberal Poor Law reform in 1834.124,125 Although it is true that the Prussian law could be called especially oppressive when it was maintained in a later phase, in this earlier period this was not yet so clear. In fact, its criminal clauses were seldom used.126 By comparison, the threat of the workhouse in England, even though slightly mitigated after the 1840s, was only too real. Prohibitions of ‘combination’, for that matter, existed in the other countries too, and were still generally seen as a liberal anti-monopoly measure.127The tendency 55

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to relax such prohibitions did look as if it might also be achieved in Germany. In 1866, the Prussian government actually submitted an act to repeal the clause, as had already been done for industrial workers. Discussion of the proposal, however, was thwarted by the outbreak of war with Austria.128 Of the four countries, only in the United States did farm labourers fare significantly better. This was the result, however, not of legislation, but of a greater scarcity of labour. This latter did not benefit black workers in the South, though. After the Civil War, they were forced by vagrancy laws to accept yearly contracts, while their mobility was reduced by clauses against enticement and breach of contract. Although the most oppressive ‘black codes’ passed by the Southern states between 1865 and 1867 were overruled by the Radical Republicans in Congress, not all regulations were cancelled. In many instances, their enforcement was encouraged by the Freedmen’s Bureau that had been established by the victorious Union.129Indeed, for black farm workers in the South, the abolition of slavery brought only one kind of freedom. WEALTH-CONTROLLING RURAL CLASSES AND THE LIBERALIZATION OF AGRICULTURAL TRADE Repeal of the Corn Laws in the UK What was behind the evolution of farm policies in this period? Given that the wealthcontrolling rural classes, in particular the large landowners, still commanded power, a liberalization of farm policies would have been difficult against their unbending opposition. Not least, this was true for the repeal of the Corn Laws in the United Kingdom. It has often been asserted that repeal was enforced by the manufacturers behind the Anti-Corn Law League, assisted by the non-agricultural interests of a part of the aristocracy and by the famine in Ireland.130 In this view, which has also been repeated by Tracy,131most of the landed aristocracy resisted repeal but were defeated because of the erosion of their old power position. In the light of more recent historical research, however, this interpretation has become untenable. In fact, parliamentary reform in 1832 had hardly affected aristocratic power.132In 1846, aristocrats controlled not only the House of Lords, but 80 per cent of the seats in the Commons.133Moreover, the Whigs, who had tried to reduce the corn duties, had been defeated by the Conservatives, the pre-eminent party of landownership, which had pledged faith to protection. All this meant that repeal could never have been passed without the support of many landowners. Indeed, the aristocracy was vacillating and divided over the question.134Persistent defence of the Corn Laws came not so much from the aristocracy, but rather from common farmers.135Certainly, Conservative landowners had beaten the protectionist drum to win these farmers’ votes.136Once in 56

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office, however, the Conservative prime minister, Peel, proposed to abandon protection, and a majority of landowners, including almost one-third of the Conservatives, supported him on the final reading.137 This cannot be explained by the commercial or manufacturing interests on the part of some landlords.138 Actually, for Conservative landowning members of parliament, the possession of non-farm interests made little difference to their voting behaviour.139 What, then, determined the landowners’ tolerance of repeal? One factor seems to have been that, in stock farming, little need was felt for protection. Among the landowners supporting the government many came from livestock regions.140Another, and no less important factor was the belief among innovative landowners that some decrease of grain prices could be borne if productivity were raised by high farming. This conviction was cherished by most leaders of the English Agricultural Society, of which Peel himself was a charter member.141For Peel, the abolition of the corn duties was primarily desirable for general political reasons. Apart from that, however, he not only thought that British agriculture could endure a liberalization of farm trade, but he also thought that it would actually benefit by it. Agriculture would profit from the prosperity that free trade would bring to the country at large, while foreign competition would stir sluggish landowners and farmers to improvements.142In line with this reasoning, Peel included his proposal in a general scheme designed to encourage a leap in agricultural productivity. Of course, many farmers felt threatened by such a programme. Landlord investments could increase rents, while investments by farmers themselves were insecure as long as adequate tenant rights legislation was lacking.143Moreover, high farming required a further consolidation of farms and more tenants’ capital than many farmers could afford, and therefore involved the displacement of quite a lot of existing tenants.144Understandably, many farmers disliked such a solution. These fears did not affect the landlords and more substantial farmers, though. They would be on the winning side in the high farming revolution. A basic condition, however, was that agricultural prices should not fall too much. Although some enthusiasts alleged that high farming would enable production at much lower prices, more realistic advocates were less optimistic.145A crucial consideration in the calculations of Peel and his followers must have been that repeal would involve, at most, a limited reduction of grain prices. Indeed, current developments made this a reasonable expectation. By the mid-1840s, the margin between grain prices in England and Wales and those in the countries exporting to them had considerably decreased (Table 3.2). British prices had come down from their extremely high level of the Napoleonic period, while foreign prices were increasing again after the price falls in the 1820s and the mid-1830s. Taking freight costs and the stimulating effect that repeal would have on foreign grain prices into account, it was not to be expected that British grain prices

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would fall by more than a few shillings per quarter.146 Such an outcome would not be absolutely intolerable. In fact, grain prices would still be well above those that had been current during most of the eighteenth century. Table 3.2 Wheat prices per quarter in England and Wales, and in Prussia, 1815–1848

1815–27 s. d.

1828–41 s. d.

1842–48 s. d.

England and Wales Prussia

66 34

11 3

58 31

10 9

54 39

11 10

Margin

32

8

27

1

15

1

Source: Fairlie (1969, p. 106) Actually, the reduction of corn duties, which took place gradually over three years, at first reinforced a new fall of grain prices. It provoked a revival of protectionist sentiments among landowners and especially farmers, paving the way for a Conservative government under Stanley and Disraeli in 1852. Yet little support for protection existed in parliament. Disraeli, no firm protectionist himself, submitted to political expediency. He abandoned protection, striving instead to reduce the fiscal burden weighing on agriculture.147 As a reaction, farmers began to put up their own protectionist candidates at the elections. However, from 1852, grain prices recovered and remained more stable during the rest of the period. Agrarian protectionism faded into the background, and the high farming gospel came to dominate the outlook of landowners and large farmers.148In the following decades, many of them were converted to free traders.149 The Netherlands In the Netherlands, the impulse to cut down on farm tariffs originated with the longestablished trade interests. Although large landowners did not dominate politics as they did in the United Kingdom, the agrarian reaction was comparable. In 1844, a proposal to reduce duties on barley, oats and buckwheat was still firmly resisted by large farmers and landowners, especially in the arable regions. In 1847, however, their opposition to a reduction of corn duties was weakened by poor harvests. In addition, a number of influential landowners and large farmers supported the measure.150Dutch grain prices had recovered considerably since the price falls in the 1820s and 1830s. Moreover, livestock production had an important share in Dutch agriculture. As emphasized by the government in the explanatory statement of its 58

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1847 Repeal Bill, the abandoning of protection by the United Kingdom promised good outlets for Dutch farm products, especially for livestock products.151After all, the Netherlands had a high standard of husbandry and was well located to supply the British market. These optimistic expectations of the free trade proponents among the farm leaders were borne out. Meat, livestock and dairy exports expanded vigorously, as did the exports of some arable products.152 Even grain producers profited from the new export boom. In 1830, 11 per cent of the Groningen oats harvest had been exported to Britain, but by 1862 it had rocketed to 38 per cent.153 The temporary decline of grain prices around 1850 still provoked some protectionist reactions,154but then the call for protection from large farmers and landowners faded away. Instead, Dutch landowners and large farmers also developed a predilection for liberal trade policies.155 Germany and the United States In both the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, it took some time before free trade found general acceptance among the wealth-controlling rural classes. By comparison, German Junkers and American planters had already been won over before 1846.156The Junkers were exporters of grain, the planters of cotton. An international liberalization of farm trade promised to increase their export outlets. In Germany the only significant call for agricultural protection originated not with the farm interests proper, but with the food industry, a strong lobby of beet sugar factories succeeding in acquiring a disguised subsidization of its exports.157 In the United States, sugar, hemp and flax growers demanded protection, but could not match the more powerful bloc of cotton, tobacco and maize producers.158Textile manufacturers could rely on sheep farmers in their pursuit of protection for their own products. However, the enthusiasm for protection among the wool growers cooled from the 1840s until the late 1850s, when they began to feel the pressure of international competition.159Indeed, wool growers were the first to be confronted with the fall of agricultural prices that was to trouble farmers generally in the subsequent period. INSTITUTIONAL BASES OF FARM PROGRESS Why did agricultural development policies remain so limited in this period? Farm organizations often lobbied for subsidies for agricultural fairs, experimental farms, schools and the like. However, at the same time, they were anxious for government intervention not to go too far. In their view, the innovation of agriculture was the sole competence of private entrepreneurship, and government should only facilitate its operation. This philosophy was shared by government officials themselves. This was 59

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the case in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, where lack of need and a firmly implanted liberal ideology made governments almost deaf to calls for assistance, and also in Germany and the United States. Here they were more responsive, but nevertheless insisted that state support should remain supplementary to private initiative.160 This broad consensus was possible because private initiative, indeed, proved effective. As I have already said,161 the increase in farm productivity in this period was based on two kinds of innovation: those characteristic of earlier phases of the agricultural revolution, like new rotations, and those typical of ‘high farming’, like new machines and the first artificial fertilizers. Stimulated by favourable farm prices, these innovations were developed and diffused by the new capitalist entrepreneurship arising in and around farming itself, the more traditional innovations by improving landlords and large farmers, the high farming innovations more often by the incipient farm inputs manufacturers. These various entrepreneurs were practical men. It should be realized that in this period, even new fertilizers were mostly not a product of science, but free gifts of nature, like guano, or products of tinkering by non-scientific inventors.162 Practice with science This practical entrepreneurship was strengthened by three institutions: the agricultural society, the agricultural press and the ‘practical–theoretical’ agricultural school. Structure and mode of operation of these institutions were strikingly alike in the four countries. Agricultural societies, and their more grass-roots counterparts the farmers’ clubs, encouraged the improvement of farming. However, they did not systematically take over the production of innovations, as the agricultural research network did in later bphases. Rather they supported the innovative activities of farm entrepreneurs themselves, encouraging them to experiment, and systematizing and generalizing their findings.163To that end they organized competitive fairs, put up premiums for best achievements, arranged excursions to explore innovations elsewhere, etc. Besides, the umbrella societies could undertake more far-reaching actions, like sponsoring experimental farms, engaging scientists for lectures or chemists for testing fertilizers and oilcake for their members. However, this remained only a top structure, built on the broad base of interprofessional innovative activity by farm entrepreneurs themselves. Indeed, these societies and clubs were rooted in the private initiative of large farmers and landlords. In some cases they functioned with virtually no state support. The Royal Agricultural Society and the Highland and Agricultural Society in Britain, in particular, flourished without government subsidy. In the Netherlands, government support for the societies likewise remained very limited. But even in Germany and the United States, where societies were encouraged 60

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by government, this went no further than some subsidization and co-ordination at the top, and did not affect the societies’ grass-roots organization or basic mode of operation. In these last respects, German and American societies did not differ from their counterparts in the other countries.164 The agricultural press was likewise a servo-mechanism of private entrepreneurship.165 Agricultural books, pamphlets and travel reports published and systematized experiences of ‘scientific farmers’. Farm journals enabled the exchange of information between farm entrepreneurs, and signalled the outstanding achievements of some of them. These journals also published experiments and discussions of the agricultural societies, from which many journals originated, and kept their readers informed about innovations abroad. In the words of one author, farm journals were ‘a clearing house of agricultural facts, opinions, and problems’.166Journalistic methods were tailored to this intermediary function. Editors travelled to visit prominent farms or estates, and much space was filled by voluntary correspondents, who were progressive farmers themselves.167 Finally, the practical–theoretical agricultural schools intended to make competent, innovatory entrepreneurs out of aspiring large farmers and landlords. To that end these schools combined instruction in the agricultural sciences with a training in practical farm management. They were, so to speak, a kind of agricultural ‘business school’.168This orientation was common to the agricultural colleges in the tradition of Thaer or Fellenberg in Germany, the Landhuishoudkundige School at Groningen in the Netherlands and the Agricultural College at Cirencester in England, as well as the first agricultural colleges in the United States.169In many cases these schools were established by private initiative, usually that of the agricultural societies. Compared with these, however, their successful development was more often dependent on government support. The English school at Cirencester flowered without government assistance,170 but in the Netherlands, the development of the Groningen school seems to have been hampered by lack of resources.171In Germany and the United States the subsidization of private schools was followed by the foundation of public schools. Yet government support made little difference to the fundamental objective of these schools: the education of innovative entrepreneurship in farming itself. Scientists’ pretensions During this period, a new view on the organization of agricultural progress was forwarded by natural scientists.172 The German chemist Liebig, in particular, and his followers in Germany and the other countries, contended that the production of innovations could no longer be left to large farmers and landlords, who lacked adequate knowledge. Instead, this activity should be assigned to specialized scientific

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investigators. Agricultural research should shift from agricultural societies to academic research centres. Agricultural education should be split in two: a theoretical training for agricultural scientists and a practical training for farm entrepreneurs who should use the scientists’ advice. In reality, however, scientists had not yet succeeded in living up to their own pretensions. The publication of Liebig’s book in 1840 raised expectations that chemical analysis could provide simple solutions to the problem of soil fertility, but these high hopes were soon dashed. Professional scientists proved hardly more effective than practical entrepreneurs. They were often mistaken, as Liebig himself was with his obstinate rejection of guano and Chilean saltpetre.173Practical farm entrepreneurs turned their back on the scientists, branding them ‘book’ or ‘cuff’ farmers.174As a consequence, scientists’ attempts to reform the organization of agricultural innovation were only partially successful. In Germany, after 1860, Liebig and his followers succeeded in getting a new type of university institute established that relegated the practical–theoretical colleges to the background.175The new experiment stations, however, though intended for scientific research by some of their initiators, became engrossed in testing fertilizers and seeds for large farmers and landlords.176 In the United Kingdom the purely scientific approach made less headway. Rothamsted developed into an advanced research centre, but it still remained rather close to the practical–theoretical tradition.177In the Netherlands, Staring fought a solitary struggle for purely scientific education,178 but his guns were spiked by an amendment from the farmers’ organizations in the debate on the Secondary Education Bill in 1862.179In the United States, the ambitions of the land grant colleges scientists and the USDA were likewise frustrated. Farm entrepreneurs enforced budget cuts, and replaced college leaders with practical farmers in order to press home their own ideas about agricultural education.180 Even where new scientific institutions did arise, they were largely based on private initiative. Rothamsted in England, perhaps the most famous farm research centre in the world, remained the private enterprise of an improving landlord.181The establishment of the new experiment stations in Germany has sometimes been regarded as the beginning of a modern, government-sponsored system of agricultural research,182 but, in fact, they sprang largely from private initiative and were mainly supported by the agricultural societies and by payments for tests.183Here and in the other countries, only in later decades was government support of experiment stations to become important. FEW REASONS FOR INDULGENCE WITH SMALL FARMERS AND FARM LABOURERS Why were land reforms for encouraging small farms virtually non-existent in this period? Most agronomists favoured large rather than small farms. Pleas for small 62

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

farms or allotments, such as were sometimes heard in the depression years after the Napoleonic Wars, or at the height of parliamentary enclosures in Britain, became uncommon after the 1840s. More shaded opinions were still voiced, but these served to temper exaggeration in the faith in bigness rather than to advocate support for small farms.184 In Germany, for instance, Roscher was ahead of his time in advocating a mixed structure that also included medium-sized peasant farms, but he firmly disapproved of smallholdings.185 Indeed, these had few advocates in the speechmaking agrarian community. Most German agronomists followed Thaer in his focus on big farms,186 and leading British agronomists like Caird had a similar orientation.187In the Netherlands, small farms were looked upon somewhat more favourably so long as they were helpful in reclaiming uncultivated lands. Here, too, large farms were deemed indispensable as pioneers of agricultural progress.188There was also no special enthusiasm for small farms among leading agrarians in the United States. The image of Jeffersonism as an idealization of family farms is an apocryphal interpretation, nourished by the evolution in later phases.189Jefferson had favoured an American future based upon commercial farming rather than metropolitan industry, but he had not advocated family farms. Being himself a classic example of an improving planter, it would be strange if he had done so.190 Family farms did have some supporters among social reformist thinkers; John Stuart Mill is a well-known example.191 His advocacy was based on social considerations only, and therefore had little effect.192However, most social reformists also accepted a development of agriculture based on large farms. The utopias of Thünen and Rodbertus, socially minded classical economists like Mill himself, were modelled on large-scale farm enterprises, as were the co-operative communities championed by utopian socialists like Owen.193Marx and Engels considered the ruin of small farmers inevitable, and even welcomed it, as it would bring socialism nearer.194Their anarchist rival Bakunin, though more patient with small farmers, likewise envisaged a future with ‘large-scale agricultural operations, where a great number of workers are needed to farm vast estates’.195However much the views of these various schools of reformers diverged, their expectations regarding the evolution of farm structures were the same. What was the background to the widespread scepticism about small farms? Agricultural development did not depend on small farms, and a redistribution of land among small farmers seemed rather to involve serious disadvantages. Inefficiencies related to small-scale farming would take their toll, the production and diffusion of innovations would slow down, and, not least, if the rural poor were given land, they would be likely to reduce their workload. A comparable problem had plagued proto-industry, and the solution had been to concentrate workers in factories. To do the opposite in farming seemed an attempt to reverse the course of history. As Caird pointed out, agriculture should be developed on ‘the same principle by which the power-loom has supplanted the hand-loom’.196 63

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In the absence of an economic argument for the support of small farms, such support depended entirely on the political need to accommodate small farmers. In Europe such need hardly existed, so the resistance of the rural poor to enclosures and the consolidation of holdings was doomed to fail. In south Scotland and southeast England they had already lost their battle some decades before.197Only a silent poaching war subsisted here as a rearguard action.198 The Chartist Land Plan attempted in vain to re-establish large numbers of industrial workers on the land.199In Ireland and the Scottish Highlands and Islands, the resistance of small farmers remained vehement until the 1840s,200 when the Famine gave a final blow to their struggle. Beaten by hunger and mass evictions, they fled into emigration.201The Continent showed a less dramatic, but comparable pattern. In the German Grand Duchy of Hesse, there was much protest against the displaement of peasants by large estate tenants. In the first revolutionary months of 1848, the air resounded with clamours for a division of the estates. The agitation, however, soon subsided.202 As in other places too, once their own demands were met, larger farmers turned their backs on smallholders.203In the eastern Netherlands, resistance to the division of the commons remained likewise strong until about 1840. After that time, however, small farmers fought a losing battle because larger farmers agreed with division.204 In the United States, the circumstances were at first somewhat different. Territorial competition with other nations demanded quick settlement, which worked to meet the demands of small settlers. This was also true of the antebellum political line-up, with western farmers holding the balance between southern planters and northeastern business interests.205 During the Civil War, the position of the settlers, and of industrial labourers in the northeast, became even more vital. Therefore, the Homestead Act was passed to cement the loyal support of these classes for the Union.206War requirements also induced the promises of ‘forty acres and a mule’ to the freed slaves. The victory of the Union, however, put an end to these political necessities, so that support for small farms lost its foundation. This was the basic cause of the erosion of the Homestead Act and the non-occurrence of a redistribution of the plantations. Contrary to an accepted view, it was not respect for private property that was decisive for the evaporation of the land reform plans for the South. What was really at stake was the continuity of commercial cotton production. A division of the land among the freedmen involved the risk of a relapse into self-sufficiency, and of a general drop in production; a danger that northeastern business interests could ignore just as little as could the planters.207 Finally, the absence of social policies or union rights for farm workers corresponded to the general approach to labour and labour organizations in these decades. Apart from the British Ten Hours Act (1847), which limited labour by women and children in the factories but not in agriculture, farm labourers were dealt 64

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

with not very differently from industrial workers. Even the penal threats against disobedience, breach of contract or strikes of the much-discussed Prussian Servants and Agricultural Labourers Act (1854) were hardly specific, inspired as they were by similar clauses for industrial labourers, already introduced in 1845.208 Indeed, repressive farm labour policies fitted into the overall pattern of economic growth in this period. Just as in industry, profitability in agriculture depended on exploitative conditions for workers, which could only be maintained as long as their resistance remained incidental and unorganized. In Britain this was precisely the effect of the New Poor Law and related measures which forced farm labourers’ protest underground after the mid-1840s.209 As a matter of fact, an effective unionization of farm workers failed to occur in this period. Joseph Arch’s campaign in England in 1872–1873 was the first successful union drive in the countries compared in this study. However, because of the agricultural crisis in the subsequent period, for many years it was also to be the last. Initially, the southern United States was a case apart. Here the abolition of slavery suppressed a still viable system of labour control. In the first postbellum years, therefore, special oppressive laws served to redress the ‘false expectations’ the Civil War had inspired among the freed slaves. When cotton prices started to collapse, the function of these laws began to alter, however. Instead of regulating labour relations for a gainful production, they were now used for shifting a profit squeeze on to the workers. This conformed to a more widespread response of large farmers and landlords to the worldwide fall of agricultural prices. AGRARIAN CAPITALISM AND THE RISE OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM From the foregoing it can be concluded that the economic evolution in this period encouraged liberal policies, also for the farm sector. The effect, however, was tendentious. The actual extent of liberalization was influenced by wider political and economic circumstances, which varied between the four countries. This leads to the further related question of how agrarian interests were connected to the broader political development. This period saw the rise of laissez-faire liberalism, especially in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands but, to some extent, in the other countries too. It is not usual to attribute the rise of liberalism to agrarian interests. An accepted opinion, revived by historical sociologists like Moore and Mayer,210 is that agrarian interests are rather to be associated with tradition and reaction. This image needs considerable modification.

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Political attitudes of the wealth-controlling rural classes On the one hand, the passion for laissez-faire among the new business bourgeoisie should not be overrated. In many cases, manufacturers and their financiers pursued active government support. Outside Britain, they usually strove for protection. On the other hand, agrarian interests contributed more to the rise of classical liberalism than has generally been acknowledged. Large peasants often supported liberal politicians since they wanted the elimination of traditional burdens. However, even among the landed aristocracy, liberal affiliations were not uncommon.211Although such affiliations were hampered by the defence of political privilege, this was not an absolute barrier. Breaking aristocratic prerogative was only one side of the liberal programme, and not the most important. Leading liberals themselves were ambivalent to a more far-fetched democratization, fearing that popular sovereignty would undermine private property and foster a new tyranny.212 Aristocratic dominance in politics did not necessarily offend bourgeois liberals as long as it was based on property.213 It was not democracy but laissez-faire that was the hard core of the liberal programme. What is important is that this core found support with the landlords – not only with liberal landlords, but with conservatives. It is generally accepted that in Britain the landed aristocracy was comparatively open towards political and economic reform.214Indeed, a significant number of aristocrats supported the aristocratic-liberal Whigs. Another group belonged to the ‘Peelites’, who after 1846 seceded from the still protectionist Tory Party, and developed into a conservative-liberal faction.215 The largest number, especially those belonging to the lower gentry, remained loyal to the Tories, but even these became increasingly liberal where economic policies were concerned. After 1852, the Conservative leadership was happy to let the issue of protection drop, and to turn to free market economics.216 The older Conservative attachment to patriarchal government was likewise exhausted. By the mid-century, Tories, no less than Liberals, were striving for a cheap, non-interventionist state and local self-government.217As well as the landlords, larger tenant farmers, many of whom had been enfranchised in 1832, were interested in cheap government. In south and east England they mostly voted Conservative, but elsewhere the picture was more mixed. As these farmers abandoned protection for tenant rights as their first priority, the appeal of the Liberals for them increased.218 Compared to its British counterpart, the German aristocracy has mostly been described as diehard conservative.219The reality was somewhat more shaded, however. Even among East Elbian landlords, some of a more liberal persuasion could be found. A tendency resembling that of the British Whigs had appeared among the nobility in the province of East Prussia.220More widespread in East Elbia, a liberal current had

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developed among Junkers of bourgeois origin, of which Thünen is a well-known example.221Admittedly, the popular uprising in 1848 weakened aristocratic passions for political reform. Estate owners and domain tenants delegated to a Congress of German Agriculturists in Frankfurt accepted some prudent-liberal planks, but the aristocratic reaction at the end of the year carried many landlord liberals with it. After few years, however, divisions within the aristocracy reappeared. Whiggery in East Prussia remained on its feet,222and a minority of the Prussian aristocracy joined the conservative-liberal ‘Wochenblatt’ party.223 Indeed, the agricultural prosperity of the 1850s and 1860s created the mental climate for large landowners to consider social change, as can also be seen in their esteem for their socially minded fellow estate-owner Rodbertus.224Moreover, even arch-conservative landowners did not entirely oppose a laissez-faire programme, and many of them were stalwart free traders. Having no interest in protection for their own products, the Junkers firmly rejected industrial tariffs which would only raise the cost of agricultural machinery and threaten their access to foreign markets.225 Laissez-faire liberalism in Germany was also unopposed by the large peasants. In 1848, they had played a leading role in the popular uprising.226They had demanded commutation of feudal burdens on more favourable terms, and had adopted radical democrats as their spokesmen. Once their economic demands were met, they lost much of their political radicalism. In parts of south Germany, they still supported democrat politicians, but elsewhere they began following Junker Conservatives or the Catholic Centre Party.227However, as we have already seen, the Junkers were conservative-liberals in many economic affairs. The Centre, as a conservative-Catholic party, avowed that it was against laissez-faire liberalism. Nevertheless, it did not take a clear position on trade policy before 1876, in spite of calls for protection from Catholic manufacturers.228 In the Netherlands, larger farmers, many of whom were enfranchised in 1848, supported the Liberals around Thorbecke.229Little is known about the political attitudes of large landowners in this country. It seems probable that many of them supported the conservative liberals around Van Hall, the more so because many had commercial interests outside agriculture. In no other country were the mercantile and landowning classes so intermingled.230 Even conservative landowners tended to be liberals where economics was concerned. A conservative-monarchist such as Gevers van Endegeest, minister in the short-lived conservative Van der Brugghen government, was an enthusiastic free-trader.231Once they were reconciled to the reduction of grain duties, large farmers and landowners generally opposed the call for protection from manufacturing circles.232 In the United States, too, southern planters supported a laissez-faire programme in many respects. Of course, the planters were not liberal on the slavery issue. Neither 67

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

did they reject all government intervention at the state level. Many rich planters supported the American Whigs, who championed government encouragement of economic progress.233Nevertheless, the planters rejected more far-reaching federal intervention. They resisted industrial protection for reasons similar to those of the German Junkers and the Dutch farmers. More generally, they feared that strong federal government would foster political rent-seeking by manufacturing interests, and lead to intervention in southern labour relations. Besides, many planters opposed monetary rigidity which would harm them as producers and debtors.234Around 1800, the planters had supported Jefferson against the centralist policies and protectionism of Hamilton’s ‘Federalists’. Now the same attitudes worked to alienate them from the industrial and financial interests behind the northeastern section of the Whig Party. From the 1840s, the planters increasingly supported the Democratic Party, which mobilized popular resistance against tariffs, central banking, and other measures that would help big capitalists or reduce local independence.235By assuming the leadership of the Democratic Party, the planters could for some time maintain a coalition with a broader class of farmers, both in the South itself and the rest of the country. Tensions, however, arose over free homesteads and slavery. In the eyes of northern farmers, slavery constituted a form of unfair competition from the planters who were able to undersell free labour. In the late 1850s, many farmers joined the new Republican Party, which promised free soil and the exclusion of slavery from the new territories. After the victory of the Union, however, the new party revealed itself as a tool of northeastern business interests, imposing monetary restrictions and granting government support to big business. Wartime loyalties enabled the Republicans to maintain their hold on northern farmers for some time. However, in the early 1870s the rise of tariff-reform agitation, the Granger Movement and anti-monopoly parties already foreshadowed the partial return of northern farmers to the Democratic Party and their support of populist parties, which, in a sense, were to defend the liberal heritage.236 Influence on politics In short, in all four countries laissez-faire liberalism found support among landlords and larger farmers. The former especially had considerable political influence, because agriculture was still a very large sector.237 By 1870, the share of the male active population working in agriculture still exceeded a quarter in the United Kingdom, one-third in the Netherlands, two-fifths in Germany and a half in the United States. Indeed, it can be argued that the liberal leanings of the wealth-controlling rural classes vitally contributed to politics in the four countries in this period. In the United Kingdom, the victory of liberalism was connected with a continued political 68

MID-1840s TO c. 1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS

dominance of the aristocracy.238 The liberal governments that held office almost continuously between 1846 and 1874 were even more aristocratic and less bourgeois than the Tory governments before 1832.239 In spite of the actions of the urban ‘Radicals’, Whig landowners remained the central element in the Liberal party formation. At least as important for the Liberal hegemony in this period was that the economic liberalism of the landlords moderated and narrowed Conservative opposition. The Peelite secession involved a large part of the Tory leadership, which supported Whig governments after 1846, and merged with the Liberal Party in 1859.240 The remaining Tory Party followed the same way at some distance behind. From 1859 to 1865 Lord Derby, the Conservative leader, supported Palmerston’s Liberal office, when necessary braving his own radical wing to do so.241Palmerston’s death in 1865 put an end to this beautiful co-operation, but the opposition of the Conservatives remained restrained, and in questions such as those on electoral reform in 1867 they took up a more liberal position than the Liberals themselves.242 In Germany, the landed aristocracy was also powerful. Unlike in the United Kingdom, however, it had been restrained by the monarchical bureaucracies. Lacking the British aristocracy’s experience with parliament as a vehicle of its own dominance, it was less accommodating when the middle and lower classes demanded democratic reform.243 For a decade after the uprising of 1848, the aristocratic reaction maintained repressive regimes. Then, between 1858 and 1862, supporters of the Wochenblatt faction among the Prussian aristocracy backed a more enlightened ‘New Era’ government, which embarked on a conservative-liberal policy.244Similar developments were seen in other German states at the same time. According to Nipperdey, this interlude, which has remained somewhat in the shadow of German historiography, could have inaugurated a development more on British lines, had it not been for the drastic demands for the army by King Wilhelm and the conservative ultras behind him.245 As it was, in 1862, these forces installed an iron-handed government under Bismarck, which engaged in a ‘constitutional conflict’ (Verfassungskonflikt) with the liberal Diet. It was precisely this government, however, that embarked on an economic-liberal programme. Not least, it co-operated with the liberal free traders of Delbrück, using the Prussian dominance in the Customs Union (Zollverein) and the Anglo-French trade treaty of 1860 to lead Germany towards liberal trade policies.246Moreover, Bismarck introduced political and social reform, including universal male Reichstag suffrage, elected local government, and trade union rights for industrial workers. He also considered reform of the Upper House, and even made overtures to Lassalle’s socialists for some time.247 Bismarck’s policies encountered resistance among ‘old-conservative’ aristocrats, but their opposition remained moderate and was soon overcome.

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It has often been said that Bismarck used liberal means for conservative ends: the achievement of German unification while preserving the political dominance of Prussia and its Junker class.248 Indeed, his economic liberalization helped to appease the middle classes and keep Austria out of the Customs Union, while his political reform was calculated to counter the Liberals by a Bonapartist plebiscitarianism. Yet this suggestion should not be taken to mean that for Bismarck or the Prussian aristocracy economic liberalism was nothing more than a tactical expedient.249 As has already been said, in this period the Junkers were not altogether closed to reform, and a liberalization of trade was firmly rooted in their self-interest. In the Netherlands, farm interests, though less preponderant, also contributed to liberal hegemony in this period. The strength of the Liberals was based predominantly on the rural areas in the north.250 Also, the prevailing attitudes of Catholic landlords in the south permitted Catholic support for the Liberals as long as the latter had no parliamentary majority themselves.251More generally, the evolution of landlord attitudes may have contributed to the vicissitudes of Conservatism, which dwindled away as a political tendency at the end of this period.252 It seems probable that the conversion of landowners to economic liberal views eroded the breeding ground for a really Conservative current. Finally, in the United States it was the settlers who first enforced universal manhood suffrage in this period.253 Also, the coalition between them and the planters for a long time blocked the pursuit of more interventionist policies by northeastern business interests. The dissolution of this agrarian coalition and the defeat of the planters in the Civil War were needed before the United States turned to high industrial protection and massive government support for the railways.

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4 c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED

AGRICULTURE AND THE ‘GREAT DEPRESSION’ In 1873 a severe depression inaugurated a period of protracted deflation. Additional depressions followed in the 1880s and the early 1890s. Overall, Western economies expanded somewhat less vigorously than they had in the preceding decades. Yet, although it has been labelled a ‘great depression’, it was not really a period of stagnation.1Rather, it was a time of profound structural change. Manufacturers were faced with increased competition, overstocked markets and rising workers’ demands. To defend their profit margins, they embarked on far-reaching reorganizations, experimenting with mergers and cartels to restrict cut-throat competition, thus initiating a long-term movement of centralization. They also introduced serial production techniques that raised labour productivity while enabling them to substitute unskilled workers for demanding craftsmen. These transformations were not as far-reaching in the United Kingdom, which was suffering from the dialectics of progress. Neither had they much impact in the Netherlands, where the international deceleration interrupted the newly begun take-off of modern industry. Conversely, they were very marked in Germany and the United States. In these countries industrial growth remained vigorous, which enabled the United States to overtake the United Kingdom as the leading manufacturing nation by the end of the century, while Germany was poised ready to follow. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom remained the world’s leading banking and commercial nation, as well as its first naval and imperial power. In its turn, the deflation and deceleration of growth in this period had various backgrounds. One of them was a turn in the agricultural markets. Throughout this period, farm prices fell or remained at a low level. This lowered food prices for consumers and raw material prices for non-farm producers, but it also restricted the incomes of landowners, farmers and agricultural workers. This could not fail to affect 71

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

the economy at large. Agriculture still represented a large share of national incomes, ranging between 25 per cent and 40 per cent in most developed countries, except in the United Kingdom.2 In the white settler countries, a contraction of farm incomes could yet be offset by increased earnings of carriers and dealers who benefited from expanded agricultural exports,3 but in Europe it was bound to backfire on effective demand.4 The main cause of the decline of farm prices was a rapid expansion of the global supply of farm products. Unlike industrial growth, the growth of farm output accelerated in the first part of this period.5The largest increase in production occurred in the United States. In spite of a slackening growth of global demand for cotton, production kept expanding. As the United States was the world’s largest producer, this forced cotton prices down. Meanwhile a rapid reclamation of the western prairies pushed up the production of grain, and American grain prices began to fall from the early 1870s. At the same time, helped by rapidly decreasing transport costs, grain exports increased. In the second half of the 1870s bad weather in Europe expanded American outlets, giving some breathing space to American farmers, but depriving European farmers of the higher prices which normally counterbalanced bad harvests. After the early 1880s European harvests recovered, and grain prices fell on both sides of the Atlantic. As a reaction, farmers in Europe and the American northeast turned to more intensive arable crops, livestock production and horticulture. However, these did not escape the fall of agricultural prices. After a short delay, the expansion of these products also began to overstock the markets. This was reinforced because the introduction of refrigerated vans and ships enabled the older American midwest, New Zealand and other new farm regions to expand their meat and dairy exports. In addition, butter, vegetable oils and natural dyes began to feel the pinch of the increased competition of margarine, mineral oil and aniline colours. The situation was complicated by a monetary factor which, although of secondary influence, played a considerable part in contemporary discussions. After a boom in the preceding decades, the production of gold declined. At the same time, many countries moved to a gold standard, so that the demand for gold for coining increased.6 However, farm export countries such as India or Argentina maintained a silver or inconvertible money paper standard. The currency of these countries devalued in relation to gold, in the silver standard countries even more so because a reduced demand for silver for coining coincided with an increase in silver production. This cheapened the supply price of farm exports from these countries, so that agricultural prices in the gold standard countries were further depressed.7 An impression of the movement of agricultural prices may be gained from Figure 4.1, which gives indices of the prices of farm production in the four countries.8In the United States, the fall of agricultural prices had already begun in the late 1860s as a 72

c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED

correction to high prices induced by the Civil War. In the 1870s it was exacerbated because the American government enforced a restoration of the prewar gold value of the dollar. The figure also shows that, in Germany, agricultural prices remained somewhat more stable than in the United Kingdom or the Netherlands. As a matter of fact, Germany resorted to agricultural protection from 1880.

Figure 4.1 Price of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1873–1897 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

As I have already said, agricultural prices were not the only ones that fell in this period. The prices of manufactures and services decreased as well. In the United Kingdom and Germany, however, agricultural prices fell more drastically, so that the terms of trade moved against farming (Figure 4.2). This probably also occurred in the Netherlands.9 In the United States the situation was somewhat different. Although it does not appear so clearly from the scarce information in the figure, the decline of agricultural prices was more or less equalled by that of non-farm product prices.10It did not help American farmers much, however. On the one hand, most of them held

73

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purchases of non-farm-produced consumer goods to a minimum. On the other hand, the wages that they had to pay to their workers were not very flexible and nor were their debts. To buy land and build farms, western farmers had to take heavy mortgages, and repayments and interests due remained fixed, irrespective of falling grain or cotton prices.11 The burden was increased by the deflationary monetary policies of the American government, which exacerbated the fall of nominal agricultural prices out of which farmers had to service their debts.12

Figure 4.2 Terms of trade farm/non-farm, 1873–1897 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

REPERCUSSIONS ON FARM OUTPUT AND PRODUCTIVITY The fall of agricultural prices strongly affected the development of agriculture. In some places, farmers were able to defend their incomes by investing in new productions and innovations. They adopted artificial fertilizers, labour-saving machinery, etc. thus increasing their output and productivity. Where there were 74

c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED

no margins, however, farmers could only adjust in a negative way, by restricting expenditures through extensification and disinvestment. Although a reduction of labour employment could then still increase labour productivity in the short term, in the longer term, negligence and lack of innovations could only end in stagnation.13 Figures 4.3 to 4.5 convey an impression of these divergent reactions at the national level. Figure 4.3 gives the development of the volumes of farm production, Figures 4.4 and 4.5 the growth of land and labour productivity in agriculture. Of course, these national aggregates conceal considerable regional differences. To compare the development of agricultural productivity between the countries, Figures 4.4 and 4.5 should be looked at in combination. In the United States, with much land per head of the agricultural population, agricultural productivity growth could be expected to consist more in an increase in labour productivity and less in an increase in land productivity than in the European countries, which had a lower land:man ratio. For Germany and the Netherlands, this was even more true than for the United Kingdom. What is most conspicuous

Figure 4.3 Volume of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1873–1897 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

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THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

in these figures is a protracted stagnation of agricultural production and productivity in the United Kingdom (see the horizontal course of the graphs in Figures 4.3 and 4.4). The growth of farm production had already been limited before. What was more striking, therefore, was the stagnation of agricultural productivity. Initially labour productivity was still rising (Figure 4.5), but after about 1890, this too was finished.14 Other sources give a similar picture. Wade concludes that there was a near stagnation of total factor productivity in British farming between 1870 and 1925.15 Because Britain had a very high technical level of farming in the 1870s, it might be thought that the stagnation was due to a technological ceiling. However, the accounts of British agriculture in this period suggest otherwise.16The stagnation of yields was coupled to decreasing efforts to maintain soil fertility. The use of artificial fertilizers hardly expanded, and manuring even decreased as stall feeding was reduced and the use of oil cakes stagnated.17 Two million acres of arable land were turned into grass, but much of it was badly managed. Hay yields declined, and animal

Figure 4.4 Land productivity, 1873–1897 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

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c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED

numbers did not keep pace to the expansion of pasture.18 The maintenance of buildings and equipment was neglected, and drainage activity came to a halt.19 Many farmers bought self-binders and new ploughs, which allowed them to cut down on labour requirements, but the demand for more heavy machinery plummeted. By the end of the period, the British leadership in steam plough construction had been lost to Germany and the United States.20 In contrast to the United Kingdom, agricultural development in the other countries showed more continuity. For the United States, Figures 4.4 and 4.5 contain little information. Actually, the most productive land had been occupied here by 1890, causing a stagnation of land productivity by the end of the period. Nevertheless, reclamation and mechanization continued vigorously, forcing up total production and output per worker. Indeed, studies of farm productivity suggest a rapid rise of labour productivity in this period.21 In Germany and the Netherlands all dimensions

Figure 4.5 Labour productivity in agriculture, 1873–1897 (1900=100, UK 1901=100, Netherlands 1899=100) Source: see appendix

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of agricultural development kept increasing. Judging by the estimates which underlie Figures 4.4 and 4.5, both land and labour productivity in Germany singularly increased. Estimates by Helling show some deceleration of labour productivity growth, though.22 The rise of agricultural production and productivity in these countries was based on intensification, primarily by an increase of pig numbers and an expansion of root crops. The latter provided more fodder and required better manuring and tillage, which also benefited grain yields. The expansion of sugar beet production involved the adoption of artificial fertilizers on large farms. The same was true in Germany for heavy machinery.23 Apparently the effects of falling prices on farm production differed between the United Kingdom and the other countries. This difference can be explained by three factors: comparative advantage, farm structures and protection.

Comparative advantage Comparative advantage helped the United States and the Netherlands. The United States benefited from abundant fertile land, a high level of mechanization, and greatly improved internal and international transport. The Netherlands had a centuries-old tradition of advanced farm practice, an advanced specialization into livestock products, and a suitable location and infrastructure for supplying the large British and German consumption centres. Moreover, it had an industrial lag which moderated the increase of farm wages.24 To be sure, these advantages were no safeguard against the agricultural crisis. In the United States, the cotton South was distressed. In the Netherlands, the central river area and south Limburg were badly hit, and even the livestock sector was significantly affected.25 Nevertheless, comparative advantage assured that American and Dutch farmers kept more margins for investments. They could meet falling output prices by substituting machines for hired labour, shifting to root crops, small stock, fruit or vegetables, and improving the quality and marketing of their products. Conversely, the United Kingdom and Germany were less well-off. Natural conditions or a more outlying location caused large farm areas in these countries to rely on grain.26 The costs of production in these areas, however, were higher than in the United States. Especially in the United Kingdom, this was exacerbated because the industrial pull on labour led to high agricultural wages by European standards. This disadvantage in production costs had been formerly offset by the high costs of transporting American grain to the European markets. However, the rapid reduction of freight rates put an end to this form of protection, so that farmers were faced with a drastic fall of grain prices. Nevertheless, it did not make a shift to animal and horticultural products more practicable. In Britain, supply elasticity of grain was higher than in other countries, but climatic and soil conditions in the grain78

c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED

producing areas did not favour a shift to grass.27Moreover, such a shift demanded investments that were not very feasible under the circumstances of the depression.28 Similar problems hampered a conversion to livestock in German East Elbia.29 Moreover, the markets for animal products were already being overstocked by the expansion of dairy products and pork in some foreign countries. British and German farmers within reach of big cities had a virtual monopoly in perishable goods such as liquid milk, but those who were at some distance from such centres had to rely on dairying or fattening, in which they were no match for more favoured foreign competitors.30 Farm structures Apart from these comparative advantages or disadvantages, there were also farm structures. Significantly, it was precisely in some core regions of large-scale farming that the development of productivity was most disappointing. In the United Kingdom the stagnation was most pronounced in southeast England.31 In German East Elbia, the rise of grain yields rose less than in a peasant region like Bavaria.32 In the Dutch coastal provinces, productivity growth in agriculture dropped considerably below that in the inland provinces.33In the American South, cotton yields actually declined, while labour productivity lagged far behind that in northern farming.34 Special factors have been cited to explain the poor performance of some of these regions. That of southeast England, for example, has been attributed to a specialization in grain,35 and that of the American South to the abolition of slavery, debt peonage, lack of alternative employment, and the technical complexity of mechanizing the cotton harvest.36 Not all of these factors are equally plausible,37 but some indeed did have an influence. The question remains, however, whether they give a complete explanation. In the Dutch coastal provinces, no adverse factors seem to have been present. Yet here, too, the development of farm productivity was disappointing. Significantly, labour productivity growth not only slowed down in the arable provinces of Zeeland and Groningen, but in the dairying province of North-Holland (Table 4.1). Apparently, a prevalence of large farms could by itself inhibit farm progress. As farm wages were becoming less flexible, falling proceeds could easily squeeze away the margins that large farms had for investments. Admittedly, this was not invariable. Large farmers could reduce costs by cutting out the frills. More importantly, they could still try shifting part of the burden to their labourers. Although farm wages no longer declined together with agricultural prices as they had done in the past, in all four countries they did fall further behind non-farm wages in this period.38Farmers began using more female or casual workers,39 and, where 79

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

Table 4.1 Annual growth rates of value added in constant prices per man-year in Dutch agriculture, coastal and inland provinces, 1850–1880 and 1880–1910 1850–1880

1880–1910

Inland provinces: Drente Overijssel Gelderland

1.50 1.34 1.58

1.13 1.58 1.37

Coastal provinces: Groningen Zeeland North-Holland

1.08 1.20 1.55

0.41 0.72 0.52

Source: van Zanden (1985, p. 133)

possible, cheap immigrant labour. In California, by 1880 half or more of the field work was being done by Chinese.40 By the end of the century, East El bian estates employed some 100,000 Polish seasonal workers.41 If conditions were sufficiently favourable, large farmers could preserve margins to uphold their profits by new leaps in technical progress. The giant ‘bonanza’ farms of California and North Dakota, in particular, became paragons of scale, mechanization and management.42 Similar, though more moderate, examples can be found for the European countries too.43 Where the burden of falling prices was more pressing, however, the existence of large farms tended to change from an advantage into an obstacle for agricultural progress. It can be presumed that this factor too weighed most heavily on the United Kingdom and Germany. While these countries had no comparative advantage in agriculture, they did have the greatest share of large farms. Indeed, Offer has argued that concentrated landownership and large farms were decisive in the failure of British agriculture to compete with American imports.44 Protection Farm structures and lack of comparative advantage together caused German and British farming to have smaller margins left to meet falling output prices by new investments. As a consequence, a positive adjustment of agriculture in a free market was almost impossible. In Germany, this was overcome by the introduction of protective trade policies from 1880. Without protection, farm productivity in Germany would almost certainly have developed less favourably.45 This is what actually happened in the United Kingdom, where unshielded farmers saw no alternative but to cut expenses to the point of neglect.46 80

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SET-BACK FOR LARGE FARMS In all four countries the tendency towards large farms came to a halt. In the European countries, this was also reflected in farm areas. In England and Wales, where farms larger than 300 acres (121 hectares) had been increasing at the expense of small farms,47 their share in the agricultural area began to decline from the 1880s (Table 4.2). In Germany the same happened with all farm classes above 20 hectares (Table 4.3). In the Netherlands the number of farms larger than 50 hectares stagnated, while farms smaller than 50 hectares increased (Table 4.4). Table 4.2 Share in agricultural area* of different farm size classes in England and Wales, 1885 and 1895 Acres 5–100 100–300 Over 300

1885 28.9% 42.1% 29.0%

1895 29.5% 42.6% 27.8%

Note: * area of crops and grass of holdings of 5 acres and more Source: Grigg (1987, p. 185)

Table 4.3 Share in agricultural area of different farm size classes in Germany, 1882 and 1895 Hectares 1882 1895 Under 2 2–20 20–50 50–200 Over 200

5.7% 38.7% 22.5% 13.3% 19.7%

5.6% 40.0% 21.8% 13.2% 19.3%

Source: Puhle (1986a, p. 84)

Table 4.4 Numbers of land users in different farm size classes in the Netherlands (thousands), 1883 and 1898 Hectares 1883 1898 1–5 5–20 20–50 50–100 Over 100

67.0* 58.8 20.8 3.3 0.3

80.3 63.7 22.0 3.4 0.2

Note: * probably incomplete Source: van Zanden (1985, p. 333)

Even more significant was the evolution of the share of hired workers in the active farm population. In the United Kingdom it decreased from 63 per cent in 1871 to 52 81

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per cent in 1891,48 in Germany from 52 per cent to 45 per cent between 1882 and 1895,49 while in the Netherlands it slightly declined from 67 per cent to 65 per cent between 1889 and 1899.50 The decrease in the United Kingdom had already started in the preceding decades, when cities and overseas countries had siphoned off part of the underemployed among the rural poor.51 However, now the movement continued in spite of considerable industrial unemployment, workers being no longer pulled, but pushed out of agriculture as farmers cut down on labour requirements.52 A comparable evolution took place in the United States. The average area per farm decreased in the South, the northeast, the east north-central (old midwest), and the Pacific west.53 However, this development was not new, and largely reflected an intensification of agricultural production. More significant, therefore, was the evolution of the share of farm labourers. Between 1870 and 1890, census data showed a decrease of this in all regions (Table 4.5). These data may be somewhat inaccurate, but they are corroborated by a decrease in the share of wage costs in the value of gross farm output between 1870 and 1900 (Table 4.6). In the South, the ambiguities of sharecropping make census data less conclusive for the real evolution of farm structures. Nevertheless, it is clear that, although the plantations were not wiped out by the abolition of slavery, they did lose ground during these decades.54 Other indications likewise point to a decline of large farms. In the eastern prairie states, farms larger than 1,000 acres were broken up,55 while in California a shift from wheat to intensive cultivation involved a break-up of large holdings in farms which relied to a larger extent on family labour.56 Table 4.5 Farm labourers as percentage of active farm population in the United States, 1870 and 1890 Area North Atlantic South Atlantic North Central South Central Western

1870

1890

35 58 36 58 32

33 49 25 31 30

Source: Wright (1988, p. 194)

Table 4.6 Expenditure for wage labour as percentage of gross value of agricultural output in the United States, 1870 and 1900 Area 1870 1900 North Atlantic South Atlantic North Central South Central Western

13.7 19.0 9.3 14.4 19.3

Source: Wright (1988, p. 195)

82

10.7 8.0 6.1 5.6 16.7

c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED

An exception to the general pattern was the development in the western prairies and mountain regions. Here the average area per farm did not decline, but increased. This was partly caused by the development of extensive ranching in the semi-arid zone and the abortion of arable farming by droughts from the late 1880s. This did not reflect a general dynamism towards large farms, but rather an adjustment to specific natural conditions.57 Another cause was a surge in large-scale farming, including vast wheat and beef bonanzas, during the second half of the 1870s and the early 1880s when widening outlets in Europe slowed down the decline of American agricultural prices. However, this boom of large farms was short-lived. After the early 1880s prices fell again, and the situation of the bonanzas became critical. In the 1890s, they began to disintegrate.58 The temporary rise of the bonanzas illustrates how the decline of large farms was no unilinear development. In Europe, too, attempts to defend profits by drastic rationalization led to an increase of the very largest farms in some cases. In England, the number of farms larger than 1,000 acres increased by 13 per cent from 1875 to 1895,59 and similar phenomena could be seen in parts of East Elbian Germany too.60 Nevertheless, such developments remained only small cross-currents in the low tide of large-scale farming. Many explanations have been given for the decline of large farms. Some general hypotheses have already been discussed in Chapter 1. More specific factors have been given for the evolution of farm structures in the countries and period under consideration. These include the lack of economies of scale in cotton production with free labour in the American South,61 the end of frontier conditions in the American prairies,62 and the shift to livestock, horticulture and artificial fertilizers in northwestern Europe.63However, although these factors seem to account for the development in some regions, they cannot explain the widespread and simultaneous character of the stagnation of large farms in this period. Moreover, the end of frontier conditions or the lack of economies of scale in cotton cannot explain the temporary revival of bonanza farms and plantations when prices recovered in the first decades of the twentieth century. Nor can the use of artificial fertilizers explain the rise of small farms, since the diffusion of these fertilizers was still mainly limited to large farms at this time.64Without denying the possible influence of some of these factors, it is my contention that the general explanation for the set-back for large farms in this period lay in the decline of agricultural prices, the decreased flexibility of farm wages, and the lack of opportunities for supplementary employment in rural regions. While keeping the self-exploitation in family farms high, these factors led to depressed profits which eroded the technological lead of large farms, so that the competitive balance between large and small farms was reversed. 83

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GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION ALONG DIVERGING PATHS In the preceding period, governments had come to rely on market forces and capitalist entrepreneurship in farming to push along agricultural progress. Now there was a departure from laissez-faire policies in farming, even though there were important differences between the four countries. A review of the various fields of farm policy will show both the beginning of intervention and national variations. Agricultural income policies In the European countries, the farm crisis led to some tax reductions in agriculture. In the United Kingdom this was done through the Agricultural Rates Act of 1896; in Germany and the Netherlands it was part of more general fiscal reforms in 1891– 1893.65 Much more consequential, however, were developments in trade policies. Around the beginning of the period, Germany became a net importer for basic farm products. In 1880 these were subjected to a moderate tariff as part of a ‘solidary’ protection of agriculture and industry (Table 4.7). A Livestock Diseases Act in the same year allowed far-reaching sanitary restrictions on livestock and meat imports.66 In 1885 agricultural tariffs were considerably raised, import duties for wheat, rye and feed barley tripling. As a result, farm tariffs far exceeded their highest level in the first half of the nineteenth century, before the years of liberalization.67 In 1888 grain tariffs were once again increased, but for the time being that was the peak. After 1892 farm tariffs were moderated by trade treaties with other countries. Import duties on wheat, rye and oats were reduced by one-third. Sanitary restrictions on meat and cattle imports were also relaxed.68 Besides imposing import restrictions, Germany subsidized some farm exports. The disguised subsidies on beet sugar exports, begun in the preceding period, continued on an increasing scale. In 1888, however, these subsidies were halved and in 1892 were replaced by still lower open export bounties.69 There was also some disguised subsidizing of brandy exports.70Finally, a certificate policy for grains was introduced in 1894.71 Exporters of grain received negotiable certificates which could be used to pay the tariff on an equivalent amount of the same grain imported. The market mechanism gave the certificates approximately the same value as the tariff so that, in practice, they worked as an export bounty. Although the policy has been depicted as a height of export subsidization,72 it was not one in the usual sense, as the certificates could only maintain their value as long as Germany remained a net grain importer.73 Germany was the only country of the four to convert to agricultural protection. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands kept to free trade policies. Apart from 84

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Table 4.7 German tariffs for important farm products, 1865–1892 Grains (marks per tonne) Wheat

Rye

Feed

Maize

Oats

barley 1865 1880 1885 1888 1892

0.00 10.00 30.00 50.00 35.00

0.00 10.00 30.00 50.00 35.00

0.00 5.00 15.00 22.50 20.00

0.00 5.00 10.00 20.00 16.00

0.00 10.00 15.00 40.00 28.00

Livestock (marks per head) Horses

Oxen

Cows

Pigs

Wethers

1870 1880 1885 1892

0.00 20.00 30.00 25.50

0.00 6.00 9.00 9.00

2.00 2.50 6.00 5.00

0.00 1.00 1.00 1.00

0.00 10.00 20.00 20.00

Source: Henning (1987, pp. 253, 254)

limiting the import of cattle on the hoof in the United Kingdom,74 and some disguised subsidizing of beet sugar export in the Netherlands,75agriculture in these countries was not shielded from the world market. Neither did the United States substantially increase its support of agricultural prices. Although the highly protectionist McKinley tariff (1890) extended import duties to several agricultural products, its effect was limited since increased export surpluses made the prices of basic farm products ever more dependent on the world market.76 However, the American government did take some measures to encourage farm exports. The McKinley Act included a first step towards a reciprocity policy, in which tariff reductions were conceded to countries that opened their markets for American farm products.77 In 1884 a Bureau of Animal Industry was established to overcome sanitary barriers against American livestock exports.78 In 1890 a meat inspection act was passed to break a European boycott of American pork,79 and in 1894 a Section of Foreign Markets was established in the US Department of Agriculture for promoting farm exports. Agricultural development policies As well as farm income policies, the encouragement of agricultural progress became more important. In the preceding decades, the most active country in this field had been Germany, and government support continued to develop there. The subsidization of agricultural experiment stations was increased, a system of travelling 85

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consultants evolved into an agricultural extension service,80 state credit institutions were created to support land development projects,81 and the famous German agricultural education system was further expanded. Whereas the preceding period had seen the establishment of agricultural colleges for large landowners and agricultural high schools for capitalist peasants, emphasis now shifted to agricultural ‘winter schools’ and schools for elementary secondary education for the mass of smaller peasants.82 Meanwhile, however, a more dynamic development was beginning in the United States and the Netherlands. In the former country, although federal support of farm progress had gained some momentum during the Civil War, there was a second, and much more substantial spurt of federal activity from the late 1880s.83 In 1887 the Hatch Act provided the states with funds to set up agricultural experiment stations. Between 1875 and 1887, fourteen states had already set up experiment stations, although most of them were little more than fertilizer control offices.84 Such stations were now established in the other states too. Thanks to the Hatch Act money and the state subsidies, the American stations became the best funded in the world.85 Meanwhile, the budget and research activities of the United States Department of Agriculture rapidly increased. By 1897 the Department’s personnel had risen to 2,444.86 A second Morrill Act in 1890 provided the land grant colleges with new funds which, for most states, far exceeded those of the first act of 1862. At the same time, there was a multiplication of farm schools and courses at a lower level.87 In 1894, the Carey Act granted one million acres to each state containing arid lands as a subsidy for irrigation.88 Altogether this shower of federal resources in the United States initiated a powerful growth in government care for agricultural development.89 In the Netherlands, government support for agricultural development had, until then, been almost absent. After considerable difficulties, a first public agricultural college and an experiment station were established in 1876, but their paths were littered with problems.90 The establishment of a State Commission on Agriculture in 1886, however, was a milestone. Following the advice of the Commission, the Dutch government established additional experiment stations, appointed agricultural advisory experts, established public farm schools, and subsidized agricultural schools and courses of private organizations and local government bodies.91 Here, too, these initiatives inaugurated a rapid expansion of government support for farm progress.92 In contrast to the other countries, in the United Kingdom government support for agricultural progress remained meagre.93Significantly, the first public agricultural college, in Wye, was not established until 1894.94 In 1890, funds were made available to county councils for educational purposes, of which some £80,000 to £90,000 went annually to agricultural education and extension.95If this is compared to the 1.5 million to 2 million dollars which the Hatch Act and second Morrill Act alone 86

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provided for these purposes in the United States,96 it is clear that government support in the United Kingdom remained restricted. The decision to provide even these modest funds was not part of a deliberate policy, but was the result of an accidental surplus of a drink tax.97

Land reform We have seen that whereas the other governments resorted to protection or increased government support for farm progress, the British government remained remarkably passive in both spheres. Conversely, however, it led the way in a third field of farm policy: that of land reform measures encouraging small farms. In the preceding decades, land policies had permitted, if not stimulated, the expansion of large farms. In the period under consideration there was a change of course. The Agricultural Holdings Acts of 1875 and 1883, which reinforced the rights of outgoing tenants to compensation for unexhausted investments, still fitted into a pattern of agricultural development based on large farms.98 Also, Gladstone’s famous Irish Land Act of 1881 was not intended to support small farmers.99However, it introduced administrative limitation of rents and gave tenants fixity of tenure, thereby restricting the power of the landlords to consolidate small holdings into larger ones.100 This effect was reinforced by the Ashbourne Act of 1885 and subsequent tenant-purchase acts for Ireland, which subsidized land sales by landlords to tenants.101The first real land reform act was the Crofters’ Holdings Act for Scotland, in 1886.102In addition to traits of the Irish Land Act, it gave some room to a Crofters’ Commission for compelling landowners to surrender land for the enlargement of small holdings in the Highlands and Islands.103One year later this principle was extended to the rest of the United Kingdom by an act conceding compulsory powers to local bodies to acquire land for allotments.104This act was followed by a first Small Holdings Act in 1892. Although in itself a failure, this Act nevertheless set the stage for more effective legislation in the subsequent period.105 As well as in the United Kingdom, a land reform policy was established in Germany. Here it began as an attempt to uphold a German peasantry in provinces with a growing Polish population. To that end, a Royal Settlement Commission for Posen and West Prussia was set up in 1886. The Commission was empowered to purchase Polish estates and break them up into small parts to be given in hereditary leasehold to small farmers of German origin. This settlement activity in ‘nationally threatened’ areas was soon followed by measures to encourage the settlement of small farmers in the whole of East Elbian Prussia. In 1890–1891 Hereditary Leasehold Acts (Rentengutsgesetze) were issued, which gave mediatory and credit-granting powers to state institutions to transform estate lands into small holdings.106 87

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In the United States, land policies at first continued to facilitate the taking over of public lands by large companies. The Desert Land Act, in 1877 and, a year later, the Timber and Stone Act were issued in which the only purpose was, in the words of one historian, to encourage monopolization while throwing dust in the public’s eyes.107However, from the 1880s some efforts were made to restore the original intentions of the Homestead Act. In 1885, President Cleveland, at the instigation of land commissioner William Sparks, ordered the tearing down of illegal fences which had been erected by cattle barons on public land in the western plains. In 1886, Sparks suspended all grants under the Timber Culture and the Desert Land Acts.108 Although a storm of protest staged by the railways and large landowners forced him to resign, most forms of free cash sales were ended in 1889. In 1890 the amount of land any person could take up under any of the land laws was limited to 320 acres. A year later, some of the most notorious land acts that had facilitated the establishment of large estates were limited or repealed.109 It can be concluded that the evolution of land policies in the four countries was more parallel than that of income and development policies. Only in the Netherlands did a land reform policy fail to appear during this period.110This could be because large estates and very big farms were rare here. In the other countries, the actual effect of land reform measures was limited, and the increase of small farms resulted more from spontaneous transactions than from legislation. Nevertheless, the turn to land reform was a significant element in the general evolution of farm policies in this period.

Farm labour policies If we look at farm labour policies, there is also some similarity between the four countries. In the preceding period, apart from some limitation of child and female labour in British factories, both agricultural and industrial labourers had been left to the mercy of the market. Although some steps were now being made towards social policies for the workers, farm labourers were largely excluded from these blessings. The British Factories and Workshops Act (Ten Hours Act) of 1878 did not apply to farm labourers. Neither could these labourers take comfort from the report of the Royal Commission on Labour (1893), which portrayed their situation in unrealistic, rosy colours.111Indeed, facing hard times themselves, landlords and large farmers were unwilling to incur additional costs for their workers. In Germany, the Netherlands and some American states legislation was passed to limit child and female labour, but agriculture was not included. The immigrants or ethnic minorities employed as an agricultural sub-proletariat – Poles in Germany, blacks and Asians in 88

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the United States – were even less well-off. They suffered under extreme exploitation, and legal means were used to keep them subjected.112 Of course, there were variations. The position of farm labourers in Germany has been depicted in especially dark colours,113 but this should be qualified.114On the one hand, it is true that farm workers in Germany were kept in a legal position of personal dependence. Also, the Prussian prohibition on farm workers ‘combining’ against their employers, although almost abolished in 1866, was still in force. The personal subordination of farm labourers was not very effective, however, since it could not prevent them from leaving for America or the industrialized west. Although the Junkers clamoured for restrictions of the free movement of labour, they got nowhere with it in the Reichstag.115 Moreover, the agricultural crisis took away the chance for farm workers’ unions anyway. Even Joseph Arch’s National Agricultural Labourers’ Union in England faded away after its short triumph in the early 1870s.116 Under these circumstances, freedom to organize was a very immaterial right indeed. On the other hand, Germany did introduce a social insurance system in the 1880s. In spite of opposition by agrarian politicians, its pioneering accident, disability and old age insurances – and in some places health insurance – also applied to farm workers.117By comparison, the social security system in the other countries remained very limited. In the United Kingdom the number on relief was even deliberately forced back by reactivating the dreaded ‘workhouse test’. This occurred also in the cities, but there it was coupled with more investments in specialized Poor Law institutions such as schools and infirmaries. In the countryside even children were put in general workhouses, the prison-like aspects of which were not mitigated before the 1890s.118

Agrarian corporatism Finally, there was a new tendency towards agrarian corporatism, i.e. the development of formal relations of negotiation and co-operation between government and agrarian organizations. In the United Kingdom, a Board of Agriculture was established in 1889. In the same year, the United States Department of Agriculture was upgraded to cabinet status. In the other countries, although no national departments of agriculture were created,119there was the institution of public representations of agricultural interests. In Germany, a Prussian Agricultural Chambers Act in 1894 inaugurated the establishment of public chambers of agriculture (Landwirtschaftskammern), which absorbed the existing agricultural societies.120 In the Netherlands, the Dutch Agricultural Committee (Nederlands Landbouw-Comité), established on a private basis in 1884, was recognized as a public representative body in 1893.121 89

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UNITED STATES, THE NETHERLANDS AND THE BLESSINGS OF COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE What explains the divergence in agricultural incomes policies and development policies between the four countries? The liberal-economic interpretation involves a rather straightforward value judgment. When all went well, it says, governments did not try to arrest the fall in agricultural prices, but assisted in the adjustment process by education, advice and land reform measures. In Germany, however, the landed gentry was still powerful, and enforced a protection of the grain on which it mainly depended. This policy helped to preserve the economic and social privileges of the landlords, but it hampered adjustment, and was detrimental for small farmers, consumers, and general welfare. In my opinion, this landlord-blame theory is flawed.122Farm policy developments in this period cannot be accounted for by a simple, mono-causal explanation, since national responses to the agricultural crisis were influenced by several factors. Let us first look to the United States and the Netherlands. These countries were net exporters of farm products with a comparative advantage in agriculture.123The United States was superior in grain and extensive ranching, the Netherlands in intensive livestock farming and horticulture. These advantages did not immunize farmers against the fall of agricultural prices. Just like the other countries, agricultural profits were depressed, and the expansion of large farms began to stagnate. The difference, however, was that American and Dutch farmers still had margins that allowed them to meet falling output prices by new investment. As a consequence, they were able to weather the crisis. This situation influenced the attitudes of interests in, and outside, the agricultural sector.

The United States In the United States, the farm crisis provoked a massive mobilization of farmers. In the 1870s the Grange and the Greenback Parties developed, in the 1880s, the Farmers’ Alliances appeared, and in the 1890s, the People’s Party was established. These movements tried to remedy the plight of the farmers, but, interestingly, they did not stress farm protection. In the 1890s some Grangers advocated a plan to use tariff receipts for subsidizing grain exports, but the idea was not widely supported.124A similar reaction was seen when the Republicans tried to sell the McKinley tariff (1890) to the farmers by placing high duties on agricultural products. The farmers were not enthusiastic, and abandoned the Republicans in the elections.125One reason was that, in the American situation, final output prices were only one factor influencing farmers’ incomes. The great distance between production and consumption – often as great as from the western prairies to London – gave ample scope for intermediaries. 90

c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED

Railways, the grain trade the meat-packing industry all exacted their share of the proceeds. Besides, lack of credit exposed farmers to financial insecurity and high interests, while the reinstitution of the convertibility of the dollar at its prewar value caused considerable deflation, which harmed the farmers as debtors. It was these factors which the farmers’ movements chose as their targets. The Grangers tried to force back high margins of intermediaries, organizing farmers’ co-operatives and demanding the regulation of railway rates.126The Greenbackers and Silverites strove for flexible monetary policies that would stop deflation while easing the credit situation. The Alliances and the People’s Party combined both approaches.127 Their famous ‘Subtreasury Plan’ called for decentralized government warehouses where farmers could store their products against negotiable certificates, and receive credit against them. It was an ambitious scheme to exploit favourable market situations, to free farmers from local moneylenders, and to reflate the economy at large by increasing the total amount of legal tender.128 These various demands all reflected a tacit assumption that agricultural prices in the world market were in themselves not intolerable for American farmers, if only they could get a fair share. Besides, it has been suggested, these demands were also intended to expand farm exports.129This needs some qualification.130 For the rank and file of the farmers’ movements, these demands aimed first and foremost at domestic markets. Activists sometimes even denied that agricultural overproduction, and hence a need to expand exports, existed. In their view, what seemed overproduction was caused by the depressed state of the domestic economy resulting from deflationary monetary policies.131However, the farmers’ movements were not socially homogeneous. In addition to common ‘dirt farmers’, they encompassed a more capitalist segment which included large farmers, rural businessmen and politicians representing these interests.132There were also big transporters, traders and processors who, though often attacked by the farmers’ movements, similarly wished to increase their turnover. Indeed, these various agribusiness interests strove more aggressively for an expansion of farm exports. In 1873–1874, the Senate ‘Windom Committee’ urged the improvement of internal transport and the containment of freight rates to reinforce the competitive position of American farm exports against Russia and India.133 In subsequent years, spokesmen of agri-food companies and large farmers, including the national leadership of the Grange, kept hammering away at this argument.134In a similar way the reintroduction of silver as a monetary unit had an extra significance for these interests that was not so prominent with common farmers. The adoption of a double standard – ‘bimetallism’ – would involve a devaluation of the American currency, which would cheapen American products on the world market and so stimulate farm exports.135The agribusiness interests also cried out most loudly for retaliation against European countries that discriminated against American farm products.136 91

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In time, urban interests also became convinced of the importance of expanding agricultural exports. As it was, the wavelike expansions of these exports appeared crucial for America’s overall economic development.137In particular, an increase of farm exports pulled the economy out of the severe slump of 1873–1876 and restored a positive trade balance. This was noticed in urban business circles, which from this time began to support the expansionist demands of the agribusiness interests – an attitude that was reinforced by the beginning export orientation of some industrial sectors themselves.138 In its turn, this configuration of interests structured the situation for politicians. Rather than promote agricultural price supports in the domestic market, it became wiser for them to promote measures to encourage farm exports. Such measures would satisfy large farmers and agri-food companies; they would be looked on with sympathy by other business interests; moreover, they could also be used to contain the discontent of common dirt farmers. Actually, agrarian interests were poorly integrated into the ruling coalitions during most of this period. Both Republican and Democratic governments practised tight money policies which served metropolitan financiers to the detriment of farmers,139while their trade policies, although they diverged, served only different industrial sectors without doing anything for agriculture. On the one hand, the Republican promise that high tariffs would stimulate the home market for farm products was to no avail when not only cotton but grain and livestock became dependent on exports.140 On the other hand, the tariff reductions advocated by the Democrats did nothing to alleviate the problems confronting American farmers in the world market.141 This neglect of their interests infuriated the farmers, and made them rise up against the metropolitan headquarters of both major parties – a revolt that by the early 1890s had assumed threatening proportions. In the ensuing entanglement, the convergence of metropolitan and agribusiness interests on expanding farm exports indicated a way out. Although the Silverites took over the Democratic party machine, it was the Republicans who seized the opportunity most adroitly. Blaine, as secretary of state under Garfield and Harrison, inaugurated the use of diplomacy to open up export markets and introduced the reciprocity strategy in the McKinley tariff.142Although more basic demands of the farmers’ movements were not met, this project helped to reintegrate the agribusiness interests in the ruling coalition, vitally contributing to McKinley’s final triumph over a Populist-Democratic free silver coalition in 1896.143 In its turn, this export vocation assigned to agriculture encouraged a further increase of government support of agricultural progress. As it was, the expansion of farm exports depended on costs of production that were lower than in other countries. However, the closing of the frontier was approaching and the natural fertility of virgin soils was becoming exhausted. With the spread of cultivation, pests and diseases also began to exact their toll.144 The United States could not hope to 92

c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED

retain its advantage without calling in science and modern technology. In some cases, farm exports even depended directly on it. Controlling animal diseases and microbiological contamination of food was needed if European barriers against American farm products were to be overcome.145 These conditions created a favourable atmosphere for a lobby of agricultural college scientists demanding more subsidies for agricultural research and education.146Certainly, they met with reluctance from ordinary farmers for whom the struggle against railways and other drains on farm incomes was much more important. Nevertheless, the scientists found a willing ear with the leadership of some farmers’ organizations, agri-food companies and business at large.147 Large farmers still wanted research to be done on experimental farms, college education to be combined with practical work, and the whole apparatus to be controlled by actual farmers. However, the development of large farms stagnated, and their scale fell short of the exigencies of modern research. As a result, agricultural progress became dependent on special research institutions. It was the conception of the scientists at these institutions that was reflected in the Hatch Act and the second Morrill Act.148

The Netherlands In the Netherlands comparative advantage and export dependence likewise set their stamp on the articulation of interests in, and outside, farming. Actually, the fall of agricultural prices provoked a greater demand for protection among the farming population than it did in the United States. Government and parliament received many petitions for protective tariffs from local farmers’ clubs.149 At first, these pleas came predominantly from arable regions. Later, when prices of other farm products likewise declined, voices for protection were also raised in the important livestock sector, and even in horticulture.150Nevertheless, many livestock farmers, especially holders of mixed farms with small stock, remained wary of it, fearing that grain tariffs would raise fodder prices.151Representatives of the wealth-controlling rural classes also remained firmly wedded to free trade. In the initial phase of the price fall, it was only landlords in Limburg who demanded protective grain tariffs.152This was a grainproducing province where outlying location and poor transport facilities hampered the adaptation of farming.153However, in the foremost arable provinces of Zeeland and Groningen, the leadership of the agricultural societies withstood calls for protection among their rank and file, the Zeeland Society maintaining this position throughout the period, the Groningen Society until 1895.154 In the rest of the country agrarian leaders were even more opposed to protection.155In 1886 the Dutch Agricultural Committee (Nederlands LandbouwComité), a newly formed umbrella organization of agricultural societies, clearly 93

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

declared itself to be against it. It confirmed this position in 1897, even though protectionist sentiments had been increasing.156 The more loosely organized Dutch Agricultural Congress (Nederlands Landhuishoudkundig Congres) also repeatedly spoke out against protection.157Large farmers and landowners in the livestock regions welcomed cheap grains that would moderate wages and lower feed costs. They feared that protective tariffs would only undermine the competitive position of Dutch livestock exports, and even risk provoking retaliations from other countries.158 It was no accident that the president of the Dutch Agricultural Committee who led the freetraders’ position in 1886 was a big Frisian cattle breeder, who lived by what was still an active international demand for the most famous farm product of Dutch animal husbandry. An additional factor may have been that many Dutch landlords had commercial interests outside agriculture. Complaints were heard that the Dutch Agricultural Committee comprised several members who were propagating free trade, without themselves being practising farmers.159 Instead of protection, agrarian leaders opted for a reinforcement of the competitive strength of Dutch farming. This option implied that agriculture would increase its specialization into animal products, which were already being exported. Therefore, the Dutch Agricultural Committee and other mouthpieces of the wealthcontrolling rural classes urged the government to abandon its laissez-faire attitude and actively to support farm progress, provide cheaper transport, and return to bimetallism.160 Later in the period, when Dutch exports were hindered by trade barriers from other countries, they asked assistance for the combating of animal diseases so as to be able to meet the sanitary requirements of importing countries, and for the setting up of a meat-packing industry which could evade bans on livestock imports.161 Because of a lack of alternatives, it was grudgingly accepted that more research and education involved a separation between farm entrepreneurship and agricultural science.162 The attitude of agrarian leaders became entangled with more general tendencies in Dutch politics. On the one hand, outside agriculture there was no large demand for protection. The financial and mercantile interests, which still dominated the Dutch bourgeoisie, swore by free trade. Although things were different in the incipient industrial sector, here, too, circumstances worked to moderate the call for protective tariffs. Open markets enabled Dutch manufacturers to profit from the fierce competition between British and German industries, which cheapened raw materials, semi-finished goods and capital goods.163 Moreover, in the small Dutch economy, manufacturers soon became dependent on exports. The internationally oriented textile industry in Twente was strongly averse to protection.164Consequently, agrarian protectionists could only look for allies in a limited segment of domestic marketoriented industries. For all other interests, protective grain tariffs only increased the cost of living, damaged trade, and ran the risk of provoking retaliations against Dutch 94

c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED

exports. The prevailing attitude in the Dutch political community was well articulated by leading economists like Pierson and Cort van der Linden, who called cheap bread a blessing and asserted that the agricultural crisis could be overcome by a reallocation of capital and labour.165 Of course, free trade meant further dependence on imported bread grain, but for a small country that successfully relied on neutrality to keep out of armed conflicts, this seemed somewhat less risky than it did for other nations. On the other hand, the agrarian leaders’ demand for government support of farm progress fell on fertile ground. Certainly, conservative Liberals, coming mainly from the financial and mercantile class, continued to preach government restraint. However, the mobilization of the lower middle classes helped cause the rise of progressive Liberals and Anti-Revolutionaries who wanted a more active role for government so as to overcome problems in economy and society. The widening of the franchise in 1887 strengthened these parties and cleared the way for the first Confessional government, in which the Anti-Revolutionaries had a major influence.166This agreement between the leadership of the agricultural societies and major tendencies within the non-farming bourgeoisie set the stage for the State Commission on Agriculture, which was established in 1886. Several members of the Dutch Agricultural Committee sat on it and Cort van der Linden was its secretary. The Commission quickly reached the conclusion that although free trade should be maintained, government should strongly support farm research and education.167 Coinciding with the electoral breakthrough of progressive Liberals and AntiRevolutionaries, the Commission’s report helped to break the resistance of conservative Liberals against government intervention.168The new Confessional government promptly implemented a series of measures in keeping with the advice of the Commission, thus initiating the rapid expansion of government support for farm progress. In the following years, free trade was attacked by a coalition of protectionist landowners and home-market-oriented manufacturers.169This coalition, which had its main base in the Catholic south, demanded a joint protection of agriculture and industry according to the German model. In 1889, a motion by the Catholic representative Bahlmann was not discussed because of a dissolution of parliament. In the following year, a Dutch Protectionist Agricultural Association (Nederlandse Protectionistische Landbouw Vereniging) was established to further the introduction of farm tariffs. However, the movement was not strong enough to enforce its will on the free trade majority in parliament. A new motion by Dobbelman in 1895 was rejected by 52 votes to 33.170The aftermath of this vote once again revealed the limited support for protection in Dutch farming. Reacting to the rejection of the Dobbelman motion, protectionist landlords and Catholic clergymen established Farmers’ Leagues which opposed the liberalism, religious neutrality and elitism of the established Agricultural 95

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Societies.171The new organizations were modelled on the Christian Farmers’ Associations in Germany, which were firmly protectionist. At the first convention of the Dutch Farmers’ League (Nederlandse Boerenbond), in 1896, the majority of delegates were advocates of protective tariffs. However, they did not dare make protection the declared policy of the League for fear that it would cause division among their rank and file.172In the east Brabant heartland of the new organization, peasants were afraid that grain tariffs would raise feed costs and provoke retaliations against their exports of butter, pork and eggs.173Therefore, the League focused on measures that would expand exports and increase productivity. Father Van den Elsen, leader of the new movement in Brabant, asserted that ‘real’ protection meant forming farmers‘ cooperatives to further a retionalization of agriculture and fight abuses by middlemen.174 Accordingly, the League shifted to a programme that was not very different from the older organizations. UNITED KINGDOM, GERMANY AND THE DETERMINANTS OF FREE TRADE OR PROTECTION For the United States and the Netherlands, we can conclude that comparative advantage and export dependence largely explain choices regarding farm incomes and development policies. In the United Kingdom and Germany, however, the situation was very different. British and German agriculture had higher production costs, a larger share of inflexible wage costs, and less room to shift to more remunerative productions. Consequently, the fall of agricultural prices left farmers and landlords with smaller margins for investment in agricultural progress. This could not simply be compensated for by intensifying development policies.175Even if innovations were to have been more abundantly available, their adoption would still have cost money. Moreover, an encompassing structure of research and education could not be built up overnight. Even in the United States and the Netherlands, it was not before the twentieth century that farm development policies became really effective. Therefore, British and German governments were faced with a choice: either they resorted to farm protection, or they sacrificed agricultural progress. Germany chose the first option, the United Kingdom the second.176 The United Kingdom Although the agricultural depression forced British farming into extensification and disinvestment, the agrarian call for protection in the United Kingdom remained rather insipid.177Significantly, the two Royal Commissions on Agriculture, 96

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appointed in 1879 and 1894, and dominated by large farmers and landowners, did not argue for protection.178 Yet this did not mean that protection was not wanted by British landlords. Among the largest landowners, the desire for it may have been tempered because many of them had non-farming commercial interests,179but the lower gentry in large part supported tariff protection.180 The position of farmers was more complex, however. Although the agricultural crisis aroused widespread farmer agitation in the United Kingdom, the brunt of it was aimed not at protection, but at shifting the burden to the landowners. This was most marked in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, where landlord–tenant tensions were exacerbated by the marginalization of smallholders, and by ethnic and religious opposition. Indeed, throughout the 1880s, the Irish countryside was in a state of uproar.181Rent strikes, boycotts and arson were the order of the day, and only severe coercion and acts granting rent reductions and other concessions could stem the tide. The Irish land war was followed by rent strikes and land raids in the Scottish Highlands and Islands,182 and by a tithe war in Wales.183 Here, too, the sending in of troops and the granting of legal concessions were necessary to restore order. A comparable, though not violent, struggle developed in England itself. In 1879 a Farmers’ Alliance was formed which launched a campaign for legally ensured tenant rights.184During the 1880s, the Alliance declined. However, in northwestern England, its struggle was continued by new organizations, including more radical ones like the National Federation of Tenant Farmers’ Clubs, which called for an act like that in Ireland that would reduce rents.185 Evidently, in the United Kingdom the farm depression chiefly provoked an internal struggle between agricultural classes rather than a unified struggle for protection. This also explains why farm policy reactions were primarily in the field of land policies.186 Various factors have been put forward to account for the response of farmers in this country: memories of the ill-fated protectionism of the 1850s, anticipation of the political impossibility of protection, stock farmers’ objections to grain tariffs.187However, these factors would never have had such an influence without one important condition: the United Kingdom had by far the highest concentration of landownership, and the large majority of farmers were tenants. With the prospect for protectionism looking meagre, this structure opened up an alternative course of action for farmers which seemed to be more promising.188 Nevertheless, during the 1880s in south and east England, the tenant rights agitation gave way to a unified movement of farmers and landlords for protection.189However, it still found no strong representation at the national political level. This was because agricultural protection was a lost cause anyway in the political configuration of the United Kingdom. The dominant non-farm interests had no motives for considering protection. Just like the Netherlands, Britain had a 97

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large international service sector and many financiers with capital invested abroad. These interests, centred in the City of London, were firmly attached to the liberal international system. Moreover, as exports of manufactures were still three times larger than imports of these goods, most industrialists too had little to gain by protection.190 Even those manufacturers whose voices were heard through the Fair Trade League pleading for tariffs had little reason for wishing protection to be extended to farm products. Low agricultural prices helped to contain wages and raw material costs. Moreover, as agriculture accounted for only one-eighth of gross domestic product, it formed no more than a limited part of the home market, so that the adverse effect of falling farm incomes on effective demand was comparatively small.191 The opposition of urban labour to everything that would raise food prices was also important. In the other countries, the active population in industry was still smaller than that in agriculture, but in the United Kingdom, it was already more than twice as large,192 so that neither party could afford to ignore its reaction. Finally, agricultural protection was not needed for strategic reasons. Although between 1860 and 1900–1910 the share of imports in basic human dietary needs soared from onefifth to three-fifths,193 this could be tolerated without really endangering food security. Britain was the world’s hegemonic power. It disposed of vast colonies from which it could cheaply obtain farm imports. Its naval superiority ensured the continuity of these imports in case of war. Therefore, it could keep up food security without maintaining a high degree of food self-sufficiency. Britain was not yet engaged in an arms race with rival nations, Germany’s war fleet only becoming a serious challenge after the turn of the century. Consequently, British naval superiority could be maintained at limited cost. Until the late 1880s, naval spending remained steady at a level of about £10 million per year, and by 1894 it was still only £15 million. Meanwhile, grain imports doubled between 1871 and 1894, for a total expense which only rose some 13 per cent. As a consequence, the trade-off between cheap imports and naval spending was strongly positive.194 All these factors together blocked the path to agrarian protectionism. By the 1880s, the political power of the aristocracy had undergone considerable erosion, anyway.195 Although the Conservatives came back into office during this period, they had to tread very carefully. The electoral reform of 1884, which extended the vote to farm labourers, increased the rural base of the Liberal Party. The tenants’ agitation had the same effect, playing into the hands of the Irish Party and a Scottish Crofters’ Party which held the balance in parliament.196The urban middle classes were prudently moving over to the Conservatives, but agricultural tariffs were likely to send them back to the Liberal Party and to place the Conservatives against an all-powerful coalition of the City, most manufacturing sectors and urban labour.197By the mid98

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1880s the landlords were cornered. To block Irish home rule, which they feared would encourage the virus of tenants’ revolt and allow it to spread to the rest of the Kingdom, they had to enter a monstrous coalition with Chamberlain’s radical Liberal Unionists.198 These were anti-Irish, but no less anti-landlord.199The hands of the landlords thus being tied, they could hardly hope to push through agricultural tariffs.200 As can be seen, the circumstances that led to a continuation of free trade in farm products in the United Kingdom were rather specific. Most of them followed directly from the unique position of this country as the world’s hegemonic power. In the prevailing interpretation, the British choice appears the normal one, and the German appears as the deviant one, but there is a good case for seeing things the other way around. Indeed, the situation of Germany was much more representative of the majority of industrializing countries in Europe.

Germany Initially, the internal situation in agriculture was different in Germany. A much greater proportion of peasants owned their land. Even in East Elbia, landownership was not as concentrated as in the United Kingdom.201Consequently, farmers had less prospect of shifting the burden of the agricultural crisis to the landlords. Both farmers and landlords had to absorb the fall of farm prices themselves, which cleared the way for a defensive coalition. From the 1870s a growing number of peasants voted for parties dominated by landlords – Conservatives in the Protestant regions, the Centre Party in the Catholic regions.202 Through these parties, landlords and peasants first called for fiscal concessions and then, increasingly, for protection. The initial call for protective tariffs came, not from the East Elbian Junkers, but from farmers in the more industrialized regions.203 The most unanimous support for Bismarck’s turn to protection in 1878–1879 came from the Centre Party, which depended on votes from the western and southern peasantry.204During the 1880s, the Junkers were also converted to protectionism, but the Centre and the southwestern peasantry continued to play a prominent part in the successive increases of agricultural tariffs.205 Although this unified agrarian struggle was a powerful factor, other conditions were no less important for the introduction of agricultural tariffs. In the first place, manufacturers were also seeking protection, especially in heavy industry and textiles. Their traditional desire for protection was revived by the severe crisis of 1873 – well before farmers and landowners began to think about tariffs.206To lend force to their demands, a Central Union of German Manufacturers (Centralverband Deutscher Industrieller) was formed in 1876.207 The call for industrial tariffs was not moderated 99

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by the fact that heavy industry was outgrowing the German market and becoming more dependent on exports. The formation of cartels and syndicates enabled manufacturers in this sector to exploit a protected home market and use it to export at low prices.208 However, the manufacturers had one serious problem: their political power was still limited. They therefore had to look for allies and so turned their eyes towards the agrarian interests.209 In the second place, farm incomes were crucial as a demand factor. As a result of the farm depression, investments in agriculture dropped from 576 million marks in 1860–1864 to 282 million marks in 1877–1881.210 This strongly affected industrial outlets, as agriculture was still a very large sector. Whereas in the United Kingdom farm production was about one-eighth of gross domestic product, in Germany it was about one-third.211Indeed, the decline of investments of agriculture was the main cause of a stagnation of the national investment level, which between the same points in time decreased from 8.7 per cent to 6.3 per cent of the gross national product.212 The effect was the more serious since German industry depended much more on the home market than its British counterpart. In the third place, the share of urban labour in Germany was not nearly as large as it was in the United Kingdom. By 1880, the active population in industry still fell short of that in agriculture by one-third.213As a consequence, although urban workers in Germany were no less opposed to food tariffs than urban workers in the United Kingdom, their political weight was more restricted. Finally, there was the problem of strategic food security. Unlike the United Kingdom, Germany could not hope to maintain large food imports when attacked by more than one nation. If Germany had to persevere in such a war, its agriculture had to be capable of producing a large part of the country’s basic food requirements. In spite of this strategic requirement, however, population growth and increase of dietary standards turned Germany from a food exporter into a food importer in the 1870s. This process was only accelerated by liberal trade policies. The annual growth rate of total farm output, which between 1850–1854 and 1860–1864 was still 2.3 per cent, dropped to a mere 1.1 per cent between 1860–1864 and 1877–1881.214 All these factors together conditioned the reintroduction of agricultural tariffs. The attitudes of common farmers and industrialists allowed Bismarck to move from a liberal trade policy to a protectionist policy that also included farm tariffs in 1879. Actually, the initial turn to protection was largely concocted by the Chancellor for state reasons.215 It enabled him to discard the progressive liberals, whom he found increasingly bothersome, and to base his regime on a new coalition of Conservatives, Centrists (Catholics) and right-wing National Liberals.216 Fiscal considerations were initially important among Bismarck’s more practical motives. By raising tariff incomes, he hoped to enlarge the imperial budget without becoming dependent on the states and the Reichstag, where federalist and democratic tendencies 100

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dominated.217 This hope was dashed, however, when the Reichstag set a ceiling on tariff revenue going to the Imperial treasury.218 A more lasting motive was the wish to sustain food security – a vital consideration for Bismarck, who was faced with deteriorating relations with the United Kingdom and, more especially, with Russia.219 Furthermore, Bismarck expected that agricultural tariffs would keep more workers in farming, decelerate the growth of the urban proletariat, reduce urban unemployment, and help conserve social peace.220 In this, he was supported by prominent members of the Association for Social Policy (Verein für Sozialpolitik), a well-known social reformist think-tank of the time.221It was hoped that farm protection would thus also help contain the social democratic movement, which was rapidly expanding during the 1870s.222 In the 1880s, manufacturers acquiesced in a further rise of farm tariffs. After Bismarck’s fall in 1890, however, the situation changed. Rising protection in other countries, especially the McKinley tariff in the United States, threatened industrial exports on which German manufacturers had become increasingly dependent. To avert the danger, the new chancellor, Caprivi, negotiated commercial treaties with European countries. In these, reductions in farm tariffs were conceded in exchange for a wider access for industrial products.223 As a result, import duties on farm products were reduced to their 1885 level, those on wheat and rye being cut back by one-third. Coinciding with a new fall of farm prices in the world market, these treaties provoked a fierce reaction from the agricultural interests. It prompted the formation of the Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte), an organization led by Junkers, which acquired a mass base among smaller farmers and which, one year after its formation in 1893, already had 202,000 members.224It became the leading force in a coalition which also included peasant organizations like the Bavarian Farmers’ League (Bayerischer Bauernbund) and the Christian Farmers’ Associations (christliche Bauernvereine), which independently and forcibly defended protection.225 ,226 Now that the other conditions had changed, however, massive agrarian agitation alone could not maintain the existing level of agricultural protection. In spite of their clamour, farmers and landlords could not prevent the completion of Caprivi’s trade policies in 1894. The effects of agricultural protection in Germany have been subject to much debate. It has sometimes been suggested that protection hampered agricultural progress,227but comparison with the other countries does not support this view.228 If Germany is compared to the United Kingdom, quite the opposite seems true. Whereas in the latter, land productivity stagnated, in Germany it increased strongly. Root crop cultivation and arable yields increased much more rapidly.229Between 1873 and 1892, the pig population rose by 71 per cent, against an 8 per cent decrease in the United Kingdom. The 11 per cent increase in cattle numbers in Germany ran close to the 13 101

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per cent in the United Kingdom, even though there was no massive shift to grass as in the latter.230After 1890, labour productivity in agriculture kept rising in Germany while in the United Kingdom it stagnated. Furthermore, it is clear that agricultural protection in Germany stimulated farm output. The annual growth rate of farm production, after having dropped to 1.1 per cent between 1860–1864 and 1877–1881, rose to 1.7 per cent between 1877–1881 and 1893–1897.231It may be assumed, therefore, that agricultural protection did indeed limit the increase of Germany’s dependence on imported food.232 Besides, agricultural protection probably benefited overall economic growth. Any allocational distortions caused by it seem to have been more than compensated for by positive effects on factor endowment and effective demand. In a study on the effects of German trade policy, Webb concludes that, without protection, the demand for labour in the German economy would have been considerably lower, forcing more workers to emigrate.233Besides, Bairoch points out that from 1877–1881 to 1886– 1890, investments in agriculture recovered from 282 to 392 million marks. This was a major cause of the increase of the overall investment level, from 6.3 per cent to 8.2 per cent of gross national income between 1875–1879 and 1892–1896. Bairoch concludes that the upswing of German economic growth after the shift to protection was largely due to the recovery of agricultural incomes.234 The suggestion that grain tariffs harmed small farmers and only profited the Junkers, which has sometimes been made,235 is not true. Many small farmers were sellers of grain, and not only out of tradition or as an effect of protection itself. Small farmers increased their animal production, but continued to grow grain because it fitted in with their crop rotations. Grain cultivation became even more attractive because the production of fodder, which was heavily manured, increased grain yields per hectare.236Furthermore, animal products were also protected, both by tariffs and ‘sanitary’ import restrictions.237 The argument that livestock farmers were harmed by grain protection is not convincing. Livestock was predominantly fed with selfproduced, non-grain fodder or with imported feed-stuffs, like oilcakes, that entered free of tariffs.238Overall, protection seems to have been, at most, slightly higher for the larger producers. Estimates by Webb show rather equal rates of effective protection for different farm sizes, only very small farms (less than 2 hectares) being somewhat underendowed.239 Finally, the burden on consumers was not particularly heavy.240It should also be remembered that many consumers were labourers. In an economy where agriculture was still relatively labour intensive, agricultural protection may well have increased the total demand for labour, and thereby pushed up real wages.

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BOURGEOIS FEARS, DEFENCE OF LAND RENTS, AND THE TURN TO LAND REFORM National developments were less divergent in the field of land reform than in farm incomes policies and development policies. Measures to encourage small farms were taken in the United Kingdom, Germany and, to some extent, the United States. In the Netherlands there were no such measures, but here the farm structure itself was more open to small holdings. As a matter of fact, land reform implied a reversal of earlier land policies, which had encouraged large rather than small farms. It may be asked, therefore, which factors caused this change of direction. Of course, small farmers had always resisted enclosures and other threats to their existence. They could now draw comfort from the sight of large farms failing under the pressure of falling agricultural prices. It awakened a militancy to secure their own existence and redress former wrongs.241Demands for redistribution of land were an important element in the farmers’ movements of the time, especially in the Scottish Highlands and Islands, the west of Ireland,242 and the western United States.243 The farm crisis also revived the farm labourers’ desire for allotments, which could give some security against unemployment. In Britain, allotments became the central aim for some leaders of the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, now that the depression had shattered their hopes of wages being raised by strikes and emigration.244Similarly, rural workers’ organizations in the Dutch province of Friesland demanded nationalization of the land that would be let out in allotments.245 Besides, land reform measures were also supported as a remedy for unemployment by some urban labour organizations, such as the Trades Union Congress in Britain.246

Fears of social disruption Aspirations of workers and small peasants, however, were not new. Neither had they been able to prevent the promotion of large farms in the preceding period. It was not the craving for land by the rural poor that was the decisive factor, but rather that other, much more influential interests came to change their opinion on the issue. There were various reasons for this shift in attitude. One was the concern for the productivity of the nation’s land, often inspired by an anxiety about food security. Now that large farms failed in intensifying production in many cases, intensive land use by small farms received a novel importance. Even more important were fears that a rural exodus would exacerbate the social disruption that was engendered by the overall crisis of classical factory capitalism in this period. As it was, the ruin of traditional trades, periodic mass unemployment and stormy urbanization were already 103

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aggravating the evils of urban slums and stirred up the rebelliousness of the urban working classes. The flocking of country people to the cities caused by the fall of agricultural prices could only intensify these problems, while at the same time depleting the more conservative and politically reliable population of the rural areas. These fears aroused a search for means to stem the flight from the land. Because falling output prices made large farms save on labour, small farms and allotments were embraced as a means of keeping people bound to the soil. In the United Kingdom, such concerns first disturbed the urban middle classes and business leaders. In the early 1880s, such radical organizations as the Land Nationalization Society and the Land Restoration League were formed to propagate land reform measures.247 More immediate pressure for small holdings and allotments acts came from the Free Land League, formed in 1885 by such respectable ‘Manchesterists’, which claimed 106 members of parliament among its first-year members.248 Besides, such acts were championed by radical-liberal politicians as Chamberlain and Collings, who were Birmingham employers.249Although land reform was at the centre of the political and fiscal struggle of urban middle-class interests against the aristocracy,250 Collings stressed that his proposals were conservative ‘in a true sense of the word’.251He held that small holdings and allotments would decrease social divisions and give the rural poor a stake in the land. In 1885 the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes endorsed his vision that allotments were desirable for the improvement of conditions for farm workers and for the alleviation of urban problems.252 In the following years, Conservatives also became more willing to give the rural poor access to the land. It was their government which proposed the Allotments Act of 1887. In part, it did so because it depended on a coalition with Chamberlain who, in 1886, had broken away from the Liberals over the question of Irish home rule.253 But that apart, Salisbury and other Conservative leaders came to welcome a proprietary peasantry as a conservative rampart for property rights. It resulted in a broad consensus being developed on the issue. This became manifest in the report of a broadly composed Parliamentary Commission on Small Holdings, and cleared the way for the Small Holdings Act in 1892 and a more effective allotments measure two years later.254 In Germany, the rural exodus first aroused alarm in connection with the ‘national question’ in the eastern provinces. The departure of German farm labourers and their replacement by Russian-Polish workers provoked fears for the political future of the regions. This led to a general approval of the policy to settle German peasants on Polish estates.255 However, within a few years of the beginning of this policy in 1886, the settlement of small farms was being supported for much wider reasons. Prominent scientists, especially in the Association for Social Policy (Verein für Sozialpolitik), advocated land reform in order to stem the depletion of the farm population, 104

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encourage the productivity of the land, and alleviate urban problems.256The argument was sometimes connected with an attack on large landownership. Weber called the East Elbian estate farms Germany’s greatest ‘polonizer’ and ‘most dangerous enemy of our nationality’, while Oppenheimer postulated a ‘Goltz’ law relating the rate of the rural exodus directly to the importance of estate farms in a region.257 In line with such arguments, progressives sometimes advocated radical land reform measures, like those of Flürscheim, who put forward the idea of nationalizing large properties or taxing them away.258 However, the settlement of small farms had outstanding advocates who were less hostile to the Junkers. Most authoritatively, Sering advocated land reform to create a mixed structure of large and small farms.259 This type of land reform was embraced by nationalist pressure groups like the PanGerman League (Alldeutscher Verband) and the Society for the Eastern Marches (Ostmarkenverein).260Moreover, it was supported by the National Liberals, not least by the Prussian finance minister Miquel, while it also proved acceptable for some Conservatives.261 In the United States the general depression which started in 1873 inspired attempts to alleviate urban problems by setting up small farms. In 1876, the Archbishop of St Paul established a number of farm colonies for urban inhabitants. In 1877–1878 urban representatives introduced three bills to provide federal aid to enable the unemployed to take up farms in the west.262The notion gained ground that the availability of free land for settlement had served as a safety valve for urban tensions. The idea was coined as a scientific concept in the famous ‘frontier thesis’ by Turner in 1893,263but before that it had already inspired a growing criticism of the big capitalists who were ‘monopolizing’ the remainder of the public domain, closing it off from the small settler.264This criticism was reinforced by well-known publicists, most importantly Henry George, who also had much influence on land reformers in Europe.265 In 1879, the National Academy of Sciences criticized the waste and fraud encouraged by the existent land law system, and a congressional Land Commission came to similar conclusions.266The vision of small farmers’ communities as a way of restoring social harmony gained further support during the new general depression which started in 1893, when it led to a campaign for the irrigation of western lands coupled to settlement of family farms and community development.267 In the Netherlands, no actual land reform measures were taken during this period. The State Commission on Agriculture still deplored the tendency towards smaller farms.268 Nevertheless, some voices for land reform could be heard. From 1885, the Society for Public Welfare (Maatschappij tot Nut van ’t Algemeen) supplied allotments for the needy in various places.269Besides, a Land Nationalization League was established in 1889, led by idealist manufacturers and a large Groningen farmer, Derk Mansholt. Its ideas were also endorsed by the radical-liberal Frisian People’s Party 105

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(Friese Volkspartij).270In 1890 and 1892 the liberal representative, van Houten, introduced bills to enable the compulsory purchase of land for allotments, expecting that this would raise land productivity.271

Attitudes of landlords and large farmers Government aid for small farms not only gained support among the urban political communities in the four countries but, interestingly, found cautious but increasing acceptance among the wealth-controlling rural classes themselves. In addition to concerns for social stability and national productivity, landlords and large farmers had more specific reasons for endorsing land reform measures. The settlement of small farms and allotments, if done prudently and with due respect for the landowners’ right to compensation, presented an opportunity to limit the decline in land rents and the exodus of agricultural labour. Certainly, landlords and large farmers were not persuaded overnight. The belief that agricultural progress required large farms was strongly established. In the United Kingdom, it was still dominant in the first Royal Commission on Agriculture.272 Besides, British landlords fiercely rejected radical infringements of their rights. They were appalled by Gladstone’s Irish Land Act, which reduced rent income, and they detested the Scottish Crofters’ Holdings Act that restricted landowners’ rights even further. Furthermore, they generally disliked compulsion. Nevertheless, the exodus of farm workers made landlords and large farmers more sensitive to the utility of workers’ allotments as a means of keeping cheap labour bound to the land.273In addition, landlords discovered that they were left with large holdings on their hands, while the demand for small holdings remained high.274In the large-scale arable areas in south and east Britain, landlords increasingly rented land to livestock farmers from the west, who relied more heavily on family labour.275 In some places, landlords began to subdivide farms into small holdings and allotments to limit the decline of the rental value of their land.276 In Ireland, where agricultural crisis and the rebelliousness of the peasantry enforced a legal reduction of rents, landlords became willing to sell their land to their tenants. The tenant-purchase acts which subsidized these sales were for them a welcome way out of a worsening predicament.277In the Scottish Highlands and Islands, landlords found it more remunerating to convert large grazing lands into deer forests than to distribute them among the crofters. Yet here too the debilitation of the large sheep farms reduced the costs of land reform.278A number of Scottish landlords, whose land was less fit for sporting purposes, actually demanded measures along the lines of the Irish tenant-purchase acts.279 In Germany a similar situation existed. The Junkers resisted drastic measures. Rather than real family farms, they preferred the creation of workers’ allotments, 106

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which would help to conserve a local supply of cheap labour.280 Nevertheless, the ‘home colonization’ in Posen and West Prussia had their general consent, as did the Hereditary Leasehold Acts (Rentenguts gesetze) that facilitated the settlement of small farms in Prussia generally.281The German Agricultural Council (Deutsche Landwirtschaftsrat) actually endorsed the more principled land reform proposals advocated by Sering.282 Indeed, contemporary observers stressed that the settlement policy was effective because it corresponded to a spontaneous tendency.283 Even without legislation, many Junkers had started to sell off a part of their estates to small farmers, as a way of reducing their debts. When the acts of 1890–1891 provided for government mediation and easy credit for prospective small farmers, considerable amounts of land were offered to the settlement authorities.284These included whole estates, because they brought higher prices if broken up.285 Even for the United States it can be surmised that the restoration of the homestead legislation under Cleveland was facilitated by developments in farming itself. The drought of the late 1880s and the new depth of the farm prices from 1892 diminished the attractiveness of large-scale farming. Bonanza farmers in the prairie states began to rent their land to small settlers,286while land-grabbing activities under the remaining permissive land acts strongly decreased.287 It is quite conceivable that the reduced appeal of large farms and large landownership facilitated the re-enactment in these years of more effective size restrictions in disposing of the public domain.

AGRICULTURAL CRISIS AND THE DECLINE OF LIBERALISM The vicissitudes of agriculture had a far-reaching influence on the political attitudes of landlords and farmers.

Landlords Among landed aristocrats, developments in this period for the first time provoked the reactionary traits that are so often ascribed to them as a general characteristic. Cornered by falling agricultural prices and an exodus of rural labour, if not by an uprising of their tenants, they looked for solutions that would stop or, where labour rights were concerned, even turn back the wheel of history. In the United Kingdom, free movement of labour had become unassailable. As long as free trade also seemed impregnable, the landlords had no recourse other than trying to limit the fiscal burden. Indeed, British landlords grimly resisted further social legislation and the growth of government spending. Meanwhile, they tried to 107

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stamp out the more violent tenants’ rebellion in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, before the flames could spread to England itself. These concerns gave rise to a conservative realignment of the British landed aristocracy. After Disraeli’s death in 1881, the conservative-liberal heritage of the Tory Party was represented by Northcote. According to a student of British conservatism, he would have had more backing if the agricultural depression had not hit landowners so badly.288 As it was, however, the Conservative landowners preferred Salisbury – a man who was driven by a nightmare of an expropriating democracy, and who favoured repression rather than further concessions.289 Also, the Conservative landowners could not swallow Randolph Churchill’s attempt to develop Disraeli’s patriarchal reformism into a ‘Tory Democracy’ programme that would appeal to the urban middle classes.290 Churchill was brushed aside, and under Salisbury’s leadership the party moved to a more narrow-minded, defensive conservatism than before. In the preceding period, this shift to the right would have driven many aristocrats into the Whig camp. Instead, however, more and more country gentlemen supported the Tories.291The movement was completed by a secession of Whig peers in 1886 – a mirror image of the Peelite defection to the Liberals forty years earlier. Fears that Irish home rule as proposed by Gladstone would lead to even more concessions to Irish tenants caused the Whig peers to join a Liberal Unionist faction, which supported Conservative governments, and which was finally to merge with the Conservatives altogether.292 In Germany, the position of the aristocracy underwent a similar evolution. Here, too, the division of the landlords into Liberals and Conservatives gave way to a conservative realignment, marked in this case by the establishment of the German Conservative Party (Deutsch-Konservative Partei) in 1876.293 Nevertheless, under Bismarck’s regime in the 1880s, the Junkers were not yet completely unreceptive to the need for social reform. Significantly, the Christian-social movement of court chaplain Stoecker was still allowed to ‘modernize’ the German Conservative Party at its Tivoli congress in 1892.294A further shift to the right followed only in the subsequent years, when a new fall in farm prices coincided with the reduction of agricultural tariffs under Caprivi. Then the aristocratic conservatives indeed developed into dogged adversaries of democracy, ‘mobile’ capital and social reform, also forcing Stoecker’s expulsion from the party in 1896.295 ,296 In the Netherlands, large landowners were few and were less prominent in politics. Although the majority probably kept their conservative-liberal attitudes, the agricultural crisis made some of them turn away from economic liberalism. It can be surmised that this contributed to the restoration of the anti-liberal position of the Anti-Revolutionaries and to the further estrangement of Liberals and Catholics – two major developments in Dutch politics. In the southern United States, the once conservative-liberal planters changed into 108

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conservative ‘Redeemers’. Together with like-minded merchants and oncoming southern manufacturers they formed a conservative oligarchy within the southern Democratic Party. After the federal guardianship of the Reconstruction period had come to an end in 1877, this oligarchy came to dominate southern politics.297 Clinging to the myth of the ‘lost cause’, it reintroduced the repressive controls of black labour instituted immediately after the Civil War that had been suppressed by the Radical Republicans. When challenged by black and poor white farmers who supported Republican or other non-Democratic tickets, the oligarchy defended its regional dominance by violence and electoral fraud. From the late 1880s, after the Republicans had tried to subject southern elections to federal supervision, it pursued the same effect by disenfranchisement acts.298

Common farmers While the farm crisis made landlords more conservative, common farmers, both family farmers and small capitalist farmers, gave a populist response. They blamed the middlemen, large corporations or the city generally. This could be coupled with socialist attacks on big capital, but with racism and xenophobia too. Indeed, agrarian populism was compatible with very different shades of the political spectrum. As pointed out by Urwin, farmers have always been more divided and less loyal to a specific party than have other classes. The political choices of the farmers were influenced by agrarian class structures, but the reaction of existing parties to the farmers’ demands was just as important.299 In the United Kingdom, the primacy of struggle for tenants’ protection, and the conservative landlords’ resistance to it, worked to increase farmer support for the Liberals.300 In England a majority of the farmers kept voting for the Conservatives, though even here the tenant rights agitation was coupled to some Liberal gains in rural constituencies.301However, in the rest of the Kingdom the Liberals were able to strengthen their hold on the farmers.302Still another development took place in Ireland, where the land war enabled the nationalist movement to break through to the mass of the peasantry, boosting the Irish question on to the verge of home rule.303 In contrast, the German configuration caused peasants to set aside their traditional struggle with the landlords. From the 1870s they began to support the Centre and the German Conservatives, which were dominated by aristocrats.304A further mobilization of peasants around 1890, however, was organized by anti-Semitic groups which began to attack the established parties.305 Learning from it, Conservatives and Centrists took care to control the new surge of peasant populism provoked by the Caprivi treaties and the new fall of agricultural prices in the early 1890s. In Protestant regions, the Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte) became a popular base for the 109

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German Conservatives.306 In the Catholic southwest, the Christian Farmers’ Associations (Christliche Bauernvereine) did the same for the Centre Party. A more independent radical-populist current persisted in the Bavarian Farmers’ League (Bayerische Bauernbund).307The integration of peasant populism by established parties of the right had far-reaching consequences. The radicalization of the German Conservatives after 1892 was a blending of the reactionary side of conservatism with the darkest side of populism, the result being a right-wing nationalist, anti-capitalist, anti-Semitic ideology.308 Meanwhile, the ascending Social Democratic Party forfeited its chance to attract a part of the populist peasantry. Initially, in some regions peasants voted for the Social Democrats.309 A social democratic leader like Vollmar was quite capable of attracting a peasant audience.310 From 1890, however, the party fiercely attacked the protection of agricultural prices,311 saying that it was only helping the Junkers, while ignoring that protection was also being asked for by the peasants. In 1895 proposals by Vollmar and associates which would give more scope for defending family farmers were rejected by the party congress in Breslau. Guided by Kautsky, the party confirmed the traditional Marxist belief that household production could not be saved, and that attempts to do so would only inspire false hopes among the peasants.312This decision, which influenced socialist parties in other countries too, inaugurated a long-lasting polarization between the German peasantry and the Social Democratic Party.313 In the Netherlands the political reaction of farmers was rather multiform. The larger farmers in the north mostly remained loyal to progressive-liberal candidates.314 This was probably also inspired by anti-landlord attitudes; proposals for a progressive taxation of large landownership, for example, found much response among Groningen farmers.315 In the middle zone of the country, many farmers followed Kuyper’s movement to reconstruct the Anti-Revolutionaries as a Christian-social party – a project also involving a schism in the Dutch Reformed Church. Indeed, students of this episode point to the farm crisis as an important background factor.316 In the Catholic south, landowners and clergymen followed the example of their German counterparts, channelling the peasant movement into Christian Farmers’ Leagues (Christelijke Boerenbonden).317These played a role in Schaepman’s transformation of the clerical-Catholic party into a Christian-social one, the Catholic counterpart of Kuyper’s movement in the Protestant camp.318 It was in the United States that the farmers’ response found its most independent expression. Here, farmers’ movements, often co-operating with labour organizations, sponsored a series of ‘third party’ initiatives. In 1873–1874 the Grangers set up AntiMonopoly Parties which demanded railway regulation and lower industrial tariffs.319 From 1875, farmer and labour activists formed Greenback Parties, which combined the anti-mon opolydemands with resistance to the tight money policies pursued by 110

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the federal government.320 By far the strongest appearance of the farmers, however, occurred in the 1890s, when the Farmers’ Alliances and the Knights of Labor sponsored an independent People’s Party while, in the South, the Alliances tried to take over the Democratic Party from the conservative planter and business interests.321 The ‘populists’ gained a strong position in several states and, for a party mainly restricted to agricultural regions, quite a lot of votes in the presidential election of 1892.322 In 1896, however, the party allowed itself to be taken in tow to support the Democratic candidate for the presidency, Bryan, on a one-sided free silver programme. The election was lost, and the populist movement declined. The performance of the populists has provoked much discussion as to the political character of their movement. In the eyes of some authors, they were nostalgically trying to restore an idealized past.323For others, they were commercially minded businessmen striving for better competitive conditions.324The populists have been blamed for a neglect of farm labourers’ and sharecroppers’ interests, and for racist, anti-Semitic, or even proto-fascist tendencies.325 Indeed, racial prejudice was not absent among populist farmers, and many of them turned a blind eye to the degrading situation of migratory workers. Nevertheless, on balance the populists were a progressive force in American politics.326In addition to anti-monopoly and flexible money policies, they supported further democratization, women’s suffrage, and protection of labour. Although the movement struggled with white superiority feelings in its poor white base in the South, most of the leadership defended the rights of the blacks.327 Some populists exhibited more commercial attitudes, but this was a minority wing, certainly in the rank and file of the movement.

Influence on politics In their turn, the reactions of landlords and common farmers affected the new hegemonic projects in this period, which undermined the position of laissez-faire liberalism as the leading political concept. With due caution, as this is not a general political history, the following suggestions as to this influence can be made. In the United Kingdom the conservative realignment of the landed aristocracy was one of the important factors which put an end to the Liberal–Conservative consensus of the Palmerston era. Indeed, the defection of the Whig peers in 1886 inaugurated nineteen years of almost uninterrupted ‘Unionist’ rule, characterized by colonialism and Irish coercion, and by the attempt to contain the masses by exalting Crown and Empire rather than introducing further reform. Although the Liberal Unionists still tried to give a social margin to British imperialism, the Conservative leadership, committed to the ‘ordinary country gentleman’ but unable to serve his interests other 111

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than by limiting his fiscal burden, saw to it that it did not become more than a mere palliative.328 In Germany the rallying of landlords and peasants behind the Conservatives and the Centre, and the erosion of their support for free trade, were among the conditions which enabled Bismarck to leave his strategy of empire-building based on economic liberalization, and to shift to coalition-forming based on protectionism. Therefore, it was one of the factors that allowed him to abandon the ‘culture struggle’ (Kulturkampf) against the Centre, to push the liberals into opposition, and to enforce a repressive anti-socialist act, which contrasted with his earlier overtures to the Lassallian socialists.329 Although this was clearly a shift to the right, it should be said that Bismarck’s ‘protection of national labour’ kept more margins for social reform than did free trade Conservatism in the United Kingdom. The social insurance system of the 1880s, at least, was an attempt to reconcile the workers with more than Throne and Altar alone.330 In the Netherlands, farmer support for progressive liberal and Christian-social politicians helped to put an end to the era of liberal-conservative cabinets. It contributed to the coming of the first religious cabinet under Mackay in 1888–1891, which foreshadowed an alternation of progressive liberal and Christian-social governments in the next period. In the United States the position of the southern planters was an additional factor permitting an alternation of Republican and Democratic governments which, though still differing in tariff questions, shared a preference for hard money policies and a large-heartedness for big business. This mould was vainly attacked by the rank and file of the populist farmers’ movements, who tried to substitute a more egalitarian and social-reformist project.331Conversely, the urge from agribusiness interests to expand agricultural exports was much more influential. Even before the industrialists took the same road, it was this agrarian expansionism which gave the first impulse to the giving up of America’s splendid isolation for the building of an informal empire.332

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5 LATE 1890s TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AGRICULTURE AND NATIONAL EFFICIENCY ECONOMIC EXPANSION AND REVIVAL OF AGRICULTURAL MARKETS In the mid-1890s the international economy recovered from a last deep depression. Then it entered into a new phase. Economic booms became more buoyant, depressions milder, and over the years economic growth regained a higher average level. The main cause was the far-reaching transformations in industry started in the troubled decades before. Concentration limited cut-throat competition and created room for innovations that tightened entrepreneurial control over labour and raised productivity. New industries developed in steel, chemicals, electrical appliances and automobiles. This restructuring process continued, led by the United States and Germany. In the United Kingdom, economic growth remained sluggish, while in the Netherlands, a modern industrial take-off finally materialized during this period. With this general upturn of the world economy, international agriculture also experienced a recovery. On the one hand, new economic expansion encouraged the demand for farm products. On the other hand, supply increased somewhat less rapidly. The main cause was that the best lands in the United States had been occupied, so that farm production could less easily expand than before. A growing share of this production was consumed by the American population itself, of which the number was boosted by a new wave of immigration, now directed overwhelmingly at the cities. As a result, the growth of American farm exports stagnated. Other countries, such as Argentina and Canada, increased their shipments of farm products. However, this occurred more gradually than had happened in the past with American exports, so that the world market was less glutted than in the preceding decades.1This influenced the evolution of agricultural prices. Figures 5.1 and 5.2 show the prices of farm production and the agricultural terms of trade in the four countries (for the

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Netherlands, only prices are available). As can be seen from these figures, in the later 1890s, the protracted fall during the preceding decades stopped or gave way to a modest recovery. From about 1905 a further improvement set in. This was most pronounced in Germany and the United States. Around this time agricultural protection in Germany was restored to its level during the Bismarck era. In the United States, increased domestic demand apparently benefited farm prices. In the Netherlands the improvement of agricultural prices was also quite significant.2 Here, agricultural markets were probably stimulated by increased export demand.3 In contrast to this, in the United Kingdom, farm imports continued to expand, and the recovery of agricultural prices remained only slight.

Figure 5.1 Price of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1897–1913 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

EVOLUTION OF FARM STRUCTURES The recovery of agricultural prices opened the way to farm profitability, and thereby to large farms. However, this profitability was eroded by rising wage costs. This was 114

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because farmers were faced with increased competition in their labour markets. The new expansion of industry increased non-farm employment. Moreover, the restructuring of industry allowed an improvement of industrial employment conditions, while it also reduced the skill requirements for farm labourers seeking industrial jobs. As a consequence, the allure of ‘city lights’ became a powerful force that encouraged the rural exodus and pushed up agricultural wages. Unlike the preceding period, average wages in agriculture increased parallel to, if not more rapidly than, those in industry.4

Figure 5.2 Terms of trade farm/non-farm, 1897–1913 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

Revival of large farms bound to special conditions As a result, large farms could regain their vitality only in regions where lack of employment alternatives, repressive control over workers, or low-paid immigrant labour caused farm labour to remain more cheaply available. The first condition, i.e. lack of employment alternatives, existed in south and east England. Here, a decline of domestic industries and a lack of new industries allowed 115

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farmers to keep wages below those in the rest of the country.5 It gave large arable farms in these regions some breathing space. As shown in Table 5.1, the decrease in the total area occupied by large holdings was here smaller than in the rest of England and Wales (including the London area in the southeast). Indeed, the number of labourers per farmer even slightly increased between 1901 and 1911.6 Table 5.1 Percentage change in the total area of crops and grass occupied by holdings of 300 acres and over in England and Wales, 1885–1924 Area

% change −16.0 −20.8 −17.8 −27.8 −40.0 −27.2 −30.0 −30.0 −47.6 −44.6

East East Central Midlands Southeast Midlands South Central Southeast West Midlands Northwest North Southwest Wales Source: Grigg (1987, p. 187)

Similar phenomena were seen in other regions with little industrial employment. In Ireland, large graziers seem to have regained some vitality after cattle prices had recovered.7 In more outlying parts of the Netherlands, large farms likewise showed signs of new vigour. In the provinces of Groningen and Zeeland, they resumed the development of a rather labour-intensive arable production, even ploughing up grasslands to expand their cropping area.8 In Friesland, they shifted from arable to grass, but farm areas were reduced less than in the more central dairy regions.9In the inland sand regions, where farm labour remained even more abundantly Table 5.2 Ratio of land users with 20 (10) hectares and over to all land users with 1 hectare and over in the Netherlands, 1897 and 1921

1897

1921

% change

Coastal provinces North and southwest1 Central-west2

0.33 (0.50) 0.26 (0.52)

0.22 (0.36) 0.19 (0.39)

−33 (−27) −29 (−24)

Inland provinces

0.06 (0.21)

0.06 (0.20)

−14 (− 9)

Notes: 1 Groningen, Friesland, Zeeland 2 Utrecht, North- and South-Holland Sources: Verslag over de landbouw (1898, Table 9); Verslagen en mededelingen Directie van de Landbouw (1923/ 2, Table I)

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available, the improvement of agricultural prices retarded the breaking up of larger holdings and encouraged the establishment of large farms on former waste lands.10 Although large farms remained relatively scarce in these regions, the distribution of farm areas remained more stable than in the rest of the country (Table 5.2).11 In the southern United States, industrial employment alternatives for farm workers were likewise meagre. A regional textile industry developed, but paid wages no higher than the planters.12Large-scale migration to the north was ruled out because northern employers preferred European immigrants to black workers.13 Yet this was not the whole story. Blacks were excluded from most industrial jobs through discrimination, so that they remained trapped in agriculture. In that sector, landowners used legal and illegal devices to wring cheap labour out of black workers.14 Under these conditions, the improvement of cotton prices induced a reconstitution of centrally managed plantations. Census data show a shift from fixed-rent to share tenancy in this period.15 At the same time, accounts of plantation practice suggest that this latter evolved into little more than piece-rate wage labour.16 In a research by Virts, an increase in the share of land in centrally supervised plantations from less than 19 per cent to 24 per cent was found in five southern states between 1900 and 1910.17A case study by Whayne shows the development of such plantations in a region where until then they had never existed.18 Elsewhere in the United States, massive enlistment of immigrant labour was important. In the North Atlantic, large farmers employed European immigrant labour.19 In Texas, they began to recruit Mexican workers.20Most of all, immigrant labour was important in California. White workers had driven most Chinese from the fields in a rioting campaign in 1893–1894, but from the closing years of the century, the gap was filled by a rapid increase of Japanese immigration. Within a few years, Japanese workers were doing most of the field work in some intensive cultures.21Both in the west and the North Atlantic, cheap immigrant labour enabled an increase of large farms. Census data show a considerable rise in the share of labourers in the active farm population in these regions between 1890 and 1910, coupled to some increase in the share of wage costs in the value of gross farm production (see Tables 5.3 and 5.4). Ironically, in California large farms developed in sectors like fruit-growing and horticulture which in the preceding decades as smaller-scaled sectors had displaced the vast wheat bonanzas.22 In German East Elbia, immigrant labour was likewise decisive. As the Junkers could not stop local farm workers from moving to the more developed and industrialized west, they greatly increased their employment of foreign seasonal workers, mainly from Russian Poland. At the outbreak of the First World War, the number of foreign workers had reached 433,000 – almost one-third of all hired 117

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Table 5.3 Farm labourers as percentage of active farm population in the

United States, 1890–1920 North Atlantic North Central South Atlantic South Central Western

1890

1900

1910

1920

33 25 49 31 30

39 35 52 48 36

47 39 47 45 48

39 32 38 39 40

Source: Wright (1988, p. 194)

workers employed in German agriculture.23 Here again, the exploitation of immigrant labour enabled a revival of large farms. Between 1895 and 1907, the share in the agricultural area of farms with more than 100 hectares still decreased more rapidly in East Elbia than in the rest of the country. After 1907, however, when prices improved and the influx of foreign workers reached its peak, it almost came to a halt (Table 5.5).24 ,25 Table 5.4 Expenditure for wage labour as percentage of gross value of farm output in the United States, 1900–1920

North Atlantic North Central South Atlantic South Central Western

1900

1910

1920

10.7 6.1 8.0 5.6 16.7

11.9 6.0 7.1 5.8 16.9

8.6 5.8 3.9 4.6 13.1

Source: Wright (1988, p. 195)

Government and the repressive control of farm labour In various respects, governments were involved in the repressive control of local or immigrant farm labour. In the American South, the exclusion of blacks from nonfarm jobs was encouraged by segregation acts. Other state acts helped to subject black farm labourers and croppers to oppressive conditions. Legislation against breach of contract, enticement of workers, and ‘emigration agents’, was further perfected. So was the criminal-surety system by which planters could bail out convicts to let them work for repayment. Furthermore, anti-vagrancy acts were more systematically used to meet labour requirements at harvest season, whole round-ups sometimes being held to force blacks to work in the fields.26 In California, the state government adopted a more ambivalent attitude towards farm labourers. After oppressive labour relations on large farms had come to a crisis 118

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in the Wheatland riot in 1913,27 a state commission encouraged improvements in housing and sanitary conditions. The same commission, however, helped growers to fight the radical union that had organized the workers’ resistance, also assisting federal justice in its repression of the union in 1917.28Furthermore, an Alien Land Law was passed in 1913 to stop Japanese labourers from becoming small farmers. The act forbade the buying of land by aliens ‘ineligible for citizenship’ (i.e. non-whites). As it was evaded in various ways, a new act was passed in 1920 to plug the loopholes.29 In East Elbian Germany, government was deeply involved in the repressive control of farm labour. To some extent, its interference was directed at local workers. Prohibitions on striking by agricultural labourers were left unimpaired.30It can be surmised that these prohibitions became more effective now that the growing scarcity of labour strengthened the potential bargaining power of farm workers.31Furthermore, ordinances which kept farm workers in personal dependence on their employers were continued.32To counter the ‘flight from the land’, breach of contract was kept subjected to criminal law. An attempt to sharpen the penal provisions failed in Prussia, but did succeed in some smaller states.33 Besides, an Employment Agency Act (Stellenvermittlergesetz) of 1910 curtailed the activity of private employment agents, who were accused of enticing people off the land.34More draconian proposals to repress the exodus of local farm labourers were defeated by non-farm interests. However, it only increased the importance of government involvement in the repressive management of immigrant labour. To keep this labour down and prevent its permanent settlement, the existing system of permits and compulsory return in winter was further developed.35 In 1907, the German Agricultural Labour Exchange (Deutsche Feldarbeiter-Zentralstelle), established under the auspices of the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture, was given the sole right to license foreign workers. Transit camps were set up at the borders, where foreign workers had to show a contract with an employer, or accept one in a framework that minimized inter-employer competition. From the camps, labourers were transported in groups to the estate farms where they were put to work. Breach of contract, interruption of work, or failing in discipline were threatened with deportation, a central police register being kept of offenders. Long-lasting illness or inability to work were likewise followed by repatriation.36 Government involvement in the oppression of farm labour depended on peculiar political conditions. On the one hand, it required a continued local dominance of large farmers and landlords. On the other hand, it was narrowly circumscribed by powerful non-agrarian interests at the national level. The repressive control of black farm workers in the southern United States was possible because the black-belt oligarchy succeeded in consolidating its regional rule. Besides, it was allowed by the industrial interests of the north, which did not need black workers as they could rely 119

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on a steady stream of European immigrants. In California, the Progressive state government partly depended on the support of large growers.37 In East Elbian Germany, the Junkers remained dominant in local politics, while non-farm interests at the national level, although rejecting a freeze of labour mobility, did not resist the repressive management of immigrant labour. Further return to family farming In most regions, however, the political conditions for a repressive control of farm labour were not fulfilled. The most that large farmers and landlords could attain was a continued retardation of social policies for farm workers.38This could not really prevent rising wage costs, however. Unless this latter was mitigated by industrial decline or underdevelopment, large farms had difficulty in maintaining their position. Family farms, on the other hand, benefited, as rising wages increased their labour price advantage. As a result, farm structures further evolved in the direction of household production. In the United Kingdom, the effect was clearly visible in that other area of large-scale farming: the Southeast Lowlands of Scotland. Unlike south and east England, this region was close to important industrial centres like Glasgow and Edinburgh, which exerted a powerful pull on its labour. Replacing local workers by cheap migratory labour had become difficult, as workers from the Highlands and Ireland also found better alternatives in industry or on the other side of the Atlantic. As a consequence, large farmers in these areas could not maintain their manpower. Between 1891 and 1911, the number of labourers per farmer in the Forth Valley and Southeast Lowlands fell from 6.3 to 3.3, compared to only 2.5 to 2.1 in Scotland overall.39 In Germany, the west and the south were closer to the industrial centres and more remote from the sources of cheap immigrant labour. The decrease in the share in the agricultural area of farms with more than 100 hectares also continued here after 1907, when in East Elbia it came to a halt (Table 5.5). In the Netherlands, farm labourers in the central river clay area and the west moved to cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which now rapidly expanded as industrial centres.40 Average farm area did not decline more rapidly than in the north and southwest (see Table 5.2), but labour shortages contributed to larger farmers turning more arable into pasture.41Also, there was a rapid increase in small market gardens in the western provinces. In the prairie regions and the great plains in the United States, the situation was more diverse. The vast bonanza grain and cattle farms in the prairie states and North Dakota declined in this period.42 More to the west and in Kansas, however, similar farms continued developing.43 More generally, census data indicate an increase in the

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Table 5.5 Percentage change in the share of the agricultural area occupied by farms of 100 hectares and over in Germany, 1895–1907 and 1907–1925 East Elbia Rest of the country

1895–19071

1907–19252

−8.4% −4.7%

−0.7% −3.2%

Notes: 1 Territory before the First World War 2 Territory after the First World War Source: Sering (1912, p. 52; 1934, p. 27)

share of labourers in the active farm population in the north central states (see Table 5.3). However, they do not show a rise in the part of wage costs in the value of gross farm production (Table 5.4). The increase in labourers reflected the growth of a class of migratory farm workers – a response to the growing seasonality of farm production resulting from specialization. Unlike the plantation south and California, however, the socio-political situation in this part of the country did not tolerate the permanent harbouring of an underclass.44Instead, the seasonal strains in labour supply incited further mechanization, which was to reduce the use of hired labour in the following decades. It can be said, in conclusion, that the main tendency in this period was a further return to family farms, though this was more clear in the European countries than in the United States. Alongside this tendency, the recovery of large farms was a secondary phenomenon, mostly short-lived, and always dependent on specific conditions. Nevertheless, the revival of large farms in some regions was another indication that the return to household production cannot be explained by new techniques and shifts in productions alone.45 After all, this revitalization occurred in spite of a growing adoption of fertilizers and other innovations that reinforced the position of family farmers. In the United States, large farms developed precisely in fruit and horticulture, where small farms are often thought to have had an advantage. FARM OUTPUT AND PRODUCTIVITY Agricultural production and productivity continued to develop differently in the four countries. Figures 5.3 to 5.5 give an impression of what it was like on a national level. As can be seen, in the United Kingdom the stagnation of the preceding decades continued, a short upturn between 1907 and 1912 excepted. In fact, crop yields and livestock numbers hardly rose (Tables 5.6 and 5.7, pp. 125–6). On the inputs side, the consumption of concentrated feeds stagnated.46 The 66 per cent increase in the use of fertilizers between 1896 and 1913 may look considerable if viewed separately, but it compares poorly with the 184 per cent increase in Germany or the even larger increase in the Netherlands. Indeed, fertilizer consumption per hectare in the UK fell behind 121

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that in these two countries.47 The substitution of machines for hired labour enabled some increase of labour productivity, but the overall pace of mechanization remained moderate.48 In Germany farm progress continued, but not as rapidly as before. Between 1904 and 1912, the growth of agricultural production and productivity stagnated. Yet by the eve of the war, Germany had moved a long way to the efficiency frontier of European agriculture, while the United Kingdom had fallen behind it.49 Indeed, German crop yields kept rising more rapidly than British ones (see Table 5.6), catching up with the latter by 1914. It was a considerable achievement as, unlike in the United Kingdom, arable production had not withdrawn to better soils.50 Livestock production also expanded more rapidly though no large extents of arable land had been returned to pasture (Table 5.7). Comparing the pace of farm mechanization is

Figure 5.3 Volume of gross domestic product in agriculture, 1897–1913 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

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not possible because there are no data for the United Kingdom. In Germany, the adoption of machines seems to have progressed quite steadily.51 Although cheap seasonal labour retarded the adoption of labour-saving devices,52 the expansion of sugar beet cultivation kept increasing the demand for seed drills and heavy machinery. Actually, steam ploughs became far more extensively used in Germany than in the United Kingdom where the technology was first developed.53 While the famous Fowler company was obliged to cut down its production of steam ploughs in England, its Magdeburg branch kept on growing.54 More generally, the farm inputs industry prospered in Germany, and achieved an advanced technical level.55 In the years before the war German farm machinery manufacturers developed the motorized plough: an application of the combustion engine that remained viable as long as American tractors were too heavy for European conditions.56 While in Germany agricultural growth was continuing more slowly than before, in the Netherlands it achieved a new spurt. Figure 5.5 seems to indicate a stagnation of

Figure 5.4 Land productivity, 1897–1913 (1900=100) Source: see appendix

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labour productivity, but this is only because the 1909 output was exceptionally low. In reality, labour productivity kept increasing, and land productivity and total farm production increased rapidly. Central to this was the expansion of intensive livestock production and horticulture.57 The number of pigs continued to rise, while cattle stock also began growing fast again after the stagnation in the preceding period.58Dairy production increased very rapidly. Besides an increase in domestic fodder production, the expansion of livestock was based on a rapid growth of feed imports. Second to animal production, arable yields rose significantly, though less than in Germany for crops other than wheat (Table 5.6). The adoption of fertilizers became significant from the 1890s, and then developed explosively.59 Another factor in agricultural development was the increase in farmers’ co-operatives. Begun around 1890, the establishment of these co-operatives strongly accelerated during this period, and they became more widespread in the Netherlands than in the other countries.

Figure 5.5 Labour productivity in agriculture, 1897–1913 (1900=100, UK 1901=100, Netherlands 1899=100) Source: see appendix

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In the United States, the using up of good unreclaimed lands caused some slowdown of production growth. Such growth as continued resulted from an increase in production factors rather than productivity. Total factor productivity even slightly declined in this period, as the depletion of soil fertility and the reclamation of poorer lands reduced land productivity.60Farm mechanization, however, continued rapidly, allowing a rise of labour productivity in spite of static yields.61 This was especially true for grains, where the use of reaper-binders and, under favourable climatic conditions, combine harvesters, was rapidly adopted. Other productions likewise began to be mechanized. Some 12,000 farms even had milking machines in 1910.62Also, the use of steam power on farms peaked in this period, amounting to some 16 per cent of animal power in 1910.63 As in Germany, farm mechanization was coupled to the development of a thriving agricultural machinery industry. It produced the most significant farm innovation of this period: the internal combustion engined tractor. By the outbreak of war, several thousands of tractors were already working on American fields.64 Southern agriculture had a serious handicap. Its abundance of labour called for labour-intensive, not labour-saving innovations. However, the national farm machinery industry was oriented to innovations for a high-wage setting. The farm implements industry in the South itself was not operating on the technological frontier. The South lacked its own technical community. A low-wage region in a highwage country, employers had little interest in investments in education, which would only have encouraged young people to move to other parts of the country.65 Nevertheless, southern agriculture was not so absolutely inert as has been depicted.66New cultivation methods were adopted, and the use of fertilizers and pesticides was considerably increased.67 As a consequence, cotton production became both more labour and capital intensive. However, these efforts did not lead to greater productivity, but were entirely absorbed in fighting the boll weevil that ravaged the cotton fields from the mid-1890s. This was a plague unlike anything else experienced by American agriculture in this period. Natural conditions left southern farmers few alternatives beside cotton.68 They were compelled to spend their resources just to restore yields to a level slightly below that in pre-weevil years.69 Table 5.6 Percentage change in crop yields in Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, 1895–99 to 1909–13 Wheat Barley Oats Potatoes

Great Britain

Germany

Netherlands

+0.6 −1.7 +1.0 +4.0

+19.6 +23.0 +25.1 +17.7

+21.5 + 7.7 + 4.9 +15.8

Sources: Mitchell and Deane (1962, p. 90); Mitchell (1975, pp. 215, 219, 254, 259)

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Table 5.7 Cattle and pig population in Germany and Great Britain, 1900 and 1913 (millions) Great Britain: Cattle Pigs Germany: Cattle Pigs

1900

1913

6.8 2.4

7.0 2.2*

18.9 16.8

21.0 25.7

Note: * 1912: 2.7 Source: Mitchell (1975, pp. 299, 306)

Relationship with farm structures As a matter of fact, there was an interaction between agricultural growth and the evolution of farm structures in different regions. Where large farms enjoyed an Indian summer, they mostly resumed their leadership in agricultural progress. An exception was south and east England, where agricultural output rose less than the national average.70 Apparently, the continuance of relatively low agricultural prices here kept large farms rather lethargic.71 In Germany, on the other hand, East Elbian estate farms regained much of their former dynamism. Already leaders in sugar beet cultivation, they recaptured their first place in increasing grain yields, led the way in adopting fertilizers and machinery, and increased their advance in labour productivity.72 In the northern and southwestern Netherlands, large farms likewise expanded sugar beet cultivation, resumed underdrainage, and were at the forefront in using fertilizers.73Similar connections could be seen in the United States – not only in the west and the North Atlantic, but in the South. Indeed, the production of high-quality cotton was coupled to the reconstitution of centrally managed plantations. Moreover, this reconstitution played a part in successful boll weevil control.74 Nevertheless, it is remarkable that a large part of agricultural development in this period was based not on large but on small farms. This was especially conspicuous in the Netherlands, where small farms were important in the new spurt of agricultural growth. The fast-expanding horticulture was largely a small farmers’ business. Also, small farmers had a considerable share in the increase of intensive livestock production. Indeed, the inland provinces, where small farms were the norm, kept up well with the coastal provinces in raising the animal population.75 This increase in livestock on small farms was strongly encouraged by dairy co-operatives, which took over scale-sensitive butter and cheese production, while returning skimmed milk as pig fodder.76 In the other countries too, small farms vitally contributed to the new phase of agricultural development. In Germany, although large farms were leading 126

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in sugar beets and grain, small farms were ahead in expanding potato and pig production, like the Dutch raising their use of imported fodder for it.77 In the United Kingdom, small farms contributed to the growth of those branches of agriculture which remained dynamic, such as horticulture or the production of liquid milk.78In the United States, family farms now began to take part in mechanization in large numbers. GOVERNMENT AND THE BEGINNINGS OF AGRICULTURAL TAYLORISM In spite of these achievements of small farms, the structural evolution of agriculture collided with important requirements of agricultural progress. In particular, small farms could not supply the essentials of modern research and information. Nor were these readily provided for by large farms that, with difficulty, were holding their own in some regions. The farm inputs industry filled part of the gap, but by no means all of it, so that these functions became increasingly dependent on government intervention. In all four countries, government support of farm progress increased in this period. The United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands In the United Kingdom such support initially remained insignificant. After the founding of Wye College in 1894, some more university courses and public colleges were established, and a few county councils began advisory work.79 Nevertheless, farm education on the whole remained underdeveloped, especially at the lower level.80 In 1908, a Departmental Committee concluded that agricultural research and education in the United Kingdom lagged far behind Denmark, Germany and the United States.81 By then, however, the situation was ripe for change. The slow growth and eroding export position of British industry, and also the problems of the big cities, worked to enhance the importance of agriculture in the eyes of many non-agrarians too. Moreover, Liberals as well as rural-revivalist Conservatives recognized that landlords were lacking in innovation, so that a revitalization of British farming would not be possible without government-sponsored technicians.82 That something had to be done in this field was one of the few points of consensus in the bitter struggle over Lloyd George’s ‘People’s Budget’.83 This consensus led to the creation of a Development Commission for agriculture and the rural economy in 1910. This can be seen as the belated take-off of farm development policies in the United Kingdom. Under the auspices of the Commission, a network of agricultural research centres and

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a Provincial Advisory Service were established, while agricultural education was more energetically developed. Whereas, in 1909–1910, the Farm Board had provided £12,300 for farm research and education, average annual state expenditure for this purpose rose to £50,100 between 1911 and 1915.84 It still compared quite poorly to government support in the other countries, but at least a start had been made. In Germany, the long-standing support of agricultural progress gained new momentum. Agricultural schools rapidly multiplied, a new crop of experiment stations and centres for agricultural research were established, land consolidation continued at an increased speed, and co-operative credit was supported by a special state bank.85 Government support for farm progress received wide backing, also from urban-industrial opponents of higher farm tariffs. Thanks to it, state governments and the Chambers of Agriculture could quietly increase their efforts in this field without it becoming a political issue. In the Netherlands, a broad consensus had developed that government should support farm progress to enhance the export position of Dutch agriculture. It found receptive ground in The Hague, where Confessional and progressive Liberal cabinets inaugurated more active government policies.86 Indeed, government support of farm progress was vigorously expanded after the initiating decisions around 1890. The number of agricultural advisory experts increased to forty-seven in 1913,87 and new agricultural colleges, winter schools, institutes and experiment stations were founded. The public agricultural college in Wageningen was upgraded into a School of Higher Agricultural Education. Experimental fields and gardens multiplied, and the subsidization of stock breeding increased. Government also provided inspection of livestock and livestock products for export, which in some cases was made obligatory.88 The United States Generally speaking, in the European countries, the pressure of foreign competition made farmers themselves also press for government support of farm progress. In the United States, however, the situation was slightly different. The rapid growth in domestic demand and the slower increase in supply made the home market situation more favourable for American farmers. As a consequence, strengthening their international competitiveness became somewhat less urgent for them. The depletion of fertile lands and soil exhaustion posed problems for many farmers, but it also helped to firm up agricultural prices. Many non-farmers, conversely, felt threatened by this development. Manufacturers and government officials began worrying about food supply, raw material prices and the balance of payments, while agri-food companies began to fear for a stagnation of their turnover. These non-farmer anxieties 128

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gave a powerful impulse to government encouragement of farm progress.89 Agricultural education at all levels strongly expanded.90Appropriations for the United States Department of Agriculture skyrocketed, leading to an increase of its personnel from 2,444 in 1897 to 14,478 in 1913. It made the Department one of the greatest research organizations in the world.91 Meanwhile there was a new surge of federal acts:92 the Newlands Reclamation Act (1902) encouraged irrigation of arid lands; the Adams Act (1906) enlarged federal subsidization of the state experiment stations;93 the Farm Loan Act (1916) and Warehouse Act (1916) eased the farm credit situation;94 and the Smith-Hughes Act (1917) supported vocational training. The most important new federal law was the Smith-Lever Act of 1914. This provided federal subsidies for the employment of county agents, who gave advice to farmers on a local level. Thanks to it, by 1917 agents were employed in half of the 2,800 counties.95Non-farmer interests played a prominent part in the genesis of this act. From the late nineteenth century, traders, carriers and processors of agricultural products, hoping to raise farm output and productivity, had sponsored a series of education projects, including the employment of advisers, demonstration trains and experimental plots.96These initiatives were added to by extension activities emanating from the land grant colleges. Farmers, however, were not quick to follow the exhortations given to them, and an extensive search followed for an educational approach suited to break their reluctance. A method applied by Knapp in a USDA project to fight the boll weevil appeared as a breakthrough. Knapp employed county agents for persuading local businessmen and prominent farmers to cover the risk for some of them who would farm according to his directions.97The success of this method, which was based on direct farmer involvement in demonstrations, appealed to business interests. In 1906, the General Educational Board, which was sponsored by Rockefeller, enabled Knapp to expand his programme considerably. Six years later, the president of Sears, Roebuck and Company offered $1,000 to each of the first hundred counties to employ a county agent.98By that time, the United States Department of Agriculture and the agricultural colleges were pressing for federal support for a nation-wide county agent system. They were backed by the agri-food and railway interests, which established a National Soil Fertility League as a lobbying organization. This pressure group inspired the text of the Smith-Lever Bill.99 Meanwhile, the passage of the act was greatly facilitated by the creation of public sentiment by the Country Life Movement. This was an urban-based movement, initiated by President Theodore Roosevelt’s Country Life Commission (1909). It was made up of agricultural scientists, business interests and idealists, who were united by an ambition of uplifting agriculture.100As a matter of fact, this objective fitted into the broader endeavour of American ‘Progressivism’ to overcome social problems and class struggle by active government and the corporate formula of science and 129

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organization.101The Country Lifers pursued similar aims, applying the same principles to the agricultural sector.102 In many respects, their project amounted to an agricultural variant of the Taylor system, to be implemented by the government.103 The activists of the movement were driven by an amalgam of specific aspirations, including the wish to preserve the farming community as a source of yeoman virtues considered an antidote for the disruptions of urban society. Yet a pervasive motive was fear of food shortages and other dangers which a stagnating farm production involved, not for farmers, but for urban society.104 In all four countries, it can be concluded that the expansion of governmentsponsored research and education was widely welcomed, whether for the sake of farmers, non-farmers, or that of ‘the nation’. Meanwhile, for large farmers and landlords, this development brought a further loss of control over agricultural innovation. In the United States, Germany and the Netherlands, experiment stations began to free themselves from the burden of practical testing and information duties with which farm entrepreneurs had saddled them.105 Station scientists gained more room for experimental research, which was not directly controlled by farmers. In the United Kingdom, the start of agricultural development policies likewise initiated a breach in the practical–theoretical model. Here Principal Hall and his staff at Wye College led the way in introducing a definite scientific approach to farm progress.106 This development provoked complaints from large farmers and landlords in the college board who were sceptical about the book knowledge of the professors. But the grumbling soon subsided, giving way to enthusiasm or at least acquiescence.107 Agricultural development policies and the small farmer Apart from this further separation of practical entrepreneurship and the production of innovations, policy evolution reflected the increased role of small farms in agricultural development. The coming of more grass-roots and persuasion-oriented advisory services was in itself partly an adaptation to smaller farmers. Moreover, agricultural education expanded most rapidly at the lower level. In 1913, rural evening schools in Germany had increased to 6,675, agricultural winter courses in the Netherlands to 626, and farmers’ institutes in the United States to 8,861.108 In the United Kingdom too, the Development Commission began substantial funding of lower farm schools after 1910.109 Other facts also indicated a reorientation on small farms. In Germany, agricultural development policies seem to have been most vigorously pursued in smaller-scaled farming regions.110 In the Netherlands, more subsidies were gradually being provided for the breeding of small stock.111Indeed, the connection with farm structures was recognized by the director-general for agriculture, van Hoek, who explained that government care for farm progress had 130

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become indispensable because there were so many family farms, while large landowners were few and failing in initiative.112 This new attention for small farms was received with mixed feelings by small farmers themselves. This was especially true for educational efforts to overcome their ‘traditionalism’. Nevertheless, in the European countries, many farmers grudgingly accepted the adviser as a help in the struggle against foreign competition. In the southern United States farmers also hesitatingly accepted the county agent, as the boll weevil devastations forced them to set aside traditional cautions.113In the north, however, attempts to introduce the county agent system met with distrust. Most farmers did not accept the suggestion that low farm incomes were caused by their own inefficiency. They rather blamed their problems on railway and agri-food corporations.114That these interests supported the extension campaign only worked to increase their suspicion.115When the Smith-Lever Bill came up for discussion, agrarian representatives were not enthusiastic, some of them explicitly rejecting the act as a measure to increase supply in order to lower food prices.116In fact, they were right. As Roosevelt’s right hand man, Pinchot, remarked in 1918: ‘What was done for the farmer was directed almost without exception toward helping or inducing him to grow cheap food.’117 In both Europe and America, the universal reaction of extension agents was to work preferably with business-minded farmers who were more open to their advice. Apart from large farmers, this category also included a top stratum of family farmers. In the United States, agents sought additional support from local merchants and bankers. The outcome was a productivist symbiosis of agents, local businessmen and more well-to-do farmers. It was to reinforce a new kind of social differentiation in agriculture, not so much between agrarian capitalists and family farmers, but between different categories of family farmers themselves.118 INCREASE IN LAND REFORM A further orientation on family farms also became visible in the increase of land reform activity. More than with farm education, this corresponded to the wish of rural workers themselves. In all four countries, smallholders and farm labourers desired more access to the land. In the smallholdings areas in the United Kingdom, in particular, land agitation flared up again from the closing years of the century. In western Ireland, small peasants disturbed auctions of large grazing tracts, turned up pasture, and boycotted shopkeeper-graziers. In the Scottish Highlands and Islands, crofters and cotters engaged in a new surge of land raids.119

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Small holdings and the national interest However, other interests continued to be more decisive for actual policy-making in this field. Sensible businessmen and middle-class intellectuals considered that small farms would increase land productivity, curb a disruptive pace of urbanization, and strengthen the defence of private property. Indeed, they believed that creating such farms would increase social harmony and brace national strength.120 In the United Kingdom, this conviction now gained acceptance with the Conservatives too. One reason was that they had absorbed Chamberlain and his Birmingham ‘Radicals’, who had advocated the policy from the beginning. However, Conservative assent to land reform went further than a tactical concession to these new arrivals. The attitudes of the Tories themselves were undergoing a change. In 1905, party opinion had evolved far enough for the Conservative majority of a Departmental Commission to endorse compulsory purchase for small holdings in England and Wales.121In the following years, small landownership became a pampered child of rural-revivalist Conservatives, and a central item of the Conservative farm programme.122 In Germany, the creation of small farms on estate lands was propagated by industrialists, prominent economists, various sorts of Liberals, as well as the radical nationalists of the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband) and the Society of the Eastern Marches (Ostmarkenverein).123In the Netherlands the question was less urgent. Yet supporting small farms found advocates in progressive Liberal circles and the social wings of the Confessional parties.124In the United States too, the idea gained increasing support. Here, anxieties about urban congestion and rising food prices inspired a movement for settling immigrants and unemployed on intensive small farms. This was coupled to the wish to reclaim arid and swamp lands now that more suitable lands were no longer available. In 1898, the Salvation Army established farm colonies in California, Colorado and Ohio, receiving strong support for this from the Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco, the governor of Colorado, and the Santa Fe railway.125After the turn of the century, the settlement movement became interwoven with the Country Life Movement and various shades of ‘Progressives’. It had considerable influence with the administration of Theodore Roosevelt.126

Increasing support from landlords and large farmers As well as in urban circles, land reform found backing from large farmers and landlords. Now that the urban-industrial pull on farm labour was growing stronger, the idea of small holdings as a cure for the rural exodus became more attractive to them. Moreover, as the land market picked up, more landowners became willing to 132

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sell to recover previous losses. State encouragement of small holdings was welcomed if it meant that the government would subsidize land sales.127 In the United Kingdom, such considerations contributed to land reform finding increased acceptance with the Conservative gentry. Irish landlords were first to seize upon subsidized tenant-purchase. Their example was followed by Conservative landowners in Britain, who propagated subsidized purchase for the creation of small holdings in the rest of the Kingdom.128 In Germany, the settlement of small farms was officially endorsed by the Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte), the German Board of Agriculture (Deutsche Landwirtschaftsrat) and the Prussian Board of Agriculture (Landesökonomiekollegium).129 In the Netherlands, smallholdings advocates were stirring in the Dutch Agricultural Congress (Nederlands Landhuishoudkundig Congres).130In the United States, even Californian large growers for some time toyed with the idea. Shortly after the turn of the century, a significant current of them advocated settling small labourer-farms to attract workers from the east.131 Conflicts and results Especially in the United Kingdom and Germany, the growing consensus had tangible effects. In the United Kingdom, significant steps were taken during the Conservative period of office until 1905. In 1897, opportunities for compulsory purchase in the Scottish crofting area were widened. A Highland Congested Districts Board was created which could compel landowners to surrender land not only for the enlargement of existing crofts, but for the creation of new crofts.132 Some years later, negotiations between landlords and peasant representatives in Ireland laid the foundation of the ‘Wyndham Act’ (1903), which ended the delay in tenant-purchase, bridging the gap between tenant-buying prices and landlord-asking prices with massive government subsidies.133The pursuit of proprietary small holdings in the rest of the Kingdom proved more difficult, however. Prospective small farmers had little appetite for buying unless the prices were considerably lower than landowners demanded.134As long as land reform was based on purchase, therefore, it would either progress in dribs and drabs, or involve huge government subsidies. The latter alternative was accepted to cool down the hotbed of insurgency in Ireland, but a similar spray of government money to buy out landlords in the rest of the country was impracticable. Rural-revivalist Conservatives hoped to raise the necessary revenue by agricultural tariffs, but, as we shall see,135this did not go through. Meanwhile, demands were raised to accelerate land reform without what landowners regarded as due recompense. Radical liberals and socialists propagated outright nationalization or heavy taxing of large landownership. When the Liberals entered office in 1905, they 133

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did not go so far, but were drawn towards a policy of compelling landlords to lease out to small holders against rents that were fixed by a land court.136For the landowners this meant being reduced to little more than mortgagees, a solution that they fought bitterly. Despite their objections, they did not obstruct the Small Holdings and Allotments Acts of 1907 and 1908, under which land was still mainly acquired by purchase and which helped to raise land prices.137Nor did they block the ‘Birrell Act’ (1909) for Ireland, which continued the subsidization of tenant-purchase, and allowed compulsory purchase of untenanted land for small holdings.138 ,139However, they used their dominance in the House of Lords to veto more farreaching bills for Scotland.140In 1911, after the Lords’ power had been curtailed by the Parliament Act,141the Liberal government pushed through with a Small Landholders Act for Scotland. However, the landlords did not give up. While Lloyd George campaigned to extend the compulsory renting clause to England and Wales, landlords used every loophole to thwart its implementation in Scotland itself. When war broke out, the struggle remained undecided.142 In spite of this stalemate, the outcome of land reform in the United Kingdom was far from negligible. In Ireland, thanks to the massive subsidization of tenantpurchase, nearly two-thirds of the land had ceased to be the property of the landlords by the early 1920s, while some 750,000 acres had been distributed by way of enlarging or creating small holdings.143In England and Wales, over 200,000 acres had been acquired for 14,000 smallholders under the Small Holdings and Allotments Acts by 1914.144In Scotland, the provision of land by the Crofters Commission totalled 72,000 acres for 2,051 enlargements until 1912. The Congested Districts Board added 133,000 acres for 1,138 enlargements and 640 new holdings.145 Also, the Small Landholders Act, apart from its contested settlement clauses, extended the protection of sitting small tenants to Scotland generally.146 In Germany, land reform was progressing steadily within the legal framework that had been developed in the previous period. The Royal Settlement Commission went on settling German peasants in the ‘nationally threatened’ provinces of Posen and West Prussia. Between 1886 and 1917, the Commission created 21,794 holdings totalling 309,139 hectares.147Besides, settlement societies were created, partly with support of the state, to implement the Hereditary Leasehold Acts (Rentengutsgezetze) of 1890–1891 which facilitated settlement in Prussia at large. A total of 22,190 holdings on 244,350 hectares was created by these societies until 1915.148Here, too, opinions differed as to the most desirable kind of land reform measures. Non-agrarian land reformers and common farmers often advocated wholesale division of estates into fully fledged family farms. East Elbian estate owners, however, preferred partial subdivision into small labourer-holdings.149By selling off part of their land for settlement purposes, they sought to acquire the means for investing in intensive 134

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residual estate farms (Restgüter), which could draw on the new smallholders for labour. In spite of such differences, land reform did not become a cause of conflict as in Britain.150In the political configuration in Germany, radical land reformers remained more marginal, while the interests of the landlords were neatly respected. Apart from an unsuccessful attempt to expropriate Polish estates,151there was no interference with the landowners’ freedom of decision. Nor was it tried to enforce a reduction of rents or land prices. Meeting the estate owners’ wishes, the Hereditary Leasehold Acts were widened in 1907, to permit the creation of labourer-farms with less than 2.5 hectares.152 In the Netherlands and the United States, land reform activity remained more restricted. In the former country, many large farmers and landlords wanted government encouragement of labourers’ allotments but not of small farms.153 A new State Commission on Agriculture pleaded for both,154but a government bill in 1911 only took over its allotments proposal. The bill intended giving labourers a right to rent allotments or to buy them with cheap government credit, if necessary by compulsory purchase. Nevertheless, the Farm Labourers’ Act (Landarbeiderswet) that was finally passed in 1918 gave more room for encouraging small farms. A stipulation of the original bill, excluding applicants who already had some land, was omitted.155 In the United States, the settlement movement provided the thrust for the Newlands Act (1902), which aimed at settling farm families on irrigated lands. The United States Reclamation Service, which was established under the act, claimed to have settled about 10,000 families by 1910.156 In 1905, the Public Land Commission (1905) criticized large speculative estates that remained in a low condition of cultivation.157 In 1909, the Country Life Commission repeated the criticism, asking the federal government to reclaim the vast stretches of swamp land and divide them in small farm units.158 In 1915, the secretary of labor William Wilson began propagating the establishment of farm colonies where unemployed labourers could be settled as small farmers. A bill to this effect was introduced into Congress in 1916, but not put to the vote.159 A farm colonies proposal made in the same year by a State Commission of Land Colonization and Rural Credits in California was more successful, however. Following the advice of the Commission, the state legislature appropriated funds for colonies in Durham and Dehli, which were to gain widespread attention in the postwar years.160 ,161 DELAY IN SOCIAL POLICIES FOR FARM LABOURERS If large farmers and landowners accepted land reform measures, it was to defend their profits or land rents. The same consideration, however, made them oppose social

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legislation that would push up their wage costs or fiscal burden. This resistance, together with difficulties of organizing agricultural labourers, tended to retard social legislation for farm workers. In the United Kingdom, social reform generally was on a low tide as long as the Conservatives remained in office. For farm labourers, the only improvement was the extension to agriculture, in 1900, of the Workmen’s Compensation Act (1897) for injuries incurred in the labour process.162Under the Liberals, social reform was taken up with more energy. A series of new acts sought to emulate the kind of social security inaugurated by Bismarck in Germany. Even more than in that country, the acts benefited farm labourers too.163Nevertheless, unemployment insurance, which was introduced by the National Insurance Act (1911), applied only to some industrial sectors.164Farm labourers were not included by acts regulating working hours and wage rates either. They also fell outside the Trade Boards Act (1909), which sought to get minimum rates established in the sweated trades. An agricultural minimum wage was finally proposed by Lloyd George in his ‘land campaign’ in 1913.165Although it was approved by a small reformist Conservative group with little connection with agriculture, it proved unacceptable to the landed interests, including the ruralrevivalists in the Conservative Party.166 However, the issue had assumed a vital significance for the governing Liberal–Labour coalition, so that this opposition could be overruled. In the spring of 1914, private bills were introduced providing for Districts Boards to establish minimum rates of agricultural wages.167 However, the outbreak of war postponed effective action until 1917, when developments were forced by war-economic conditions. In Germany, after a standstill in the later 1890s, social reform was prudently resumed in the new century. One result was the Reich Insurance Law (1911), which for the first time included all farm workers in the compulsory health insurance.168Apart from that, however, new measures did not extend to farm labourers. Regulations protecting labour in factories and mines were extended to all establishments with more than ten workers, but only in industry.169 Rather than assenting to protective measures for their labourers, landlords and large farmers demanded the reinforcement of restrictive legislation, including a limitation of the freedom of farm labourers to move.170 In the Netherlands, the arrival of progressive Liberal and Christian-social governments belatedly inaugurated a prudent increase of social reform. With the exception of old age pensions, however, agricultural labourers were not included. A Farm Accidents Bill was introduced in 1905, but did not become law in this period. Farmers’ organizations echoed that something had to be done, but when it came to the crunch they raised all kinds of objections.171In 1913, a Health Insurance Act was passed. Its compulsory insurance clause did not extend to servants and casual 136

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labourers, so that farm hands were threatened with falling outside it.172Whether that, indeed, would have happened is hard to tell, for the act was not put into operation. In the United States, social policies generally remained scant in comparison to the other countries, and farm labourers were truly left out in the cold. Large farmers resisted the extension of workmen’s compensation and the limitation of the working day to agricultural workers.173In California, the short-lived support for labourers’ farms among large growers after the turn of the century was soon drowned by new demands for coolie labour, and for denying this labour access to land.174 In the South, social relations left no room for protective measures for farm workers whatsoever. AGRICULTURAL TRADE POLICIES: THE UNITED STATES AND THE NETHERLANDS In the preceding period, crucial choices had been made regarding whether or not to protect agricultural prices. These choices were now broadly adhered to. In the United States agricultural protection remained little effective, and in the Netherlands, nonexistent. Assisted by comparative advantage, farmers had weathered the crisis years with little or no support of their prices. Now that these latter improved again, their need for protection further subsided. The United States In the United States, the Dingley Act (1897) raised farm tariffs again after a short moderation in the mid-1890s.175But apart from products such as sugar and wool, these increases had little effect. Export surpluses still made the prices of important farm products dependent on the world market. In fact, the raising of farm tariffs was chiefly a gesture by non-farm business interests to sweeten the restoration of high industrial protection.176 This was not entirely without success, for several farmers in the midwest believed that protection was needed to maintain the American standard of living.177After the turn of the century their attitudes changed. Farmers generally became convinced that high tariffs one-sidedly benefited big business. In 1902, the Iowa State Convention asked for tariff reduction. This demand was subsequently propagated as the ‘Iowa idea’ by midwestern Democrats and ‘insurgent’ Republicans such as Iowa governor Cummins and Wisconsin governor La Follette.178 In the meantime, American manufacturers were growing strong enough to feel less need for protection.179 Therefore, they had less reason to entice farmers into a tariff partnership. Rather, they began to fear that agricultural tariffs would increase the price of food and raw materials. Indeed, the rapid increase in the domestic consumption of farm products and the slower growth of supply threatened to make 137

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agricultural tariffs more effective. This probably explains why steps were now set to get agricultural tariffs reduced. In 1910–1911, the reciprocity clause of the new PayneAldrich tariff (1909) was used to negotiate an agreement with Canada that would grant big tariff reductions or total free entry for Canadian farm products. Existing high tariffs for industrial products would be much less reduced.180 Because of a political change in Canada, the agreement became only partly effective. However, in 1913 the Underwood-Simmons Act was passed which put many farm products on the free list and significantly lowered other agricultural tariffs. Industrial tariffs were also lowered, but to a much smaller extent.181 Farmers and their political leaders resented this course of events. Already angered at the maintenance of high industrial protection in the Payne-Aldrich Act, they were enraged at the discrimination of agriculture by the Canadian agreement and the Underwood-Simmons Act.182Nevertheless, although farmers objected to unequal treatment, they did not demand government support of agricultural prices. New organizations such as the Farmers’ Union (1902) and the American Society of Equity (1902) tried to enforce selling prices that covered the cost of production. However, they did so by self-organized action, withholding crops from the market or ploughing up part of the acreage to compel buyers to pay better prices.183In fact, what they attempted was to follow the example of big industrialists and organize a cartel. However, whereas there were few industrialists there were many farmers, which made emulation difficult. Apart from some limited successes,184 farmers could not cope with the free rider problem. When a smaller society of Kentucky tobacco growers resorted to violent ‘night riding’ actions against small farmers who scabbed on its crop-holding actions, it slid into criminality.185 After about 1908, the Equity Society and the Farmers’ Union shifted their efforts towards setting up farmers’ cooperatives.186 Although these could rationalize marketing, they could not, like a cartel, raise prices. For this, farmers would have to appeal to the government, but at this time they were not yet ready to do so. The Netherlands In the Netherlands, free trade in farm products was continued. Even the disguised subsidizing of sugar exports ceased in 1897.187Protectionist tariff bills were introduced, though not enacted, by Confessional governments in 1904 and 1911. Significantly, although farmers formed a large part of the Confessional constituencies, these bills proposed only industrial, not agricultural protection.188Actually, the limited enthusiasm for farm protection that had existed in agrarian circles ebbed away in this period. Only within the Dutch Farmers’ League (Nederlandse Boerenbond), did the bills provoke any protectionist reaction. The League wished to see some livestock tariffs included, reciprocity articles for defending 138

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livestock exports strengthened, and excise taxes which discriminated against domestic farm products abolished. Nevertheless, the League dared not demand grain tariffs which, though cherished by its leadership, were opposed by many stock farmers in its rank and file.189 Other farmers’ organizations felt even less need for protection. The Groningen Agricultural Society, which in 1895 had spoken out for grain tariffs, rejected a similar motion in 1904.190In the years before the war, demand for tariffs, even among arable farmers, seems to have almost disappeared. When travelling around the Netherlands, the British farm journalist Robertson Scott could hardly find any farmer who was still longing for protection.191 TARIFF QUESTION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND GERMANY: THE STRUGGLE OVER NATIONAL DESTINY In the United Kingdom and Germany the supporting of farm incomes remained a sine qua non for successful agricultural development. In the United Kingdom a new and more forceful attempt was made to introduce such support, but it was thwarted by commercial and financial interests, a large number of manufacturers, and urban labour. In Germany, an attempt to restore agricultural protection to its level in the later Bismarck years was more effective. In both cases, the pressure for agricultural price supports did not emanate from the wealthy rural classes alone. It was organized by broad coalitions, which espoused farm protection because it fitted in with their encompassing pursuit of ‘national efficiency’. The United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, the struggle for supporting farm incomes became tied up with the Tariff Reform Movement. This was launched by Chamberlain in 1903 from the bosom of the Conservative Party, backed by a fraction of manufacturing interests centred in the Birmingham metal industry. The movement was also joined by farmers and the lower gentry.192Chamberlain’s basic plan was to revitalize British industrial exports by forging the Imperium into a trade bloc. A crucial element was the imposition of tariffs on farm products, from which British colonies would be exempted in exchange for preferential treatment of manufactures from the mother country. Although this would benefit colonial farmers rather than farmers in the United Kingdom itself, Chamberlain was not unfavourable to some support for domestic agriculture as well.193 In 1906, the Tariff Reform Agricultural Committee proposed import duties of 3 shillings per quarter for wheat (or about 10 per cent of the prevailing wheat price), and 5 per cent to 10 per cent ad valorem for other farm products. Colonial wheat was also to be taxed by 1 shilling, and preferential tariffs for 139

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other products were to be negotiated. As the protective effect of these duties would be very small, the Committee proposed to use part of the revenue to subsidize sugar beet cultivation and railway rates for farm products.194 To some extent, farm protection was integrated into the Tariff Reform programme in order to win agrarian support for an industrial plan.195 None the less, the more principled Tariff Reformers had a genuine desire to revive British agriculture. After 1906 especially, they drew up a programme of rural revitalization, in which agricultural tariffs were coupled to government support of small holdings and farm education.196 In doing so they were supported by a British school of historical economists. Academics such as Ashley and Cunningham were criticizing free trade economics, pointing to the risks of one-sided industrialization in a world in which other countries would not permanently agree to remain mere food suppliers.197 The rural revivalism of the radical Tariff Reformers was inspired by a fear that the rural exodus would lead to over-urbanization, social disruption and class struggle.198 Moreover, they wished to revitalize agriculture with a view to industrial outlets.199Between 1870 and 1900, gross national product in mining, manufacturing and building had nearly doubled, but exports of manufactured goods had risen only little more than one-sixth.200Manufacturers had to rely more on the home market, in which farm incomes were a component, though to a lesser extent than in other countries. Furthermore, concerns about food security played a role. Food imports came no longer as cheap and easy as before, while the cost of guaranteeing their continuity in case of war was pushed up by the onset of a naval arms race with Germany.201Fears for food security were expressed by an unofficial commission in 1897, and radical Tariff Reformers were prominent in a campaign for an official enquiry in 1903.202 In brief, the Tariff Reform Movement had at its centre an industrial–agrarian coalition which, besides imperial preference, pursued a revitalization of British agriculture with a view to national aims.203However, this project met with strong adverse forces. The City of London was opposed to any infringement on free trade, as were the older industries in the north, which benefited from open connections with the world market.204 These interests were joined by a majority of British economists headed by Marshall.205Labourers were also opposed to ‘taxes on food’, being not convinced by promises that Tariff Reform would protect employment and provide revenue for social security.206 This broad opposition to food taxes decided the fate of Tariff Reform. The higher nobility was afraid to burn its fingers, fearing to spoil better-loved causes like the Union, the Established Church, and the House of Lords’ power.207 In 1903, the Conservative prime minister Balfour withheld his support of Chamberlain, thus forcing the latter to retreat from government and try the less easy road of conquering the Conservative Party from below.208 In the meantime, the resistance to import duties on agricultural products enabled the Liberals to overcome 140

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their divisions, appeal to the workers, and win back the support of many City and Lancashire businessmen, which had been lost to the Conservatives after 1886. An economic boom further undermined the Tariff Reformers’ argument on employment, and the outcome was a landslide Liberal victory at the elections of 1906.209 In the following years, the Tariff Reformers doubled their efforts to conquer the Tory Party, now reduced to opposition.210 In 1908 Balfour gave in, but he mainly seized upon tariff reform as a way to meet rising government expenses by indirect rather than direct taxation. In 1910 he abandoned agricultural tariffs as they kept arousing too much resistance. After Balfour’s fall as party leader in 1911, agricultural tariffs were temporarily restored in the Conservative programme, but in 1913, they were more definitely renounced under pressure from the older Lancashire industries.211Farmers and the rural squirearchy felt betrayed but could not stem the tide.212 Also, their reaction was tempered by the division between tenants and landlords. Certainly, responses to a survey of the Tariff Reform Agricultural Committee had evidenced considerable tenant support for protection.213Apparently, many tenants supported the agricultural dimension of Tariff Reform when it was still an option. When it failed, however, farmers could to some extent be comforted by Liberal promises of rent reductions and security of tenure. Indeed, when Lloyd George made such promises in his land campaign in the fall of 1913, it brought him quite some farmer applause.214 Germany Whereas in the other countries farm protection remained limited or absent, in Germany it was restored to its late 1880s level after the moderation in the Caprivi era. A Meat and Livestock Inspection Act (1900) drastically restricted meat imports,215 and a new tariff act in 1902 laid the base for new trade treaties leading to increased agricultural tariffs from 1906 (Table 5.8). Besides, the certificates policy for grains was widened in 1906, turning them into a real export subsidy.216 This restoration of agricultural protection was effected under the Rallying Policy (Sammlungspolitik), by which manufacturers and the government sought a new rapprochement with the agrarian interests from 1897. Central to this policy were industrial needs and ambitions. Caprivi’s policies had failed to stem the growth of the labour movement, which raised the manufacturers’ need for a reliable peasantry as a political counterbalance.217Besides, Caprivi had not succeeded in his pursuit of a mid-European trade bloc. In the absence of this, manufacturers felt threatened by the American Dingley tariff (1897), which increased the possibilities for United States industries to subsidize their exports by exploiting a protected home market. To defend themselves against it, German manufacturers wanted their own tariffs 141

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Table 5.8 German tariffs for important farm products, 1892 and 1906 Grains (marks per tonne) Wheat 1892 19061

35.00 55.00

Rye

Feed barley

Corn

Oats

35.00 50.00

20.00 13.00

16.00 30.00

28.00 50.00

Young cattle

Hogs

5.00 16.00

5.00 9.00

Livestock (marks per head) Oxen Cows 1892 19061,2

25.50 40.00

9.00 32.00

Notes: 1 Minimum tariffs in trade treaties 2 Tariffs in marks per 100 kg live weight converted to marks per head Sources: Henning (1987, p. 253); Schneider (1987, p. 313)

raised or maintained.218 Besides, as German manufacturers grew more dependent on the world market, they also began worrying about export outlets and raw materials supplies.219Finding that the world was being enclosed into spheres of other industrial countries, they demanded an aggressive commercial and colonial policy, to be backed by a strong navy. In this pursuit of a ‘world policy’ (Weltpolitik), manufacturers were joined by the banking and commercial interests, a majority of the Liberals, and the emperor.220 To realize these ambitions in spite of the considerable opposition of the Social Democrats, some Liberals, and for some time the Centre, industry and the government looked for support to the agrarian interests, but these were not enthusiastic.221Industrial tariffs threatened agrarian buying power, navy building could raise fiscal pressures, and a further integration of Germany in the world market could only lead to increased imports of farm products, which was precisely what the agrarian interests fought against tooth and nail. Manufacturers and the government, therefore, were prepared to pay a price for agrarian support.222 Now, the one price farmers and landowners were really interested in a restoration of farm protection, which had been lowered by the Caprivi treaties. For industry and the government, meeting the agrarians on that point was eased by considerations of home market and food security. Although industrial exports were growing, the home market remained vitally important for German manufacturers. Actually, agriculture’s share in this market still remained larger than it had been in the United Kingdom even a century before.223Furthermore, several industrial firms were sellers of farm inputs or processors of agricultural products. These agri-food manufacturers were prominent in the leadership of the Central Union of German Manufacturers (Centralverband deutscher Industrieller), where they propagated a rise of agricultural tariffs.224 Finally, 142

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world policy added the risk of a naval war with the United Kingdom to that of a twofront war with Russia and France.225 Although the German military staff did not seriously reckon with a protracted blockade of its seaports, this new risk still underlined the need for an adequate domestic farm production to secure food supply in case of war. Since the 1880s Germany’s food self-sufficiency had further diminished, and a rise of agricultural tariffs was deemed necessary to prevent a further decrease.226 These various considerations prompted the government to set up an Economic Commission in 1898, in which representatives of agriculture, industry and commerce were invited to discuss future trade policies. In 1900 Chancellor Bülow came up with proposals for a new tariff act. The official deliberations that followed were accompanied by a heated public debate. On the one hand, the raising of farm tariffs was pleaded by academics of the Historical School who advocated a future for Germany as an agricultural-industrial nation. Like their British counterparts, whom they inspired, economists like Wagner and Oldenberg stressed the significance of agriculture for the home market, social harmony and food security, and pointed to the dangers of one-sided industrialization.227 On the other hand, an increase of farm tariffs was resisted by the commercial and financial interests, progressive Liberals, and Social Democrats, as well as academics who pleaded for an industrial specialization of the German economy and its integration in the world market. However, commerce and finance were much less developed than in the United Kingdom and, in spite of German Social Democratic strength, the share of urban labour in the population was considerably smaller. As a consequence, these voices did not carry enough weight. After vehement debates in the Reichstag, Bülow’s tariff act was passed in 1902. Just like farm protection under Bismarck, its restoration under Bülow has been depicted as having been one-sidedly enforced by the Junkers. These would have exploited the navy plans to entice heavy industry into a protectionist partnership. With this and with the Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte) as their main power instrument, they would have pushed through an act that accomplished their economic survival against all other interests.228This interpretation, however, is not justified. There are few indications for a manipulative use of the Navy Bills by the Junkers. On the contrary, fearing agrarian opposition to it, the government tried to keep the first Navy Bill (1898) separated from the tariff question.229 It is true that with the second Navy Bill (1900) the two questions had become mixed up, the Conservatives only abandoning their opposition to it after a government promise to raise farm tariffs. However, this promise contained nothing new and was noncommittal.230 The subsequent tussle indicates that other interests set clear limits to the room the farm interests had for bargaining. As it was, Bülow’s tariff proposal was accepted by the industrial representatives, but rejected as too low by the agrarians.231These were supported by a group of ministers around the Prussian 143

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finance minister Miquel, who advocated a higher increase in farm tariffs. In the ensuing struggle, Bülow utilized a conflict about canal building to topple Miquel and associates in the Prussian government.232 Relying on the leadership of the Centre Party to tame its agrarian wing, he even forced a Reichstag majority to take back a decision for more far-reaching agricultural tariff increases.233The agrarians were furious, but the final act corresponded nearly with the chancellor’s original proposal. Within the agrarian camp itself, pressure by smaller farmers in the south and west through the Catholic Centre Party was no less instrumental in getting farm tariffs raised than that by aristocratic Conservatives.234The Christian Farmers’ Associations (christliche Bauernvereine) independently and forcibly demanded increased protection, and were not prepared merely to play second fiddle to the Junkers.235 Numerous petitions show that farmers’ organizations in these parts required tariffs equally high to those sought by the Agrarian League.236The League’s own demand of 75 marks for grain, for that matter, was largely inspired by its peasant members, many of whom were sellers of grain.237 The League also demanded protection for livestock products, which were important for smaller farmers.238Actually, because of the relative improvement of livestock protection, it was smaller farmers who benefited most from the trade policy alterations carried through under Bülow.239 Bülow’s trade policies contributed to the further increase of agricultural output and productivity in Germany. Contrary to what has sometimes been suggested, they did not hamper the shift to livestock production.240Neither were these policies solely responsible for the survival of large estate farms, which was also due to cheap immigrant labour and the recovery of world market prices.241The rise of farm tariffs did not handicap German economic growth, nor did it hamper the development of industrial exports, which expanded just as rapidly as under the Caprivi treaties.242Although, in a static analysis, farm tariffs had a negative effect on real wages, this should not be exaggerated. The new farm tariffs cost urban workers 3 to 4 per cent of their income – 1 to 1.5 per cent more than under the Caprivi treaties.243Probably this was partly compensated for by a reduced outflow of farm labour causing a faster rise of urban wages. In any case, industrial wages rose much more rapidly than in the United Kingdom so that, unlike in the latter, increased farm protection did not prevent an improvement in the standard of living of urban workers.244 AMBIGUITIES OF AGRARIAN CORPORATISM The increase of government interference with agriculture was coupled to a further development of agrarian corporatism. In the United Kingdom, the president of the 144

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Board of Agriculture became a cabinet minister from 1895.245 In Germany, new Chambers of Agriculture (Landwirtschaftskammern) were established at the state or provincial level.246 In the Netherlands, government care for agriculture was concentrated in a Department of Agriculture (Directie van de Landbouw) under a Ministry of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce in 1906.247 In the United States, the Department of Agriculture rapidly expanded.248 A new corporatist arrangement developed when extension agents began organizing the more business-minded farmers with whom they worked in local Farm Bureaux. However, this increase of agrarian corporatism was not achieved without friction. In all four countries farmers and landlords had asked for special government departments or public representative bodies. Yet when these were granted, the agrarians were often less than enthusiastic, fearing that the government would get too much control over agrarian affairs. Moreover, tensions arose about the division of influence between representatives of the wealth-controlling rural classes and those of small farmers. In the United Kingdom, though the Board of Agriculture closely co-operated with the agrarian interests in the Central Chamber of Agriculture, landowners feared the consequences of growing state intervention.249Farmers, for their part, were dissatisfied with too much landlord influence in the Central Chamber, and established a National Farmers’ Union in 1908.250In Germany, although the Chambers of Agriculture had been asked for by the leadership of the Agricultural Societies, they aroused distrust with the farmers. Within the Christian Farmers’ Associations (christliche Bauernvereine), in particular, opposition existed against too much government and landlord influence in these institutions.251A similar criticism was heard in the Netherlands too. Here the Christian Farmers’ Leagues (Christelijke Boerenbonden) reproached the semi-official Dutch Agricultural Committee (Nederlands Landbouw-Comité) for its non-representative and elitist character.252 In the United States, the organizational activities of the extension agents were distrusted by dirt farmers, who found it an unacceptable interference with farmers’ affairs.253 Indeed, agrarian corporatism had an ambivalent character. It was a bridgehead for established agrarian interests, helping to bend political decisions to their will. It also served the governments by giving them increased intervention capacity, while enabling them to involve farm representatives in consultation and co-operation, and to establish a special relationship with those farmers who fitted their development policies. This became especially clear with the organization of Farm Bureaux in the United States. Here, county agents, as public officials, and encouraged by the US Department of Agriculture and agricultural college extension officers, were organizing private associations to carry out a public policy of farm education. This sowed the seed for a new national farmers’ organization of more comfortable farmers, which was predisposed to a productivist co-operation with government agencies.254 145

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SWAN SONG OF THE OLD REGIME Agrarian corporatism was seized upon by the traditional landed aristocracies to counter the decline of their political influence. By entering into sector-based relations with government bodies, they sought control over parts of the state apparatus. In doing so, they tried to make themselves representatives of the entire agrarian community, attempting to integrate small farmers’ protests. Besides, on a national level, they sometimes embraced an encompassing conservative reformism to appeal to broader popular classes. In political practice, however, these strategies had only limited success. Urban labourers were not very susceptible to the lures of conservative reformers, and not all small farmers let themselves be hedged in. Even where the landed gentry did command the leadership of organizations with a mass base among smaller farmers, its control over this rank and file remained far from complete. In any case, the partial integration of popular protest could not prevent, on a national level, its influence being surpassed by that of non-farm capital and government bureaucracies. Landlords reacted with rising frustration to this decline of their political leverage. While in the preceding period the agricultural crisis had already washed away much of their patriarchal liberalism, they now underwent a further radicalization. Either their conservative reformism developed a grim anti-liberal slant, or they slid into sheer negative reaction. The bitterness of the landlords could not reverse the political realities, however. On the eve of the First World War, in none of the countries could the landed gentries dictate the course of politics any longer. The United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, the gentry was already helpless, even while the Tories were still in office. The governments of Salisbury and Balfour maintained themselves by the support of urban wealth, which was bought by disregarding the protectionist interests of the gentry. As a consequence, the latter felt abandoned by its own party.255 The negative conservatism of the Tory leaders alienated the labourers too, so that after the Boer War the electoral possibilities of this strategy were depleted. Chamberlain’s Tariff Reform was an attempt to break out of the blind alley by rallying the agrarian and industrial interests behind a productivist, social imperialist project that could also appeal to the working classes.256 As we have seen, this bid for Sammlungspolitik on British soil foundered on the combined resistance of the City interests, Lancashire industries and the workers. In 1906, the Liberal landslide ended two decades of almost uninterrupted Conservative power. The Tory Party now entrenched itself in the House of Lords to block liberal legislation. At the same time, the radical Tariff Reformers sought to 146

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revive a Tory democracy.257 As well as rural revitalization and small holdings, they were ready to consider wage increases for farm labourers, taxation of urban building site values, a limited democratization of the House of Lords, and ‘Federal Home Rule’ for Ireland.258 All this was not enough, however, for the Conservatives to recover the lost ground. In 1909, Lloyd George proposed his renowned ‘People’s Budget’, which included taxes on undeveloped land and the rise of land values. Adamant opposition to it by large landowners in the House of Lords allowed the Liberals to raise the slogan of ‘peers versus the people’ at the ensuing elections. Together with continuing fears for ‘food taxes’, this enabled a Liberal–Labour–Irish Nationalist coalition to keep a majority. This mandate was used by the new government to go ahead with a Parliament Act (1911) which curtailed the Lords’ veto power.259 When Balfour saw no other choice but to surrender, it provoked a palace revolution in the Conservative Party, which forced him to resign as party leader. A large part in this revolt of the ‘Diehard’ lords was played by the radical Tariff Reformers, who blamed Balfour for his negative policies that would have spoiled all other options.260Nevertheless, Balfour’s retreat proved only a Pyrrhic victory for the landed gentry. When the Lancashire interests forced the new party leadership once more to drop agricultural tariffs, it cut at the roots of the radical Tariff Reformers’ programme. Without revenue from food tariffs, it was not clear how small holdings and other reforms would be paid for. It reduced the appeal of Tariff Reform to the gentry, swinging the balance to the reactionaries in Pretyman’s Land Union and in Ulster.261Sanctioned by the Conservative leadership, these sabotaged the government’s land valuation, organized the illegal armament of an Orangist militia in Ulster, and encouraged a mutiny of army officers ordered to suppress it.262This rebellious stance could not win back the landlords’ political power, however, even though it showed up the government’s weakness in the Ulster question. On the eve of the war, all signs were that the Conservatives would lose heavily at the forthcoming elections.263 Meanwhile, landowners had difficulty in keeping their hold on the farmers. Only in Ulster did they succeed in making a convenience of the Protestant peasantry. In southeast England, although farmers mostly continued to vote Conservative, they felt betrayed by the party leadership, which had dropped agricultural tariffs. In Lincolnshire the strong farmers’ organizations openly condemned the Conservative Party.264In the rest of the country, farmer support for the Conservatives remained limited even in the heyday of the Tariff Reform Movement. In Scotland, Wales and Cornwall many small farmers continued to vote for liberal candidates who promised land reform and Church disestablishment.265 In Ireland, in the 1910s, small farmers were at the core of the rise of Sinn Fein and the radicalization by it of the Irish nationalist movement.266

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Germany In Germany, the Junker-gentry was much more effective in integrating small farmers’ protests.267 Its main instrument was the Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte), which had a mass base among the peasantry, and which adopted an egalitarian aspect, with settlement and defence of livestock interests as main issues.268 In spite of its success, however, it should be emphasized that this enlisting of peasant dissatisfaction was no one-way manipulation, but a hazardous channelling of a popular movement which always retained a dynamic of its own.269 Moreover, even in Germany, parts of the peasants’ movement retained a more progressive orientation. The radical-populist Bavarian Farmers’ League (Bayerische Bauernbund), declined after the mid-1890s, but much of its fervour lived on in the Christian Farmers’ Associations (christliche Bauernvereine), which had been organized to steal its thunder. Led by men such as Georg Heim, this southern agrarian wing of the Catholic Centre Party remained a democratic reformist current for several years. Its anti-militarism and anticolonialism actually contributed to the exclusion of the Centre from the government bloc in 1906.270 In the following years, the agrarian Centrists moved to the right,271 but, at that time, the Junkers’ hold on the peasantry was challenged in East Elbia itself. In 1909, the German Farmers’ League (Deutscher Bauernbund) was established as an association of small settlers in Posen and West Prussia. Although it could not really endanger the Agrarian League, it did win some ground, becoming a bridgehead for the National-Liberals in the German-Conservative homeland.272 Nevertheless, in spite of a certain precariousness of their popular base, the agrarian conservatives participated in every government-supporting bloc from the late 1890s until 1912. As has already been said, industry and the government needed the Conservatives to keep a reliable majority in the Reichstag.273In theory, the LiberalConservative and Centre-Conservative blocs could have been broken by a liberal– labour coalition. The forces that supported Lloyd George in the United Kingdom were powerful enough in the Reichstag too, the weakness of the liberals being compensated for by Social Democratic strength. Indeed, in 1909, a fiscal reform that harmed urban capital and consumers to spare landowners provoked a liberal reassembly which raised hopes for a broad front from ‘Bassermann to Bebel’ (i.e. National Liberals to Social Democrats). These hopes did not materialize, however. This was not just because heavy industry soon opted out, but because the liberals were afraid of co-operation with the strong Social Democratic Party.274Not conservative strength, but bourgeois fear of organized labour hindered the formation of an antiaristocratic coalition, thereby preserving a configuration in which the agrarian conservatives held the balance.275 All the same, this situation did not prevent a steady erosion of the landlords’

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political power.276 Unlike the Tories in the United Kingdom, the German Conservative Party had become firmly wedded to the agrarian interests of the Junkergentry since the establishment of the Agrarian League in 1893. The other side of this coin, however, was that the German Conservatives had become dependent on a rural constituency. The rise of the Agrarian League had increased the Conservative votes in rural south and west Germany, but after the mid-1890s these were lost again. As a consequence, the party was boxed up in East Elbia and became a shrinking minority in the Reichstag.277 A restrictive three-class suffrage made it better placed in the Prussian Diet – an important asset, comparable to the Lords’ veto power in the United Kingdom, because of the Prussian dominance in the German state structure. Yet the Conservatives commanded no absolute majority in the Diet either.278For several years, the National Liberals were pushed to co-operation with the Conservatives because they depended on support from the Agrarian League in many districts. After 1906, however, the National Liberals followed a more independent course.279Fortunately for the Conservatives, at this time the Catholic Centre Party shifted to the right, paving the way for a Catholic–Conservative bloc in 1909–1912.280With that, however, the fortune of the Conservatives had run out. In the Reichstag elections of 1912, the Conservatives suffered additional losses in their East Elbian homeland. The Centre lost too, and more moderate middle-class leaders began to regain control over this party. At the same time, progressive liberals and Social Democrats made considerable progress.281As a result, the Conservatives became an isolated group in the Reichstag. It is true that the Reichstag had only limited control over the government, but it did not help the Conservatives much, as their unbending attitude had undermined too much of their credit with the court and the ministerial bureaucracy.282 The agrarian conservatives responded to this predicament by uniting with heavy industry in a Cartel of Productive Estates (Kartell der schaffende Stände), which also returned for support to the petty bourgeoisie of the cities. From this entrenchment, they demanded a corporatist revision of the state structure. They reinforced their popular appeal by more strongly emphasizing rural settlement and other reforms. In doing so, they adopted a radical-nationalist programme, making overtures to the PanGerman League (Alldeutscher Verband). However, all this proved to be of little avail. The Cartel could not sway the Reichstag, and the government kept distanced from it.283 The agrarian conservatives were cornered and, like their counterparts in the United Kingdom, felt embittered by it. In the preceding years, the German Conservatives had already changed from a Prussian-elitist into a demagogic right-wing party.284Now they became possessed by a fatalistic feeling of an impending desperate struggle against overpowerful forces that threatened to destroy society. Indeed, several of them meditated on a coup against universal Reichstag suffrage.285 Whether it could have succeeded, however, remains a moot question. 149

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The Netherlands In the Netherlands, there were few landed aristocrats. Farmers contributed to an alternation of progressive liberal and confessional governments which pursued moderate social reforms. In the north, many farmers continued to support liberal representatives,286 while in the rest of the country, they mostly supported religious parties. Farmers became involved in a ‘pillarization’ process, in which the constituencies of these parties were corralled into confessional organizations enveloping their entire socio-economic life.287 The Christian Farmers’ Leagues (Christelijke Boerenbonden) were especially important in this connection.288 The effect was to broaden the class base of the confessional parties, encouraging their development in a Christian-social direction.289 Some small tenant farmers in the north preferred to support the incipient Social Democratic Labour Party (Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij). Because of the late industrialization of the Netherlands and a suffrage law that still excluded many workers, farmer votes were quite important for the parliamentary socialists. Their leader Troelstra, sensitive to this, proposed standing up for allotments and tenants’ protection. As in Germany some years before, he faced resistance from farm labourers and intellectuals who stuck to Marxist orthodoxy. Dutch Social Democrats also missed the opportunity to win a more lasting base among farmers.290 The United States In the United States, the planter-merchant-manufacturer oligarchy of the South consolidated its regional dominance. After having warded off the populist revolt in the early 1890s, it took steps to prevent future threats to its rule. Launching a violent ‘white supremacy’ campaign to stir up anti-negro feelings among poor whites, it created a climate for a new wave of disenfranchisement measures.291In spite of this, numerous white dirt farmers, many of whom were disenfranchised along with the negroes, opposed the measures.292 The same was true for most Republican and Populist representatives. In several cases, measures could be passed only by fraudulent referendums and by breaking promises of ratification by popular vote.293 Disenfranchisement created the ‘solid south’ – a configuration with low turnouts and widespread political apathy, which secured a one-party rule of the conservativeDemocratic oligarchy which was no longer challenged by Republicans or popular rebellions.294In this configuration, the oligarchy relied on demagogues who used a racist populist rhetoric to rope in those white farmers who still had the vote.295 On a national level, however, the southern oligarchy had little to say. A coalition of it and the western Bryanite wing controlled the Democratic Party, only to lose the national 150

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elections. When the Democrats finally regained power in 1912, the inner-party balance had shifted back to the business interests of the northeast.296 Meanwhile, in the country at large, farmer protest had decreased after the mid1890s. The improvement of agricultural prices had made life more tolerable for the farmers. Moreover, the vicissitudes of the People’s Party made farmers’ organizations wary of party politics. Nevertheless, the Farmers’ Union and the American Society of Equity supported legislation to strengthen democracy and redistribute wealth.297 Also, the old Grange experienced a revival. Although its national leadership adopted a conservative approach, a large opposition wing, led by the Washington State Grange and probably reflecting a majority of the membership, held on to a more progressive course.298 Meanwhile, at elections, many farmers continued to vote for Bryan, whose candidature for the presidency had been endorsed by the People’s Party in 1896, and who was returned as the Democratic candidate in 1900 and 1908. More opportunistic than the populist leaders of the 1890s, the Bryanite Democrats nevertheless continued to fight large corporations, while criticizing the more outright forms of imperialism entered upon by the Republicans under McKinley and Roosevelt.299Besides, farmer support was important behind the ‘insurgent Republicans’ around La Follette, who also contributed to the Republican split at the presidential elections of 1912.300 Both Bryanite Democrats and insurgent Republicans were part of the ‘Progressive Movement’ that set its stamp on American politics in this period.301On a national level, this movement was channelled by big business interests that were looking for government intervention to rationalize economy and society – an impulse also reflected in the Country Life Movement.302On a state level, however, Progressivism remained a more truly popular reform movement, and the farmer element was vitally important in it.303Meanwhile, in the southwest, some farmers began to support the Socialist Party. As in Germany and the Netherlands, discussions started within this party between advocates and adversaries of the defence of family farmers. The outcome, however, was different from that in Germany and the Netherlands: in 1912, a course that was friendly to farmers was adopted.304 Agrarian fundamentalism and its origins As appears from this survey, it was only in Germany that landlords succeeded in keeping a place in the national ruling coalition. Even here, their part was that of an auxiliary, and was played out after 1912. Paradoxically, this decline of landed power concurred with the ascent of an agrarian fundamentalist ideology which posited the vital importance of agriculture for national greatness. According to this ideology, the farm population was the truly fertile class, a preserve of soundly conservative values 151

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and community spirit, and a breeding ground of hard soldiers. In contrast, the cities were places of cultural flowering, but also of alienation, rapid degeneration and demographic decline. They therefore needed a constant supply of fresh blood, which was provided by the drift to the cities of a surplus of the new farm generations, for whom room was lacking on the land. Whereas this flowing-away of a rural population surplus belonged to the normal blood circulation of a nation, a rural exodus that sapped the peasantry itself threatened to deplete its demographic source of life. Furthermore, as such a flight from the land would normally involve a disequilibrium between agricultural and industrial growth, it would entail dangerous international dependencies. A wise state, therefore, would foster its national agriculture, and shield it against the negative effects of free market forces. It would encourage farm structures geared to sustaining sufficient people on the land rather than to maximum profitability. If needed, it would support farm incomes to secure adequate agricultural growth. Indeed, this set of beliefs was rampant at the time. It was connected with criticism of orthodox economic liberalism (‘Manchesterism’), and of internationally oriented finance and commercial capital (often associated with Jews), which would sacrifice agriculture for short-term advantages. It was also frequently, though not always, coloured by ethnocentrism, racism, and a belligerent social Darwinism, and pervaded with cultural despair. Some authors have traced this agrarian fundamentalist ideology back to the landed aristocracy.305 However, although it was certainly adopted and exploited by the aristocracy, it was in no way their monopoly. In Germany, agrarian fundamentalism emanated just as much from the urban bourgeoisie.306 In the United Kingdom, it was espoused by the radical Tariff Reformers, many of whom were not agrarians. Besides, elements of it were also found in the liberal and socialist camp.307 In the United States, it was embraced by many urban activists of the Back-to-the-Land and the Country Life Movement. These included Theodore Roosevelt, who deemed a large farm population essential to preserve an Anglo-Saxon population against an invasion of uncivilized immigrants from south and east Europe.308 ,309Even in the bourgeois Netherlands, the same ideology was not without influence.310 Apart from everyday political discourse, agrarian fundamentalism also took root in the social sciences.311The doctrine itself was given a scientific expression by sociobiological demographers and anthropologists like Hansen and Ammon.312Its influence went much wider, however. It also set its stamp on much of the economics of the Historical School, and influenced the sociology of writers such as Tönnies. These social scientists, it should be noted, were no intellectual exponents of the wealthcontrolling rural classes. Rather, they belonged to the urban intelligentsia. Indeed, the social base of agrarian fundamentalism was much broader than has sometimes been thought, and the prevalence of these beliefs did not indicate a cultural hegemony of 152

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the landed elite. It was more a common response of the wealthy rural classes and the urban bourgeoisie to the second Industrial Revolution, the rise of an urban labour movement, and the new evolution of agriculture. In part, agrarian fundamentalism was a romantic reflex to these changes. At the same time, it was a strategic answer to the problems of labour supply in the countryside and of social disruption and class struggle in the cities. Furthermore, it was a response to the necessity of integrating a family farm agriculture into modern economic development. In the final analysis, agrarian fundamentalism was a general dominant class concept for increasing national efficiency by stimulating agriculture while making it a safety valve for urban tensions.

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INTRODUCTORY REMARKS From 1914 to 1918, Europe was ravaged by a major war. Discussions have been going on since about the precise cause. A large part of the blame has been placed on the landed aristocracy, whose belligerent ideology is believed to have poisoned the minds of European peoples and statesmen.1Furthermore, aristocratic rule is thought to have generated dangerous domestic tensions in some countries. In Germany, especially, these tensions were diverted into an aggressive, reckless foreign policy which finally led to disaster.2An implication of this view is that Germany should be charged with the guilt for the war. Actually, much of the recent discussion about Junkers in Germany is rooted in a revision, initiated by Fischer in the 1960s, which has altered an earlier consensus that divided the responsibility more equally over the Central and Entente powers.3Indeed, few historians will deny today that the bellicose policy of the German rulers was a decisive factor in the outbreak of war. Yet it should be remembered that the chain reaction of the July crisis was not really controlled by them.4Escalation into a major war was determined by the sharp polarization of foreign relations in Europe. This cannot be blamed on Germany alone, but was, in the last instance, caused by inter-imperialist rivalry.5 It is also not clear that, within the countries involved, the main impulse for war came from the agrarian elite. In Germany, the driving force of expansionism came first of all from the urban bourgeoisie, large industry, and organizations like the Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband), which were rooted in these social categories.6 Of course, the army leadership, which had pushed for a pre-emptive war, was thoroughly aristocratic, but this does not mean that it should be equated to an executive committee of the landlord class.7 In the United Kingdom too, the army was officered by aristocrats harbouring ideas about the healing effects of war on society. Yet the decision to enter the war was taken by a Liberal government, while it was encouraged by a blockade plan thought up by Liberal men in the Admiralty.8 154

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AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SUPPLY DURING THE WAR Whatever the role of the agrarian elite in the genesis of the war, agriculture and food supply played a crucial role in it and contributed heavily to its outcome. Actually, none of the belligerent countries had created adequate stocks to secure food supply during a longer crisis. Not only was the building up of such stocks hardly within the reach of governments at the time, but no country reckoned with the possibility of a long war.9The German strategic plan envisaged a lightning attack on Paris, outflanking the French army via Belgian territory. After a French defeat troops would be released for an offensive against Russia. The war on the western front was supposed to take no longer than a few months, and in this time German agriculture would be amply capable of feeding both army and people. However, things did not go according to expectation. Lacking adequate means for transportation and communication on enemy soil, the German flanking movement became bogged down in the entrenchments of northern France. What followed was a protracted economic warfare. Food crisis in Germany After the outbreak of war the Allies set up a blockade of the Central powers. At first, Germany was able to continue with part of its imports via the neutral countries, especially the Netherlands, but the Allies then extended their blockade to these countries. They restricted and soon entirely forbade re-export to the Central powers, finally even coercing the neutrals to reduce their own exports to them.10 As a consequence, Germany was largely cut off from food imports. This was exactly what Bismarck and his successors had feared, and was what had given them one motive for farm protection. One result was that on the eve of the war, German agriculture still supplied more than 80 per cent of the calorific value of domestic food consumption.11However, this level was based on large inputs of fertilizers and concentrated feeds. Roughly one-third of these were covered by imports that were likewise pinched off by the blockade.12Furthermore, army demands took a heavy toll. They deprived agriculture of much of its labour and horses, and caused serious shortages in agricultural machines, components, fuel and nitrates.13It soon became apparent that not only was there a loss of food imports, but that it was impossible to sustain the level of domestic farm output. The result was a rapidly increasing food deficit that could not be met by Austria–Hungary (which was struggling with food problems itself) and was only partly alleviated by conquests in the East European granaries.14 The German government took far-reaching measures to keep control of the food situation.15In October 1914 a maximum price for bread grains was fixed, and a War

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Cereals Office was given funds to create a stock for securing an orderly distribution. It soon appeared that not enough grain could be bought for the fixed price. In January 1915 wheat and rye were confiscated, and bread rationed. The measures for bread grains were the first of a long series. By 1916, maximum prices and rations had been established for virtually all farm products. Imperial Food Offices were created to survey cropping areas, crop estimates and animal numbers, to fix delivery quotas, and to organize the provision of deficit areas. This bureaucratic control developed unplanned, and discouraged rather than stimulated production. Maximum prices were fixed haphazardly as problems arose and tended to freeze market prices at the time they were issued. Consequently, price ceilings for bread grains were low compared to those for animal products, which were only fixed when market prices had further increased. It put a premium on feeding bread grains to livestock. This was met with prohibitions, but as these went against economic incentives they were widely evaded.16 Exacerbated by a growing black market, the food situation generated increasingly acrimonious discussions. On the one hand, agrarian organizations were soon criticizing the proliferation of compulsory measures, and complaining that maximum prices did not cover production costs, which were rapidly rising. On the other hand, consumer organizations, trade unions and Social Democrats were demanding more drastic control measures.17As a reaction to these demands, a War Food Department was created in 1916, the execution of various measures was centralized, and price relations were made more coherent. Nevertheless, maximum prices still lagged behind production costs.18 Farmers were subjected to stricter controls, including searches of living quarters,19 but this did not prevent a further worsening of the food situation. A poor harvest brought real hardship to the German population in the ‘turnip winter’ of 1916/1917. Subsequent months saw some alleviation, but after the spring of 1918 the situation deteriorated again. Conditions became especially stringent for city dwellers, who did not profit from the higher rations for agrarian ‘self suppliers’ and army personnel. Reliable data are sparse, but it seems a fair guess that in 1917–1918 per capita food supply in the cities had shrunk to three-quarters of its calorific value in the prewar years. Although this does not indicate real mass starvation, the situation was distressing enough. Moreover, the lower income groups were worse off as they could not afford to supplement official rations by the black market, which, by the end of the war, was draining away roughly one-quarter of total supply.20The hardship and the injustice of the black market had a strong demoralizing effect on the home front in Germany. It is difficult to say what exactly determined the German acceptance of an armistice on Allied conditions. The army was at the end of its resources, but the food situation at home certainly precipitated the decision of the General Staff.21 Alas, for the German population, the 156

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armistice brought no immediate alleviation, as the Allied powers prolonged the blockade to force Germany to accept the huge reparation payments and other conditions of the Versailles Peace Treaty. It has been widely assumed that Germany’s wartime food policy was glaringly inefficient. However, given the expectation of a short war and the inexperience with modern warfare, the improvising character of many measures could hardly have been avoided. Besides, there is little agreement about what a better wartime food policy would have looked like. According to some authors, it should have involved stricter and more efficient controls. Others, conversely, think that price rises should have been allowed to stimulate production and reduce consumption.22 In fact, neither approach could have spared Germany serious food shortages caused by the Allied blockade and the military need for resources. Theoretically, stricter controls could have achieved a fairer distribution of the scarce supply still available. In practice, however, from 1916 controls were already so severe that they could hardly have been made much more so. Neither could price rises have achieved a significant increase in food supply as inputs were lacking. Rather, they would have made food too expensive for lower-paid workers, just as happened with the diversion of food to the black market. Probably, higher food prices would have destroyed the national consensus and discouraged the public to provide the credit by which the government financed the war.23 Because of the acute shortages, price ceilings were simply unavoidable, as were some of their disencouraging effects on farm production.24 How was food supply saved in the United Kingdom? Whereas food scarcity helped bring Germany to its knees, the British food supply remained in a much better condition. Rationing was introduced, but this was done more to achieve an equitable distribution than a large reduction of food consumption. Bread remained freely available to the end of the war. The calorific value of the British diet fell no more than 4 per cent below its 1909–1913 average.25 Yet the United Kingdom was much more dependent on food imports than Germany, importing some 60 per cent of the calorific value of food consumption before the war.26 The critical difference was in its geopolitical situation and affiliations with new world countries.27 The United Kingdom’s geographic position and long coastline meant that its imports were less vulnerable than Germany’s. With the exception of sugar, which had been imported mainly from Germany and Austria, the first two war years gave few food supply problems other than a rise of some 60 per cent in prices.28During 1916, food supply prospects nevertheless deteriorated. Global grain production fell back after a record harvest in 1915, shipping losses by submarine attacks increased, and the domestic potato harvest was poor. The situation was exacerbated in February 1917, 157

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when Germany launched an unrestricted submarine war as an attempt at a counterblockade. Without warning it now began to torpedo all vessels, including neutral ones, which were heading to Allied ports. The British government took various measures to cope with these threats.29 Imports were taken over by inter-Allied state agencies, food purchases were concentrated in North America to shorten voyages and economize on vessels, and a Ministry of Food was created to regulate domestic distribution. Pressured by consumers and labour, this last established maximum prices and rations for various foodstuffs and subsidized the price of bread. The United Kingdom had more time than Germany to take domestic control measures, and, at the same time, was able to learn from the latter’s fiascos. Nevertheless, British controls were accompanied by similar problems.30 The fact that these did not get out of hand was not so much the result of greater administrative skills, but of a greater stability of supply. This can only partly be attributed to measures to keep up domestic production. Indeed, a compulsory ploughing-up campaign was begun to expand the domestic production of grain and potatoes. It was urged by radical Tariff Reformers, whose plea to revive British agriculture had rekindled after the outbreak of war. Still not listened to by the first national coalition government under Asquith, they found a willing ear in Lloyd George, and were given strategic positions in the new government formed by him at the end of 1916.31At their instigation, a Food Production Department was created under the Board of Agriculture in January 1917. This set up a network of County Agricultural Committees which could order farmers to plough up selected grasslands. To achieve co-operation, a Corn Production Act restricted rent increases, provided for the establishment of minimum agricultural wages, and guaranteed wheat and oats prices for six years. Lower market prices were to be supplemented by deficiency payments. Actually, market prices exceeded guaranteed prices, so that no payments were needed.32 Under this ‘plough policy’, 970,000 acres were ploughed up in 1917, and 1,990,000 acres more in 1918.33The great shift from arable to grassland after the 1870s was reversed by two-thirds. In spite of this, the fruits of the campaign should not be overrated. It has long been assumed that, thanks to it, domestic food production in the United Kingdom considerably increased.34In reality, the calorific value of domestic production was just maintained, the increase in grain and potatoes compensating for a decrease in livestock production (Table 6.1). Nevertheless, this appears a considerable achievement, if one considers that in Germany, as in many other continental countries, farm output was reduced by one-third. Unlike Germany, the United Kingdom could restore fertilizer imports, import American farm machinery, exclude farm workers from army recruitment, and set large numbers of soldiers to work in the fields.35 158

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Table 6.1 Food supply in the United Kingdom, 1909–1918 (billion Calories) 1909–13

1914

1915

1916

1917

1918

Home production Imports Savings

21.1 29.6 –

21.4 34.2 –

21.9 31.8 –

19.4 31.1 –

20.6 29.2 1.8

21.2 27.9 3.7

Total

50.7

55.6

53.7

50.5

51.6

52.8

Source: Dewey (1989, p. 227)

In 1918, plans to plough up another large area of land were allowed to lapse. As the German spring offensive increased the need for soldiers at the front, it became more difficult to maintain a priority for agriculture in manpower allocation. More important, however, was that resistance among farmers increased as compulsory ploughing was extended to land that could less economically be used as arable. To compel farmers to comply, the government reduced the maximum prices for livestock in the autumn of 1917. This raised a storm of protest in the countryside, which was only intensified by the resumed enlistment by the army of labour that could hardly fail to be missed for tilling the new fields.36 Happily for the government, it had meanwhile become clear that the Allied powers were able to endure the submarine attacks by the enemy. The reorganization of shipping and goods flows ensured that food imports could largely be kept up. In 1918, these still amounted to 94 per cent of the calorific value imported in the 1909–1913 period (Table 6.1). This achievement was critically important to the fortunes of war. Considering the United Kingdom’s dependence on imported foodstuffs, and the impact of the Allied blockade in Germany, one can hardly escape the conclusion that it was the continuity of food imports which decided the successful maintenance of food supply in the United Kingdom. Food Administration policies in the United States In fact, British food supply was saved by Canada and the United States. These greatly increased their farm exports to the European Allies after the voyage from South America and Oceania had become too risky and cost too much tonnage. When the United States entered the war in April 1917, Congress immediately approved ample government credits to finance food purchases by the European Allies. At the same time, exports to non-Allies were restricted. The Food Control Act followed in August and this gave ample powers to a United States Food Administration under the leadership of Herbert Hoover.37 Its assignment was to relieve the food shortages of the European Allies while keeping up domestic supply. This task was complicated because, after a record harvest in 1915, wheat output had fallen back to its prewar level, 159

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while pig production was only slowly recovering from a cyclic depression.38The Food Administration set about its job by organizing a monopsonist cartel arrangement that prevented competitive bidding by Allied and domestic purchasers from pushing up prices. It used the government’s licensing powers to secure the co-operation of agrifood companies, and controlled Allied purchases on the base of conditions of American credit loans. It also established a Food Administration Grain Corporation which bought, stored and sold wheat to stabilize prices, and supervised all cereal supplies for exports.39Meanwhile, a considerable reduction of domestic consumption was achieved, mainly voluntarily, by higher prices and patriotic propaganda.40As a result, the Food Administration could limit price rises, not by fixing price ceilings as in the European countries, but by controlling supply and by a monopsonistic management of demand.41 The Food Administration also took measures to increase American food production. The Administration assured minimum prices for key products, making use of its handling of Allied purchasing, which was secured by American government credit. Not high enough to cause serious trouble with consumers, these assured prices were sufficiently remunerative to stimulate production. The Food Control Act empowered the president to guarantee a price for wheat that would not be under $2.00 per bushel. Actually, it was set at $2.20 per bushel for 1917. Agreements were made with agri-food companies to ensure that of these terminal market prices, the farmers would receive a fair share.42 Thanks to the extensive land use and remaining land reserves of the United States, this policy was able to achieve a considerable expansion of farm production. This was not realized before 1918, though. Nevertheless, a considerable increase in food shipments to the European Allies had already been achieved in 1917 through reducing domestic consumption. Thanks to a saving of some 110 million bushels, a quarter more than the prewar level could be exported out of the small 1917 wheat crop. Moreover, a larger share of the export now went to the Allies.43 The activities of Hoover’s Food Administration stand out as an example of skilful organization. It should be borne in mind, however, that its policy was based on the ability to prevent shortages from arising, at a price level that was still affordable for lower-income groups. For this reason, its success would not have been possible without the vast resource base and productive capacity of American agriculture. Predicament of the neutral Netherlands As in the belligerent countries, in the neutral Netherlands the war had far-reaching effects. After all, the Netherlands was a transit port for Germany, and an exporter of

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farm products to both Germany and the United Kingdom. An economic war between these powers, therefore, was bound to affect its agriculture and food supply. Until 1916, the consequences were not too serious. Dutch farmers and traders profited by the high export prices that were offered by the warring parties. However, it created tensions with domestic food supply. The government responded with an export licensing policy, requiring exporters to hand over part of their lots for a fixed price for domestic consumption. Maximum prices were also established for several foodstuffs.44As in Germany and the United Kingdom, these controls generated distortions in farm production. To redress these, a clause was included in an overall Distribution Act (1916), which enabled the government to restrict crops that were expanded by farmers without being important for domestic consumption.45 From the autumn of 1915, the United Kingdom imposed rations on Dutch imports of foodstuffs and fodder as part of the blockade. This created shortages, which became more pinching when Germany launched the unrestricted submarine war, and actually acute when the United States, on entering the war, forbade most exports to the Netherlands.46As a consequence, Dutch agriculture could no longer maintain its output, and a large part of its livestock had to be slaughtered.47 In spite of this, the country was pressured to continue farm exports to the belligerent parties. The United Kingdom only allowed imports to continue when the Netherlands consented to increase the share of Dutch food exports going to the Allies. During the unrestricted submarine war, Dutch vessels were taken hostage in ports of the British empire to ensure that the Netherlands would keep to this agreement.48 Obliged to export potatoes to Germany in exchange for coal it could not do without, the Netherlands, in spite of domestic shortages caused by a poor harvest, also had to export potatoes to Britain. This provoked food riots in Amsterdam in which several people were killed.49 The Dutch government took more far-reaching action to cope with these mounting problems.50 The entire harvest of grain and several other arable products was confiscated. More and more foodstuffs were rationed. Furthermore, measures were taken to reorient Dutch agriculture towards domestic food supply. As in the United Kingdom and the United States, the government guaranteed prices for grain and other arable products for human consumption. Bounties were given to grow certain crops on ploughed grasslands. In 1918, a mandatory ploughing-up campaign began, although it was less vigorously pursued than in the United Kingdom.51Nevertheless, these various measures could not prevent a further deterioration of the food situation. By the end of the war, nutrition in the Netherlands was worse than in the United Kingdom.52

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Wartime food supply and prewar policies What are the wider lessons to be drawn from the above vicissitudes of wartime food supply? From the late nineteenth century, food security had played a large part in farm policy debates in some countries. For that reason, the experiences of the First World War have often been looked at as a test on views propagated in these discussions. In particular, the crisis of food supply in Germany has provoked the suggestion that prewar protection did little to feed the German population during the war. A more liberal trade policy, it is said, would have been more effective to this purpose. It would have encouraged a further specialization in animal production, thereby producing a larger food reserve in the form of livestock. The concomitant build-up of fertility in grasslands could have been tapped for a wartime increase of arable output. Meanwhile, such a policy would still have allowed the accumulation of commercial grain stocks in the ports, which would have formed a strategic reserve.53 This reasoning, however, holds little water. Normal commercial stocks would not have been able to compensate the loss of grain imports for long, while a more liberal trade policy would not have strongly stimulated livestock production.54 Moreover, using grassland fertility for raising arable output would hardly have been possible. Because of the Allied blockade and the military drain on resources, many inputs required for such an operation were lacking. Even in the United Kingdom, where inputs remained much more amply available, the ploughing campaign did not succeed in increasing domestic food production. Food supply held out better in the United Kingdom because of geopolitical advantage, not prewar free trade. As can be seen from the food shortages in the Netherlands, a liberal prewar trade policy did not immunize a country against the Allied blockade. This was so even though, in this case, the closing-off was less stringent. The much more strangling blockade of Germany made a disruption of food supply simply unavoidable there. What matters, therefore, is not that prewar protection did not safeguard German food supply, but whether or not it postponed its collapse. To this question the answer must probably be in the affirmative. Indeed, at the time, this was also the opinion of British authorities in the Board of Agriculture.55 Protection in Germany had generated a large production capacity so that, at any rate, no new investments in land development, machines and buildings were needed to keep up food production as much as possible.

AFTER-EFFECTS The First World War was not an accident interrupting normal development, after which pre-existing tendencies were resumed unaffected. It was a major factor in

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economic development, and a catalyst of social and political change. This was just as true for agriculture and agrarian politics as for other sectors.

Impact on farm economy To begin with, the war strongly affected the situation of agricultural markets and farm wages. High wartime prices and price guarantees stimulated a new increase of farm area in the immigration countries. In the United States, the total area in crops expanded by 13 per cent. In Canada, though smaller in absolute figures, the percentage increase was considerably larger.56 Besides, wartime labour shortages encouraged further mechanization, in particular by greatly accelerating the development and diffusion of the tractor.57 In addition, demobilization and the urban unemployment that followed after the wartime boom broke down caused a new influx of farm labour. This injection of production factors and innovations created new surplus capacity in world agriculture. It disturbed the slow adjustment of supply to demand that had been taking place in the prewar years, causing agricultural prices to fall in the early 1920s, and contributing to the further collapse of agricultural prices after 1929.58 Meanwhile, the war had encouraged a considerable increase in farm wages. This could only partly be reversed when prices fell. As a consequence, the wage– price squeeze on farm profitability was considerably increased. Influence on attitudes The war also affected the demand for farm policies. For one thing, the need to give work to war veterans provoked new calls for creating small farms. In the United Kingdom, this led to the Land Settlement Facilities Act and Land Settlement (Scotland) Act.59 In Germany, it resulted in the Imperial Settlement Act (Reichssiedlungsgesetz).60In the United States, large-scale veteran settlement was propagated by secretary of the interior Franklin Lane, although without result.61 The impetus to land reform did not conform to an enduring tendency in farm policies. In time, land reform was replaced by structural policies that encouraged an upscaling of family holdings to accommodate further mechanization. However, the war had more lasting effects on attitudes towards farm policies. It imbued governments with the need for food security, and further discredited a laissez-faire approach to agriculture. This was even true in the United Kingdom, where the majority of a Royal Commission on Agriculture (1919) advised retaining price guarantees coupled to minimum norms for farm scale and equipment, so as to stimulate arable production.62 Besides, wartime price guarantees had created new expectations among farmers. In the United States, the Food Administration Grain Corporation had 163

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shown farmers a way to achieve price supports even where export surpluses existed.63 Although after the war price guarantees were quickly abandoned in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States, memories remained alive and were to inspire future proposals. Farmers’ organizations and agrarian corporatism The organizational structure of farm politics was likewise affected by the war. Initially, the war had led to a permanent expansion of the agricultural machinery of the state. In the United Kingdom, the Board of Agriculture was transformed into a Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and the County Agricultural Committees were maintained though they were given new tasks.64 In Germany, the War Food Department developed into a National Ministry for Food and Agriculture. In the United States, the war gave a new boost to the Department of Agriculture, and greatly accelerated the expansion of the new extension system. Thanks to special emergency funds, more than six out of seven counties had farm agents by July 1918.65 Meanwhile, wartime conditions provoked a new mobilization of farmers. The echoes of the peasant revolutions in eastern Europe were heard in more western parts too. In Ireland, farmers became the backbone of the Irish Republican Army, which procured national independence in 1921.66In southwest Germany, farmers flocked into the radical Free Peasantry (Freie Bauernschaft), and revived the Bavarian Peasants’ League (Bayerische Bauernbund). A wing of the latter supported the November revolution and, in a first phase, the short-lived Soviet Republic of Bavaria.67In the American wheat belt, opposition to the price policy of the Food Administration and distrust of war profiteering by big business led to widespread farmer support for the Non-Partisan League. In spite of a witch hunt by agribusiness interests and government agencies, it conquered state power in North Dakota with a programme of nationalizing big business.68 However, a large part of the action was channelled by organizations that negotiated and co-operated with government institutions. In the United Kingdom, uneasiness among farmers about compulsory ploughing and price controls benefited the National Farmers’ Union, which gained an important position in the advisory council for the new Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.69 In the Netherlands, it profited the established agricultural organizations, as well as the new Christian Farmers’ and Market Gardeners’ League (Christelijke Boeren- en Tuindersbond), a Protestant organization which likewise co-operated with the government.70 In Germany, the new mobilization benefited the Christian Farmers’ Associations (christliche Bauernvereine) and the Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte, from 1921 Reichslandbund).71 These organizations maintained corporatist relations with the 164

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state, even though the League fiercely condemned the new Weimar Republic. In the United States, the wartime expansion of the extension system led to a multiplication of local Farm Bureaux. In spite of a formal prohibition, in many cases, county agents continued to perform managerial functions for these Bureaux after an American Farm Bureau Federation had been founded as a new general farmers’ organization in 1920.72 The new mobilization of farmers, the expansion of agrarian corporatism, the changed attitudes on farm policy, and the increased instability of agricultural markets were to have far-reaching consequences. When agricultural prices collapsed after 1929, Tariff Reformers in the British government were able to reintroduce supports, while reluctant Dutch and American governments were forced to follow the same path. Indeed, all Western countries were to resort to agricultural protection in one form or another in the 1930s. Farmers and urban workers Finally, the war further strained the relations between farmers and the urban labour movement. Before the war, their relationship had already been affected, in different ways in the four countries, by the positions they took up on farm policies and social legislation. Now the problems of wartime food supply created new tensions. In the United States, where the food situation was less stringent and where farmers and labourers had co-operated before, these strains could still be overcome. In Minnesota, for instance, the two groups united in a Farmer–Labour Party on a programme of controlling big business to combat price rises.73 In Europe, however, the war created lasting divisions between urban labour and the farmers. This was especially true for Germany, where urban workers had suffered considerable hardship, and controls were most restrictive and longest maintained after the armistice for farmers. Social Democrats, who had declined to defend the interests of working farmers before the war, now blamed food shortages on the farmers, depicting them as ruthless war profiteers, and demanded the continuation of strict controls in the future.74 Farmers, for their part, did not need the instigation by reactionary landlords to hate the Social Democrats. Most farmers had suffered under wartime conditions, and felt slandered and victimized by controls that protected consumers. With the exception of the Bavarian Peasants’ League, farmers would have nothing to do with the November revolution of urban workers and soldiers, and were mistrustful of the Weimar Republic it brought forth.75 Diverging wartime experiences strongly influenced the chances for future coalitions between farmers and urban labour in the four countries. They were to have far-reaching consequences when the international economy sank into a new crisis. In 165

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Germany, the sharp polarization of farmers and the labour movement was to contribute to farmer dissatisfaction becoming a stepping-stone for the Nazis.76 In the United States, conversely, a different prehistory was to enable farmers and urban labourers to join hands in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition.77

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7 DISCUSSION

RECAPITULATION Between the repeal of the Corn Laws and the Treaty of Versailles, almost three-quarters of a century had passed, and many things had changed during this time. A golden age of agrarian capitalism had arrived but, after some decades, the base on which it had been founded began crumbling away. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, agricultural prices fell. From about the same time, the evolution of farm wages began dissociating itself from that of agricultural prices. The effect was a wage–price squeeze on the margins for farm profits and land rents. Shifting the pressure to land rents was hampered because small farmers did not raise their income claims together with rising agricultural wages. As a first reaction, they rather tightened their belts to meet low output prices and reduced opportunities for supplementary employment. As a consequence, in contradiction to classical economic theory, it was farm profitability that became depressed. This undermined the viability of large-scale agriculture, in spite of its advantage in productivity. At the time in which merger and cartel movements began pushing industry on the way towards oligopoly, large farms were broken up, languished, or were gradually transformed into family farms. At best, they struggled along with difficulty in places where industrial underdevelopment, repression or cheap immigrant labour helped keep down farm wages. In its turn, this new evolution of agriculture encouraged a demand for government intervention. The call for government sponsoring of agricultural research and education grew stronger as capitalist farm entrepreneurship failed to take initiatives in these areas. Besides, land reform measures were advocated by urban liberals and representatives of the wealthy rural classes to counter the exodus of farm labour, prop up land rents, or continue the intensification of land use. This added to the political wish to create a class of small proprietors as a line of defence against expropriatory socialism. Also, a demand for the protection of agricultural prices against the 167

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

vicissitudes of the market developed. In many cases, some support of farm incomes had become a sine qua non for continued farm progress. Only countries with a comparative advantage in agriculture, like the United States or the Netherlands, could still do without it. The United States was endowed with vast stretches of cheap, fertile land, advanced mechanization and a well-developed national and international transport system. The Netherlands benefited from a productive type of intensive farming, an industrial lag which moderated the rise of agricultural wages, an advanced specialization into livestock products, and a suitable location and infrastructure for supplying the growing urban markets of adjacent industrializing neighbours. In both countries the demand for agricultural price supports remained limited, even in agrarian circles. Instead, farm businessmen, backed by non-agrarian commercial interests, persuaded their governments to initiate energetic development policies to reinforce their position as exporters. In the United States, when domestic demand began gaining on supply after the turn of the century, these policies continued to be pressed for by non-agrarian interests which feared rising food prices or a stagnation of their turnover. In most European countries, however, farm incomes support had become necessary to keep investments in agriculture paying. The United Kingdom nevertheless refrained from support, keeping to free trade also in farm products. An introduction of agricultural tariffs, not forcefully asked for by agrarian interests which were divided by conflicting interests, of landlords and tenants, was prevented by the opposition of the City of London, a large part of industry, and the labourers. It was paid for with a protracted stagnation, not only of farm output, but of farm productivity. A number of circumstances made this consequence easier to bear for British governments and manufacturers. Although no longer the only workshop of the world, the United Kingdom was still the oldest-established manufacturing country. Its industry was less dependent on the buying power of domestic farm incomes. Also, the United Kingdom had a vast colonial empire, and its navy controlled the seas. As a consequence, it could depend on food imports without risking food security. It should be noted, though, that these circumstances were directly connected with the United Kingdom’s unique position as the world’s hegemonic power. There is little reason to maintain the British choice as a standard for judging farm policies in other countries. After the turn of the century, the United Kingdom’s hegemony further eroded. Food imports seemed less secure than before, while industry became more dependent on the home market. This added to fears that the rural exodus would exacerbate the problems of slums, crime and class struggle in the big cities. For these reasons, the agrarian demand for protection gained more backing from a section of industrial interests. Catalysed by electoral problems of the Conservatives, a Tariff Reform coalition was formed by Joseph Chamberlain in 1903, which also demanded a 168

DISCUSSION

moderate support of farm incomes. Before the First World War, however, it still could not break through the combined opposition of finance, commerce, a section of older industries, and labourers. In Germany, agricultural protection had been introduced under Bismarck in the 1880s. It was moderated in the 1890s, but restored to about its former level after the turn of the century. Agricultural price support stimulated the growth of farm output, and probably farm productivity. The political base of agricultural protection in Germany was more complex than often depicted. A protectionist farm policy was demanded by a united front of landlords and peasants. It was opposed by commerce, the urban middle class and urban labour, but their economic and numerical strength was smaller than in the United Kingdom. Moreover, agricultural protection was endorsed by powerful circles in industry and the government. Like Tariff Reformers in the United Kingdom, these hoped that farm prosperity would sustain the domestic market, curb a disruptive pace of urbanization, secure food security, and make the peasantry a loyal bulwark of the state. There were several reasons why the support from these forces was larger in Germany than in the United Kingdom. For one thing, farm incomes were much more important for industrial outlets. Indeed, agricultural protection seems to have accelerated overall economic growth. Moreover, the urbanindustrial bourgeoisie had to bribe the agrarians for endorsing its ventures into ‘world policy’. Also, the more threatening aspect of the German labour movement prevented the formation of an anti-landlord coalition of liberals and labour. Finally, the geopolitical situation of Germany was more vulnerable, which heightened the significance of agriculture for food security. Indeed, without prewar protection, German food supply in the First World War would have collapsed sooner. NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS AND THE LANDLORD-BLAME VIEW At various points my analysis seems at odds with accepted views of the economic and political history of Western society. Therefore, it seems appropriate to finish with a short discussion of the main points of disagreement. The agricultural crisis A first difference concerns the character and the causes of the agricultural crisis. This has mostly been described by contemporary observers as a period of widespread and severe hardship for farmers. Since the 1960s, however, a revisionist view has won ground, which plays down its seriousness. In this view, outside the American cotton belt and the traditional grain-growing regions in Europe, the impact of the 169

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

agricultural crisis would have been slight. Fletcher has argued that, in England, a farm depression was restricted to the southeast, where large farmers and landlords stubbornly stuck to grain. In the northwest, a depression would hardly have been noticeable.1As for Germany, it is asserted that real problems only arose for the grainproducing and overspending East Elbian Junkers.2For the Netherlands, van Zanden maintains that the crisis accelerated farm progress.3The notion of a crisis in the midwest of the United States is dismissed by Lebergott, who says that farmers had paid too high a price for their land.4 These contentions have not gone unchallenged. Fletcher’s thesis for England has been disputed by Perry, who shows that the increase in farm failures was fairly similar in various regions.5Other researchers have indicated that the increase in livestock, fruit and horticulture was hardly enough to make up for the decline in arable output.6 Fletcher’s optimistic case study of livestock farming in Lancashire has also been criticized. Although nominal rents did not fall as in south and east England, actual rent incomes were depressed by arrears and remittances, and landlords were faced with big losses on investments undertaken in anticipation of higher proceeds.7 ,8For the other countries too, the revisionist view seems too optimistic. The Dutch livestock industry, a standard example of successful adjustment, was likewise hit by the crisis. Although pig numbers increased, those of cattle stagnated.9A case study by Damsma and Noordegraaf indicates serious problems in Dutch dairy regions. The rate of stocking decreased while that of fallow expanded.10In the mixed-farming regions in the southeast, cattle numbers also came to a standstill, coupled to a slowing-down of the rise of arable yields caused by savings on fertilization.11Even American grain growers, whose exports inundated the European markets, suffered hard times.12With hindsight, it may be true that they had paid too high a price for their land. But western land prices had been based on rational expectations aroused by the realities of the preceding period. To depict this as mere speculation and dismiss the ensuing distress as a problem of businessmen with bad luck seems something less than a balanced assessment. While it is not true that the crisis was restricted to regional crops that had lost their competitiveness, it is equally fallacious to suggest that the situation in the problem areas could have been remedied by extensification or a shift to other productions. Extensification ran up against limits of the growth in alternative employment. Indeed, industry could hardly have absorbed a larger outflow of agricultural labour than it already did. Even in the United Kingdom, where the proportion between agricultural and industrial employment should have made the absorption of surplus farm labour relatively easy, extensification did not restore agricultural profitability.13Neither did diversification provide a solution. Tracy’s idea that Western Europe generally could have shifted to livestock is a misconception.14 The 170

DISCUSSION

expansion of dairy and pork in the Netherlands, Denmark and some of the white settler countries put livestock prices under serious pressure. If more regions had turned to these products, it would only have further glutted already overstocked markets.15 Similarly, it is not true that farmers in the southern United States could have shifted to more promising crops, if only debt peonage had not chained them to cotton. In reality, more promising crops did not exist.16 As a matter of fact, the revisionist view of the agricultural crisis is connected with a limited view of its causes. These are seen in the shift of comparative advantage in some farm productions to the white settler countries. Against this, I maintain that the agricultural crisis was rooted in a much more encompassing transformation of the Western world economy. As I have explained in Chapter 2, this affected not only the distribution of comparative advantage between countries, but the relative growth rates of the global supply and demand for farm products, and the competition between agriculture and industry in the labour markets. It means that, rather than merely reflecting a temporary adjustment problem, the agricultural crisis heralded long-term changes in the conditions for agricultural development. In my view, this is borne out by the further evolution of agriculture in the twentieth century. What here comes to the surface is a difference in basic economic assumptions. The revisionist view of the agricultural crisis is informed by a rather straightforward kind of neoclassical-economic thinking which, although by no means denying the prevalence of change, still emphasizes the working of the market to restore the equilibrium. This latter is defined, inter alia, by an equal remuneration of production factors between sectors. However, I believe the evolution of the world economy to have been a dynamic process, in which unbalancing forces constantly had the upper hand over equilibrating forces. If at times a more or less stable pattern of distribution appeared, it involved uneven rather than equal returns to production factors between sectors. The agricultural crisis, for that matter, reflected a shift in such a situation of temporary stability. Until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the general demoeconomic development had worked to make scarcity relations favourable for agricultural profitability. Then, a change in crucial parameters led to a rise in farm wages, and to an excess of the increase in the supply of agricultural products over that in demand. It resulted in a squeeze on farm profits, which was not compensated for by the mobility of production factors or the adjustment of land rents. The decline of large farms A second disagreement concerns the decline of large farms. As well as being characterized by an equality of the factor remuneration between sectors, the theoretical equilibrium of neoclassical theory is characterized by a size of firm that 171

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

gives optimal efficiency. If large farms declined, therefore, the cause suggested by this theory is that large farms were inefficient. Indeed, while agronomists and economists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had generally postulated a superiority of large farms, from the late nineteenth century a higher efficiency of family farms began to be proclaimed. However, this still leaves the question of why, before that time, large farms had been more dynamic. An obvious answer is that the earlier vitality of large farms was rooted in non-economic power inherent in pre-modern society. But although this may be true for earlier periods, it is hardly tenable for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for those regions where landlord–peasant relations had been commercialized. Indeed, many economists and economic historians admit that, until the late nineteenth century, large farms were more efficient. However, they claim that this was ended by technological and institutional changes. As I have argued in Chapter 2, such changes did, indeed, have an influence, but cannot sufficiently explain the starting-time of the decline of large farms, nor why it occurred simultaneously in different countries. For this reason, I have put forward an alternative explanation of the long-term evolution of farm structures: that large farms declined because the squeeze on profits and rents reduced their technical lead, while the rise of wages allowed an increase in the labour price advantage of small farmers. This hypothesis has important consequences. It does not say that large farms became inefficient, but only that their lead in efficiency was no longer great enough to compensate for the labour-price advantage of agricultural household producers. This means that large farmers who were calling for government support were not just uneconomic gentleman farmers, but often efficient entrepreneurs. It also means that government aid to family farms was more than just a leg-up for an inherently efficient farm type. Rather, systematic government care became needed for limiting the productivity disadvantage of a structure that minimized production costs by enabling a lower-than-normal remuneration of labour rather than maximizing efficiency. The economic effects of agricultural protection in Germany The conception of an equilibrating market mechanism makes it difficult to see the need for agricultural price supports that go beyond mere price stabilization. This fosters the widespread belief that agricultural protection was detrimental for small farmers, consumers and the general welfare. If one assumes, however, that the free market mechanism no longer produced a workable equilibrium in the farm sector, it becomes conceivable that, on balance, protection had favourable results. Such is, indeed, the conclusion from my reading of the research literature about the economic effects of agricultural protection in Germany. As I have explained in Chapters 4 and 5, small farmers did also benefit from protection, partly as sellers of grain, and partly

172

DISCUSSION

because livestock products were also protected by tariffs and sanitary import restrictions. Grain tariffs did not raise feed costs much, as livestock was predominantly fed with fodder that was self-produced or imported free of duty. Actually, less than 3 per cent of meat production was based on imported feedstuffs liable to import duties.17 The cost to consumers was also modest. In the case of wage labourers, moreover, it should be balanced against the effect on wages. As agriculture was relatively labour-intensive, farm protection probably increased the demand for labour and thereby the wage level. At least, such an outcome is suggested by the Stolper-Samuelson theorem in international trade theory.18 Finally, it seems probable that agricultural protection accelerated general economic growth, efficiency losses being offset by positive effects on factor endowment and effective demand. Protection and the Junkers The idea that agricultural protection harmed all interests other than those of landlords and large farmers is connected with the belief that this policy was onesidedly enforced by the Junkers. This belief had already been expressed by contemporary academics like Brentano and Weber.19In the interbellum period, it was added to by Kehr’s thesis that the Junkers had achieved the restoration of the grain tariffs under Bülow by manipulating the naval question.20 During the Second World War, Gerschenkron elaborated these ideas into a violent indictment against the Junkers and agricultural protection, which he blamed for having paved the way for the Nazis.21After the war, Gerschenkron’s and Kehr’s contentions were espoused by many other authors, including leading authorities on German history.22Also, they were taken up by Tracy as an important element in his vision of the genesis of the protective farm policies of the European Community.23 In my opinion, this landlord-blame interpretation has serious flaws. As I have argued in Chapters 4 and 5, agricultural protection was demanded not only by the Junkers, but by the peasantry also. Moreover, it would not have been practicable without the considerable passive or active support from non-agrarians, including a large part of industry. Actually, the turn to protection under Bismarck in 1879 can hardly be ascribed to the Junkers. In 1878, their political representatives were still far from convinced of its advisability.24 In 1879, Junker-controlled bodies like the provincial parliaments of East and West Prussia or the German Agricultural Council (Deutsche Landwirtschaftsrat) declared themselves to be against the givingup of free trade. Even the most protectionist Junker group, the Association of Fiscal and Economic Reformers (Verein der Steuer- und Wirtschaftsreformer), only gradually changed from its free trade conviction.25

173

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

It is true that when the Junkers were converted to protection during the 1880s, the further increase of farm tariffs was facilitated by the structure of the Prusso-German state, which favoured the influence of the landlords. Nevertheless, the unavailing resistance of landlords and farmers to the reduction of agricultural protection in the early 1890s demonstrated that there were definite limits to agrarian power once it was no longer supported by other interests. In this connection, not too much should be made of an agrarian victory out of Caprivi’s fall in 1894.26 Of the Agrarian League’s main demands, only the regulation of the commodity exchange was realized, of which the significance for farm incomes may be questioned. For the rest, the new Hohenlohe government limited itself to minor concessions.27It has been suggested that Hohenlohe tried meeting the farmers in every way possible, but that his hands were tied because the treaties were fixed for twelve years.28 This interpretation should be looked at critically. In a proposal by Count Kanitz, the Agrarian League indicated a way to evade the treaties by centralizing all grain imports under a state monopoly, which would resell at fixed prices. The proposal was brought before parliament in several versions, but was rejected each time.29In fact, neither government nor industrial interests were really inclined to meet the farmers. Hohenlohe called their demands ‘excessive’, and the emperor made it clearly understood that he refused ‘to raise the price of bread for the poor’.30 They were ready to appease the agrarians with smaller concessions, but refused to restore the agricultural protection of the previous years, and the farming interests did not have enough power to force them. Of course, Bülow’s new tariff act of 1902 was an evident victory for agrarian interests. Nevertheless, it too was not simply forced through by the aristocracy. Rather, it was made possible by a new shift in the position of the other interests. The industrial-agrarian rapprochement on which it was based was initiated by the industrialists, not the Junkers.31The very idea for the Economic Commission came from the Central Union of German Manufacturers.32This union was dominated by heavy industry, but other manufacturing sectors were also willing to accept an increase in agricultural tariffs.33 Even the electrical and chemical industries, with their strong export orientation and internationally competitive position, did not strongly oppose a rise of farm tariffs so long as it did not preclude longlasting trade treaties. At the decisive moment, these sectors supported the government proposal.34 LANDLORD POLITICAL POWER: NEED FOR RECONSIDERING? It is hard to reconcile the idea that landlords could not simply push through the protection they wanted with the view that up to the First World War, landlords were still hegemonic. Indeed, my study has led me to conclude that the political power of 174

DISCUSSION

the landed gentries had withered away before 1914. This conclusion conflicts with the assertion by Wehler and other historians of the ‘Kehrite’ school in Germany that this country was ruled by the landlord class, with heavy industry as a junior partner.35As a matter of fact, their thesis is crucially dependent on the idea, rejected above, that the restoration of farm protection under Bülow was enforced by the Junkers. My conclusion that this assumption is not warranted seems to reinforce doubts that have already been raised by other authors. In particular, Eley has questioned the socialimperialist project on which the coalition of ‘rye and iron’ would have been founded. As he argues, ‘world policy’ was not a foundation for co-operation between landlords and heavy industry, but rather a crystallization point for a latent anti-agrarian coalition.36 Besides, the coalition of Junkers and heavy industry could not really keep control over German politics. Even at the time of the Rallying Policy around the turn of the century, it could not rule without the Centre. Its new edition in the Cartel of Productive Estates was, in Nipperdey’s words, ‘not very much more than a paper tiger’.37 If my interpretation differs from that of the Kehrite school, it also differs from that of Mayer, who has extended this school’s thesis to Europe generally.38 In his view, in all big European countries agrarian elites were still hegemonic on the eve of the First World War. In fact, Mayer’s argument contains several false reasonings and perceptions. He makes no distinction between the high nobility, which was not solely or even primarily dependent on agriculture, and the mass of the lower gentry. In the United Kingdom, high nobles could perfectly lead a party that increasingly leaned on urban wealth, sacrificing the agrarian interests of the lower gentry for it.39 Mayer also wrongly assumes that the peasantry was as putty in the hands of the aristocracy. He even goes so far as to assert, as Barrington Moore before him, that successful democracy was contingent on a drastic reduction of agriculture’s share in the economy.40 Moreover, he one-sidedly portrays the emulation by the bourgeoisie of the lifestyle of the aristocracy as a self-strengthening absorption strategy of the latter.41 That the marriage of Krupp’s daughter was attended by the Kaiser, the chancellor and other dignitaries, would for most people be simply an illustration of the influence and prestige of a big industrialist. For Mayer, it is yet another example of an effective transfusion process by which the aristocracy maintained its power.42 The question must be asked why authoritative historians have postulated the continuity of landlord political power. A tentative answer could be that the political history of the landlords has been written too much by their urban opponents. This had already begun in the nineteenth century, when the classical image of predatory landlordism was fabricated by Liberal representatives of the urban bourgeoisie. Subsequently, Lloyd George, who was involved in a vehement struggle with landlords in his own country, blamed the First World War on the German landlord class. 175

THE FAILURE OF AGRARIAN CAPITALISM

Armoured by scientific analysis and enshrined in the Treaty of Versailles by the victorious Allies, his indictment became a starting point for liberal historians who posited a prewar hegemony of reactionary Junkers. After the Second World War, progressive followers turned their premise into a decisive step in the previous history of the Third Reich. It enabled them to put the blame for Hitler and his atrocities on the traditional enemy of urban liberals and social democrats, and to discredit a policy of agricultural protection that they had opposed from the beginning. Of course, this is not to deny the scientific and social merits of work done in this tradition. In particular, contributions by German historians are a courageous attempt to disclose the historical roots of jingoism and Nazism in their own country. Yet it does not alter the fact that their analysis is flawed. The need is for a more balanced judgment which reduces the role of the landlords to its proper dimensions and gives due regard to the part played by urban interests in the causation of catastrophe.

176

APPENDIX Statistical data on agricultural development in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, 1850–1913

In this study graphs have been introduced conveying the evolution of some aspects of agricultural development in the four countries. These are: the price and the volume of gross domestic product in agriculture, and the terms of trade farm/nonfarm for the period 1850–1913; and land productivity and labour productivity in agriculture for the period 1873–1913. The underlying data have been compiled by other researchers, but as the results have not yet been published, they are presented in this appendix. The following definitions are used. • Price of gross domestic product in agriculture: the implicit price index of the gross domestic product in the farm sector. • Terms of trade farm/non-farm: the ratio between the implicit price index of the gross domestic product in the farm sector and that in industry and services. • Volume of gross domestic product in agriculture: the gross domestic product in the farm sector in constant prices. • Land productivity: the ratio between the gross domestic product in the farm sector in constant prices and arable land plus pasture. • Labour productivity in agriculture: the ratio between the gross domestic product in the agricultural sector in constant prices and employment in the agricultural sector. ‘Farm sector’ means farming in the strict sense; ‘agricultural sector’ means farming, hunting, forestry and fishery. The difference is not very important for the countries here considered, though, and is sometimes blurred by lack of data. For the Netherlands, all data refer to farming in the strict sense. 177

APPENDIX

For the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, data have been compiled by C. L. J. van der Meer and his former associates at the University of Groningen (see also van der Meer 1983). The basic data underlying the series come from the following original sources: The United Kingdom GDP in the farm sector in current prices: 1855–1913 Feinstein 1972. GDP in the farm sector in constant prices: 1852–1913 Lewis 1978. GDP in the agricultural sector in constant prices: 1855–1913 Feinstein 1972. (Index numbers of GDP were converted into 1920 prices.) GDP in industry and services in current prices: 1855–1913 GDP total minus total factor income at farm level. (Both taken from Feinstein 1972.) GDP in industry and services in constant prices: 1852–1913 Lewis 1978. Arable land and pasture: 1880–1913 Andrews et al. 1979. Employment in the agricultural sector: 1873–1913 Feinstein 1972. Germany GDP in the farm sector, current and constant prices: 1850–1913 Hoffmann 1965. (Net domestic product in agriculture.) GDP in the agricultural sector in constant prices: 1850–1913 Hoffmann 1965. (Net domestic product in agriculture.) GDP in industry and services, current and constant prices: 1850–1913 Hoffmann 1965. (Net domestic product of ‘Gewerbe’ at factor cost.) Arable land and pasture: 1880–1913 Andrews et al. 1979. Employment in the agricultural sector: 1875–1913 Hoffmann 1965. The United States GDP in the farm sector in current prices: 1850–1899 Gallman 1960. 1899–1913 US Department of Commerce 1966. (Net national income in agriculture. Original source: R. F. Martin.) 178

APPENDIX

GDP in the farm sector in constant prices: 1850–1889 Gallman 1960. 1889–1913 US Department of Commerce 1966. (Original source: J. W. Kendrick.) GDP in the agricultural sector in constant prices: 1850–1889 Gallman 1960. (Gross value added, excluding fishing and forestry.) 1889–1913 US Department of Commerce 1966. (Gross farm product figures, which are used as a proxy for growth in the total agricultural sector. Original source: J. W. Kendrick.) GDP in industry in current prices: 1850–1899 Gallman 1960. (Value added by mining, manufacturing and construction.) 1899–1913 US Department of Commerce 1966. (Net national income in industry. Original source: R. F. Martin.) GDP in industry in constant prices: 1840–1874 Gallman 1960. (Value added by mining, manufacturing and construction.) 1860–1913 Own estimates by van der Meer and associates. (The industrial production index from G. Warren Nutter, US Department of Commerce 1966, is converted to 1929 prices of GDP industry, current prices, excluding construction. This part is completed with income originated in construction, converted to 1929 prices by the growth trend as found in Kuznets 1961. For the period 1860–1870 construction is considered as having the same growth rate as from 1871 onwards.) GDP in services in current prices: 1850–1899 Gallman and Weiss 1969. (Including public utilities.) 1899–1913 US Department of Commerce 1966. (Net national income in services. Original source: R. F. Martin.) GDP in services in constant prices: 1850–1899 Gallman and Weiss 1969. (GDP in services, current prices, is converted into constant prices by the weighted price index for services as calculated by Gallman and Weiss.) 1899–1913 Gross national product minus GDP in agriculture and in industry. (Gross national product taken from US Department of Commerce 1966. Original source: J. W. Kendrick.) Arable land and pasture: 1873–1880 US Department of Commerce 1975. (Land in farms.) 1880–1913 US Department of Agriculture 1982. (Land in farms.) 179

APPENDIX

Employment in the agricultural sector: 1873–1913 Lebergott 1964. (Figures up to 1900 include fishery, from 1900 they refer to employment on farms.) The following observations are important for the derived data series presented below. • In order to eliminate changes in definitions and in a country’s territory, older series were linked to more recent ones, working back from 1975. In cases where the data series for the former period had the same trend as the data series taken for a later period, linkages were made by one-year overlap. In the other cases a three-year overlap is taken. • Most gross domestic product series are in market prices, some are at factor cost. In cases where sources contain only net domestic or national income series, the differences were eliminated if possible by linking older series to more recent gross domestic product series. The United States GDP data series for agriculture and industry up to 1899 are quinquennial averages. The average value for a period is taken as the value for the central year of the period. • If not otherwise mentioned, arable land and pasture means net sown area including permanent pasture (but excluding rough grazings) and area under tree crops. It should be noted that the way in which the area under fallow is measured is not always clear. • For employment in the agricultural sector, there are significant differences in actual definitions used for various countries. There may be considerable error margins, caused by the fact that in basic data sources part-time workers, especially females and (unpaid) family members and servants may be counted inadequately, or weighted similar to full-time workers. • The German series up to 1870 refer to the ‘Reichsgebiet’ of 1870, excluding AlsaceLorraine. From 1871 they refer to the ‘Reichsgebiet’, including Alsace-Lorraine. In the tables below only some final data are presented. The Netherlands For the Netherlands, there were inadequate original sources. The data come from a recent study by Knibbe, which has been undertaken to fill this gap (Knibbe 1993). This study gives both value added data estimated by the ‘double deflation’ method and by the ‘single deflation’ method, of which the former have been selected. The data about employment in the agricultural sector come from van der Meer (1987). For the purpose of this study, all numbers have been converted into index numbers with 1900 (sometimes 1899 or 1901) as a base year. The price data in Table A.1 are 180

APPENDIX

based on prices in national currencies. With the exception of the US dollar between 1862 and 1866, exchange rate fluctuations between the currencies of the four countries were very small between 1850 and 1913. The reader should take note that the data presented in the tables below are crude. This is partly because of the paucity of nineteenth-century statistics, and partly because of methodological differences in the original studies from which the data are derived. Considerable differences exist between these studies in concepts, definitions, the choice of base periods, the techniques of separating the volume and price components of gross domestic product series, and the like. As a consequence, the data are only rough estimates of real developments. The degree of rounding up tells nothing about the actual margins of error, which may be considerably larger. Table A.1 Price of gross domestic product in agriculture (1900=100) UK 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881

108.3 110.5 114.1 107.5 104.5 103.8 111.8 112.5 113.9 106.7 108.1 110.9 117.0 106.5 99.5 107.2 112.3 119.4 124.0 109.8 108.4 113.7 119.4 104.5 112.0 97.2 99.4

Germany

Netherlands

57.0 69.4 82.0 86.1 100.2 95.8 102.7 88.9 80.1 81.6 92.4 96.8 92.5 89.9 85.6 83.9 89.0 98.5 107.8 98.3 95.5 104.6 115.7 121.4 118.8 105.5 115.4 120.4 106.0 104.7 113.8 112.1

US 105.7

89.8 102.1 116.4 115.7 111.6 113.2 102.3 102.3 112.7 110.6 102.7 101.4 108.3 113.5 114.1 119.4 123.5 119.0 118.6 123.8 131.7 131.3 132.7 131.6 131.4 126.1 118.8 115.0 130.6 126.0

181

129.5

116.9

171.9

149.3

116.6

APPENDIX

Table A.1 —continued 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913

109.3 98.7 94.5 92.8 89.7 93.3 92.0 90.8 94.5 96.2 93.1 93.4 88.5 90.5 92.0 97.0 89.9 97.8 100.0 98.5 100.9 101.5 96.3 97.8 111.1 103.1 103.8 95.4 96.0 110.3 109.0 110.1

104.5 106.5 105.2 97.2 96.3 98.6 95.4 104.2 113.3 113.0 112.0 101.9 101.7 97.4 94.0 106.0 113.8 102.7 100.0 104.4 110.2 106.9 106.9 120.0 123.9 125.5 122.9 132.0 135.5 140.9 153.8 143.0

130.8 128.0 111.8 102.3 98.3 97.7 100.6 104.3 100.2 106.1 95.5 93.6 94.1 88.4 85.7 95.8 92.1 93.4 100.0 104.2 105.7 108.8 114.0 106.8 110.7 108.0 105.5 119.3 124.1 133.0 129.4 127.4

110.3

99.6

97.2

97.6 100.0 104.6 111.5 111.6 117.3 115.0 119.5 130.9 140.8 165.2 168.3 168.0 154.0 173.3

Table A.2 Terms of trade farm/non-farm(1900=100) UK 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863

Germany 94.8 113.2 133.2 132.7 146.0 125.9 148.8 128.4 116.0 117.7 133.2 137.7 129.3 129.9

128.5 140.3 131.9 126.4 124.6 130.1 128.9 126.4

182

US 76.4

124.8

83.1

APPENDIX

Table A.2 —continued 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913

115.3 117.0 121.1 128.6 119.7 106.0 112.7 114.7 115.3 114.3 106.8 108.7 117.2 124.3 113.0 121.0 107.5 109.6 120.1 112.3 109.9 112.1 103.1 107.5 103.0 98.2 101.5 107.6 105.9 104.7 95.7 98.7 101.7 105.5 95.1 100.1 100.0 102.1 104.0 107.4 104.2 105.2 116.4 105.1 109.3 100.2 98.5 113.8 109.4 111.0

124.1 122.6 126.5 136.8 146.1 132.1 120.5 128.7 137.9 136.5 135.4 119.6 131.5 143.4 128.5 125.8 131.9 126.0 119.0 122.9 121.9 111.2 108.2 109.4 103.0 111.9 119.0 119.6 119.6 111.0 113.2 109.6 102.2 113.8 120.8 105.1 100.0 106.8 112.7 108.7 107.7 118.2 120.2 117.6 117.4 127.2 127.4 130.9 140.3 130.9

183

94.5

108.9

88.3

104.0

86.4

277.5

99.8 100.0 111.3 111.4 109.7 111.6 109.4 118.8 126.4 131.8 158.3 151.9 157.1 142.2 156.5

APPENDIX

Table A.3 Volume of gross domestic product in agriculture (1900=100) 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898

UK

Germany

102.2 102.2 103.0 103.7 103.7 104.5 104.5 105.2 105.2 106.0 106.0 106.7 106.7 107.5 108.2 105.2 112.7 108.2 111.9 109.0 103.7 106.7 114.9 115.7 109.0 99.3 107.5 86.6 104.5 104.5 99.3 106.0 108.2 105.2 109.0 102.2 104.5 106.7 108.2 111.2 107.5 103.0 105.2 103.7 103.7 100.7 105.2

44.3 42.6 43.6 42.8 44.6 41.7 47.3 49.8 48.7 49.1 52.8 49.2 54.3 58.0 60.2 58.0 57.5 55.9 60.8 58.3 57.8 57.1 58.8 59.6 66.9 66.5 64.1 63.7 69.4 64.8 64.8 65.8 67.6 71.2 72.2 75.8 75.9 76.9 79.6 75.0 77.9 73.2 79.5 85.7 84.6 86.4 91.4 90.6 93.1

184

Netherlands

US 25.7

70.6 67.4 63.6 71.7 65.9 73.6 68.3 65.7 67.4 75.3 69.4 76.2 80.5 77.2 73.9 74.9 75.4 79.8 87.2 83.7 75.4 85.1 86.1 87.1 85.3 82.6 82.1 82.6 75.6 84.2 84.4 83.8 86.4 91.3 90.0 92.8 95.4 81.7 94.8 93.9 85.2 98.2 85.2 84.9 94.5 102.1 95.3 101.6

32.1

36.4

41.96

48.2

63.4

73.2

79.0 77.7 80.9 76.8 74.8 77.4 82.3 88.3 94.9 99.1

APPENDIX

Table A.3 —continued 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913

102.2 100.0 101.5 105.2 96.3 101.5 103.0 96.3 104.5 107.5 109.7 108.2 106.0 104.5 99.3

96.7 100.0 91.8 92.4 98.0 101.5 98.8 98.0 98.6 102.6 98.4 100.1 98.7 97.6 107.7

104.8 100.0 105.0 102.2 94.6 101.5 107.6 109.3 118.6 113.7 103.7 111.5 112.1 114.7 112.6

Germany

Netherlands

62.6 64.2 66.3 70.2 71.2 75.0 75.0 76.2 78.9 74.4 77.5 72.8 79.3 85.5 84.3 86.1 91.1 90.6 93.1 96.7 100.0 91.8 92.7 98.3

89.8 90.8 88.9 86.1 86.3 86.4 78.7 86.9 87.1 86.9 89.0 93.9 92.6 95.4 97.9 83.6 97.0 96.5 87.8 101.1 87.7 86.2 95.9 101.9 95.1 101.5 104.8 100.0 104.8 101.8 94.3

99.1 100.0 99.4 98.6 101.6 104.2 105.4 111.1 106.1 108.2 106.0 109.0 102.8 121.5 105.7

Table A.4 Land productivity (1900=100) UK 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903

105.2 105.2 99.3 106.0 108.2 104.5 108.2 101.5 103.8 106.0 106.7 109.7 106.7 102.3 104.5 103.0 103.0 100.0 105.2 102.2 100.0 101.5 105.2 96.3

185

US

104.9

100.0

APPENDIX

Table A.4 —continued 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913

100.8 103.0 96.9 105.2 108.2 110.5 109.7 107.5 106.0 100.7

101.8 99.1 98.2 98.9 102.9 98.9 100.7 99.5 98.4 108.6

101.0 107.0 108.5 117.3 112.3 102.0 109.5 109.7 111.7 109.1

104.3 97.8 114.6 98.8

Table A.5 Labour productivity in agriculture (1900=100, UK 1901=100, Netherlands 1899=100) UK 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905

87.1

100.8

100.0

Germany

70.2 67.6 66.2 71.1 66.0 66.0 66.8 68.2 71.5 72.7 76.2 75.9 77.1 80.5 75.9 79.5 74.8 81.3 86.6 84.5 86.1 91.2 90.9 93.4 97.1 100.0 93.4 94.4 98.9 102.4 101.3

186

Netherlands

US

88.9

96.5 91.2

100.0 100.0 100.6 101.3 103.3 104.0 104.2

APPENDIX

Table A.5 —continued 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913

105.4

100.4 100.3 103.6 98.7 99.1 96.6 95.5 103.5

187

96.6

106.9 102.0 106.4 104.9 106.9 102.3 120.6 106.5

NOTES

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 1

For model studies on the effects of agricultural protection, see e.g. Tyers and Anderson (1988), IMF (1989), OECD (1987; 1990). 2 Agricultural economists have been shifting away from an earlier view that some measure of income support could not be missed in the farm sector. In the 1950s and 1960s, this opinion was put forward by well-known agricultural economists like Cochrane (1959; 1966) and Hathaway (1963). 3 See e.g. Balicasan and Roumasset (1987), Haase (1983), Honma and Hayami (1986), Rausser (1982), Schmitt (1984), and Senior Nello (1984). It should be noted that although these economists refer to Olson’s ‘logic of collective action’, Olson himself has spoken more prudently about this subject (Olson 1985). In fact, he does not speak of a superior power of farmers, but of farmers finally catching up with urban groups in political influence. 4 Tracy (1989). 5 Publications elaborating this view include Mayer (1981) and Wehler (1977). See also B. Moore’s (1968) conception of the historical road leading to fascism. The number of publications supporting this thesis for Germany is too large to enumerate. Some examples, besides that by Wehler, are Berghahn (1973), Böhme (1978), Kitchen (1978), Puhle (1975a; 1975b), Rosenberg (1976), Stegmann (1970), and publications by older authors like Gerschenkron (1966) and Kehr (1930; 1976a). For criticism of the view see, in particular, a Blackbourn and Eley (1984) and Eley (1980). 6 The co-responsibility of agricultural protection for the great disasters of Western society in the twentieth century is the central idea in Gerschenkron (1966) and Puhle (1975a; 1975b). However, it is emphasized or implied by all literature mentioned in the preceding note. 7 Rosenberg (1976, p. 182). 8 This idea of a strong asynchronism of the economic and political evolutions is a central theme in B. Moore (1968). In the literature on Germany mentioned in note 5 of this chapter, it is seen as the basic cause of a ‘specific evolution’ which this country would have passed through. The idea has also been adopted by Tracy (1989, see especially p. 25). 9 Especially Aglietta (1979), Gordon et al. One survey is that by Verhagen (1993). 10 Especially Jessop (1982). For a survey, see Bertramsen et al. (1991). 11 Kriedte et al. (1981), Mendels (1972; 1975; 1984).

188

NOTES – CHAPTER 2

12 Dosi (1984), Nelson and Winter (1977). 13 Landes (1969). 14 Actually, this is a one-sided, industry-oriented description. As I argue in this study, the evolution of agriculture under this configuration was characterized by the opposite of monopolization; a return to household production. 15 Today, long-wave theories like Kondratieff’s, Schumpeter’s or Rostow’s are viewed with considerable doubt by most economists. Maddison (1982) and Solomou (1990), though accepting the existence of major long-run variation in the development of world capitalism, explain it as the result of irregular and exogenous system shocks. The perspective adopted in this study endogenizes such shocks, redefining the internal– external boundary of the economic system by integrating technological paradigms, economic policies and institutions. 16 See especially Gordon (1980), Gordon et al. (1984). For the interaction of technology and institutions, see also Roobeek (1987). Although Gordon cautiously holds to the idea that long swings have a temporal regularity (Gordon 1980, pp. 29–30), it does not necessarily follow from his analysis. Anyhow, his delimitation of periods, which I have taken over, is based not only on quantitive growth variables, but on technological and institutional characteristics.

CHAPTER 2. AGRARIAN CAPITALISM: GROWTH AND MISCARRIAGE 1 Classical publications are e.g. Bairoch (1975) and E. L. Jones (1974). For recent, more relativizing views of agriculture’s contribution to the Industrial Revolution in England, see the review by Beckett (1990, pp. 62–67). 2 For the effect of population growth, see Abel (1978, pp. 200–203), Slicher van Bath (1977, pp. 243–246). For the effect of textile mechanization, see Grigg (1982, pp. 122– 124). For textiles and industrial employment in England, see Bairoch (1975, p. 486). 3 Thompson (1976, p. 80; 1983, p. 60). For horse-power in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, see Tann (1983). More generally, Slicher van Bath (1977, pp. 246–247). 4 Landes (1969, pp. 109–111). 5 Boserup (1981, Ch. 10); Grigg (1980, Chs 4, 16); Overton and Campbell (1991, Section 3). For a technical explanation, see Shiel (1991). 6 Bairoch (1989a, p. 336), Boserup (1981, pp. 113, 122). See also Clark (1987) for the impossibility of increasing labour productivity in important activities except by an intensification of labour. According to Craig and Weiss (1993), even in the United States in the 1860s, agricultural growth was largely due to an increase in labour input. Boserup’s hypothesis of an actual decrease in labour productivity in Europe remains speculative for Europe in general, yet seems to be confirmed for individual regions (see e.g. Boserup 1981, p. 122 for Denmark; Pierenkemper 1989 for Prussia; or Priester 1991, p. 476 for the Dutch province of Groningen). 7 For the influence of the Industrial Revolution on farm tools and implements, see e.g. Dovring (1965b, pp. 640–643), Grantham (1991, p. 359), Hurt 1982, pp. 113–115). Also Bairoch (1975, pp. 488–492). 8 Overton and Campbell (1991, p. 45). Also Grantham (1991; for northwest France). 9 Overton and Campbell (1991, p. 45). Yield data in Bairoch (1989a, pp. 336–338).

189

NOTES – CHAPTER 2

10 Bairoch (1976, pp. 32–33). Steamships accounted for 4 per cent of shipping tonnage, but were about four times faster than sailing ships. 11 Abel (1978, pp. 196–277); Slicher van Bath (1977, pp. 243–253). 12 Grigg (1980, pp. 170–175, 194–197, 212–214); Slicher van Bath (1977, pp. 143–144, 344–348). The subdivision of holdings was stronger on the Continent than in Britain, and in arable regions than in specialized livestock regions. 13 In England, recent research has partly rehabilitated an older criticism on the social consequences of enclosures, refuting an over-optimistic revision by Chambers (1940; 1953) and others. See e.g. Snell (1985, Ch. 4), Allen (1990; 1991a; 1992, Ch. 8) and the overview of the debate by Turner (1984, Ch. 5). 14 Kriedte et al. (1981, pp. 28–29). Mendels (1972, p. 354). See also the case study of the linen region in east Westphalia by Mooser (1984, pp. 63–64, 81). Also, a regional specialization normally developed between cottage industry and commercial agriculture, which limited their competition on local labour markets (Collins 1977; Kriedte et al. 1981, pp. 24–25, 27, 30; Mendels 1972, pp. 245, 247–248; Pollard 1982, pp. 5, 65, 71, 77). 15 Allen (1992, Ch. 12). Collins (1969a, pp. 64, 66, 76). Mooser (1984, pp. 60, 81). For the demographic consequences of proto-industrialization, see Kriedte et al. (1981, pp. 82– 89) and Mendels (1972, pp. 249–253). The thesis has been criticized, but has been well defended by Mendels (1984). 16 See e.g. Mooser (1984, pp. 345ff.) for eastern Westphalia. 17 W. A. Armstrong (1981a); A. Armstrong (1988, Ch. 3); Collins (1987). 18 Collins (1969a). For Britain, see Collins (1969b), E. L. Jones (1964, p. 333). 19 See e.g. Hunt (1986) for the divergence between farm wages in the industrial north and the agrarian south and east of England. 20 Cf. Aglietta (1979, p. 130), Gordon et al. (1984, pp. 79–87). Agricultural–industrial wage differentials in these years were more limited than in subsequent periods. See evidence in Hatton and Williamson (1991, p. 416), Mitchell (1975, pp. 184–185, 191–192; 1988, pp. 157–158), and Williamson (1982, p. 17) for Britain and Germany, or Cox (1948, p. 111) for the United States. 21 For a more elaborated discussion of the farm population and social structure, see e.g. Galeski (1972, Ch. 5). 22 Similarly, although I often speak about ‘peasants’ when referring to common farmers in a less modernized setting, I make no fundamental difference between the two, as such a difference does not exist. So a small peasant is a small farmer; and a large peasant, a large farmer. 23 For returns to scale in agriculture before mechanization, see Allen (1988; 1992, Ch. 11), Mingay (1962, pp. 471–472) and discussion between Allen (1991b) and G. Clark (1991). 24 See e.g. Overton (1985) for new crops in Norfolk and Suffolk, Walton (1973) for agricultural machinery in Oxfordshire, Peterson (1984) for new ploughs in east Sweden, van Zanden (1985, pp. 254–256) for fertilizers in the Netherlands. See also Grigg (1982, p. 158), Beckett (1990, pp. 29–30) and literature there referred to. 25 Cf. Mingay (1962, p. 472). 26 For small farmers, see e.g. Friedmann (1978, pp. 562–563), Grantham (1975, pp. 308– 313). Cf. de Hoogh (1967, pp. 14–16). For the lower transaction costs of family farms, cf. Pollak 1985. 27 See e.g. Levy (1966, pp. 156–183) for the relative advantage of large and small farms in various productions.

190

NOTES – CHAPTER 2

28 Grantham (1975, pp. 299–307). 29 Cf. de Hoogh (1967, pp. 7–9), Ruttan (1988, pp. 5–7). 30 I do not agree with Brenner’s (1976; 1977) thesis, admittedly elaborated for the early modern period, that the evolution of farm structures was determined by a class struggle unconnected to demographic and market developments. 31 See e.g. Slicher van Bath (1978, pp. 44–45, 49–50) for the correlation between agrarian prosperity and the rate of technical progress in agriculture. 32 For improvements in general, see Blum (1978, Ch. 12), Slicher van Bath (1977, pp. 253– 340). For new innovations, see e.g. Simon (1989) and Sullivan (1985) on the effect of population growth and food prices on agricultural patenting in England. 33 See references in note 24 of this chapter. For tile draining in England, see data in Phillips (1989, pp. 194–198) showing that little draining was done on farms smaller than 100 acres. (On farms over 500 acres, draining was also modest, but these were often located in areas of open moorland, so that the amount of land that would benefit from draining was limited.) 34 See e.g. Roessingh (1978) and Thirsk (1974) for tobacco growing in the Netherlands and England respectively, or Van Zanden (1985, pp. 254–256) for fertilizer adoption in the Netherlands. Indeed, modern research has put an end to a static concept of peasant agriculture. See also Bieleman’s (1987) study of agricultural change in the Dutch province of Drenthe. 35 Here I base my ideas on the subjective equilibrium theory of the farm household. See the classic formulation by Chayanov (1966), or modern elaborations by e.g. Nakajima (1986). 36 Here I suppose that the income effect exceeded the substitution effect, as will normally be the case if the labour effort is near the physical maximum and the consumption level near the subsistence minimum (cf. Nakajima 1986, pp. 52–53). 37 Modern research has refuted the idea that family farmers were self-sufficient. See e.g. Bieleman (1987, especially pp. 39–42). 38 Kriedte et al. (1981, pp. 16, 45ff., 139), Landes (1969, pp. 117–120, 188–190), Mendels (1972, p. 246–247). On the European continent, in particular, proto-industry continued to expand well into the nineteenth century, aided also by a comparative advance in labour-intensive production based on low wages. 39 See de Vries (1984, pp. 101–106, 258–260) for Europe, or Gordon (1978, p. 39) for the United States. 40 These studies are too many and their results too varied for enumeration. More information is given in the next chapter for the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. Here only some broad outlines are indicated. Brief surveys can also be found e.g. in Barral (1978, Ch. 2) or Koning (1983, pp. 32–34). 41 See e.g. Mooser (1984, pp. 228–231) for east Westphalia, or Borcherdt et al. (1985, p. 74) for Baden and Württemberg. 42 A clear example of a functional relation between proto-industry and the development of capitalist farms was Minden-Ravensberg in east Westphalia, which however had rather fertile soils (Mooser 1984, pp. 60–61, 81–82, 219). But even in central Flanders, which was less favoured in this respect, and where proto-industry was coupled to a much more far-reaching fragmentation, a stratum of capitalist farms nevertheless remained intact (Mendels 1975, pp. 195, 198–199, 202). 43 Bairoch (1976, p. 32–36). On naval transporting capacity, see also note 10 of this chapter.

191

NOTES – CHAPTER 2

44 Grigg (1974, p. 48–49). Weber (1984, pp. 160–162). 45 Baines (1991, p. 24, 43). Bairoch (1976, p. 113, 121). See also Malenbaum (1953, pp. 131–134). 46 E.g. Lebergott (1984, pp. 188–189). 47 Friedmann (1978, pp. 582–583). 48 For farm machinery in the United States, see Hurt (1982) and Rogin (1931). Hurt also examines the role of metallurgical innovations (1982, pp. 113–116). More generally, see Grigg (1974, pp. 264–265). 49 Rogin (1931, pp. 213–241). 50 Grigg (1974, p. 45). 51 Notably Bairoch (1989a), Boserup (1981, pp. 116–117), Thompson (1968) and van Zanden (1991). 52 Van Zanden (1991, pp. 224, 231–232). Only in the United Kingdom was the use of fertilizer already 5 kilograms per hectare by 1870. 53 Bairoch (1989a, pp. 339–340). 54 Kuczynski (1987, p. 94). 55 Malenbaum (1953, pp. 236–239). 56 See data in Stern (1960). 57 Haushofer (1963, pp. 206–207). Landes (1969, pp. 274–276). For the displacement of horses, see Barker (1983). For the transport of refrigerated meat, see Wottawa (1984). 58 Schultz (1945, pp. 44–84). 59 For the movement of agricultural prices and backgrounds, see e.g. Abel (1978, pp. 278– 279, 284), Cochrane (1984, pp. 93–94), Tracy (1989, pp. 17–19). 60 See especially Gordon et al. (1984, Ch. 4) for the implications of the ‘homogenization of labour’ for the mobilization of labour reserves. 61 Kriedte et al. (1981, pp. 159–160). 62 See note 38 of Chapter 4 for references for the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. 63 See e.g. Haresign (1983) for England. 64 See e.g. C.E. Daniel (1981), McWilliams (1939), or Majka and Majka (1982) for California, or Ponchelet (1990) for northern France. 65 The effect, however, was partly undone by a further subdivision of holdings. Farmers used the increased land productivity to set up more of their children, many of whom had formerly to remain unmarried on the farm of a luckier sibling. See e.g. Hofstee (1948, p. 36) for southeastern Netherlands. 66 See e.g. Liebowitz (1989, pp. 442–445) for northern France, Landbouwcommissie (1890, p. 19) for the Netherlands, Levy (1966, pp. 101–103) and Rogers (1986, p. 262) for England. 67 A somewhat analogous reasoning is found in Grantham (1975). His hypothesis is that in the absence of an efficient credit system, wage rises, by allowing peasants to save, first enabled them to translate their desire for land into high purchasing prices. However, it cannot explain why, before then, small farms did not increase on a tenancy basis. 68 A shift in productions is stressed by e.g. Levy (1966); a change in the technical development by e.g. Friedmann (1978, pp. 564–567), Schmitt (1991), van Zanden (1988); the influence of co-operatives by e.g. Bordewijk (1938, p. 139). 69 Friedmann (1978). See also Grantham’s (1975, pp. 314–316) observation that the increase in family farms in late nineteenth-century France cannot be explained by the development of livestock production or labour-intensive crops.

192

NOTES – CHAPTER 2

70 This was even so in the Netherlands, where small farmers were early to adopt fertilizers (van Zanden 1985, p. 255). 71 Cf. Sahal (1981) on the influence of farm size on technological development. 72 Faucher (1954, pp. 88–89). The first-generation tractors with internal combustion engines in the United States were all heavy models. These were bought by large farmers in the far west and midwest. A satiation of this market segment caused a drop in tractor sales in 1912, and in the following years this provoked a conscious reorientation towards the designing of tractors suitable for smaller farms (R. C. Williams 1987, pp. 18–20, 22ff.). Since then, tractor design has remained governed by the existing distribution of farm size (Sahal 1981). 73 Several questions in the history of farm technology pertaining to farm structures still remain to be solved. One of these is why various opportunities for improving steam plough design remained unused from the late nineteenth century (see Bonnett 1965, pp. 194–196). Another is why the disadvantages of the steam plough were not circumvented by electrical ploughing. The reason may be that this latter technique required an even larger scale than steam ploughing (see Dovring 1965b, p. 64). Another question is what exactly caused the failure of steam combines in the United States in the early years of the twentieth century. This has been attributed to a risk of fire and little additional saving of labour compared to horse-drawn models (Hurt 1982, p. 182; Olmstead and Rhode 1988, p. 108). However, the latter involved a risk of runaway teams, while the largest steam combines did save additional labour but, unlike some smaller models, were not in demand (Rogin 1931, pp. 150–151). The evolution of the milking machine poses similar questions. For example, in the 1920s, a double vacuum line system giving a constant pulse to maximize milk production was faced with a failing demand from large farms. Development was then reoriented to cheaper one-line systems with a pulsator on the pail. These were within reach of smaller farms (Hupfauer 1969, pp. 426–427). 74 See e.g. L. P. F. Smith (1961, pp. 3–25) for a general survey. For more detailed information, see e.g. Shannon (1945, Ch. 14) for the United States, Haushofer (1963, pp. 217–219) for Germany, Minderhoud (1957) and van Stuijvenberg (1949, Ch. 2) for the Netherlands, Ó Gráda (1977) and West (1986, Ch. 2) for Ireland. An exception was dairy co-operatives in the northern United States, which had already developed after the 1850s. Of course, here economic conditions had kept commercial agriculture somewhat more close to a family farm structure. 75 Neither does van Stuijvenberg’s (1980) additional hypothesis (that an increased integration in [export] markets made inefficiencies less tolerable for farmers) solve the question. In several regions although agriculture had become strongly integrated in a market economy at a much earlier date, this had not induced the forming of co-operatives. 76 In the case of a simple substitution of capital for labour, an increase of farm size would have followed, as mechanization raised returns to scale. As a consequence, the number of hired labourers per farm would have diminished less drastically. 77 This has often been attributed to latifundistas being no real capitalist entrepreneurs, but types of parasitic feudalists. In reality, the latifundistas behaved exactly according to capitalist rationality (cf. Roux 1980; Sumpsi Viñas 1980). This dictated not modernization, but maximization of profit. For these landowners, who were faced with a squeeze on prices that could not adequately be countered by investments, it implied cutting down labour and investing as little as possible. Indeed, they could realize more profit by squeezing money out of their estates and using it for portfolio investments in the core areas.

193

NOTES – CHAPTER 2

78 See e.g. Buchsteiner (1987b, pp 151–228; 1989) for noble and bourgeois possessors of large estates in Pomerania around the turn of the century, or Maas (1981) for modernizing and non-modernizing latifundistas in Andulucía in the 1970s. 79 For Europe, see e.g. Dovring (1965a, pp. 151–152). Census data for the United States show only a slight decline in the proportion of hired workers, but if the disguised wage labour in sharecropping and share tenancy is taken into account, the decrease appears to have been considerable (T. L. Smith 1970). 80 See statistical evidence in Dovring (1965a, pp. 117–135). 81 In the age of the first Industrial Revolution, processing factories and large farms had sometimes been part of the same firms, like distilleries and sugar factories in East Elbia or the southern United States. From the later part of the nineteenth century, such agroindustrial complexes divided Perkins 1981, p. 98; Whitten 1983, pp. 96–97). 82 For a formulation of this view, see e.g. Servolin (1972). 83 Blum (1978, pp. 198–205). Press (1988). 84 Recent historiography has revised the idea of enclosure as a sine qua non for improvement. See e.g. Allen (1982; 1990) or the overview of the debate in Britain by M. Turner (1984, pp. 37–39). 85 For England this is conceded even by Allen (1990, pp. 58–59). For other countries, see e.g. van Zanden (1985, pp. 152–165) for the Netherlands, or Milward and Saul (1973, pp. 74, 82–83) for the European continent generally. 86 See for Britain e.g. Martin (1967) and Turner (1984, p. 74) on high costs for small landowners, and Snell (1985, Ch. 4) on the social consequences of the extinction of common rights. For the European continent, see e.g. Milward and Saul (1973, pp. 74– 75). 87 McCloskey (1975, pp. 127–133). 88 Grantham (1984, pp. 193–194), Parker (1967, pp. 1463–1464; 1976, pp. 112–113). 89 A. W. Jones (1983). Perkins (1975). For the strong bargaining position of large tenants, see also Mingay (1962, pp. 474–475), Postel-Vinay (1974). 90 For the elasticity of agricultural supply at this stage, see Grantham (1989). 91 If farm prices had been lower, one could ask whether the reduced demand for manufactures from large farmers and landlords could not have been offset by an increased demand from the lower classes. In reality, the latter would have used part of their gain to eat better and relax their labour effort. 92 In reality, the actual effects of agricultural protection also depended on the terms of trade effect. According to Williamson (1990), the British Corn Laws actually raised manufacturing profits in the 1830s. 93 Blum (1978, pp. 310–326, 358–359). 94 For property rights in man or land, see Domar (1970), D. C. North and Thomas (1973, pp. 19–24). Empirical evidence from East Prussia e.g. in M. North (1988). 95 Kriedte (1983, pp. 112–114). Milward and Saul (1973, p. 70). For East Elbian Germany, see Schissler (1991, p. 105). See also critical remarks by Blum (1978, p. 372). 96 See e.g. Fogel and Engerman (1974) or Fogel (1989) for slavery in the United States, or Domar and Machina (1984) for serfdom in Russia. 97 Blum (1978, Ch. 10). Cf. Engerman (1992, pp. 19–21), Skocpol (1979, Ch. 2). 98 Blum (1978, pp. 197–198, 205–207, 373). 99 Blum (1978, pp. 225, 396). For the effect of Joseph II’s reforms in the Habsburg Empire, see also Milward and Saul (1973, pp. 64).

194

NOTES – CHAPTER 3

100 101 102 103

104 105

106 107

108

109 110

Cf. Galbraith (1963, pp. 175–177). Hayami and Ruttan (1985, pp. 206–252). Bairoch (1976, pp. 296–301). For the social explosive inherent in this situation, see e.g. Mitrany (1951, Part 3) for Eastern Europe, Malefakis (1970) for Spain, or various contributions in Gollwitzer (1977, Part 2). See e.g. the classical treatise by Kautsky (1899). Disadvantages of small farms for development are also stressed by modern studies like Wade (1981). This aspect has been neglected by co-operation theorists such as Ohm (1955), Kaarlehto (1956) and ter Woorst (1966; 1982), who have one-sidedly stressed the function of cooperatives for restoring competition in price-making. These authors were too captivated by a simplistic model of general equilibrium to be able to conceive of sectors in which market tendencies resulted in the persistence of a structure of ‘sub-optimal’ firms which were, inter alia, not attractive for substantial business partners, so that they needed other institutions for the modernization of their economic environment. See e.g. Danbom’s (1979) study of farmers and the extension service in the United States. For the importance of price-stabilizing regulation, see e.g. Clarke’s (1987) study of tractor adoption in the United States between 1920 and 1940; also Farrell and Runge (1983) on the effect of New Deal policies on technical change in agriculture generally. For the influence of income support levels, see e.g. Bairoch (1976) on the effect of protection on agricultural growth in Europe around the turn of the century, or Gillmor (1989) on the effect of support levels on the diverging development in both parts of Ireland after the 1920s. More recent model studies like Schrader and Henrichsmeyer (1974) or Ray and Heady (1974) point in the same direction. See also van der Meer’s (1989) and van der Meer and Yamada’s (1990) theses of an inverse U-shaped relationship between changes in productivity and prices in agriculture. For the relative efficiency of agriculture in these countries, see Bairoch (1989a, pp. 320, 329–331) and van Zanden (1991, pp. 219–220). In the Netherlands, livestock had long since been important, while in both countries, the share of livestock production had significantly increased since the mid-nineteenth century. See Bode (1979) and Jessop (1982) for political science concepts underlying this study. Wood (1984).

CHAPTER 3. MID-1840s TO c.1873: THE LIBERAL YEARS 1 See Fairlie (1969), who refutes the idea that the Corn Laws had become ineffective by the growth of domestic production. See also Williamson (1990, pp. 125–127). 2 The price data underlying this figure are in national currencies, but, between 1846 and 1914, the exchange rates were stable enough to allow a broad comparison between the four countries. The only exception was a temporary drop in the exchange rate of the dollar between 1862 and 1866, but from those years no U.S. data appear in the figure. 3 Knibbe 1993, p. 125. The proxy variable referred to is an index of the price of farm output deflated by a consumer prices index. 4 Cf. Bairoch (1989, p. 328), van Zanden (1991, pp. 219–220). 5 Crafts (1989). 6 Cf. Beckett (1990, p. 67).

195

NOTES – CHAPTER 3

7 Bos (1981). Kreeft (1988). Economic growth in this country was highly dependent on rising farm exports to the United Kingdom, so that the Dutch economy tended to become a supplement of the British economy (Bos 1978). 8 See for Germany, e.g. Dumke (1979, pp. 190ff.); for the United States, D.C. North (1961, Chs 7, 15). In the Netherlands too, farm prosperity contributed to the hesitant beginnings of modern industry in the late 1860s (van Zanden 1987, pp. 164–165). 9 Cf. Pollard (1973). 10 Allen (1988, pp. 120–126; 1992, Ch. 5). Mingay (1962). See also qualifying remarks by Beckett (1990, pp. 48–53). 11 Grigg (1987, pp. 184, 188; 1989, p. 111). 12 Chambers and Mingay (1966, pp. 173ff.). 13 See p. 20. 14 Chambers and Mingay (1966, Ch. 7). Also Beckett (1990, pp. 19–21, 28). Grigg (1989, pp. 70–72, 159–160, 178–181) and, for underdrainage, Phillips (1989). 15 A. Orr (1984). 16 Collins (1969a, p. 75). 17 E. L. Jones (1964, p. 333). For Scotland, see A. Orr (1984, pp. 43ff.). 18 Statistical evidence in Taylor (1955, p. 38). For lowland Scotland, see A. Orr (1984, p. 34). 19 E. L. Jones (1964). 20 Van Zanden (1985, pp. 316–323). 21 Van Zanden (1985, pp. 325–328). Also, a few very large farms were formed in this century; see e.g. van der Poel (1959) for the Wilhelminapolder, or Harbers (1963) and Tosseram (1936, p. 46) for the big feed lots near Schiedam and Zaandam. 22 Van der Poel (1967, Ch. 6). 23 Bieleman (1992, pp. 291–293). Van Velden (1943, pp. 326–327). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 224–226). 24 Bieleman (1992, pp. 255–266). Bouman (1943a, pp. 284–285). Van der Poel (1967, pp. 139–165). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 229–238). For the dynamic arable farmers in the northern province of Groningen, see Priester (1991, Ch. 4). Priester suggests that farm progress slowed down in the third quarter of the century. However, his reference year (1888) makes it impossible to eliminate the influence of the crisis after 1878, and he himself concedes that between 1831 and 1875 net arable production may have risen much more rapidly (ibid., pp. 474–477). 25 Bieleman (1992, pp. 239, 247). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 228–229, 237–238). 26 Carsten (1988, Chs 1, 4–5). Harnisch (1984; for nineteenth-century reforms). Schissler (1980, pp. 91–104). 27 Lütge (1966, p. 443). This estimate may still be too low (cf. Harnisch 1984, pp. 145–147; Wehler 1987, Part I, pp. 417–418). 28 Bentzien (1983, Ch. 3). Herz (1983, pp. 534–535). Lärmer and Beyer (1990, Section 3.4). For Mecklenburg, see Bentzien (1983, Ch. 4). For domain tenants, see Müller (1981). 29 Herz (1983, p. 530). 30 The vitality of the East Elbian estate farms has been subject to debate. Puhle (1975a, p. 43), referring to the heavy indebtedness of the estates, contended that they were already a loss-making enterprise. However, many debts made by the Junkers in this period served productive investments, and favourable results eased their redemption (Herz 1983, pp.

196

NOTES – CHAPTER 3

31 32 33

34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46

47 48

531–532; Schissler 1980, pp. 104–105). For the flourishing of the estate farms, see also Hermes (1930, pp. 131–137). Harnisch (1984, pp. 27–58; 1989). Lärmer and Beyer (1990, pp. 240–241, 266, 275–277). For Mecklenburg, see Bentzien (1983, Ch. 2). Herz (1983, pp. 530–531). A simultaneous increase in semi-proletarian smallholders and especially landless labourers reflected the increase in exploitation of labour on large farms (see also Harnisch 1984, pp. 282, 295, 302; Lärmer and Beyer 1990, pp. 238–239). For economic backgrounds, see e.g. Galenson (1984). Rothstein (1975, pp. 592–593). Wright (1970). This is true in spite of an increase in the share of small farms in the land value in areas with less favourable soil conditions. On the most fertile soils, however, larger plantations also increased their share in the land value. Conrad and Meyer (1958). Fogel and Engerman (1974, pp. 192ff.). Fogel (1989, pp. 72– 80). Fogel and Engerman (1977; 1980). The discussion about Fogel and Engerman (1974) is summarized by Bogue (1990). Fogel and Engerman (1974, pp. 197ff., 255). J. H. Moore (1986; 1988, Chs 1–4). Hurt (1982, pp. 101–102). Wik (1953, pp. 4–14). J. H. Moore (1986, pp. 3, 10, 14; 1988, pp. 30–36). Also Fogel and Engerman (1974, pp. 196–198). Planters have been blamed for ruining their soils (e.g. Trimble 1985, pp. 174– 175), but, in reality, their efforts limited the rapid exhaustion stimulated by natural conditions in the South (Rubin 1975). This goes against Mathew’s (1988) contention that slavery hampered rational measures to combat soil acidification. However, he concentrates on the old southeast, where the availability of virgin land in the old southwest made moving the more attractive option. Mathew refuses to admit this, but he only looks at expenses for marling or liming and to harvest gains achieved by it, without considering the costs of necessary supplementary measures like manuring or the costs involved in larger harvests themselves. Moreover, his judgment that better internal connections would have made marl transport profitable, and that the kind of rotation agriculture which benefited most by marling was profitable in this region too, are based on comparisons with Britain that do not take into account the much higher land prices in that country. Fogel and Engerman (1974, pp. 202–209). Cox (1948, pp. 96–97). Shlomowitz (1979, p. 563). Wage contracts were less universally used, however, than is assumed by Ransom and Sutch (1977, pp. 56–61). Irwin (1990). Ransom and Sutch (1977, p. 68), for instance, conclude that the plantation system had virtually disappeared by 1870. Virts (1987). See also Mandle (1983). Postbellum southern laws also considered sharecroppers subordinate to the planters (Woodman 1979). The existence of tenant plantations was not clear from the census data, however, as sharecroppers were counted as independent farmers. A survey of tenant plantations was first held in 1910. See e.g. J. H. Moore (1986, p. 16). See Wright (1974) for the part of lagging international demand and reduced cotton prices in southern stagnation.

197

NOTES – CHAPTER 3

49 Fuller (1939, Ch. 3). Liebman (1983, pp. 13–24). Also McWilliams (1939, pp. 49–59). For public land disposal in California, see Gates (1975), Pisani (1991, pp. 16–23). 50 Wik (1975). For the combine harvester, see also Hurt (1982, pp. 80–81), Rogin (1931, p. 120). 51 Mutch (1988, pp. 34–35). 52 Peek (1983). 53 C. Clark (1990, pp. 304–309). 54 See Keller (1985, pp. 332–336) for estate farms in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. See also the observation by Pedlow (1988, p. 273) of a continued expansion of estate farms in the adjacent Electorate of Hesse. 55 Wright (1988, p. 194). See also Atack (1989, pp. 11, 17) who, though optimistic about the ‘agricultural ladder’, presents evidence showing that, in 1860, farm labourers in the northeast were older than the tenants, and that more than half of those who were labourers at twenty could still expect to be so when fifty. 56 Danhof (1979). 57 Danhof (1969, especially pp. 139–141). 58 See Danhof (1941), Gates (1973, pp. 303–314) for the role of farm-making costs as an impediment. 59 Argersinger and Argersinger (1984, pp. 394–397). 60 Wright (1988, p. 193–194). 61 Gates (1973, Chs 5–7). 62 Gates (1973, p. 164). Shannon (1945, pp. 155–156). 63 Borcherdt et al. (1985, pp. 72–75). 64 Holt (1985). 65 Bieleman (1987, pp. 147–150). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 328–331). 66 Relative prices pushed the substitution of sheep farming for cattle raising in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. According to Mokyr (1983), the social unrest endemic in Ireland dissuaded employment-increasing investments by landowners and larger farmers. After the Famine, the persistence of yield losses caused by potato blight worked in the same direction (Solar 1989). 67 Hunter (1976, Chs 2–3). Richards (1985, Ch. 17). 68 See Hippel (1984, pp. 142–145) and Kamphoefner (1987, p. 15) for Germany, and Stokvis (1977) for the Netherlands. 69 See e.g. Donnelly (1975, Ch. 2) or Ó Gráda (1989) for Ireland, and Devine and Orr (1988) or Hunter (1976, Chs 4–5) for the Scottish Highlands and Islands. 70 This has been suggested for Ireland by Fitzpatrick (1980). 71 For the Scottish Highlands and Islands this has been made very clear by Richards (1985, especially Ch. 17). For Ireland, see Fitzpatrick (1980, pp. 74–75, 88), who in spite of himself, provides revealing information. Connaught, a disfavoured region with small farms, nevertheless shows a very high pre-Famine ratio of ‘labourers’ to farmers. After the Famine this ratio decreased much more rapidly than in the rest of the country. Conversely, in more favoured regions with commercial agriculture and larger farms, the ratio remained much higher. 72 For Ireland, see D. S. Jones (1977, Ch. 2; 1983, pp. 374–380); for the Scottish Highlands and Islands, see Richards (1984, Part 5). Also Donnelly (1975, pp. 111–120) for Cork; Jordan (1982, pp. 98–119; 1987, p. 327–334) for Mayo. This development can also

198

NOTES – CHAPTER 3

73

74

75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86 87 88

89 90 91

92 93 94

explain S. Clark’s (1979, pp. 112–119) impression that the decrease of labourers went hand in hand with their further proletarianization. Recently, O’Rourke (1991a; 1991b) has stressed wage increases as the cause of the shift to extensive animal production in the post-Famine period. This can help explain the continued emigration after the early 1850s, but not the eviction of smallholders in order to create larger farms. The evictions were concentrated during the Famine itself and the years immediately after. For the United Kingdom, see Bairoch (1989b, p. 13), Perren (1989, pp. 211–213), Tracy (1989, pp. 39–41). For the Netherlands, see Brugmans (1961, p. 143), Kramer (1940, pp. 195–212), Reens (1922, pp. 28–29), Vermeulen (1966, pp. 15–16, 17–22). Import duties on grain were finally abolished in 1877 in this country. Brugmans (1961, p. 209). Vermeulen (1966, pp. 12, 19–21). Also Brugmans (1961, p. 143). Bairoch (1976, pp. 40–42, 168–70, 297; 1989b, pp. 7–13). National accounts data in Mitchell (1988, p. 822). Pruns (1979, Section 3.3.3). Henning (1987, pp. 253–254). Benedict (1953, pp. 50–51). Benedict (1953, pp. 51–52). Cf. Benedict (1953, pp. 52–53). Even the Woollens Act apparently failed to improve prices for American sheep farmers. The putting of a duty upon wool not produced domestically but which was necessary for mixing with American wool raised the price of woollen goods, thereby restricting the demand for domestic wool (Ashley 1920, p. 186). Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 188–189). Demoed (1987, pp. 60–64). An earlier, but little-effective attempt had been made under the French occupation at the beginning of the century. Haushofer (1963, p. 58). Haushofer (1963, pp. 118–119). Wintle (1981). A complete termination followed after a new act in 1907. D. C. Moore (1965, pp. 554–555). Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 194–200). Phillips (1989, pp. 50–63). For the various drainage acts, see also Rohrer (1985, pp. 62–79). Public loans were made at 3.5 per cent interest. Twice, sums were set aside for it of 2 million pounds for Great Britain, appropriated in 1846 and 1850 respectively, with additional sums for Ireland. A larger amount was lent at about 4.5 per cent by private land improvement companies. Goddard (1989, pp. 382–383). Backgrounds in van der Poel (1949, Ch. 6). See, for Britain, e.g. Orwin and Whetham (1964, Chs 7, 10). For the Netherlands, see van der Poel (1976, passim), especially for farm education; also Huizinga (1943, pp. 236– 239), Löhnis (1913, pp. 43, 51–56). Rossiter (1976, p. 280). For government support of farm progress in the United States in this period, see e.g. Danhof (1969, pp. 65–68), Danbom (1986), Marcus (1988), Shannon (1945, Ch. 12). Competition with these interests caused the agrarians to advocate federal abstinence. Likewise Jefferson in his time had already opposed the establishment of Agricultural Boards (Danhof 1969, p. 65). Similarly, the southern states blocked an expansion of

199

NOTES – CHAPTER 3

95

96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111 112 113

114 115

116 117 118 119 120 121 122

federal support in the 1840s–1850s (Busch and Lacy 1983, pp. 8–9; Danbom 1986, p. 109; Shannon 1945, p. 273). Danhof (1969, pp. 66–68). Dupree (1957, pp. 110–113). Kloppenburg (1990, pp. 53–57). Complaints about the ineffectiveness of the office e.g. in Gates (1960, pp. 331–334), Rasmussen (1975, pp. 573–579). Cf. Rossiter (1979, p. 213). Shannon (1945, p. 270). Dupree (1957, pp. 152–157). Marcus (1988, p. 13). Dupree (1957, p. 151). Shannon (1945, pp. 274–275). The colleges are said to have paid more attention to classics and general sciences than to real agricultural teaching. For a survey of measures taken by German governments, see Pruns (1979). Fehér and Szabadváry (1982, p. 65). Grantham (1984). Pruns (1979, Sections, 2.3, 3.5). Pruns (1979, pp. 29, 37–38). In my opinion, these factors were more decisive than other ones indicated by Grantham (1984). Fehér and Szabadváry (1982, p. 65). Pruns (1979, pp. 184, 205). Pruns (1979, pp. 234–235). Pruns (1979, pp. 61, 159–160). It should also be noted that only part of German government expense for agriculture in this period was really development support. The major share of the budget of the Prussian ministry of agriculture served the settlement of the agrarian reforms (Pruns 1979, pp. 59–60). Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 189–190). Perkins (1983a). Also e.g. in Dovring’s book on land and labour in Europe (Dovring 1965a, pp. 241–242). Kolbert and O’Brien (1975, pp. 30–32). Vaughan (1985, p. 11). Winstanley (1984, p. 35). Zeller (1989, p. 311). Donnelly (1975, pp. 204, 210, 215). Kolbert and O’Brien (1975, p. 33). Winstanley (1984, p. 36). Zeller (1989, p. 313). The act also contained a tenant-purchase clause, but the effect was negligible. D. S. Jones (1977, pp. 39–49). Indeed, the Tenant League and Farmers’ Clubs that called for tenant rights in this period were dominated by larger farmers (S. Clark 1982). See e.g. A. W. Jones (1983), McQuiston (1973), Orwin and Whetham (1964, Ch. 7), Perkins (1975). Here, however, tenant right was considered by the government to be sufficiently provided for by local custom. Friedrich-Freksa (1982, pp. 266–267, 273–274). Gates (1968, Chs 9–10, 15). Also Benedict (1953, pp. 17–19). Gates (1941). For the extremely permissive land laws in California, see Gates (1975). Gates (1936). Shannon (1945, Ch. 3). For the effect of the Morrill Act, see Sauder and Sauder (1987). According to Shannon (1945, p. 64), some 10 per cent between 1860 and 1900. Cox (1958). Oubre (1978). Shannon (1945, Ch. 4). Also Ransom and Sutch (1977, pp. 81–82), Stampp (1965, pp. 123–131). A Southern Homestead Act was passed in 1866 restricting federal lands for homesteading, also by blacks. The act, however, was scarcely effective and Republican support for it

200

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123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135

136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144

145 146 147 148 149 150

151

dwindled. After ten years the crucial homesteading-only provision was repealed. (Oubre 1978, Chs 4–7; Lanza 1990). Flemming (1980, pp. 262–264). Vormbaum (1980, pp. 192–194). Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 69–73). Snell (1985, Ch. 3). The workhouse system was most operative in rural south England. In the Netherlands too, government support for labour diminished under the poor law of 1854 (van Tijn 1977, pp. 151–152). Only two suits were filed in the first twelve years of the law (Wunderlich 1961, p. 21; see also Haushofer 1963, p. 137). See e.g. Laslett (1989, pp. 516ff.) for Britain and the United States, Brugmans (1978, pp. 249–252) for the Netherlands. Flemming (1980, p. 266). Vormbaum (1980, pp. 211–212). Steinberg (1981, pp. 191–199). See e.g. McKeown (1989, pp. 357–366) for a short review of Corn Law repeal historiography. Tracy (1989, pp. 39–41). Beckett (1986, pp. 451–456). Schröder (1988, pp. 22–28). According to Schröder, the 1832 reform increased rather than restricted the political power of the landed gentry. Aydelotte (1967, p. 51). Beckett (1986, pp. 169–170). Ward (1966; for landowners in the West Riding). When Conservative landowners appeared willing to compromise on the issue, farmers started local protectionist societies. Only then was the national Agricultural Protectionist Society formed, led by aristocrats like Buckingham and Richmond (Crosby 1977, Ch. 5). See Crosby (1977, pp. 114–120) for the role of protection in the election of 1841. Aydelotte (1967, p. 54). Ward (1966, p. 256). Ward (1966). See also Spring’s (1954) denial that non-farm interests influenced the position of Earl Fitzwilliam, a leading figure in the repeal movement. Aydelotte (1967, pp. 54, 56). McKeown (1989, pp. 374–376). Goddard (1988, pp. 12–16, 22). D. C. Moore (1965, pp. 547–549). D. C. Moore (1965, pp. 553–555). D. C. Moore (1965, pp. 557ff.). High farming advocates were sometimes rather open about this (D. C. Moore 1965, p. 551). It was also an important argument against repeal in the discussions in the Commons (Crosby 1977, pp. 140–141). D. C. Moore (1965, pp. 550, 553). Cf. estimate in Fairlie (1969, p. 106), which, however, being purposely conservative, may be somewhat too low. Crosby (1977, Ch. 6). Crosby (1977, Ch. 7). Attwood (1963, pp. 129–130). The decision process of Dutch repeal is described by Vermeulen (1966, Ch. 2). Among the agrarians supporting repeal were Gevers van Endegeest, chairman of the Agricultural Society of Holland, Sloet tot Oldhuis, initiator of the Dutch Agricultural Congress, van den Bosch, manager of a large corporate farm, and the well-known agronomist Staring (Bouman 1946, pp. 156–157; Veldink 1970, p. 57; Vermeulen 1966, p. 24). Vermeulen (1966, p. 19).

201

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152 Data in Pilat (1989) and van Zanden (1985, pp. 220–222). For livestock and meat exports, see also Reens (1922, pp. 58–59). 153 Priester (1991, p. 368). 154 E.g. from the Provincial Council of Groningen (Doornbosch 1895, pp. 159–165). 155 De Jonge (1968, p. 328). 156 For the Junkers see Frauendorfer (1963, p. 366), Meyer (1986, p. 18), also Ashley (1920, pp. 18. 29). For the planters, see Benedict (1953, pp. 44ff.). Earlier in the century, planters had supported tariff protection of cotton yarn, especially the introduction of a ‘minimum’ in 1816 (see Lebergott 1984, pp. 145–147). Contrary to his assertions, however, the initiative came not from the planters, but from textile manufacturer Lowell (Temin 1988, p. 897). From the 1830s planters became consistent free traders. 157 In 1861 the German Customs Union (Zollverein) established a restitution of the beet tax on the export of sugar that, because of a systematic underrating of the sugar content of beets, was in fact an export subsidy. Besides, the government granted the beet sugar industry rebates on railway tariffs (Pruns 1979, pp. 274–279, 304–305). 158 Beard and Beard (1954, Part I, p. 679). Gates (1960, pp. 325–327). 159 Benedict (1953, pp. 46–51). W. A. Williams (1969, pp. 89–90). 160 See e.g. Pruns (1979, pp. 52–62) for the conceptions behind the Prussian Board of Agriculture, or Danhof (1969, pp. 66–67) for the views of Ellsworth of the US Patent Office. 161 See p. 43 for Britain. For Europe generally, see also the overview of farm innovations by Dovring (1965b). 162 Cf. van Zanden (1985, pp. 253–254). 163 For the agricultural societies, see for Britain e.g. Goddard (1981; 1988; 1991) and Watson (1939). A similar picture is given by Wilmot (1990), although she emphasizes that a tendency of professionalization already existed. See further e.g. Haushofer (1963, Section I.9) and Pruns (1979, Section 3.5) for Germany, Bouman (1943b) for the Netherlands, and Danhof (1969, pp. 60–64), Gray (1941, pp. 782–788), Rossiter (1976) and Scott (1970, pp. 9–17) for the United States. 164 See e.g. Pruns (1979, p. 142) or Schling-Brodersen (1989, pp. 220–221) for the German societies. 165 For the agricultural press, see e.g. Goddard (1989, pp. 361–370; 1991) for Britain, Kocks and van der Poel (1979, pp. VIII-XIV) for the Netherlands, Danhof (1969, pp. 54–59) and Marti (1980) for the United States. 166 Danhof (1969, p. 58). 167 Danhof (1969, pp. 58–59). 168 Marcus (1986, p. 26). 169 See Tattersfield (1985) for the agricultural college at Cirencester, Goudswaard (1986, pp. 98–106) and van der Poel (1976, Ch. 3) for that in Groningen, Böhm (1988, pp. 3–6) and Pruns (1979, Section 3.6) for those in Germany. In Cirencester, students came from the upper classes and were not obliged to do manual labour (Tattersfield 1985, pp. 290ff.). The American land grant colleges were initially meant by Morrill for direct instruction to the agricultural and industrial labouring classes. Only some years after 1862 did he begin to stress their scientific character (Dupree 1957, pp. 150–151). 170 Tattersfield (1985). Also J. D. Sykes (1981, pp. 267–268). 171 Goudswaard (1986, pp. 104, 136–140). Van der Poel (1976, pp. 39, 93). 172 Cf. Marcus (1986, pp. 28–32).

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173 Liebig thought that fertilizers should have low solubility and maintained that plants could not absorb soil nitrogen. For the scientific debate, see e.g. Herrmann (1985a, pp. 143–146); Schling-Brodersen (1989, Ch. 2); Snelders (1984). Other scientific failures were that of English veterinary surgeons to recognize the infectious and contagious character of foot-and-mouth disease and pleuropneumonia (Fisher 1982), or the USDA’s denial that Texas fever was carried by ticks (Dupree 1957, p. 154). Cf. more general remarks by Rossiter (1976, pp. 281–282), Sykes (1981, p. 262). 174 Marcus (1988, p. 14). Van der Poel (1976, p. 93). For the farm entrepreneurs’ reaction against soil analysis, see e.g. Rossiter (1975, pp. 120–123), for the United States. 175 Noack (1979). Also Böhm (1988, pp. 6–11), Haushofer (1963, pp. 157–158, 162–163). 176 Schling-Brodersen (1989, pp. 159–169). The suggestion that the experiment stations were scientific research centres as proposed by Liebig (e.g. Herrmann 1985a, pp. 146– 148) is not correct. 177 See e.g. Goddard (1991, pp. 176ff.). 178 Van der Poel (1976, pp. 45–46, 91–95). Veldink (1970, Ch. 6). 179 This amendment, proposed by Begram, chairman of the Agricultural Society of Holland, stipulated that no public agricultural school was to be established as long as the need for farm education was filled by an existing school. The latter referred to the practicaltheoretical school at Groningen. (Goudswaard 1986, pp. 115–116; van der Poel 1976, p. 92). 180 Marcus (1986, pp. 22–24, 33–34). See also Danhof’s (1969, p. 72) remark that before about 1870 the new scientific approach to farm innovation had little impact. 181 Fehér and Szabadváry (1982, pp. 64–65). Sykes (1981, p. 264). 182 E.g. Grantham (1984, pp. 192, 196). 183 Fehér and Szabadváry (1982, pp. 65–66). Schling-Brodersen (1989, pp. 139–158). 184 Some confusion can be caused by the vocabulary that was used then. Agronomists often spoke about ‘small farms’ when referring to small capitalist farms, with two or three hired workers. Real family farms were dismissed as ‘dwarf farms’ (Cf. e.g. Frauendorfer 1963, pp. 229–231). 185 See e.g. his reaction to British land reformers (Roscher 1878, p. 278). Also Frauendorfer (1963, p. 416). 186 Frauendorfer (1963, pp. 242, 462). Thaer’s ‘rational husbandry’ (Thaer 1809–1812) referred almost exclusively to estate farms. 187 Mingay (1968, pp. XXIV-XXVI). According to Beckett (1983, p. 323), by the midnineteenth century agricultural writers in Britain agreed that large farms were not the answer to all problems. However, the ‘moderately sized’ farms favoured by the spokesman he cites ranged from 250 to 500 acres. 188 See discussion at the Dutch Agricultural Congress of 1870 (Nederlandsch Landhuishoudkundig Congres 1870, pp. 88–89). The question of farm size seems to have attracted little attention in the Netherlands in this period. Staring’s handbook (Staring 1862) does not mention it at all. 189 Cf. Appleby (1982). 190 In Jefferson’s ‘Notes on the State of Virginia’ (1964) no references to family farms are found whatsoever. Where he advocates a shift from tobacco to wheat, he points to the advantages for the agricultural ‘laborers’ (ibid., p. 159). 191 Mill (1909, Book II, Chs 6–10). 192 Ho (1952, pp. 8–9). Cf. Levy (1966, pp. 73–74).

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193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200

201

202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218

219 220 221 222 223 224 225

Quack (1977, Part II, Ch. 4; 1977, Part V, Ch. 3). Haushofer (1963, pp. 143–148, 172). Lehmann (1970, pp. 1–7). Mitrany (1951, pp. 23–28). Dolgoff (1973, pp. 359–362). Caird (1878, p. 296). While enclosure activity in these regions culminated after 1800, protests against it diminished (Charlesworth 1983, pp. 52–53). Archer (1989). Jones (1989a). Hadfield (1970). See e.g. Zeller (1989, Section 5.3) for the pre-Famine secret societies in Ireland, and Richards (1985, Parts 3–4) for the resistance against clearances in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. The Rebecca riots in Wales (1839–1844), which were prompted by resistance to toll-gates, were likewise rooted in wider grievances, among which those of small farmers on the land question rated high (D. J. V. Jones 1989b, especially pp. 327–331). This was also reflected in a transformation of agrarian protest. In Ireland, in particular, pre-Famine movements of small peasants gave way to organizations dominated by larger farmers (Clark 1982; Jordan 1987; Zeller 1989, Section 5.7.3). Keller (1985, pp. 336–337). Bleiber and Schmidt (1985, pp. 100–103). Koch (1983, pp. 381, 393). Wehler (1987, Part II, pp. 710–712). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 152–166). Benedict (1953, p. 18). Cochrane (1984, pp. 58ff.). Friedmann (1978, p. 583). Lebergott (1984, p. 80). Beard and Beard (1954, Part II, pp. 114, 128–129). Benedict (1953, p. 19). Jaynes (1986, pp. 11–15). Flemming (1980, p. 262). Vormbaum (1980, p. 192). Charlesworth (1983, p. 162). B. Moore (1968). Mayer (1981). Cf. Press (1988, pp. 14–15). Girvetz (1983, p. 848). Schröder (1988, pp. 40–42). E.g. B. Moore (1968, pp. 29–39), Schröder (1988, pp. 47–55, 67–71), Spring (1977, pp. 15–17). Coleman (1988, pp. 77–79). Coleman (1988, p. 119). Crosby (1977, Ch. 6). Coleman (1988, p. 121). See e.g. Adamson (1984, pp. 211–213) for Wales, or Bew and Wright (1983) for Ulster. In the latter, though, the Liberals were slow to take up the issue. Even in England tenant rights began to generate tensions between farmers and the Conservative leadership (McQuiston 1973, p. 106). E.g. B. Moore (1968, Ch. 8), Rosenberg (1966), Spring (1977, pp. 15–17). For critical comments, see Schissler (1980, pp. 109–124). Heffter (1969, pp. 223–224). Kehr (1976b, pp. 83–86). Werner (1986). Kehr (1976b, pp. 85–86). Börner (1976, pp. 89, 92). Nipperdey (1984, p. 683). Hermes (1940, pp. 135–136). Ashley (1920, pp. 18, 29). Heffter (1969, p. 350). Hermes (1930, p. 136). Kindleberger (1975, pp. 41–47).

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226 Koch (1983). Wehler (1987, Part II, pp. 706–715). It is not always realized that the urban revolt was preceded by an agrarian one which was, in fact, more threatening to the ruling powers. 227 Schmidt (1985). 228 Hardach (1987, pp. 291–292). 229 Boogman (1978, p. 30). Van Tijn (1971, pp. 171, 181, 188). 230 See e.g. illustrative data in H. de Vries (1975, pp. 121–122). 231 Vermeulen (1966, p. 24). 232 De Jonge (1968, p. 328). 233 E.g. Hahn (1983, pp. 91–105), Oakes (1984). 234 Beard and Beard (1954, Part I, pp. 665–667, 674–676). 235 Beard and Beard (1954, Part I, pp. 579–580, 678–689; Part II, pp. 19–21). 236 C. C. Taylor (1953, Chs 5–8). Also Benedict (1953, pp. 53, 95ff.). 237 See e.g. Press (1988) for the continuity of aristocratic political power in Europe, including the United Kingdom, in this period. 238 Beckett (1986, pp. 456–460). Schröder (1988). 239 Schröder (1988, pp. 27, 69–70). 240 Coleman (1988, pp. 77–79, 87). 241 Coleman (1988, p. 87). 242 Coleman (1988, pp. 131–145). 243 Schissler (1980, pp. 113–114, 120). 244 Nipperdey (1984, pp. 697–702). Also Börner (1976). 245 Nipperdey (1984, pp. 702, 757–758, 762). 246 Böhme (1974, Parts 1–2). Meyer (1986). 247 Born (1985, pp. 123–124). Carsten (1988, pp. 122, 123, 125, 127). Nipperdey (1984, p. 766). 248 E.g. Böhme (1978, pp. 54–55). 249 See e.g. Gerschenkron (1966, pp. 42–43) or Rosenberg (1966, pp. 299–301) for such suggestions. 250 Schroor (1988). Van Tijn (1971). 251 Van Tijn (1971, pp. 188, 193). The estrangement of Catholics and Liberals from the mid-1860s was caused, as far as economic reasons were concerned, not by landowners, but by protectionist manufacturers (ibid., p. 192). 252 Tamse (1977, pp. 409–412). 253 Davis and North (1971, pp. 65–67).

CHAPTER 4. c. 1873 TO LATE 1890s: THE WATERSHED 1 The character of this period has been subject to much debate. In the United Kingdom, it has traditionally been referred to as the ‘Great Depression’. This has provoked criticism by authors such as S. B. Saul (1969), who dismissed the notion, reducing it to a more lasting deceleration of UK economic growth. This had already begun before 1870 and continued after 1900. Other authors have pointed to the continuity of industrial growth in other countries. Indeed, a general characterization of this period as a ‘great depression’ is much overstated. But it does not alter the fact that even in Germany and the United States growth rates remained less than those of the preceding and subsequent periods (see e.g. Gordon et al. 1984, p. 43). Furthermore, Greasley (1986), on the basis of revised data,

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2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

concludes that British growth between 1873 and 1896 has been overrated, and before and after that time, underrated. Accordingly, in this country too, 1873–1896 was a specific phase of decelerated growth. Van der Meer (1983, p. 43). See e.g. for the United States, Timoshenko (1930). Bairoch (1976, pp. 296–307; 1989b, pp. 46–51). Kuczynski (1987, pp. 86, 94). The United Kingdom has adopted a gold standard in 1821. In the 1870s, its example was followed by many other countries, including Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. Beukenkamp (1945, pp. 128, 151). Smid (1897, Ch. II). For sources, definitions and caveats, also with respect to subsequent figures, see p. 42 and the appendix. See approximate data in Knibbe (1993, p. 125). D. C. North (1974, pp. 130–131). Cochrane (1984, pp. 93ff.). Lebergott (1984, pp. 306–308). Shannon (1945, p. 305). Cf. van de Meer (1987a). For 1891, the index number of labour productivity is 100.8, meaning that between this year and 1900 (the base year) there was no further increase. Wade (1981). Cf. Ó Gráda (1981, pp. 178–179), van Zanden (1991, pp. 229–230). Cf. Offer (1989, p. 95). Andrews (1979, p. 72). Collins (1986, pp. 64, 69). Grigg (1989, pp. 72–73, 245). Van Zanden (1991, pp. 224, 231–232). Brown (1987, p. 52). Collins (1986, p. 69). Grigg (1989, pp. 63–64, 87). Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 246, 265). Perry (1974, pp. 107–113). Grigg (1989, p. 34). Orwin and Whetham (1964, p. 265). Phillips (1989, Ch. 4). Herrman (1985b, p. 209; 1985c, p. 29). Lane (1980, pp. 99, 155). Parker and Klein (1966). The primary importance of reclamation and mechanization is confirmed by Atack and Bateman (1984; 1987, Ch. 11), although they attribute a somewhat greater part to improvements in yields. Helling (1966). The rise of grain yields likewise decelerated in this period (see also Haushofer 1963, p. 194). See, for Germany, e.g. Müller (1985, pp. 178–187) and Perkins (1981); for the Netherlands, see Bieleman (1987, pp. 398–411, 540–560) and van Zanden (1985, pp. 284–285, 294– 297). Statistical data in Mitchell (1975, pp. 204, 207, 215, 219, 299, 301). Cf. Bairoch (1989a, pp. 320, 328–330), van Zanden (1991, pp. 219–220). For the central river clay area and south Limburg, see van Zanden (1985, pp. 303–305). For the livestock sector see also remarks on p. 170. For the influence of location, see e.g. the survey of farming systems in Europe in Pounds (1985, pp. 295–297). Grigg (1989, pp. 44–45). Offer (1989, pp. 96–97). Ó Gráda (1981, pp. 181–182, 193). Perry (1974, p. 112). Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 246–247). Perkins (1981, p. 78). See e.g. for Britain, D. Taylor (1987); also Grigg (1989, pp. 218–219), Perry (1974, pp. 114–115). Orwin and Whetham (1964, Chs 9–10). Also Thompson (1991, pp. 228–232).

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32 Ballwanz (1978, pp. 92–94). In 1879–1885 the rise of grain yields in Bavaria exceeded that in eastern East Elbia; in 1885–1892 it exceeded that of East Elbia as a whole. 33 Van Zanden (1985, p. 133). For the province of Groningen, van Zanden’s findings have been criticized by Priester (1991, pp. 476–478), whose own findings, however, have been critically influenced by a periodization (1815–1862, 1862–1888, 1888–1910) which does not allow isolating the influence of the agricultural crisis from that of the pre-crisis years. 34 Parker (1979). Shannon (1945, pp. 113, 415). 35 Orwin and Whetham (1964, Chs 9–10). 36 E.g. Fite (1980, pp. 190–191; 1986), Fogel (1989, p. 100), Ransom and Sutch (1972; 1975), Shannon (1945, pp. 89–95). 37 That debt peonage blocked diversification in the southern United States has been refuted by DeCanio (1974); see also Fishback (1989). And technical complexities cannot explain why mechanization and labour productivity growth in this region made reasonable advances up to about 1880 (Lebergott 1984, pp. 299, 301), but later stagnated. 38 For statistical evidence for the United Kingdom, see Mitchell (1988, p. 158) and Williamson (1982, p. 17); for Germany, see Mitchell (1975, pp. 185, 192); for the United States, see Cox (1948, p. 111) and Lebergott (1964, pp. 539–541). The shift from wage labour to sharecropping in the southern United States involved a similar development (Wright 1978, p. 162). No exact data are available for the Netherlands, but more qualitative material (e.g. van Tijn 1978a, pp. 79–81) points in the same direction (see also figures for Groningen in Priester 1991, pp. 198, 200). It should also be noted that the reduction of working hours in agriculture likewise lagged behind that in industry (see e.g. Armstrong 1981a, pp. 81–82 for Britain). 39 For Germany, see e.g. Perkins (1983b, pp. 13ff.); for the Netherlands, see Bouman (1946, pp. 241ff.), Priester (1991, pp. 165, 172, 178–180) and van Tijn (1978a, p. 81); and for the United States, see Cox (1948). In England the use of casual and female labour seems to have fallen (W. A. Armstrong 1981b, pp. 495–497; A. Armstrong 1988, p. 123; Orwin and Whetham 1964, p. 256; see, however, Haresign 1983, p. 29). However, the replacement of living-in servants by temporary workers, traditionally placed earlier in the century, appears to have occurred largely during this period (Short 1984). 40 See estimates in L. V. Fuller (1939, pp. 130–131), Majka and Majka (1982, p. 32). 41 Bade (1980; 1982). Perkins (1981, p. 106). Between 1885 and 1890 the immigration of Polish workers was forbidden, but the measure proved not very effective, and at the insistence of the Junkers it was allowed to lapse. 42 Drache (1964). Shannon (1945, pp. 156–161). Whitten (1983, pp. 99–102). 43 See e.g. Brown (1987, p. 56), Offer (1989, pp. 114–115) or Perry (1974, pp. 102–104) for Britain, Buchsteiner (1987, p. 42) for Mecklenburg, or van der Poel (1959, pp. 173–177) for the Wilhelminapolder in the Netherlands. 44 Offer (1989, Ch. 8). Similarly van Zanden (1991, pp. 236–338). See also data presented by Turner (1991, pp. 422–428) showing that agricultural output and productivity developed much more favourably in Ireland, where small farms prevailed, than in Great Britain during this period. 45 The rise in productivity of German agriculture was based on increased application of capital and labour to land. According to Webb (1978, p. 100; 1982, p. 326), without protection this intensification process would have slowed down. The relation between protection and intensification is denied by Perkins, who sees the intensification in Germany and the shift to livestock in the United Kingdom as a mere continuation of earlier, apparently autonomous trends (Perkins 1981, pp. 74–77). The continuation of

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46

47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

agricultural productivity increase in Germany compared to its cessation in the United Kingdom, however, renders this view less plausible. Some authors suggest that the stagnation of agricultural productivity in the United Kingdom, as against the progress in Denmark or the Netherlands, was caused by the lack of an agricultural development policy (e.g. Tracy 1989, pp. 23, 32; Wade 1981, pp. 272– 276). However, this argument ignores the fact that in these two countries such a policy did not become really effective until the twentieth century. See figure in Grigg (1987, p. 184). Also Grigg (1989, p. 111). F. D. W. Taylor (1955, p. 40). Puhle (1975a, p. 37). For the Netherlands, the numbers refer to the share of hired workers in the active male farm population (van Zanden 1985, p. 332). No occupational census was held in this country between 1859 and 1889. See pp. 44, 49. See e.g. Grigg (1989, pp. 145–148) or Haresign (1983, pp. 27–29) on the changed character of the decrease of farm labourers. US Bureau of the Census (1976, p. 461). Wright (1978, Ch. 6). Gates (1973, pp. 164ff.). Shannon (1945, pp. 155–156). Liebman (1983, pp. 51–56). Benedict (1953, p. 21). Fulton (1982, Ch. 3). Opie (1989, pp. 244–248). Drache (1964, Ch. 8). Fulton (1982, pp. 16, 34). Rothstein (1975, p. 595). Shannon (1945, pp. 154–161, 225). Whitten (1983, pp. 102, 106). Offer (1989, p. 115). See e.g. Buchsteiner (1987a, p. 42; 1987b, pp. 37–47) for Mecklenburg and Pomerania. Ransom and Sutch (1977, pp. 73–78). Drache (1964, pp. 212ff.). Gates (1973, p. 165). Shannon (1945, p. 156). See e.g. Levy (1966) for England, or van Zanden (1985, pp. 335–337; 1988) for the Netherlands. See p. 27. Fletcher (1961b, pp. 429–430). Perry (1974, pp. 134–177). Puhle (1975a, p. 46). Wehler (1977, p. 143). Blink (1904, pp. 325–326). Vermeulen (1966, pp. 76–77). Teichmann (1955, pp. 597–598). See data in Henning (1987, pp. 153–154). Hendon (1976, pp. 227–228). J. C. Hunt (1973, p. 314). Teichmann (1955, pp. 598– 599). Teichmann (1955, pp. 319–327). Teichmann (1955, pp. 402ff.). Henning (1987, pp. 255–256). E.g. Brentano (1925, pp. 53–54), Gerschenkron (1966, pp. 68–70), Tracy (1989, pp. 97– 98). Cf. also Teichmann (1955, pp. 204ff.). The import certificates were a response to high transport costs which separated the grain surplus areas in the east from the deficit areas in the west of the country. These made it advantageous to export eastern grain to Scandinavian ports and import foreign grain in the west, so that grain tariffs in the east were not entirely effective. The first response was to subsidize internal transport, but this sacrificed efficiency. Therefore it was dropped in favour of the certificates policy, which made protection in the east effective without disturbing the regional flows of imports and exports (Teichmann 1955, pp. 196–204).

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74 Although introduced for veterinary reasons, this limitation had some protectionist effect. However, it remained restricted because meat imports remained free (Perry 1974, p. 132; Reens 1922, p. 69). 75 Blink (1904, pp. 329–330). De Jonge (1968, p. 49). 76 Benedict (1953, pp. 57). Shannon (1945, pp. 195–196). 77 Ashley (1920, pp. 227–228). Benedict (1953, pp. 57, 59). The act authorized the president to impose duties on sugar, molasses, coffee, tea and hides from those countries with trade policies that were detrimental to American export interests. This clause helped to secure greater access for US farm products in a number of Latin American countries. It also helped to end a boycott of American pork by Germany, which was sending increasing quantities of sugar to the US (Ashley 1920, p. 228; Gignilliat 1961, p. 12). 78 Dupree (1957, pp. 164–165). 79 Gignilliat (1961, pp. 10–12). 80 Haushofer (1963, p. 198). 81 Pruns (1979, pp. 128–129). 82 Haushofer (1963, p. 197–198). 83 Rossiter (1979, p. 213). 84 Kerr (1987, pp. 11–16). Marcus (1988, p. 16). 85 Fehér and Szabadváry (1982, p. 66). For the adoption and implementation of the Hatch Act, see Kerr (1987, pp. 17–44). 86 Dupree (1957, pp. 157–169). Rossiter (1979, pp. 216ff.). Also Rasmussen (1990, pp. 292–294). Number in Wiser (1990, p. 30). 87 Shannon (1945, pp. 277–280). The growth of lower farm education was stimulated by the Hatch Act which had this as an additional purpose (G. E. Moore 1988; Moss and Lass 1988). 88 Benedict (1953, pp. 125–126). 89 Cf. Danbom (1986, p. 110) and Rossiter (1979, pp. 212–214), who point to the forced expansion of government-sponsored farm research in this period. 90 The agricultural college fell short of legal requirements and could not even train teachers for secondary farm schools (van der Poel 1976, pp. 123, 125). The experiment station, although intended for scientific research, remained bogged down in testing fertilizers and seeds (Maltha 1976, p. 50). 91 Directie van de Landbouw (1907). Goudswaard (1986, pp. 147–150, 165–177). Van der Poel (1976, Ch. 8). Vredeveld (1984, Ch. 6). 92 Like the situation in the United States, this expansion was forced from above rather than arising organically from below. Special measures were needed to fill shortages of qualified personnel which soon appeared on various levels. See e.g. Directie van de Landbouw (1907, p. 67), Rijkens (1913, pp. 122–123). 93 Before 1889, new initiatives were limited to acts for controlling the adulteration of seed, and for slaughtering diseased livestock. New agricultural colleges were established, but privately funded. In 1889, a Technical Instruction Act allowed county councils to impose a penny rate for technical education. In the same year a Board of Agriculture was established, but with no more than £60,000 to spend, of which £5,000 was for education (Richards 1988, p. 176; Rohrer 1985, pp. 173, 191; J. D. Sykes 1981, p. 268). 94 Orwin and Whetham (1964, p. 376). Richards (1988, p. 174). 95 Richards (1988, pp. 172–173, 175). 96 The Hatch Act provided $15,000 per year to each state or territory. The second Morrill Act equally provided $15,000, rising to $25,000 in 1900 (Shannon 1945, pp. 277, 281).

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97 Richards (1988, pp. 172–173). 98 The act of 1875 had little effect because compensation was limited and landlords were left with the possibility of contracting out. However, this changed with the act of 1883. (McQuiston 1973, p. 108; Orwin and Whetham 1964, pp. 171–172, 247; Rohrer 1985, pp. 166–172). 99 See Bew (1982) on the dominance of larger farmers in the Land League Movement which enforced the act. 100 Bew (1979, pp. 235–236). Donnelly (1975, pp. 286–287). Kolbert and O’Brien (1975, pp. 35–36). 101 D. S. Jones (1977, pp. 166–167, 294). Cf. Crotty (1966, Ch. IV). In England and Wales, a comparable effect was produced by the Settled Land Acts (1882, 1890), which facilitated the sale of endebted estates. For the Ashbourne Act and follow-up legislation, see Kolbert and O’Brien (1975, pp. 37–38); also Winstanley (1984, pp. 40–41). 102 Some minor measures had already been taken to facilitate land use by farm labourers (Allotments Extension Act 1882, Irish Labourers’ Act 1883), but these were of little importance. 103 Hunter (1976, pp. 161–163, 180). MacCuish (1987, pp. 90–91). W. Orr (1982, p. 62). Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 296–297). Richards (1982, p. 500). The act excluded most sheep lands and deer forests, and did not allow the creation of new crofts. Nevertheless, it did form a break in existing policies as is evidenced by its divergence from the advice by a Royal Commission (1884) to enlarge viable crofters’ holdings by phasing out the smallest crofts and assisting emigration (Hunter 1976, p. 146; Orwin and Whetham 1964, pp. 295–296). In Ireland too, a Congested Districts Board was established in 1891 with limited funds to acquire land for enlarging smallholdings in the congested western counties. However, it lacked the compulsory powers of the Scottish Crofters’ Commission (Kolbert and O’Brien 1975, pp. 43–44). 104 These compulsory powers were still very restricted. A more effective allotments measure was contained in the Local Government Act of 1894 (Bone 1975, p. 656; Hasbach 1966, p. 320–321; Ho 1952, p. 120). 105 Bone (1975, pp. 659–661). 106 Haushofer (1963, pp. 183–189). Schreiner (1974, pp. 48–61). 107 Shannon (1945, p. 60). 108 Gates (1968, pp. 466–488). Opie (1987, pp. 78–79, 81–83). See also Rothstein (1975, p. 595), Shannon (1945, p. 73). In spite of Cleveland’s order, the evasion of the Homestead Act in the western plains continued, sometimes facilitated by state laws. Natural conditions made this part of the country unfit for arable production on 160-acre farms, and forced the development of extensive ranch production (Benedict 1953, p. 125; Fulton 1982, pp. 24ff.; Shannon 1945, Ch. 9, especially pp. 215–220). 109 Rasmussen (1975, pp. 1172–1175). Shannon (1945, pp. 60, 73). See also Opie (1987, pp. 83–84). 110 Some municipalities, however, did acquire land for allotment to unemployed (H. de Vries 1987, p. 193). A Marks Act in 1886 still fitted into the older type of land legislation which encouraged enclosure and divisions of commons. 111 Rohrer (1985, pp. 174–177). 112 Polish workers in East Elbia were bound to a particular employer, lost their permit if they broke their contract, and were deported when the season was over (Bade 1982, p. 194). In the American South, ‘enticing’ farm labourers or sharecroppers by offering better conditions was made a criminal offence. Sharecroppers were also deprived of their

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113 114

115 116

117

118 119 120

121 122 123 124 125 126 127

128 129 130 131 132

133 134 135 136

independent right to a share of the product, so that they were forced to comply with all kinds of landlords’ prescriptions (see e.g. Flynn 1983, Ch. 4; Jaynes 1986, Ch. 15). Chinese in California were excluded from most non-agricultural jobs, forcing them to accept oppressive conditions in agriculture (McWilliams 1939, pp. 70ff.). E.g. Flemming (1978, pp. 55ff.), Puhle (1975b, pp. 246–251). In the United States the repression of farm workers was often no less harsh than in Germany. This was true not only for workers in the plantation South and California, but for migrant labour in the midwest (see Argersinger and Argersinger 1984). Union rights generally remained more restricted than in the United Kingdom or the Netherlands (cf. Laslett 1989, pp. 517ff.). Flemming (1980, pp. 271–272). Saul (1983, pp. 149–158). Chambers and Mingay (1966, p. 196). Orwin and Whetham (1964, p. 335). The relation between farm depression and the decline of the NALU is stressed by Hasbach (1966, pp. 290ff.). Haushofer (1963, pp. 189–190). The Health Insurance Act (1883) stipulated that farm workers could be included by local statute or state legislation, but this possibility was not extensively used (Ritter 1983, p. 124; Vormbaum 1980, pp. 258–263). For the agrarian opposition, see Ritter (id. p. 34), Vogel (1951, pp. 45–46). MacKinnon (1984, pp. 22–30, 66ff., 144–147, 327–331; 1987, pp. 603–606). See also Horn (1984a, pp. 100ff.), Metz (1988, pp. 233, 235). In Prussia a Department of Agriculture had existed since 1848. On a national level, the German Agricultural Council (Deutsche Landwirtschaftsrat), founded in 1872, was important as an intermediary between government and agrarian interests. This institution, however, remained on a private basis. Mollerus (1932, pp. 72–76, 323). See also the discussion chapter at the end of this study. See p. 78. Dyson (1986, p. 245). Williams (1969, pp. 32–34, 332–337). The insertion of a reciprocity clause came too late to sway the farmers. For the activities and demands of the Grangers, see e.g. Benedict (1953, pp. 95–105), Dyson (1986, pp. 233–241), Shannon (1945, pp. 295–311) or Taylor (1953, Chs 7–9). For the agrarian soft money movement, the Farmers’ Alliance and the populist revolt, see e.g. Dyson (1986, pp. 192–202), Goodwyn (1976; 1978), Hicks (1931) or Taylor (1953, Chs 9–12). Goodwyn (1976, pp. 152–153, 166–167). Taylor (1953, pp. 243–246). E.g. Havens (1986, pp. 27–30), Puhle (1975a, pp. 122, 130), Wehler (1974, pp. 19–24), and, most pronouncedly, Williams (1969). Cf. Frundt (1975, pp. 38–43). Goodwyn (1976, pp. 193–194). C. C. Taylor (1953, p. 234). Cf. Howe (1986, pp. 116–117) for the Grange and Goodwyn (1978, Chs 5, 7) for the Farmers’ Alliance. For an empirical study of the two currents and their attitudes in the Alliance movement, see Argersinger (1988). Crapol and Schonberger (1972, pp. 152–154). Frundt (1975, p. 27). Crapol and Schonberger (1972, pp. 150–152, 154–157). Williams (1969, pp. 183ff.). Crapol and Schonberger (1972, pp. 178–180). Havens (1986, pp. 28–29). Williams (1969, pp. 197–202, 212–215). Williams (1969, pp. 227–228).

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137 For a quantitative study of the relation between farm exports fluctuations and general business cycles in the United States, see Timoshenko (1930). 138 Frundt (1975, pp. 36–39). Havens (1986, pp. 29–30). Williams (1969, pp. 208–209, 303). 139 In 1890 the Republicans finally conceded to the agrarian interests with the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, but three years later it was repealed by the Democrats under Cleveland. 140 The depression of 1873, which occurred in spite of strongly raised tariffs, further discredited the home market argument in the eyes of the farmers. As a reaction, northern farmers too began to criticize industrial tariffs as a device to line the purse of big manufacturers at the expense of the rest of the nation. Benedict (1953, p. 53). Williams (1969, pp. 182–183, 193). C. C. Taylor (1953, pp. 229, 230, 232). 141 Whereas in preceding decades the democratic advocacy of low tariffs had served agrarian interests, Cleveland’s pursuit of it in the 1880s–1890s was primarly inspired by the wish to cheapen raw materials for industry. Cf. Ashley (1920, p. 214), Williams (1969, pp. 314–316). 142 Crapol and Schonberger (1972, pp. 174–176). Williams (1969, passim). 143 Williams (1969, Ch. 14). 144 Cf. Dupree (1957, pp. 161–163). 145 Dupree (1957, pp. 164ff.). Williams (1969, pp. 227–228, 300). 146 Cf. Rossiter (1979, pp. 215–216). See also Danbom (1986, p. 110), Dupree (1957, pp. 169–170) and Marcus (1985, Chs 6–7). 147 For the attitudes of farmers’ organizations, especially the Grange, see e.g. Scott (1970, Ch. 2). The urban base of the farm research and education lobby is stressed by Danbom (1986, pp. 110–111). 148 The differences of opinion between agricultural scientists and progressive farm entrepreneurs, and their tussle over the Hatch Act, are extensively documented in Marcus (1985). See also Marcus (1988, pp. 14–17). 149 The demand for protection at the base of Dutch farmers’ organizations has not been sufficiently recognized by the standard historiography of the episode. Yet calls for protective tariffs have been reported from several places in Groningen (Vermeulen 1966, p. 45; Addens 1950, pp. 158–159), Zeeland (Bouman 1946, pp. 455–456), western North Brabant (van Loon 1951, p. 35), Limburg (Claessens 1965, p. 213) and Zoeterwoude in South Holland (Vermeulen 1966, p. 46). 150 For dairy farmers, see Smid (1897, pp. 31–33). See also the names of Rinkes-Borger, manager of a dairy factory, and Van Leeuwen, prominent livestock farmer, under protectionist minority reports of the Dutch Agricultural Committee (Nederlands Landbouw-Comité 1897, pp. 108–122). For protectionist petitions from Westland grape farmers, see Groot (1992, pp. 212–213). 151 See e.g. van Loon (1951, p. 35) for eastern North Brabant, or Gelderse Landbouwcommissie (1897, p. 262) for the Veluwe. 152 See the petition of members of the Provincial Council of Limburg in Nederlands Landbouw-Comité (1886, pp. 22–59). Also Claessens (1965, p. 213). 153 Claessens (1965, p. 111). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 243–245, 303). 154 Bouman (1946, pp. 455–456). Addens (1950, pp. 158–159). Apart from their attachment to liberal views, one reason may have been that arable farmers in these provinces also produced various products for export. See e.g. remarks in Groninger Maatschappij van Landbouw (1885/1886, pp. 123, 132). 155 Vermeulen (1966, pp. 46–49). 156 Nederlands Landbouw-Comité (1886, pp. 62–71, 77–89; 1897, pp. 14, 103).

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157 Nederlands Landhuishoudkundig Congres (1882, pp. 88–90; 1885, pp. 59–79; 1895, pp. 145–180). 158 Nederlands Landbouw-Comité (1886, pp. 82–84). 159 Nederlands Landbouw-Comité (1897, p. 10). 160 Nederlands Landbouw-Comité (annual reports from 1884, especially 1886, pp. 86–88; 1896, pp. 20–25). Nederlands Landhuishoudkundig Congres (id., especially 1895, pp. 98–99). Vermeulen (1966, pp. 47–49). 161 Nederlands Landbouw-Comité (1896, pp. 220–225). 162 Cf. Huizinga (1943, p. 241). Nevertheless, the view that agricultural research and education should satisfy the practical–theoretical model for some time hindered the development of the Wageningen Agricultural College into a real academic institution (van der Poel 1976, Ch. 7). 163 Bos (1978, Chs 5, 8) 164 De Jonge (1968, p. 323). 165 De Jonge (1978, p. 43). Vermeulen (1966, pp. 39–44). 166 Minderaa (1978). 167 Landbouwcommissie (1890). 168 Hak and Jansma (1987, p. 266). Vermeulen (1966, pp. 68–69, 74–75, 78). 169 Blink (1904, pp. 318–319). De Jonge (1968, p. 323). Sneller (1943, pp. 88–89). Vermeulen (1966, p. 77). 170 Vermeulen (1966, p. 77). For the Dutch Protectionist Agricultural Association, see Claessens (1965, p. 213). 171 Blink (1904, pp. 338–340). Hollenberg (1956, pp. 28–31). Velthoven (1922, pp. 375– 377). 172 Nederlandse Boerenbond (1896). (I thank the committee of the Katholicke Nederlandse Boeren en Tuindersbond for allowing me to examine the minutes of the Boerenbond’s conventions.) In the next convention, in 1897, the League advocated a moderate tariff on animal products coupled with a reciprocity strategy to fight other countries’ barriers against Dutch animal exports. Again, delegates were afraid to support protection of grain, for which the Netherlands were a net importer (ibid. 1897). It is possible that Schaepman, leader of the new social current in the Catholic Party, was involved as he had helped to established the League (Blink 1904, p. 339; Hollenberg 1956, p. 58; Velthoven 1922, p. 378; Wely 1952, pp. 482–483). He was a declared opponent of protection and had voted against the Dobbelman motion (Witlox 1960, p. 74; Vermeulen 1966, p. 77). The reports, however, do not mention statements on the issue made by Schaepman in the conventions. 173 Wintermans (1946, p. 239). 174 Hollenberg (1956, pp. 39–44). Van den Elsen did not reject protection, but stressed that it would not be very effective. 175 See also note 46 of this chapter. 176 Cf. Attwood’s judgment that the British choice implied a ‘ready acceptance of a shrinking agriculture’ (Attwood 1963, p. 136). The question how the divergence between the two countries can be explained has also been asked by Kindleberger (1951). His answer, apart from repeating the fallacy that small farmers in Germany were manipulated against their own interest, points to broad socio-cultural factors like the high status of the Junkers in Germany and the blind spot of British individualism to the negative effects of falling farm prices. As I hope to show, the policy responses of the United Kingdom and Germany can be explained by much more specific and material factors.

213

NOTES – CHAPTER 4

177 See also Tracy (1989, pp. 47–48). 178 Attwood (1963, pp. 131–132, 135). Fletcher (1961b, pp. 425–430). Perry (1974, pp. 132– 133). Rohrer (1985, pp. 150–160). Tracy (1989, pp. 43–44). 179 Tracy (1989, p. 48). 180 Brown (1943, pp. 143ff.). Also A. Sykes (1989, p. 7). 181 Bew (1979). S. Clark (1979, Part C). Donnelly (1975, Chs 6–7). Douglas (1976, Ch. 2). Also Warwick-Haller’s biography of O’Brien (Warwick-Haller 1980, Chs 2–3). 182 Bradley (1987). Dunbabin (1974, Ch. 9). Douglas (1976, Chs 4–5). Hanham (1969). Hunter (1976, Chs 8–10; 1983). E. Richards (1982, pp. 485–501). Thomson (1981). 183 Douglas (1976, pp. 96–103). Dunbabin (1974, Chs 10–11; 1983). Richter (1984). Besides tithes agitation, Wales also experienced some agitation about tenurial relations and rent levels (A. W. Jones 1983, pp. 13–14; Howell 1977, pp. 85–87). 184 Dunbabin (1974, pp. 173–177). Fisher (1978). Horn (1984a, pp. 83–85). 185 Horn (1984a, pp. 86–88). Mutch (1983; 1988, pp. 51–56). 186 Cf. Attwood (1963, pp. 132–134, 137). 187 E.g. Brown (1943, p. 145), Fletcher (1961b), Horn (1984b, pp. 83–84), Perry (1974, pp. 131–132). 188 Cf. Horn (1984a, pp. 83–84), Tracy (1989, pp. 48–49). 189 B. H. Brown (1943, pp. 147–152). Fisher (1978, p. 23). Also Marrison (1986, pp. 184– 185). 190 Bairoch (1989b, p. 85). Also, oligopolistic arrangements for the exploitation of a protected home market were less developed than in Germany and the United States. 191 Bairoch (1976, pp. 198–199, 202–218). Bairoch assesses the loss of industrial sales caused by the decline of farmers’ incomes between 1873–1877 and 1893–1897 at £14–20 million, compared with £58–64 million lost by industrial protection in other countries (ibid., pp. 207, 211). Data of agriculture’s share in the gross domestic product in Mitchell (1975, p. 804). 192 Mitchell (1975, pp. 157, 163). 193 Holderness (1981, pp. 184–185). 194 Offer (1985, p. 205). 195 Beckett (1986, pp. 460–461). Aristocratic power was undermined by the demographic shift from country to town, and by reforms like the gradual extension of the franchise (1867, 1884) and the outlawing of certain manipulations by the Corrupt Practices Act of 1883. 196 Coleman (1988, pp. 154–157, 173). Donnelly (1975, p. 331). Douglas (1976, pp. 68–71). Dunbabin (1974, pp. 174–175). Ensor (1936, p. 99). Hunter (1976, pp. 153–154). E. Richards (1982, p. 491). 197 See Coleman (1988, pp. 155, 198) and A. Sykes (1979, p. 7) for the Tory leaders’ fear of serious electoral damage if they gave in to the protectionist demands from their supporters. 198 Coleman (1988, pp. 173–175). Donnelly (1975, pp. 331–332). Ensor (1936, pp. 94–99). 199 Only three years before the beginning of the Conservative–Liberal Unionist coalition (July 1886), Chamberlain and his allies had waged a radical campaign against the landlords, and as late as January 1886 a Conservative minority government had been brought down by a radical land reform proposal by Chamberlain’s ally Collings (Ensor 1936, pp. 87–88, 97). 200 Brown (1943, pp. 82, 147–148, 151–152). Also A. Sykes (1979, p. 7), Tracy (1989, p. 46). 201 Schissler (1980, p. 113). Spring (1977, pp. 2–4, 6). In the typical Junker provinces, the aristocracy owned around 60 per cent of the land. This was not much less than in Britain,

214

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202 203 204

205

206 207 208 209 210 211 212

213 214 215 216

217 218 219

220 221 222

223

but the average estate was much smaller. Moreover, a large share of estate land was not rented to farmers but exploited by the owners themselves or by big estate tenants. Kitchen (1978, pp. 165–166). Rosenberg (1976, pp. 144–145, 151). K. W. Hardach (1987, p. 287). For the agricultural organizations in Rhineland and Westphalia, Pyta (1991, pp. 59–73, 83ff.). By October 1878, 87 per cent of the Centre representatives in the Reichstag were already speaking out for protection (Hardach 1987, p. 289). The role of Schorlemer and his Westphalian Farmers’ Association (Westfälische Bauernverein) in the choice of position of the Centre is described in Pyta (1991, Ch. 3). The bill for the 1885 increase was presented by Schorlemer, leader of the agrarian wing of the Centre Party. The bill for the further rise in 1887 was based on a compromise between the agrarian and urban wings of the same party (Hendon 1976, p. 118). Outside the Centre Party there was also much peasant protest in the 1880s. The groups that mobilized this protest included the German Farmers’ League (Deutsche Bauernbund) and the and-Semitic Mid-German Association (Mitteldeutscher Verein) in Hessen (Farr 1986, pp. 117–118; Stegmann 1984, p. 410; Tirrell 1951, p. 32). Born (1985, p. 119). Kaelble (1967, pp. 3–4). Spohn (1977, pp. 246–247, 256–272, 287–291). Cf. Kaelble (1967, p. 127). Bairoch (1976, p. 246). Values in constant marks of 1913. Mitchell (1975, p. 801). Dwellings excluded, see Bairoch (1976, pp. 245–246). Without a temporary surge in railway investments, the total investment level would have dropped from 6.7 per cent to 3.5 per cent of gross national income. Mitchell (1975, p. 156). Bairoch (1976, p. 242). For Bismarck’s leading role in the turn to protectionism, see e.g. Hardach (1987, pp. 281–285), Kempter (1985, pp. 84–90), Plachetka (1969, pp. 70–79). For this shift, and the role of tariff policy in Bismarck’s strategy of mobilizing ‘state bearing’ sections of the population against ‘state enemy’ groupings, see e.g. Böhme (1978, Ch. 5), Born (1985, p. 121), Hardach (1967, pp. 182–192; 1987, p. 281), Kitchen (1978, pp. 167–168, 173–175), Plachetka (1969, pp. 89–90), Rosenberg (1976, pp. 187ff.), Wehler (1977, pp. 90–105). Hardach (1967, pp. 81–85; 1987, pp. 281–283). Kempter (1985, pp. 73–77, 116–120). Plachetka (1969, pp. 81–85). The so-called Franckenstein clause (Hardach 1967, p. 185; Kempter 1985, pp. 76–77). Hardach (1967, pp. 142–144; 1987, pp. 277–279). Kempter (1985, p. 78). Plachetka (1969, pp. 62–65). The exact ranking of Bismarck’s priorities is subject to debate. According to Plachetka, grain autarchy may well have been Bismarck’s most important purpose (Plachetka 1969, pp. 81–89, 108–113). Cf. Wunderlich (1961, pp. 24–25). Von Dietze (1967, pp. 112–113), Kitchen (1978, pp. 215–216). Between 1871 and 1877 social democratic votes for the Reichstag elections increased fivefold, reaching 9 per cent in the latter year – about as much as each of both conservative parties (Hardach 1987, p. 285; Lehmann 1970, p. 7). The European trade treaty network was to be revised around 1892, and it was feared that, without German overtures, this would lead to increased protection against German

215

NOTES – CHAPTER 4

224

225

226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233

234

235 236 237

exports. An additional motive was the wish to reinforce the Triple Alliance with Austria and Italy, and to counter the anti-German rapprochement between Russia and France. Bairoch (1989b, p. 61). Kempter (1985, pp. 130–139). Schneider (1987, pp. 293–295). Stegmann (1973, pp. 164–165). Tirrell (1951, Ch. 4). Treue (1933, pp. 40–41, 52–53). Tirrell (1951, Chs 6–7). Treue (1933, pp. 61–74). Also Puhle (1975b, Part I) who, however, exaggerates the manipulation of peasants by the Junkers. Number of members in Nipperdey (1993, p. 583). Farr (1978; 1986). Haushofer (1977, pp. 565–569). Also Puhle (1975a, Section II.3; 1986a, pp. 89ff.), although he exaggerates the dominance of the Agrarian League. Significantly, the position of the Christian Farmers’ Associations developed exactly the other way around to their sister organizations in the Netherlands. In the latter, the interest of small livestock farmers forced the leadership to abandon an original protectionist position (see p. 95). The farmers’ base in Germany compelled the leadership of the Centre Party, which had been complying with the Caprivi treaties because of church interests, to return to a protectionist position (Farr 1986, p. 127; Hendon 1976, pp. 121–122, 361ff.; Tirrell 1951, pp. 311–312). This is another indication that economic conditions gave German farmers more interest in protection than was the case for their Dutch counterparts. As well as landlords and peasants, processors demanded protection, especially the subsidization of sugar and brandy exports. E.g. Rosenberg (1976, pp. 185–186). See p. 78. Perkins (1981). See also Webb (1982, p. 325). Data in Mitchell (1975, pp. 29, 300, 306). Bairoch (1976, pp. 242–243). Cf. Bairoch (1976, p. 243), Offer (1989, pp. 332–333) and Webb (1978, p. 79). Webb (1978, pp. 100, 116–124). See also Bairoch (1976, p. 243). Of course, one can call the limiting effect on emigration a ‘misallocation’, as O’Brien and Prados de la Escosura (1992, p. 526) do, but this is stretching welfare economics ad absurdum, dissociating it completely from the real aspirations of peoples and statesmen. Bairoch (1976, pp. 241–246, 298; 1989b, p. 61). Bairoch’s positive assessment of the effects of agricultural protection in late nineteenth-century Europe has been answered by Tracy, who points to criticism by Asselain (1985), Desaigues (1985) and Messerlin (1985). These, referring to France, find Bairoch’s analysis too global and imprecise (Tracy 1989, p. 31; see also discussion between Tracy and Bairoch in ‘Mélinisme ou protectionnisme’ 1988). However, though critical of Bairoch’s analysis of industrial protection, these authors do not deny the possibility of positive effects of agricultural protection on economic growth. Indeed, Asselain accepts that the deceleration of growth in France in the 1860s–1880s was aggravated by problems in agriculture, and that these problems were partly (though not solely) caused by free trade. Nor does he deny that agricultural protection may have been an additional (though secondary) factor in the recovery of growth after 1892 (Asselain 1985, pp. 47–50). E.g. Gerschenkron (1966, pp. 26–27). Puhle (1986a, p. 87), Tracy (1989, p. 100). J. C. Hunt (1973, pp. 319–327). Moeller (1981; 1986, pp. 14–16). See also Nipperdey (1991, p. 205). Hendon (1976, pp. 222ff.). J. C. Hunt (1973, pp. 314ff.). Teichmann (1955, pp. 597ff.). Also Nipperdey (1991, p. 205). According to Hunt, sanitary restrictions made livestock producers more protected than grain producers, but his indicators are less than conclusive.

216

NOTES – CHAPTER 4

According to Webb, until the mid 1890s sanitary restrictions did not raise the differential between German and world market livestock prices much above the tariff, so that protection for arable products remained higher (Webb 1978, pp. 86–98; 1982, pp. 317– 322). See also Henning (1987; pp. 266–273). Webb and Henning, however, assume that grain tariffs were entirely effective in raising domestic producer prices. According to Reuter (1977, pp. 204–205), between 1880 and 1885 import duties had only a partial effect on producer prices of wheat, and no effect at all on those of barley and oats. Even after 1885, the effect on barley and oat prices remained very partial. 238 Henning (1987, pp. 264–265, 270). See also Moeller (1981, pp. 379ff.), Nipperdey (1991, pp. 205–206). 239 Webb (1982, p. 325) gives the following estimates of average effective protection for various farm-size categories: 1883–85 % 0–2 hectares 2–5 hectares 5–10 hectares 10–20 hectares 20–100 hectares over 100 hectares

240 241 242

243

244 245 246 247

7 9 9 7 9 8

1889–90 %

1893–95 %

9 14 14 15 17 19

9 14 14 14 16 16

The protection for larger-size categories may still be somewhat exaggerated because Webb overrates the real protection of grains. This is also admitted by Tracy (1989, pp. 29–31). See e.g. Higgins and Gibbons (1982, pp. 96–97) for western Ireland, or E. Richards (1985, p. 467) for the Scottish Highlands and Islands. See for Ireland e.g. Bew (1979, pp. 87–91; 1982), Clark (1982, pp. 25–26), Higgins and Gibbons (1982, pp. 98–101), D. S. Jones (1977, pp. 78–79; 1983, pp. 381ff.) or Jordan (1987, p. 347), and for Scotland, e.g. Bradley (1987), Douglas (1976, Chs 4–5), Dunbabin (1974, Chs 9, 12), Hanham (1969), Hunter (1976, Chs 8–10), Richards (1982, pp. 485– 496) or Thomson (1981). In the Irish land war, conflicts erupted between peasants and large graziers in the west of the country. However, the Irish Land League and National League refrained from stressing redistribution so as not to lose the support of larger farmers in other regions. In the Highland land war in Scotland, however, redistribution was the central demand. Benedict (1953, p. 106). Goodwyn (1976, pp. 80–81). Simpson (1975, pp. 44–45). Taylor (1953, p. 195). Populism in the east seems to have also been nourished by ill feelings of small farmers to the dissolution of collective rights similar to those in Europe (see e.g. Hahn 1983 for the upper Piedmont in northern Georgia). Hasbach (1966, pp. 287–288). In the 1880s the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union split, one wing opting for a land reform strategy. Langeveld (1991, pp. 118–120, 132ff.). Van Tijn (1978b, pp. 301–302). H. de Vries (1987, p. 192). Ho (1952, p. 107). Gould (1988, Ch. 5). Peacock (1961). Also Douglas (1976, pp. 45–48), Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 302–304).

217

NOTES – CHAPTER 4

248 Ho (1952, pp. 105, 108). 249 Gould (1988, pp. 104–112). Also Bone (1975), Douglas (1976, pp. 48ff.), Hasbach (1966, pp. 308ff.), Levy (1966, pp. 115–116, 132). Chamberlain included the creation of small holdings and allotments as a central plank in his well-known ‘radical programme’. 250 Barnes (1984, Ch. 3). Offer (1981). 251 W. A. Armstrong (1981a, p. 132). Offer (1981, p. 352). 252 Hasbach (1966, pp. 312–313). 253 Bone (1975, pp. 655–656). Douglas (1976, pp. 103–106). Ho (1952, pp. 108–109). 254 W. A. Armstrong (1981a, p. 132). Bone (1975, pp. 155–158). Hasbach (1966, pp. 316– 317, 319–321). Ho (1952, pp. 111ff., 114). Offer (1981, p. 353). Orwin and Whetham (1964, p. 332). Perry (1974, p. 138). 255 Haushofer (1963, pp. 183–187). 256 Boese (1939, pp. 66–69). Knapp (1893). Sering (1893). 257 Frauendorfer (1963, pp. 395, 406–407). 258 Frauendorfer (1963, p. 412). 259 Frauendorfer (1963, pp. 396–397). Sering (1893). 260 Eley (1980, pp. 64–65). 261 Puhle (1975b, pp. 158–159, 251–252). Stern (1977, p. 62). 262 Conkin (1959, pp. 14–16). Spence (1985, pp. 4, 7–8). 263 F. J. Turner (1961). 264 Gates (1975, pp. 176–177). Shannon (1945, pp. 73ff.). Williams (1969, Ch. 10). 265 George himself still believed in large farms. His message amounted to a radical interpretation of Ricardo’s theory of land rent, leading to the proposal to confiscate this rent by a single tax on land. Distribution of land among small farms was only a makeshift measure that would reduce total welfare (George 1979, pp. 321–327). In spite of this view, George had an enormous influence on small farms advocates at both sides of the Atlantic. 266 Opie (1987, pp. 79–81). 267 Pisani (1983, pp. 47–52). 268 Landbouwcommissie (1890, pp. 19, 97–98). 269 H. de Vries (1987, pp. 181–182). 270 Becker and Frieswijk (1976, pp. 30–31). 271 Van Houten (1901a). Stuurman (1992, p. 191). The bill was discussed no further after the dissolution of the parliament in 1894. See also van Houten (1883, pp. 107–109) for his ideas about land reform. 272 Hasbach (1966, p. 310). 273 For landowners initiating private allotment schemes, see e.g. Haresign (1983, p. 31) and Offer (1981, pp. 352–353); for the acceptance by larger farmers, see e.g. Aalen (1986, p. 291) and Boyle (1983, pp. 331–332). 274 Howell (1977, p. 72). Levy (1966, pp. 101–102). Perry (1974). 275 Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 274–276). Perry (1974, pp. 98–101). E. L. Smith (1932). 276 See e.g. Barnes (1984, p. 249) for Norfolk or Haresign (1983, p. 30) for the Lincolnshire Fenlands. Mutch (1983, p. 32) points to complaints by larger Lancashire farmers about landlords preferring small tenants who offered irresponsibly high rents. 277 Coleman (1988, p. 171). Donnelly (1975, pp. 379, 383). Dunbabin (1974, p. 178). Vaughan (1985, p. 38). Winstanley (1984, pp. 39–40). Most tenant-purchase acts were proposed by Conservative governments.

218

NOTES – CHAPTER 4

278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287

Richards (1985, p. 467). Cf. Orr (1982, Ch. 3). Hunter (1976, pp. 181–182). Puhle (1975b, p. 247). Schreiner (1974, p. 58). Treue (1933, pp. 32). Puhle (1975b, p. 253). Sering (1893, p. 137). Knapp (1893, pp. 21–22). Sering (1893, p. 138). Frauendorfer (1963, p. 397). Cf. Kitchen (1978, p. 201). Sering (1893, p. 139). Gates (1973, p. 164ff.). A government report in 1912 revealed that during 1893–1897 there was no great activity under the Timber and Stone Act, while after 1897 the raids were renewed with greater vigour than ever before (Shannon 1945, p. 75). 288 Coleman (1988, p. 169). 289 Coleman (1988, pp. 183–184). 290 Coleman (1988, pp. 167–169, 177–180). 291 Coleman (1988, p. 192). 292 Beckett (1986, p. 462). Coleman (1988, pp. 174ff.). Douglas (1976, pp. 54–56). Jenkins (1988, pp. 150–151, 156, 158–159, 171–172). The Liberal Unionists was an uneasy coalition of aristocratic Whigs around Hartington and more middle-class urban Liberals around Chamberlain (Cf. p. 99). Contrary to what has been asserted by Goodman (1959), the home rule question was not a mere pretext for a general fear of liberal radicalism. Its significance in the landlord–tenant struggle made home rule a central issue for the landlords. 293 Kitchen (1978, pp. 163–164). H. Rosenberg (1976, pp. 135–136). Cf. Neumann’s (1930, pp. 162–167) conception of a transition from a ‘liberal’ to a ‘realistic’ phase of German conservatism. 294 Nipperdey (1993, p. 336). Puhle (1975b, pp. 116–119). Stegmann (1983, p. 203). 295 Puhle (1973, pp. 166–170; 1975b, p. 120). Also Carsten (1988, pp. 141–143), Nipperdey (1966, p. 380). 296 This phasing of the development of Junker conservatism does not seem entirely consistent with the view that farm protection in Germany conserved the reactionary grasp of a semifeudal aristocracy on German politics. Rather, it can be surmised that Bismarck’s protectionism delayed the reactionary radicalization of the Junkers for some time. 297 Woodward (1964, Ch. 1). Also Fligstein (1986, pp. 70, 72–73). For the discussion about the planters’ position in the Redeemers coalition, see Wright (1986, pp. 47–49). 298 Kousser (1974). 299 Urwin (1981, Ch. 5). 300 Coleman (1988, pp. 154–157). Dunbabin (1974, pp. 174–175). 301 See e.g. Fisher (1978, p. 18), although he stresses that the effect must not be overrated. 302 This was also true for Ulster in the first phase of the Irish land war. Only when the land war was turned into a nationalist movement of Irish Catholics did Protestant tenants in Ulster return to the Conservative Party (Bew and Wright 1983; F. Thompson, 1982). 303 Bew (1979). Donnelly (1975, Chs 6–7). 304 See references in note 202 of this chapter. For the 1890s, see also Eley (1980, Ch. 2). Growing peasant support for the Centre is sometimes explained as a reverse effect of Bismarck’s anti-Catholic ‘culture struggle’ (e.g. Hehl 1986, p. 103), but the agricultural depression, by weakening the peasants’ support for liberal parties, was at least as important.

219

NOTES – CHAPTER 4

305 Eley (1980, pp. 23, 34). Farr (1986, pp. 116–118). Also information in Schmahl (1933), which is, however, a Nazi eulogy of the movement. 306 Puhle (1975b). Stegmann (1983, pp. 203–204). Tirrell (1951, pp. 158–167). 307 Farr (1978; 1986). Haushofer (1977). 308 Tirrell (1951, pp. 331–332). For the ideological development of German Conservatives after 1892, see Puhle (1973, pp. 171–175; 1975b, pp. 125–140; 1986a, pp. 93–95), who, however, tends to underrate the contribution of peasant populism to this development. 309 Eley (1980, p. 24). Rosenberg (1976, p. 143). Also the Bavarian Farmers’ League had a left wing that was not far removed from the socialists (Puhle 1975a, p. 64). 310 Lehmann (1970, pp. 67–71). Vollmar even proposed a nationalization of the grain trade on lines similar to those of the Kanitz proposal (Teichmann 1955, p. 245). 311 Kempter (1985, p. 132). 312 The ‘agrarian debates’ in the Social Democratic Party have been extensively analysed by Lehmann (1970). See also Mitrany (1951, pp. 36–39). The main contemporary publications of the two currents are Kautsky (1899) for the orthodox Marxists and David (1922) for the agrarian-revisionists. For an orthodox Marxist reading of the episode, see Hesselbarth (1968). Hussain and Tribe (1983, Part 1) too readily play down the social democrats’ opportunities for mobilizing the farmers had they taken another position. In Mediterranean and Scandinavian countries, where socialist or communist parties were more responsive to farmers’ problems, they gained considerable farmers’ support (Urwin 1981, pp. 141–145). 313 See also Haushofer (1963, pp. 191–192), J. C. Hunt (1973, pp. 329–330) and Puhle (1975a, pp. 34–35; 1986a, pp. 98–99). 314 Groningen, Drente and the rural north of North-Holland remained liberal bulwarks. Several Frisian districts elected Anti-Revolutionaries in 1888, but returned to the Liberals in 1891. In 1894, all of the north elected advocates of a more far-reaching franchise reform (van Tijn 1971, pp. 195–203, 206–207; Schroor 1988, pp. 204–208). 315 Groninger Maatschappij van Landbouw (1886, pp. 166–172; 1888, pp. 107–113). 316 De Gast (1989, pp. 319–320, 352–353, 367). Schutte (1986, p. 83). Verrips (1978, pp. 29– 30, 83, 87ff.). Also van Roon (1990, pp. 31–39), for the development of political catholicism. 317 Duijvendak (1990, pp. 176–192). Hollenberg (1956). 318 Schaepman himself was involved in the establishment of the Peasant Leagues. See e.g. Blink (1904, p. 339), Hollenberg (1956, p. 58), Velthoven (1922, p. 378). 319 C. C. Taylor (1953, pp. 172–184). 320 C. C. Taylor (1953, pp. 184–192). Unger (1964, especially Chs 8–11). 321 Goodwyn (1976). Hicks (1931). C. C. Tayor (1953, Ch. 12). The American Federation of Labor, not unlike the Social Democrats in Germany, refused to support these initiatives, contending that the interests of farmers, as employers, were opposed to those of labour. 322 The populist results would have been even better without the considerable anti-populist terrorism and electoral fraud in some southern states (Goodwyn 1976, pp. 323–327, 332–333, 336–337, 341). 323 Especially ‘revisionist’ students of American populism in the Eisenhower– McCarthy period, like Hofstadter (1955). Also e.g. Puhle (1975a). 324 Especially W. A. Williams (1969). 325 E.g. Puhle (1975a, p. 145), Shaw (1984, p. 3), Hofstadter (1955, pp. 77–81). Ferkiss (1957) has condemned populism for having contributed to American fascism.

220

NOTES – CHAPTER 5

326 Goodwyn (1976). See also the analysis of the voting behaviour of populist legislators by Argersinger (1984 and 1988). Also the review article by Holmes (1990, especially pp. 56– 57). 327 Fligstein (1986, p. 97). Goodwyn (1978, Ch. 10). The disenfranchisement bills were opposed by the great majority of populist legislators (Kousser 1974, p. 246). 328 Coleman (1988, pp. 180–193). 329 See references in note 216 of this chapter. 330 Unlike most authors, Kitchen plays down the significance of Bismarck’s social insurance system, pointing to the better factory legislation in Britain (Kitchen 1978, pp. 175–178). Most of this, however, dated from before the beginning of Unionist rule in 1886. From this year until the return of the Liberals in 1905 there was a definite slowing down of British social reform (cf. Hennock 1987; Ritter 1983, pp. 77–79). 331 The Grangers and populists did have some success, though, in railway regulation and anti-trust legislation (Benedict 1953, pp. 97–102, 111). 332 Crapol and Schonberger (1972). Havens (1986, pp. 28–30). Wehler (1974, pp. 19–24, 75ff., 218ff.). W. A. Williams (1969).

CHAPTER 5. LATE 1890s TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR: AGRICULTURE AND NATIONAL EFFICIENCY 1 Bairoch (1976, pp. 306–307). Rostow (1978, pp. 164–174). Data about US farm production, population growth and farm exports are summarized in Benedict (1953, pp. 120–121) and Danbom (1979, p. 36). The recovery of agricultural prices may have contributed to some extent to the acceleration of general growth (Rostow 1978, pp. 174ff.); see, however, contradicting remarks in Milward (1981). 2 The agricultural terms of trade also increased. See approximate data in Knibbe (1993, p. 125). 3 Unlike in the United States, the share of exports in Dutch farm output increased in this period. See data in Pilat (1989, pp. 25–27). 4 Statistical data in Mitchell (1975, pp. 185, 192; 1983, pp. 178–179, 187). For the Netherlands, no precise data are available, but here too farm wages have risen dynamically (cf. e.g. van Tijn 1978a, p. 307). 5 See E. H. Hunt (1973, Ch. 1; 1986) for the evolution of regional differences in farm wages. 6 Census results show an increase from 2.9 to 3.0 of the number of labourers per farmer in England and Wales (F. D. W. Taylor 1955, p. 38). Part of this was caused by the end of the Boer War, but the recovery of farm prices was also important. The increase was most marked in the south and east of England, and was smaller or non-existent in other parts of the country (A. Armstrong 1988, p. 137). 7 See e.g. for Ireland D. S. Jones (1977, Ch. 9; 1983, pp. 401ff.). 8 Staatscommissie (1912a, pp. 9–10, 194–195; 1912b, p. 38). For Groningen, see Priester (1991, pp. 77–78, 87, 158ff.). The labour-intensive character of the development of arable farming was less pronounced than before, though (Priester 1991, pp. 205–206). 9 Staatscommissie (1912b, p. 458). 10 Claessens (1965, p. 247). B. de Hoogh (1932, pp. 47–49). Staatscommissie (1912b, pp. 52, 308–309, 329–331). For the phasing of reclamation activity for small and large farms, see Hollenberg and Peters (1980, pp. 133–134), Thissen (1993, pp. 108–110, 181– 190).

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11 This goes against an established opinion (also e.g. in van Zanden 1985, p. 333) that the increase in the share of small farms was especially rapid in the inland provinces. What is true is that these provinces saw a comparatively large reduction of the share of farm labourers in the active farm population (see data in van Zanden 1985, pp. 63, 332), the increased demand for non-farm labour relieving some of the severe underemployment in these areas. 12 Wright (1986, pp. 64–78). 13 Mandle (1990, pp. 198–202). 14 See e.g. W. Cohen (1976, pp. 48–51), James (1986, pp. 157–159). 15 Reid (1979, p. 40). 16 Wright (1978, p. 179). 17 Virts (1991, p. 387). The findings refer to centrally supervised plantations with five tenants or more in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina. 18 Whayne (1992). 19 Cox (1948, p. 99). 20 Wright (1988, p. 203). 21 C. E. Daniel (1981, pp. 74–75). L. V. Fuller (1939, Ch. 5). Majka and Majka (1982, pp. 38–44). McWilliams (1939, pp. 104–112). Wright (1988, pp. 203ff.). Recruiting new workers from China was impossible, as their immigration had been forbidden by an Exclusion Act (1882). 22 Cf. Liebman (1983, pp. 79–80). On the east coast, large farms were likewise concentrated in truck farming. 23 Perkins (1984, p. 73). Also Bade (1980; 1982, pp. 191–207; 1984, pp. 139–140). 24 In the real industrial areas the reduction was still larger, amounting to 14 per cent in West and south-west Germany (Sering 1912, p. 52). Cf. for Baden and Württemberg, also Borcherdt et al. (1985, pp. 102, 113–114). 25 See also data in Buchsteiner’s (1987a) case study of Mecklenburg showing that, compared to 1888, many more estates were exploited as large estate farms rather than rented out to peasants in 1913. A similar development was, to some extent, seen in Pomerania between 1905 and 1910 (Buchsteiner 1987b, pp. 96–97). 26 Cohen (1976). 27 In Wheatland in 1913, police intervention at a meeting of 2,800 migratory workers at the Durst brothers’ hop ranch led to a shooting, in which two workers, a district attorney and a deputy sheriff were killed. Private detectives launched a manhunt of the supposed agitators, who were intimidated and maltreated to enforce confessions. A blatantly unfair trial ended in life sentences for two of the hop pickers’ leaders (Daniel 1981, pp. 88–94; Majka and Majka 1982, pp. 52–55; McWilliams 1939, Ch. 9). 28 C. E. Daniel (1981, pp. 91–99). Majka and Majka (1982, pp. 56–61). 29 C. E. Daniel (1981, p. 75). Ichioka (1984, pp. 159–163). Majka and Majka (1982, pp. 44– 48). McWilliams (1939, pp. 112–113). 30 K. Saul (1983, pp. 197–198). Vormbaum (1980, pp. 372–381). Wunderlich (1961, pp. 20–21). The prohibitions were also not affected by the Reichs Associations Act of 1908. Until the adoption of that act, however, farm labourers in Prussia were not even allowed to form unions. 31 From 1909 attempts were made to unionize farm workers but met with little success. 32 Vormbaum (1980, Ch. 15). Wunderlich (1961, p. 21). In a more indirect form, this was true even for the employers’ right to chastise unwilling workers (Flemming 1978, p. 55; Vormbaum 1980, pp. 356–359).

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33 Baudis and Nussbaum (1978, pp. 240–241). Puhle (1975b, pp. 250–251). Vormbaum (1980, pp. 359–372). 34 K. Saul (1983, pp. 162–166). The Chambers of Agriculture tried to develop their own labour exchange system from which the non-farm demand was locked out (Faust 1982, p. 261; K. Saul 1983, pp. 166–171). 35 See note 112 of Chapter 4 for the beginnings of this system. 36 Bade (1980, pp. 283ff.; 1982, pp. 194, 198; 1984, pp. 112–130). 37 Cf. C. E. Daniel (1981, p. 88). Indeed, many of these growers had come from a more modest farmer class that opposed large corporations and land ‘monopolists’. 38 See pp. 135ff. 39 F. D. W. Taylor (1955, p. 39). A. Orr (1984, p. 34). 40 See e.g. Visser (1968) for South Holland. 41 Staatscommissie (1912a, pp. 131, 523, 557–558; 1912b, pp. 38, 187). For more drastic extensification in the central river clay area, see also Vermooten (1943, pp. 309–310), van Zanden (1985, pp. 303–305). 42 Drache (1964, Ch. 8). Gates (1973, pp. 164ff.). Whitten (1983, pp. 102, 106). 43 Rothstein (1975, p. 595). 44 Wright (1988, pp. 205–208). 45 See p. 27. 46 Van Zanden (1991, p. 232). Data about oilcake consumption in Andrews et al. (1979, p. 72). 47 See data about fertilizer consumption in the three countries in Andrews et al. (1979, p. 72), Bairoch (1989a, p. 340), van Zanden (1985, p. 254; 1991, pp. 224, 231). In the United States, the use of fertilizers increased by 240 per cent (US Bureau of the Census 1976, p. 469), but consumption per hectare lagged far behind that in the European countries 48 Cf. F. M. L. Thompson’s (1968, pp. 66–67) observation that the mechanization of British agriculture did not really take off before 1914. Also A. Armstrong (1988, p. 137). 49 Van Zanden (191, pp. 229–230). Van Zanden’s estimates for Germany have been questioned by O’Brien and Prados de la Escosura, but their own outcomes do not contradict this conclusion (O’Brien and Prados de la Escosura 1992, pp. 520, 531). 50 Perkins (1981, pp. 114–115). 51 See e.g. figures in Berthold (1984, pp. 52–58), Müller (1985, pp. 178–187). 52 Henning (1978, pp. 139–140). Perkins (1984). The adoption of reapers increased more than eightfold between 1895 and 1907, but involved few reaper-binders. 53 Perkins (1981, pp. 90–91). 54 Herrmann (1985c, p. 29). 55 For the achievements of German farm machinery manufacturers, see e.g. Perkins (1981, pp. 87, 90–91, 114–116). For the superiority of German steam plough manufacturers, see also Bonnett (1965, pp. 160–161), Herrmann (1985b, pp. 209, 215; 1985c, pp. 32, 41). 56 Franke (1969, pp. 18–24). Herrmann (1985a, pp. 218–219; 1985b, pp. 76–82). 57 Bieleman (1987, pp. 323–324, 401–402, 637–639, 650–652; 1992, pp. 313–314, 342). Korteweg (1943, p. 352). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 284–288, 299–303). For dairy production, see Croesen (1931). For horticulture, see Bouman (1943c), Sangers (1952, Ch. 8), van Zanden (1985, pp. 305–313). 58 According to livestock census data, cattle numbers rose 18 per cent between 1900 and 1910, against 11 per cent in Germany between 1900 and 1913. For pig numbers, the

223

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59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72

73 74 75 76 77

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

comparable results were 69 per cent and 53 per cent (Mitchell 1975, pp. 299, 301). For pigs, however, a change in reference date makes the data for the Netherlands unreliable (see commentary in Directie van de Landbouw 1910, pp. 13–15, 22–23). Bieleman (1987, pp. 620–621). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 254, 259–261). Cochrane (1984, p. 110). Kendrick (1961, pp. 135–136). Cochrane (1984, pp. 107–109). US Bureau of the Census (1976, p. 469). Wik (1953, p. 84). R. C. Williams (1987, Ch. 2). Wright (1986, pp. 78–80). See also Gerber (1991) about the impact of planter interests on public schooling. E.g. by P. Daniel (1985), Fite (1984, pp. 82–90). Helms (1980). Wright (1986, pp. 57–59). Helms (1980, p. 123). See data in F. M. L. Thompson (1991, p. 232). Data presented by M. Turner (1992, p. 50) indicate that, given the increase in farm wages, the limited improvement of nominal farm output in the United Kingdom failed to achieve a recovery of rents. For sugar beet cultivation, see Achilles (1989, pp. 191–192); for grain yields and the adoption of fertilizers and machines, see Ballwanz (1978, pp. 94–98); for labour productivity, see Ballod (1910, pp. 444–445). In regions like Mecklenburg and Pomerania, estate farms also increased their share in pig and cow keeping, although this is mostly seen as a strong point of smaller farms (Buchsteiner 1987a, p. 44; 1987b, p. 186). Bouman (1943a, p. 290; 1946, pp. 255ff., 287ff.). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 295–303). For the relation with high-quality cotton, see Virts (1991). For that with boll weevil control, see Helms (1980, p. 122). Claessens (1965, p. 260). Korteweg (1943, pp. 352–353). Statistical data in Croesen (1931, p. 189), Verslag over de landbouw (1909, no. 4, pp. 58–59; 1919, no. 4, pp. 56–57). Bieleman (1987, pp. 397, 439–440). Croesen (1931, pp. 30–31). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 263ff.). Haushofer (1963, p. 203). Henning (1978, p. 137). Also Mütter (1988) for Oldenburg, a regional pole of this type of development. In some large-scale farming regions like Mecklenburg, however, large estate farms led in the increase of pig production too (Buchsteiner 1987a, p. 43). Cf. Levy (1966, Ch. 6). C. J. Holmes (1988, p. 77). Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 376–377). C. J. Holmes (1988, p. 77). Also Collins (1986, p. 62). The Education Act of 1902 did little for technical education (Checkland 1989, p. 627). Orwin and Whetham (1964, p. 377). S. Richards (1988, p. 185). For George and the Liberals, see Emy (1971, pp. 40, 43–44). For the Conservatives, see Cooper (1989, pp. 9ff.); also Green (1986, pp. 235–236). Peden (1985, p. 33). Holmes (1988, pp. 77–80). Orwin and Whetham (1964, pp. 377–379). S. Richards (1988, pp. 185–187). Baudis and Nussbaum (1978, p. 242). Müller (1985, pp. 177, 354–355). Pruns (1979, pp. 208–212). Schreiner (1974, p. 62). Hak and Jansma (1987, pp. 260, 270, 282).

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87 General, assistant-general, livestock and dairy experts taken together (Directie van de Landbouw 1913, pp. 81–83, 141, 166). 88 Directie van de Landbouw (1907, Chs 1, 3–6; 1913, pp. 9–42, 49, 77–186). Hak and Jansma (1987, pp. 272–278, 280–281). Schirmer (1925, pp. 80–97). For agricultural education, see also Goudswaard (1986, pp. 150–152, 167–174), van der Poel (1976, pp. 125–132, 135–138, 140–144). For livestock inspection and breeding subsidies, see also Reens (1922, pp. 36–40, 85). 89 Danbom (1979; 1986, pp. 116–117). Bowers (1971, p. 217). 90 See e.g. G. E. Moore (1988) for secondary agricultural schools, or Moss and Lass (1988) for farmers’ institutes. 91 Wiser (1990, p. 30). Also Dupree (1957, p. 182), Rossiter (1979, pp. 216–220). 92 See Benedict (1953, Chs 7–8) for a survey. 93 Kerr (1987, pp. 48–54). Unlike the Hatch funds, which had often been used for routine control work, the Adams funds were earmarked for scientific experiments. 94 Under the Warehouse Act, farmers received receipts for products stored in licensed warehouses, which could be used as collateral for bank loans (Benedict 1953, pp. 154– 155). This had been an important element of the subtreasury plan proposed by the Farmers’ Alliance in the 1890s (see p. 90). 95 Danbom (1979, p. 99). 96 Scott (1970, Chs 6–7, 10). 97 Scott (1970, Ch. 8). 98 McConnell (1953, pp. 24–32). Scott (1970, pp. 203, 222–225, 267). 99 Scott (1970, Ch. 11). Also Danbom (1979, p. 72), McConnell (1953, pp. 32ff.). 100 Danbom (1979). Bowers (1971; 1974). For the Country Life Commission, see also Ellsworth (1960). 101 The relationship with Progressivism is especially emphasized by Bowers (1971; 1974, pp. 30–44, 133–134). 102 Danbom (1979, pp. 47ff.). Also Bowers (1971, p. 215; 1974, pp. 4–5, 37–40, 79ff., 88ff.), Busch and Lacy (1983, pp. 15–16), Ellsworth (1960, p. 165). The anti-radical orientation of many Country Lifers appears e.g. from educational projects like the Better Farming Association in North Dakota, which sought not only to improve farm practice, but to discourage radical farmers’ movements (Howe 1986, pp. 136–137; C. C. Taylor 1953, p. 423). 103 Busch and Lacy (1983, pp. 13–14). 104 The social composition and various motivations of the movement are described by Bowers (1971; 1974, Chs 2–3) and Danbom (1979, Ch. 2). For agricultural college leaders, see also Kirkendall (1986, pp. 11–14). 105 See e.g. Ferleger (1964) and C. E. Rosenberg (1971) for the United States; Müller (1985, pp. 174, 351) for Germany; Maltha (1976, pp. 85–86) for the Netherlands. 106 Richards (1988, pp. 176–177, 181ff.). Hall also made a clean sweep of the famous experiment station in Rothamsted after having become its director in 1902 (J. D. Sykes 1981, p. 271). 107 S. Richards (1988, p. 177). 108 These numbers had increased from 3,224 in Germany in 1908, 47 in the Netherlands in 1896, and 2,772 in the United States in 1901. See figures in Müller (1985, p. 177) for Germany (also for comparison with farm education at other levels); Directie van de Landbouw (1907, pp. 30, 60–64; 1913, pp. 31, 49) for the Netherlands; Scott (1970, p. 105) for the United States.

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109 Orwin and Whetham (1964, p. 378). S. Richards (1988, p. 186). 110 See e.g. Pruns (1979, p. 209) for the geographical distribution of new centres for plant breeding, or Mütter (1988) for the influence of differences in government encouragement on agricultural development in Oldenburg and adjacent regions of Prussia. 111 Directie van de Landbouw (1913, pp. 139–141). Reens (1922, p. 85). 112 Nederlands Landhuishoudkundig Congres (1915, pp. 55–59). 113 P. Daniel (1985, p. 7). 114 Benedict (1953, p. 153). Danbom (1979, pp. 87–90). Scott (1970, pp. 285–286). More generally, Bowers (1974, pp. 103–108, 111). 115 Danbom (1979, pp. 90–91). Scott (1970, pp. 286). 116 Benedict (1953, p. 153). Danbom (1979, p. 73). 117 Cited in Danbom (1979, p. 89). 118 Danbom (1979, pp. 91–94). Howe (1986, pp. 124ff., 132–133). McConnell (1953, Ch. 5). For similar phenomena in the other countries, see e.g. the Dutch case study by Bax and Nieuwenhuis (1980, especially pp. 169–170). 119 For Ireland, see Higgins and Gibbons (1982), Warwick-Haller (1980, pp. 295–297); for Scotland, see Hunter (1976, pp. 186–190). In the Scottish Highlands and Islands, this agitation remained virulent throughout this period (Hunter 1976, pp. 191–195). In Ireland, it was taken over by larger family farmers, who demanded tenant protection and subsidized tenant purchase (Bew 1982, pp. 85–86; S. Clark 1979, p. 348; 1982, pp. 26– 27). In 1906–1910, however, actions by poor peasants for subdivision rekindled in the ‘Ranch War’ (Bew 1982, p. 85; D. S. Jones 1977, pp. 82–102). 120 See e.g. for the United Kingdom, Ho (1952, p. 257), Offer (1981, p. 356); for Germany, Sering (1912); for the Netherlands, Staatscommissie (1909, p. 137; 1912c, pp. 184–186); for the United States, Conkin (1959, Chs 1–2), Danbom (1979, pp. 37–38). 121 Levy (1966, pp. 131, 146). 122 For the radical Conservatives, see Green (1986, pp. 213–219, 229–237). Also Fforde (1985, pp. 282–283), Offer (1981, pp. 379–380), A. Sykes (1979, pp. 137–138, 197, 227, 263, 290–291). For the Conservatives generally, see Attwood (1963, pp. 133–134), Ho (1952, p. 238), Levy (1966, pp. 134–136). 123 Eley (1980, pp. 61, 65, 251–252). Flemming (1978, pp. 68–70). Schreiner (1974, p. 51). In 1912, a Society for Internal Colonization was formed to further the policy. 124 The political support for allotments is surveyed in Staatscommissie (1909, pp. 133–134). Contemporary publications are e.g. van Houten (1901b) and de Boer (1903) for the Liberals, and van den Elsen (1911–1913, pp. 78–81, 302ff.) for the Christian-Socialists. 125 Spence (1985, especially pp. 18–24). 126 Bowers (1974, pp. 42, 67–71). Danbom (1979, pp. 37–38). Pisani (1983, p. 62). 127 Cf. e.g. for Britain, Barnes (1984, p. 257), Haresign (1983, p. 32), Offer (1981, pp. 261– 262), Spring (1984, pp. 25–27); for Germany, Kitchen (1978, p. 214), Schreiner (1974, p. 58). 128 Cooper (1989, pp. 7–9). Offer (1981, pp. 357–380). 129 Flemming (1978, pp. 65, 68–73). Puhle (1975b, p. 254). Schreiner (1974, p. 55). 130 Nederlands Landhuishoudkundig Congres (1908, pp. 43–44, 64–72; 1909, pp. 35–43, 45–50, 147–168, 226–235). 131 C. E. Daniel (1981, pp. 47–57). L. V. Fuller (1991, pp. 32–33). 132 Hunter (1976, pp. 183–185). 133 Douglas (1976, pp. 127–130). Kolbert and O’Brien (1975, pp. 39–43). Also Donnelly (1975, pp. 383–384). For a detailed account of the political history of the act, see Warwick-Haller (1980, Ch. 6).

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134 See e.g. Levy (1966, pp. 132ff.) for England, Hunter (1976, pp. 185–186) for Scotland, Donnelly (1975, p. 383) for Ireland. 135 See pp. 139ff. 136 Attwood (1963, p. 134). 137 Offer (1981, pp. 357, 361–362). Also Ho (1952, pp. 258ff.). For the share of purchase in land acquisition, see Orwin and Darke (1935, p. 28); for the effect on land prices, see Barnes (1984, p. 257). 138 Douglas (1976, pp. 137–138). Kolbert and O’Brien (1975, pp. 41–43). Also D. S. Jones (1977, p. 275). Shortly before, the Evicted Tenants Act (1907) had introduced compulsory purchase for resettling evicted tenants as small owners. 139 Besides, the Conservatives did not oppose new Agricultural Holdings Acts (1906, 1908) for the protection of tenants (Ho 1952, pp. 251–257; Rohrer 1985, pp. 204–206). These measures were not specifically meant to benefit small farmers, however. 140 Douglas (1976, p. 140). Ho (1952, pp. 259–260). Hunter (1976, p. 190). 141 See p. 147. 142 For the Small Landholders Act and landlord resistance to it, see Ho (1952, pp. 265–268), Hunter (1976, pp. 192–194). For the role of compulsory renting in Lloyd George’s Land Campaign, see Attwood (1963, p. 134), Horn (1984a, p. 209). 143 Donnelly (1975, p. 384). Kolbert and O’Brien (1975, pp. 44–45). 144 Bone (1975, pp. 660–661). Orwin and Darke (1935, p. 28). 145 Collier (1953, p. 102). 146 Ho (1952, pp. 265–268). MacCuish (1987, p. 91). 147 Sering (1934, p. 84). 148 Haushofer (1963, p. 188). Sering (1934, p. 84). 149 Oppenheimer (1913, pp. 117–119). Puhle (1975b, p. 254). Schreiner (1974, pp. 50–51, 55, 58). 150 Cf. Haushofer (1963, p. 187). 151 Puhle (1975b, pp. 256ff.). Schreiner (1974, p. 60). 152 I. B. Cohen (1919, p. 5). 153 See e.g. Groninger Maatschappij van Landbouw en Nijverheid (1905/1906, pp. 189–191; 1906/1907, pp. 31–64; 1907/1908, pp. 152–153, 171–172); Nederlands Landhuishoudkundig Congres (1910, pp. 29–30, 65–80, 162–201); Staatscommissie (1909, pp. 136–138). 154 Staatscommissie (1909, pp. 151–166; 1912c, pp. 186–198). 155 I. B. Cohen (1919, pp. 7–18). See also H. de Vries (1987, p. 183). 156 Pisani (1983, pp. 52–53, 56–67). In spite of irrigation champions’ expectations, however, irrigation contributed to the development of large farms in many cases (see also Pisani 1991). 157 Rasmussen (1975, pp. 1192–1193). 158 Rasmussen (1975, p. 1879). 159 Conkin (1959, pp. 49–50). 160 Danbom (1979, pp. 115–118). Conkin (1959, pp. 43–48). C. E. Daniel (1981, p. 100). McWilliams (1939, Ch. 12). Pisani (1984, pp. 441–446). 161 The tendency towards land reform was not contradicted by the Enlarged Homestead Acts (1909–1910) and Stock-Raising Homestead Act (1916). These acts permitted homesteading on larger tracts (320 and 640 acres respectively) in certain arid regions, but this was merely an adjustment to natural conditions. 162 Checkland (1989, p. 626). Hennock (1987, p. 81).

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163 Whereas in Germany contributions and benefits were related to earnings, so that lowerpaid workers such as agricultural labourers received lower benefits, the UK scheme operated by uniform benefits (Hennock 1987, pp. 184ff.). 164 Metz (1988, p. 402). Peden (1985, p. 28). 165 Emy (1971, pp. 52–53, 58). 166 A. Armstrong (1988, pp. 154–155). Cooper (1989, pp. 12–19). Fforde (1985, pp. 269, 287–308). Offer (1981, pp. 381–383). 167 Rohrer (1985, p. 211). 168 Hentschel (1989, p. 795). 169 Born (1985, p. 145). 170 Flemming (1978, pp. 53–75). Puhle (1975b, pp. 249–250). K. Saul (1983). Vormbaum (1980, pp. 359–369). It has already been noted how this related to the maintenance of repressive measures, and the perfection of a repressive management of seasonal immigrant labour (see pp. 119ff.). 171 Croesen (1934b, pp. 3–9, 19ff., 52). Farm labourers fell outside the Industrial Accidents Act from 1901. 172 Van Welderen Rengers (1950, Part III, p. 198). 173 See e.g. C. E. Daniel (1981, p. 88) for California. 174 C. E. Daniel (1981, pp. 57ff.). For large growers’ support of the Alien Land Law, see Majka and Majka (1982, pp. 46ff.). 175 Ashley (1920, pp. 220–221). 176 Ashley (1920, p. 220). The reciprocity element being less developed than in the McKinley tariff (1890), the act also did little to secure foreign markets for farmers (ibid., pp. 229– 230). 177 Benedict (1953, p. 121). The new populist leader La Follette had himself participated in the drafting of the McKinley bill (Weinstein 1969, p. 142, Saloutos and Hicks 1951, p. 35). 178 Benedict (1953, p. 121). Saloutos and Hicks (1951, p. 46). 179 Ashley (1920, pp. 261, 263). 180 Ashley (1920, pp. 249–250). 181 Ashley (1920, pp. 259–262). Benedict (1953, p. 143). The effect on farm prices, however, was not clear, because the war soon pushed up the demand for farm products. 182 Benedict (1953, pp. 132, 142). Weinstein (1968, pp. 140–142). Saloutos and Hicks (1951, p. 54). 183 Benedict (1953, pp. 134–135). Saloutos and Hicks (1951, pp. 114–119, 121–126). C. C. Taylor (1953, pp. 351–352, 367–375, 379–381). 184 A crop-withholding campaign of the Equity is said to have raised wheat prices in 1906– 1907 (Taylor 1953, p. 380). A tobacco strike by the Burley Tobacco Society (a branch of the Equity, not to be confused with the Planters’ Protective Association referred to below) considerably raised the prices of burley tobacco in 1908 (Campbell 1992). 185 Saloutos and Hicks (1951, pp. 123ff.). C. C. Taylor (1953, pp. 410–420). The organization was the Planters’ Protective Association. 186 Benedict (1953, pp. 135–136). Saloutos and Hicks (1951, p. 119). C. C. Taylor (1953, pp. 355–356, 381–384). 187 De Jonge (1968, p. 50). 188 Van Staaij (1933, pp. 39, 41, 51). 189 Compare addresses, discussions and resolutions in Nederlandse Boerenbond (1904 Congress, pp.(44)-(48), 21–23, 101–126, 218–222; 1907 Congress, pp. 125–177) and

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190 191 192

193

194 195 196

197 198 199 200 201 202

203 204 205 206

207

208 209 210 211

212 213

Weekblad Noortbrabantse Christelijke Boerenbond (21–10–1911). Only at the 1911 Congress of the League was it clearly stated that the League did not demand grain tariffs. Groninger Maatschappij van Landbouw en Nijverheid (1903/1904, pp. 198–205). The Groningen farm leader Mansholt, though, stuck to protection (Mansholt 1904). Robertson Scott (1914, pp. 261–267). The role of industrial interests in the Tariff Reform Movement is well known, and exemplified by the person of Chamberlain himself. See also Porter (1976, pp. 19–23, 35ff.). For the role of agrarians, see Green (1986, pp. 192ff.), Marrison (1986), Porter (1976, pp. 25–34), Sykes (1979, pp. 40–41). Amery (1969, pp. 603–604). Green (1986, pp. 194ff.). Marrison (1986, p. 172). A low ‘corn registration duty’ of 1 shilling per quarter on imported grain had already been established in 1902 to help finance the Boer War but, to the great annoyance of Chamberlain and the agrarians, was abolished one year after (Ensor 1936, pp. 349, 372; Sykes 1979, pp. 26, 33). Fussell (1982, p. 142). Marrison (1986, pp. 180–182). Green (1986, pp. 205–206). Green (1986, pp. 189–245). A. Sykes (1979, Ch. 13). Also Marrison (1986, p. 182), Cooper (1989, pp. 9ff.). Their view is played down by Fforde (1985, pp. 200–201), but he confuses the Tariff Reform core and the Conservative leadership. Green (1986, pp. 133–183). See also Amery (1969, pp. 289–293). Green (1986, pp. 200–202). Also A. Sykes (1979, pp. 290ff.). Green (1986, pp. 197–200). Bairoch (1989b, p. 85). Mitchell (1988, pp. 456–457, 882). Offer (1989, pp. 219–220). Between 1894 and 1913, naval spending rose from £15.5 million to £44.4 million. Barnett (1985, pp. 5–6). Offer (1989, pp. 220–225). A first amendment to support domestic agriculture had been proposed in 1902, when Britain was politically isolated because of the Boer War (Amery 1969, p. 21; Bairoch 1989b, p. 86). Cf. Green (1986, pp. 6–7, 409–434). Also A. Sykes (1979, p. 290). Newton and Porter (1988, p. 27). Bairoch (1989b, pp. 87–88). Adams (1982, Ch. 8). Amery (1969, pp. 310–316). Bairoch (1989b, pp. 135–136). Newton and Porter (1988, p. 26). For agricultural labourers, see Horn (1984a, pp. 203–204). Initially, tariff reform found some positive response among socialists and the working classes, but it soon disappeared. Both the Trade Union Congress and the incipient Labour Party categorically rejected protection. A. Sykes (1979, pp. 105–106) locates the Conservative resistance to tariff reform in the ‘landed gentry’ generally, but the people he cites all belonged to the high aristocracy. Cf. criticism by Green (1985, p. 668). Also Newton and Porter (1988, p. 25). Amery (1969, Chs 98–107). Ensor (1936, pp. 371–376). A. Sykes (1979, Ch. 2). Cf. Newton and Porter (1988, p. 25). Ensor (1936, pp. 375–376). Hirst (1925, pp. 53–56). Ho (1952, pp. 233–234). A. Sykes (1979, Chs 6–9). Amery (1969, pp. 957–959, 978–984). Green (1986, pp. 362–376, 381–406). Marrison (1986, pp. 183–184). Newton and Porter (1988, p. 26). A. Sykes (1979, pp. 118–119, 140, 201, 217, 236ff., 264–271). A. Sykes (1979, pp. 281–282). Green (1986, pp. 405–406). Also Cox et al. (1991, p. 31). Marrison (1986, pp. 174, 184). Also Fussell (1982).

229

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214 Emy (1971, pp. 58, 65). Sykes (1979, p. 281). 215 Schneider (1987, pp. 314–319). Teichmann (1955, pp. 599–601). The act was not inspired by protectionist motives only. The incidence of livestock diseases had strongly increased in the 1890s (Baudis and Nussbaum 1978, pp. 192, 248), and the quality of canned meat was dubious enough to justify an import ban (Wottawa 1984, p. 411). 216 From 1906 certificates could be used to pay the tariff on all kind of grains, as well as on coffee and petroleum imports. This permitted Germany to become a net rye exporter from 1908. (Teichmann 1955, pp. 201ff.). 217 Cf. Baudis and Nussbaum (1978, p. 238). Besides, manufacturers had been pondering for some time on a return to Bismarck’s repressive solutions, and had been looking for agrarian support for it. This was true not only for heavy industry (e.g. Kitchen 1978, pp. 158–159, 220), but for light industries (Ullmann 1976, p. 173). 218 Heavy industry wanted the iron tariffs maintained for exploiting the home market and export dumping. More export-oriented sectors required tariffs for a reciprocity strategy. Weak sectors like textiles called for increased tariff protection (Stegmann 1970, pp. 72– 73, 90; Ullmann 1976, p. 168). The belief that export industries, especially light, noncartelized, finishing industries would have supported free trade (e.g. Mendel 1975, p. 309) is a misunderstanding. 219 Cf. Spohn (1977, pp. 285–293, 301–306). 220 Eley (1974, pp. 40ff.). Kaelble (1967, pp. 146–163). Kitchen (1978, Chs 10–11). Stegmann (1973, pp. 176–177). Ullmann (1976, pp. 171–173). Wehler (1977, p. 168). 221 See e.g. for the agrarian Conservatives, Eley (1974, pp. 34–35, 40); for the agrarian Centrists, Farr (1986, p. 128), Hendon (1976, pp. 427–429, 431–432). 222 See e.g. Eley (1974, p. 48), Flemming (1978, p. 41), Stegmann (1970, pp. 65, 82–83), Ullmann (1976, pp. 166–168, 175ff.). Also cautious remarks in Puhle (1975a, p. 75; 1975b, pp. 158–159; 1986a, pp. 102–104). 223 Cf. data about agriculture’s share in the national incomes in Mitchell (1975, pp. 800– 801). For the conviction of manufacturers and the government that farm prosperity was beneficial for industrial fortunes, see e.g. Kaelble (1967, p. 126), Kempter (1985, p. 150), Stegmann (1970, p. 66). 224 Kaelble (1967, pp. 65, 95–96). 225 Kehr (1976c, pp. 177–180). Wehler (1977, pp. 170, 187–189). 226 Gerschenkron (1966, p. 59). Haushofer (1963, p. 216). Kempter (1985, p. 150). Plachetka (1969, pp. 220, 306ff., 490–491). 227 The most influential publication conveying this view was Wagner (1902). For overviews of the academic debate, see e.g. Ashley (1920, pp. 91–108), Barkin (1970, Chs 4–5), Frauendorfer (1963, pp. 373–383), or Mendel (1975). For food security, see also Plachetka (1969, pp. 272–279). 228 This interpretation goes back to Kehr (1930) and Gerschenkron (1966, pp. 57–64, 67). In the 1970s, it was elaborated by an entire school of historians, including Barkin (1970, Chs 6–8), Berghahn (1973, pp. 29–30, 182), Flemming (1978, especially pp. 441–448), Puhle (1975a, pp. 47ff., 63–77; 1975b, pp. 240–246; 1986a, pp. 102–104), Stegmann (1970, pp. 63–75, 80–97; 1973, pp. 179–180, 182; 1983, p. 209), and Wehler (1977, pp. 48–59, 167, 173). The interpretation has been taken up by many others, among them Kitchen (1978, Chs 9–11), Mendel (1975) and Tracy (1989, pp. 91ff.). For criticism, see Born (1985, pp. 136–138), Eley (1974, 1980) and Hentschel (1978, pp. 183–204; 1989, pp. 790–792). 229 Eley (1974).

230

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230 Hendon (1976, pp. 466–467). Cf. Nipperdey (1993, pp. 539–540). 231 Born (1985, pp. 136–137). Hentschel (1978, pp. 188–189; 1989, pp. 790–791). Ullmann (1976, pp. 175–186). Witt (1970, pp. 66–68). 232 Puhle (1975b, p. 243) suggests that this played into the agrarians’ hands, the new minister of agriculture being connected with the Agrarian League. See, however, the assertion by Hendon (1976, pp. 475–477) and Ullmann (1976, p. 186) that the dismissal of Miquel narrowed the protectionists’ room for manoeuvre. 233 Born (1985, pp. 137–138). Hendon (1976, pp. 467–470, 478–497). Hentschel (1978, pp. 190–191). Kitchen (1978, pp. 241–243). Witt (1970, pp. 69–74). 234 Eley (1980, pp. 239–240). Farr (1986, p. 129). Hendon (1976, pp. 479ff.). The protectionist pressure of smaller farmers was even felt by the rank and file of progressive Liberal parties (Gerschenkron 1966, p. 58). 235 Farr (1978; 1986). 236 Baudis and Nussbaum (1978, pp. 245–246). Nussbaum (1988, pp. 221–222). 237 Eley (1974, p. 51). J. C. Hunt (1973, pp. 322–324). 238 Hunt (1975, pp. 518–519). Nussbaum (1988, pp. 221–222). It was Bülow’s opposition, not lack of pressure from the League, which prevented the fixing of minimum livestock tariffs for trade treaties (Hendon 1976, pp. 492–493). On the Agrarian League and small farmers, see also Nipperdey (1993, pp. 584–585). 239 See calculations by Webb (1982, pp. 314, 319, 325; 1978, p. 84). Also Henning (1987, pp. 268–270). These studies refute assertions (e.g. Gerschenkron 1966, pp. 26–27, 72– 75; Kitchen 1978, pp. 245–246) that the Bülow tariff harmed small farmers. 240 See Henning’s (1987) rebuttal of assertions (e.g. Barkin 1970, p. 258; Flemming 1978, p. 45; Puhle 1975b, pp. 244–245) that the Bülow tariff slowed down the growth of livestock production. Livestock production accelerated from the late 1890s, not because of the Caprivi tariffs as these authors suggest, but thanks to an increase of demand and tightening of sanitary import restrictions leading to higher prices (cf. Webb 1982, p. 318). After 1907, this expansion continued at a moderate speed (figures in Teichmann 1955, p. 572). Barkin distorts the development of livestock production by comparing a cyclical peak (1907) with a cyclical low (1912). If 1913 is taken instead of 1912, the figures show more continuity. 241 Hentschel (1978, pp. 195, 199–200; 1989, pp. 791–792). Also Webb (1978, p. 100). 242 Webb (1978, p. 122). Hentschel (1978, pp. 194–195; 1989, p. 791). 243 Hentschel (1978, pp. 199–204). 244 See data in Zamagni (1989, pp. 132–133, 136). 245 Ho (1952, p. 75). 246 Haushofer (1963, p. 212). Henning (1978, p. 162). 247 Directie van de Landbouw (1907, pp. 3–6). Mollerus (1932, pp. 16–17, 81–97). In 1898, farm policy measures had been concentrated in a Division of Agriculture in the Ministry of the Interior. 248 See p. 129. 249 Rohrer (1985, pp. 179–180, 187–190, 193–194, 200–204, 219–220). 250 Cox et al. (1991, pp. 31–32, 34–35). Also Horn (1984b, p. 186), Orwin and Whetham (1964, p. 315). 251 Hendon (1976, pp. 165–182). Henning (1978, pp. 162–163). Puhle (1975a, pp. 57–58; 1975b, pp. 147–148). Tirrell (1951, p. 300). For the functions of the Chambers for the government, see also Haushofer (1963, p. 212), Puhle (1975a, pp. 49–50). Indeed, the Prussian Agricultural Chambers Act of 1894 had also been intended by the government to contain the agrarian agitation against the Caprivi treaties.

231

NOTES – CHAPTER 5

252 Bouman (1943b, pp. 260–263). Croesen (1934a, pp. 35–40). Mollerus (1932, pp. 98– 183). A compromise bill proposing a Council of Agriculture was introduced by the government in 1903, but was withdrawn two years later. 253 Danbom (1979, pp. 92–93). 254 Dabom (1979, pp. 91–94). Hamilton (1990, pp. 210–213). McConnell (1953, Ch. 5). 255 Fforde (1985, p. 135). Green (1986, pp. 203ff.). A. Sykes (1979, pp. 35–40). At one moment, the Central Chamber of Agriculture even toyed with the idea of an independent agrarian party. 256 Adams (1982, Chs 3–4). Green (1985; 1986, Ch. 6). Newton and Porter (1988, pp. 15– 22). A. Sykes (1979, pp. 55–62, 151). 257 Green (1985, pp. 688–691; 1986, pp. 323–359). A. Sykes (1979, pp. 137–139, 195–197, 221ff.). 258 Emy (1971, p. 54). Cooper (1989, pp. 12–13). Fforde (1985, pp. 291, 300). Offer (1981, pp. 379–381). A. Sykes (1979, pp. 197–198, 229, 237, 243, 246–247, 278–279). 259 Ensor (1936, pp. 386–388, 413–420, 424–432). Murray (1980). Also Peden (1985, pp. 24–27). 260 Green (1986, p. 384). A. Sykes (1979, pp. 243–248, 285). That the Diehards were mere reactionaries (e.g. Ensor 1936, pp. 428–429; Mayer 1981, p. 154) is a misapprehension. 261 A. Sykes (1979, pp. 274–284). Also Cooper (1989, pp. 15–16), Fforde (1985, pp. 273– 274). 262 Ensor (1936, pp. 450–456, 472–481). Mayer (1981, pp. 155–156). Spring (1984, pp. 32, 35–41). 263 Ensor (1936, p. 479). Fforde (1985, pp. 317–319). Also Douglas (1976, pp. 164–166). 264 Fforde (1985, p. 278). A. Sykes (1979, pp. 281–282). Also Green (1986, pp. 398–399). 265 Hunter (1976, p. 190). Jaggard (1980, p. 451). 266 Fitzpatrick (1987). 267 I would like to thank André Beening and Frits Boterman for their comments on this section. 268 For the pseudo-egalitarianism of the League, see Hunt (1975). 269 Cf. Blackbourn and Eley (1984, p. 25). Also Nipperdey (1993, pp. 537ff., 584–587). The idea that German mass politics in this period was determined by mere manipulation from above has recently been criticized by a number of historians. For reviews of the debate, see e.g. Mock (1981), Moeller (1984); also Ritter (1985, pp. 25–26, 95). 270 Farr (1978, pp. 149–152; 1986, pp. 127–130). Hendon (1976, pp. 418–433, 447–451, 455ff., 464–465, 503ff., 523ff., 541–544, 565–566, 628). Also Loth (1984, Ch. 2 especially pp. 94ff.). It is not correct that the southern Christian Farmers’ Associations represented a conservative, anti-democratic current (Puhle 1975a, pp. 59–60). 271 Hendon (1976, Ch. 11). Loth (1984, pp. 155–156). 272 J. C. Hunt (1973, p. 329). Tipton (1974, p. 969). 273 See p. 142. Also Tipton (1974, p. 966). 274 Blackbourn and Eley (1984, pp. 116–117). Eley (1980, p. 302–315). Ritter (1985, pp. 74– 75). Cf. Nipperdey (1993, pp. 741–742, 745, 748). 275 Blackbourn and Eley (1984, pp. 122, 124–125. Eley (1980, pp. 349–350). 276 Eley (1980). Also Tipton (1974, p. 969). 277 Nipperdey (1993, pp. 536–538). Ritter (1985, pp. 77–79). Also Tipton (1974, p. 966). 278 Nipperdey (1993, p. 537). Ritter (1985, p. 83). 279 Eley (1980, pp. 27–28, 305ff.). Hendon (1976, pp. 544ff.). Nipperdey (1966, pp. 381, 385). The new orientation was due to the ascent of ‘young liberals’ and pressures from small- and medium-sized industry.

232

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280 Hendon (1976, Ch. 11). Loth (1984, pp. 183–199). 281 Nipperdey (1993, pp. 540, 554, 747). Ritter (1985, pp. 68, 78). For developments in the Centre, see also Hendon (1976, pp. 620–627), Loth (1984, p. 277). 282 Puhle (1975a, p. 73; 1975b, pp. 278). It is a misunderstanding that the Junkers held good relations with the court and the ministerial bureaucracy (e.g. Rosenberg 1966, pp. 302– 303). 283 Eley (1980, Ch. 10). Also Kroboth (1986, pp. 295–300, 312), Nipperdey (1993, pp. 541, 750), Puhle (1975b, pp. 269–272), Ritter (1985, p. 80). For the internal weakness of the Cartel, see also Kaelble (1967, pp. 134–136). The episode is extensively described by Stegmann (1970, Chs 7–9), who, however, does not emphasize the political isolation of the Conservatives. 284 Puhle (1973; 1975b). Stegmann (1983). Also Carsten (1988, pp. 141–143), Wehler (1977, pp. 85–86). 285 Nipperdey (1993, pp. 541, 756). Puhle (1975b, 282–286; 1986b, p. 270). Stegmann (1983, pp. 209–213). With some reason, Puhle (1973, p. 166; 1975a, p. 65; 1986b, p. 222) has characterized this attitude as ‘pre-fascist’. He has done so without strict definition, however, so that the label seems a catch-all for everything that conflicts with his own liberal social democrat views, also including state intervention or agricultural protection. Cf. criticism by Schumacher (1978, p. 505). 286 See election results in Schroor (1988, pp. 205–206). Certainly in the first part of this period, these will have largely reflected farmers’ votes, because of the restrictive suffrage and the rural character of the region. 287 Stuurman (1984, pp. 277–278, 292–293). See also the local study by Verrips (1978, Ch. 7). Farmer support for confessional parties was also strong in the northern province of Friesland. For research and discussion about ‘pillarization’ in the Netherlands, see e.g. van Schendelen (1984) and the critical study by Stuurman (1984). 288 Righart (1986, pp. 234–235, 242–243). More information about the Christian Farmers’ Leagues can be found in Duijvendak (1990, Ch.11), Hollenberg (1956). Also van Tijn (1978c, pp. 314–315). 289 Cf. Minderaa (1986, pp. 232–233). 290 Buiting (1989, Ch. 2). Hansen (1976). Talens (1981). 291 Kousser (1974, passim). Woodward (1964, Chs 12–13). 292 The suggestion that disenfranchisement would have originated with the poor whites has been refuted by Kousser (1974, pp. 246–249). 293 Kousser (1974, pp. 171, 180, 192–193, 207). Woodward (1964, pp. 341–342). 294 Kousser (1974, pp. 224–228). Woodward (1964, pp. 342–347). 295 Woodward (1964, pp. 392–394, 477). The southern demagogues’ pose as lowerclass tribunes was more style than reality (see also evidence in Kousser 1974, pp. 231–236). 296 Woodward (1974, pp. 456–457, 460, 469–481). 297 Saloutos and Hicks (1951, pp. 130–131, 142–144, 226–227). C. C. Taylor (1953, pp. 359, 364, 385, 387). Although the Equity was meant by its founder as a purely commercial organization, it soon, like the Farmers’ Union, pursued wider objectives and adopted a friendly attitude towards labour. 298 Crawford (1940, pp. 137–203). Dyson (1986, pp. 246–247). The progressive Granges were prevented from controlling the national leadership by a non-proportional representative structure. That is why they formed a Conference of Progressive Granges in 1910, and a Farmers’ National Council in 1914. 299 Beard and Beard (1954, Part II, pp. 480–481, 557–558, 560–561, 592). See also the

233

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300

301 302

303

304 305 306 307

308

309

310 311 312

Nebraska study by Cherny (1981). Also W. A. Williams (1969, pp. 432–445), though he stresses that the difference about imperialism was tactical rather than essential. Benedict (1953, pp. 131–132). Saloutos and Hicks (1951, Ch. 2), C. C. Taylor (1953, p. 378). Weinstein (1969, pp. 5–6, 139–142, 145–147). Cherny (1981). Also Puhle (1975a, p. 149). Cf. criticism by Fuller (1968) on the misconception that Progressive leaders had urban backgrounds. Kolko (1963). Weinstein (1969). For the Country Life Movement, see Danbom (1979, pp. 47ff.); also Bowers (1971, p. 215), Busch and Lacy (1983, pp. 15–16), Ellsworth (1960, p. 165). See e.g. Cherny’s (1981, pp. 153–154) Nebraska study showing that in poor rural areas many people voted for Progressive politicians, but not for Roosevelt or Wilson (Cherny 1981, pp. 153–154). See also the admission by Kolko (1963, p. 285) that, on a state level, Progressivism was really a more democratic reform movement. Marti (1991). E.g. Mayer (1981, Ch. 5), Puhle (1975b, pp. 89–94). Bergmann (1970, pp. 33–173). F. Stern (1963). For the radical Tariff Reformers, see Green (1986, pp. 197–202), A. Sykes (1979, pp. 289–291). For the left Liberals and Socialists, see Marsh (1982, Ch. 1), Offer (1981, Ch. 20). A well-known example of agrarian fundamentalism in socialist circles was Robert Blatchford’s popular tract ‘Merrie England’ (Blatchford 1894, especially Chs 3–4). Bowers (1971, pp. 215–218; 1974, pp. 34–37, 45–61). Conkin (1959, Ch. 1). Danbom (1979, pp. 25–28). For the views of Roosevelt, see Bowers (1974, p. 41); also Ellsworth (1960, p. 156). Looking beyond the four countries, it can also be noted e.g. that Méline, the French minister of agriculture whose Le retour à la terre et la surproduction industrielle [Return to the land and industrial overproduction] (1905) was one of the bibles of agrarian fundamentalism, began his career as a representative of industrial, not agrarian, interests. A striking example of racist agrarian fundamentalism in the Netherlands was the report by Valckenier Kips (1901) for the Association for Political Economy and Statistics. I would like to thank Rien Munters for his assistance with this subject. Bergmann (1970, pp. 50–62). Sorokin (1928, pp. 244–251).

CHAPTER 6. THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND BEYOND 1 A well-known example of this view is that of Mayer (1981, Ch. 5. 2 See e.g. Berghahn (1973), Wehler (1977, pp. 184–218). 3 For the evolution of German historiographic thinking on this subject, see e.g. Moeller (1984). For a recapitulation of the works of Fischer, see Moses (1984). For the earlier phases of the war guilt discussion, see texts in Lee (1958). 4 Initially, Fischer and his pupils maintained that the moves of the German chancellor Bethmann Hollweg were consciously designed to provoke a major war. However, this idea has since been abandoned by followers of Fischer like Berghahn (1973, p. 193). 5 For a balanced judgment, also weighing the arguments of Fischer and his disciples, see Joll (1984). For the influence of tensions between established imperial powers and Germany as a newcomer, and the formation of a front by the first ones against the latter,

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6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

cf. conclusions by Cain (1980, p. 70) and Hildebrand (1987, pp. 19–23). It should also be noticed that the British decision to enter the war was encouraged by a ready-made plan for a blockade of Germany that was to involve a violation of international maritime law. Actually, British representatives co-operated at the International Declaration of London (1909) with the deliberate intention of disregarding it in wartime. Although presented afterwards as a reprisal for German actions, this blockade plan had been prepared years before as a way of bringing about German defeat without too much expense of British lives and resources (Offer 1985, pp. 212–224; 1989, pp. 4, 218–317, 395ff.). For the industrial backgrounds of German prewar expansionism, see e.g. Gutsche (1986). See also Carsten (1988, p. 153). The annexationist ‘war aims proposals’ in 1914–1915, though subscribed to by the national farm organizations, also originated with the PanGermans and the industrial interests (Schumacher 1978, p. 77; cf. facts in Stegmann 1970, pp. 449–457). The same is true for the Fatherland Party in 1917 (Stegmann 1983, pp. 220–221). As especially Berghahn (1973) tends to do. Offer (1989, Chs 17, 20). G. Hardach (1977, pp. 111–112). For Germany, see Offer (1989, Ch. 23). G. Hardach (1977, Ch. 2). For the Netherlands, see von der Dunk (1979, pp. 44–46, 48), Smit (1972, Chs 6–7, 9; 1973, Chs 1, 4). G. Hardach (1977, p. 110). For the contribution of protection to it, see Offer (1989, pp. 331–334); also Webb (1978, p. 79). G. Hardach (1977, p. 110). Henning (1978, pp. 176, 179–180). Aereboe (1927, pp. 33, 35–37, 42–43). G. Hardach (1977, p. 112). Haushofer (1963, pp. 226–227). Henning (1978, pp. 178–180). The loss of labour could only to a limited extend be compensated by the employment of prisoners of war. G. Hardach (1977, pp. 121–123). Offer (1989, pp. 62–63). Skalweit (1927). Also Flemming (1978, pp. 97–102), G. Hardach (1977, pp. 116ff.), Teichmann (1955, pp. 250–254, 351ff.), Plachetka (1969, pp. 329–349). Aereboe (1927, pp. 30–32, 48–53, 101–105). Flemming (1978, pp. 95ff., 116–119). G. Hardach (1977, pp. 114ff.). Schumacher (1978, pp. 35–38). Skalweit (1927, pp. 82–107). Plachetka (1969, pp. 338–344). A campaign hurriedly held in January 1915, for the slaughter of pigs to spare grain and potatoes for human consumption, also resulted in much waste. Furthermore, little was done to maintain the production of oil plants and root crops, which yielded a high calorific value and could have fed part of the livestock population, thereby also preserving manure to compensate for reduced fertilizer supply. Flemming (1978, pp. 107ff., 120ff.). Moeller (1986, Ch. 3). Schumacher (1978, pp. 37, 73–74). Aereboe (1927, pp. 53–56). Flemming (1978, pp. 102–105). Plachetka (1969, pp. 351ff.). Schumacher (1978, pp. 39–62, 68, 75). Skalweit (1927, pp. 107–114, 140ff., 179–187). Moeller (1986, pp. 51–57). For data on wartime nutrition in Germany, see Offer (1989, pp. 45–53). See also G. Hardach (1977, pp. 117–120). Offer (1989, pp. 69–78). The former position comes through in e.g. Flemming (1978, Ch. 2). The latter is that of Plachetka (1969, pp. 448, 453–473). Schumacher (1978, pp. 67–68). Teichmann (1955, p. 356). Cf. Aereboe (1927, p. 106).

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24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31

32 33 34

35 36

37 38

39

40 41 42

Cf. Offer (1989, pp. 64–68). Dewey (1989, p. 220). G. Hardach (1977, pp. 129–131). Dewey (1989, p. 227). This is Offer’s (1989) central thesis. G. Hardach (1977, pp. 123–124). Barnett (1985, Chs 5–6). G. Hardach (1977, pp. 125–131). Olson (1963, pp. 87ff., 96). Also Attwood (1963, p. 141). Barnett (1985, pp. 134, 140–141). For policy errors in the setting of livestock prices, see Dewey (1989, p. 214). It is an exaggeration that British controls were far superior to those in Germany (e.g. Olson 1963, pp. 95–96, 114–115). Attwood (1963, pp. 138–141). Barnett (1985, pp. 48–66, 193–195). Cooper (1989, pp. 23–29). Dewey (1989, pp. 25–34, 91ff.). Horn (1984b, pp. 47–51, 58–59). Whetham (1978, pp. 75–78, 85–87, 89–91). Under Asquith’s government, a ploughing-up campaign had vainly been advised by a subcommittee of the Reconstruction Committee chaired by Selborne as president of the Board of Agriculture, and by a departmental committee chaired by Milner. Both men were radical Tariff Reformers. Under Lloyd George’s government, Milner became a member of the war cabinet, while the presidency of the Board of Agriculture went to Prothero, another radical Tariff Reformer. Barnett (1985, pp. 195ff.). Dewey (1989, pp. 92–99). Horn (1984b, Ch. 3). Olson (1963, pp. 97–99). Whetham (1978, pp. 91–102). Barnett (1985, p. 204). This view originated with Middleton, whose estimates have been widely accepted by later authorities (e.g. G. Hardach 1977, pp. 126–127; Olson 1963, pp. 107–109). See criticism by Dewey (1989, pp. 221–225). Dewey (1989, pp. 106–107, 113–120, 148–150, 164–165, 215–216). For the supply of soldiers for agricultural work, see also Horn (1984b, Ch. 5). Cooper (1989, pp. 29–35). Dewey (1989, pp. 100–103). Also Horn (1984b, pp. 63–64), Whetham (1978, pp. 108, 109, 118–119). Army requirements alone cannot have been decisive because of the large number of troops that still remained in the country (at the armistice more than 1.5 million). Benedict (1953, pp. 160–163). Hall (1970, Ch. 2; 1973, pp. 40–44). Surface and Bland (1931, p. 15). Benedict (1953, p. 159). Genung (1940, pp. 281–282, 286). Increase of pig production was hampered by high prices for corn and by over-slaughter (Barnett 1985, p. 177; Hoover 1941, p. 5). Benedict (1953, pp. 161, 163–166). Hoover (1941, pp. 14–17, 21–23, 25–26). Mullendore (1941, Chs 6–7, 27). Surface and Bland (1931, pp. 17–21). See also Barnett (1985, Ch. 7) and Hall (1970, Ch. 3), both of whom stress the way in which American authorities used their granting of credit to restrict the demand of the European Allies. Benedict (1953, pp. 164–165). Hoover (1941, pp. 12–13). Mullendore (1941, Ch. 5). Sugar, however, was rationed. Cf. Hall (1970, pp. 122–123; 1973, pp. 44–45). Also Hoover (1941, pp. 13–17). Benedict (1953, pp. 164, 166). Genung (1940, pp. 282, 286–287). Hall (1970). Hoover (1941, pp. 25ff., 30ff.). Mullendore (1941, pp. 127–130, 259–269). The guarantee clause for wheat was a concession to farmers, who feared that the intended stabilization of

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43 44

45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

prices would be a price ceiling in disguise (Hall 1970, pp. 60–64). In 1918, the guarantee was raised to $2.26 per bushel. Benedict (1953, pp. 165, 167). Genung (1940, pp. 281–282). Hoover (1941, pp. 20, 25). Broekema (1920, p. 290). Smidt (1991, pp. 105–110). Sneller (1943, pp. 112–114). Treub (1920, pp. 175–176). Moreover, bread grain and potatoes were no longer allowed to be used as fodder. A State Grain Enterprise was also established for importing grain and baking bread from it to be distributed for subsidized prices. Broekema (1920, p. 292). Sheller (1943, p. 113). Smit (1972, pp. 92–93; 1973, pp. 9–10, 56–57). Broekema (1920, pp. 310–312). Sneller (1943, pp. 114–115). Smit (1972, pp. 118–127; 1973, pp. 6–8). Smidt (1991, pp. 116–127). Also Broekema (1920, pp. 285–287). Smit (1973, pp. 43–45). Broekema (1920, pp. 302, 308). Smit (1973, pp. 9–10). Sneller (1943, pp. 115–116). Also Hovius (1967, p. 11). Broekema (1920, p. 304). In total, no more than 58,000 hectares of grassland were broken up. G. Hardach (1977, p. 130). Plachetka (1969, pp. 438–452). Also Kempter (1985, pp. 81, 241). For the supposed possibility of tapping the stock of fertility in grassland, see Olson (1963, p. 114). Webb (1978, p. 100). Attwood (1963, pp. 143–144). Dewey (1989, p. 31). Data in Genung (1940, pp. 283, 289), Mitchell (1983, pp. 198, 202). Williams (1987, Ch. 3). For the United Kingdom, see Dewey (1989, Ch. 10). Cf. Genung (1940, pp. 292–294). Leneman (1989). Schumacher (1978, pp. 216–235). Reid (1964). Whetham (1978, pp. 119–120). Similar advice had also been given by the agricultural subcommittee of the Reconstruction Committee on Post-War Economic Policy (1916). For the influence of the war on thinking about farm policy in the United Kingdom, see also Attwood (1963, pp. 143–148), Dewey (1989, p. 241). Hall (1970, pp. 260–277; 1973, p. 46). Cox et al. (1991, pp. 43–44). Whetham (1978, pp. 122–123). Danbom (1979, p. 99). Fitzpatrick (1987). In Scotland too, land raids by crofters and cotters rekindled at the end of the war (see Hunter 1976, pp. 195–205; Leneman 1989, pp. 58, 61–62). Haushofer (1977, pp. 575–577). Moeller (1986, pp. 85–94). Osmond (1986). Saloutos and Hicks (1951, pp. 87–110, 179, 181, 185–218). Taylor (1953, pp. 421–455). Cooper (1989, pp. 35–37). Cox et al. (1991, pp. 37, 39–44). Bouman (1943b, pp. 263–264). Hovius (1967, pp. 25–26). Moeller (1986, Ch. 4). Osmond (1986). Danbom (1979, pp. 105ff.). McConnell (1953, Ch. 5). Saloutos and Hicks (1951, pp. 178–181). Moeller (1986, pp. 48–49, 70–71). Schumacher (1978, pp. 46, 51, 56, 61). Moeller (1986, Chs 3–4). Osmond (1986).

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76 This is a central theme in Moeller (1986). For the part of farmer dissatisfaction in the Nazi take-over, see also Farquharson (1976, Ch. 1), Gessner (1976, pp. 96–103, 242ff.), Heberle (1963). 77 See e.g. Benedict (1953, Chs 10–12), Saloutos (1982).

CHAPTER 7. DISCUSSION 1 Fletcher (1961a; 1961b). 2 E.g. Gerschenkron (1966, pp. 42–50), Puhle (1975a, pp. 44–45, 47–48; 1986a, pp. 86– 87). 3 Van Zanden (1985, pp. 246–252). A similar suggestion is made by Bieleman (1992, p. 217). 4 Lebergott (1984, pp. 305–310). 5 Perry (1973; 1974, pp. 21–34). Curiously enough, Perry reduces this outcome to a determinant of a ‘subjective view’ of the depression by farmers, who observed the increase of failures in their own region rather than taking the ‘objective view’ of comparing farm failures between regions at a given moment in time – a comparison that reveals a higher incidence in the arable southeast than in the livestock northwest. However, much the same variation existed in the golden years of farming in the early 1870s. Obviously, rather than giving an ‘objective view’ of the farm depression, the spatial variation in farm failures reflects the continuity of the different behaviour of different farm structures, smaller farms in the northwest being less susceptible to failure than large farms in the southeast. 6 Collins (1986, pp. 66–67). Offer (1989, p. 94). Turner (1992) seems less critical of Fletcher’s thesis, but his data (based on Bellerby’s) nevertheless show that the increase in livestock did not pull British agriculture out of near stagnation. 7 Rogers (1986). Also Mutch (1983; 1988, pp. 48–50). 8 Recently, F. M. L. Thompson (1991) has tried to give Fletcher’s thesis a stronger empirical base, but his analysis remains much too crude, and his conclusions over-optimistic. Even the most trifling growth of regional farm output is taken as a sign of ‘reasonably flourishing and perhaps prosperous’ farming and any decline of proceeds not exceeding that of rent as one of ‘favourable’ conditions for farmers. 9 Van Zanden (1985, p. 251). 10 Damsma and Noordegraaf (1986). 11 Bieleman (1987, pp. 323–324, 637–639, 650–652). Van Zanden (1985, pp. 284–285). 12 Cochrane (1984, pp. 93ff.). 13 Cf. Bairoch (1976, p. 297). In Europe, further industrial growth was also hindered by the industrial protection installed by the settler countries which flooded the European markets with grain (ibid., p. 301). In the United States, industrial absorption of farm labour was limited by massive European immigration. See e.g. Rothstein (1983, pp. 391– 395) for the causes of the low mobility of southern farm labour. 14 Tracy (1989, pp. 19, 357). 15 Bairoch (1976, p. 301).

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16 DeCanio (1974, especially pp. 240, 261). Also Fishback (1989), Wright (1978, pp. 167ff.; 1982, p. 177). The debt peonage thesis was advanced, in particular, by Ransom and Sutch (1972; 1975). 17 Henning (1987, p. 270). 18 Vousden (1990, p. 11). 19 Brentano (1925). Kitchen (1978, pp. 217–218). 20 Kehr (1930, pp. 196–207, 259–272). 21 Gerschenkron (1966). 22 E.g. Rosenberg (1976, Ch. 5), Wehler (1977, pp. 46–47). The same view is found in Böhme (1978), Flemming (1978, Ch. 1), Kempter (1985), Kitchen (1978, pp. 158–159, 167–168), Lütge (1966, pp. 512–513), Plachetka (1969), Puhle (1975a, p. 46; 1986a) and several other authors. 23 Tracy (1989, Ch. 4). 24 In October 1878, while 60 per cent of the Free Conservatives and 69 per cent of the German Conservatives in the Reichstag spoke out in support of protection, for those from agricultural East Elbia, this was only 14 per cent and 52 per cent respectively (K. W. Hardach 1987, pp. 288–290). 25 Born (1985, p. 120). Frauendorfer (1963, p. 367). K. W. Hardach (1987, p. 290). Kempter (1985, p. 103). 26 Caprivi’s fall has often been blamed on the agrarian interests (e.g. Ashley 1920, p. 77; Berghahn 1973, p. 182; Gerschenkron 1966, p. 56; Mendel 1975, p. 303; Puhle 1975a, p. 65; Tracy 1989, pp. 90, 95; Wehler 1977, p. 70). In reality, the agrarian opposition was only one factor. Others were that heavy industry rejected his conciliatory attitude to the labour movement, that the centre-left parties that supported his trade policies were divided and lost their majority, and that the Kaiser did not want to become dependent on these parties. The immediate cause of Caprivi’s fall was not his trade policies, which were firmly supported by the emperor, but his refusal to co-operate with new antisocialist legislation (Hendon 1976, pp. 364–369, 374–375; Kitchen 1978, pp. 212–213; Tirrell 1951, pp. 308–309, 316–328; Treue 1933, p. 96). 27 Cf. Nipperdey (1993, pp. 587–588), Tirrell (1951, pp. 306–307). 28 Kempter (1985, p. 140). 29 Plachetka (1969, pp. 196–199). Teichmann (1955, pp. 247–249). Tirrell (1951, pp. 101– 102). A variant was propagated by the agrarian wing of the Centre Party, but rejected by the party leadership (Hendon 1976, pp. 104–105, 384–387). 30 Hendon (1976, p. 388). Tirrell (1951, p. 329). See also Treue (1933, p. 106). 31 Stegmann (1970, pp. 63–65). 32 Stegmann (1970, p. 69). Ullmann (1976, p. 170). 33 See e.g. Ullmann (1976, pp. 166–168, 175–192) for the finishing industries in the Manufacturers’ League (Bund der Industriellen). 34 Stegmann (1970, p. 88). Ullmann (1976, p. 191). 35 Especially Wehler (1977), Berghahn (1973), Stegmann (1970; 1973). 36 Eley (1974). 37 Nipperdey (1993, p. 750).

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38 Mayer (1981). 39 See e.g. Barnes (1984) for the sharp differences in the economic situation between the high nobility and the lower gentry in England. For the anti-agrarian position of high nobles in the Tory leadership, see also Fforde (1985, pp. 29–31, 117–135, 313–316). 40 Mayer (1981, pp. 24, 32–34, 81, 134, 278). B. Moore (1968, pp. 30, 420, 422, 426, 429). 41 Mayer (1981, Ch. 2). Where the bourgeoisie co-operated with the aristocracy against further democratization and social reform, this is depicted by Mayer as a betrayal of its proper self. He thereby credits the bourgeoisie with an intrinsic vocation of emancipation, which is, however, a liberal myth (cf. Blackbourn and Eley 1984, pp. 15–19). 42 Mayer (1981, pp. 99–100).

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——‘American agriculture and the labor market: what happened to proletarianization?’, Agricultural History, vol. 62 (1988) 3, pp. 182–209. Wunderlich, F., Farm labor in Germany, 1810–1945; its historical development within the framework of agricultural and social policy, Princeton 1961. Zamagni, V., ‘An international comparison of real industrial wages, 1890–1913: methodological issues and results’, P. Scholliers (ed.), Real wages in 19th and 20th century Europe. Historical and comparative perspectives, New York etc. 1989, pp. 107–139. Zanden, J.L. van, De economische ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse landbouw in de negentiende eeuw, 1800–1914, AAG-Bijdragen 25, Wageningen 1985. ——‘Economische groei in Nederland in de negentiende eeuw. Enkele nieuwe resultaten’, Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek, vol. 50 (1987), pp. 51–76. ——‘De prijs van de vooruitgang? Economische modernisering en sociale polarisatie op het Nederlandse platteland na 1500’, Economisch- en Sociaal-Historisch Jaarboek, vol. 51 (1988), pp. 80–92. ——‘The first green revolution: the growth of production and productivity in European agriculture, 1870–1914’, Economic History Review, vol. 44 (1991) 2, pp. 215–239. Zeller, A., Irische Agrarbewegungen 1760–1880, European University Studies, series III, vol. 402, Frankfurt am Main etc. 1989.

277

INDEX

Adams Act (US, 1906), 129 advisory work, see under government support of farm progress agitation for rent reduction (UK), 97, 109 Aglietta, M., 6 agrarian capitalism, see large farms agrarian fundamentalism, 151–153 Agrarian League (Bund der Landwirte) (Ger.), 101, 110, 133, 143, 148–149, 164 agricultural ladder, 48 agricultural societies, 60–61, 145; and protection (Netherlands), 93, 139; relation to government, 52, 53, 60 agricultural crisis, 27, 47, 65, 71–72, 89, 90, 95, 97, 99, 106, 108, 146; contemporary view of, 169; difficulty of adapting to, 78–79, 170–171, (overstocking of livestock markets) 79, 171; fundamental causes of, 171; reaction of large farms to, 79–80; revisionist explanation of, 2, 4, 169–170, (criticism on) 170–171, (neoclassical assumptions behind) 171; various ways of adapting to, 74–75; varying impact in different regions, 37– 38, 74–78, 169–170, (causes of) 78–80; see also underb large farms, prices of agricultural products and individual countries Agricultural Holdings Acts (UK, 1875, 1883), 87 Agricultural Revolution, 11, 44, 60; second Agricultural Revolution, 20, 44 Agricultural Rates Act (UK, 1896), 84 Agricultural Chambers Act (Prussia, 1894), 89

agro-industrial interests, 164; and agricultural protection, 59, 142–143; and government support for farm progress and export expansion, 91–92, 128–129 Alien Land Law (California, 1913), 119 Alldeutscher Verband, see Pan-German League Allotments Act (UK, 1887), 87, 104 American Society of Equity (US), 138, 151 American Farm Bureau Federation, see under Farm Bureaus Ammon, Otto, 152 Anti-Corn Law League (UK), 3, 56 Anti-Monopoly Parties (US), 68, 110 Anti-Revolutionaries, see under Christian parties anti-Semitism, see racism Arch, Joseph, 65, 89 aristocracy, see wealthy rural classes Ashbourne Act (Ireland, 1885), 87 Ashley, W.J., 140 Asquith, Herbert, 158 Association for Social Policy (Verein für Sozialpolitik) (Ger.), 101, 104 Association of Fiscal and Economic Reformers (Vereinigung der Steuerund Wirtschaftsreformer) (Ger.), 173 Bahlmann, B.M., 95 Bairoch, P., 102, (v. Tracy) 216 Bakunin, Mikhail, 63 Balfour, Arthur, 146–147 passim; and Tariff Reform Movement, 140–141, 147 Barkin, K.D., 231

278

INDEX

Bavarian Farmers’ League (Bayerische Bauernbund), 101, 110, 148, 164, 165 bimetallism, 91, 94 Birrell Act (Ireland, 1909), 134 Bismarck, Otto von, 108, 155; liberalconservative reformism of, 69–70; turn to protection, 100–101, 112, 169, 173 Blaine, James, 92 Board of Agriculture (UK): old Board, 52; new Board, 89, 128, 158; upgraded to cabinet status, 145 boards of agriculture, 52, 53 boll weevil, 125, 126, 129, 131 Brenner, R., 190–191 Brentano, Lujo, 173 Bryan, William Jennings, 111, 151; see also under Democrats (US) Bülow, Bernhard von, 143–144, 173, 174; tariff act of (1902), 141, 143–144, 173, 174 Bund der Landwirte, see Agrarian Leagueb

101, 110, 144, 145, 148, 164 Christian parties: Dutch, 112; Anti-Revolutionaries, 95, 108, 110; Catholics, 108, 110; and farm labour policies, 136; and government support for farm progress, 95, 128; and land reform measures, 132; see also under Netherlands German: Centre Party, 100, 112, 142, 148–149 passim; and protection, 67, 99, 144; see also under Germany Christian Farmers’ Leagues (Christelijke Boerenbonden) (Nl.), 96, 110, 145; and pillarization, 150 Christian Farmers’ and Market Gardeners’ League (Christelijke Boeren- en Tuindersbond) (Nl.), 164 Churchill, Randolph, 108 Civil War (US), 9, 70, 72; and abolition of slavery, 53–54; effect on plantations of, 47; increase in federal support for farm progress during, 52, 86; land reform promises during, 54–55, 64; profitability of plantations at eve of, 46–47; protection after, 51; repression of black labour after, 56, 65, 109 Cleveland, Grover, 88, 107 co-operatives, 91, 124, 128, 138; as condition for development based on small farms, 35, 126; as explanation for decline of large farms, 27; impossibility of cartel formation by, 32, 138 Cobden, Richard, 3 Collings, Jesse, 104 commerce, finance and farm policies, see under non-agrarian interests comparative advantage in agriculture, 38, 43, 78, 90, 93, 96, 137, 168; and agricultural crisis, 171; see also under Netherlands and United States concentration in agriculture, limited scope for, 25 Congested Districts Board (Scotland), 133, 134 Conrad, A.H., 47 Conservatives: British: and agricultural protection, 56–57, 58, 66, 98, 139–141; co operating with Palmerston’s Liberal

Caird, James, 63, 64 Canadian agreement (US), of 1854, 51; of 1910–1911, 137–138 capitalist regulation, theory of, 6 Caprivi, Leo von: trade policies, 101, 141; fall as chancellor, 174 Carey Irrigation Act (US, 1894), 86 Cartel of Productive Estates (Kartell der schaffende Stände) (Ger.), 149, 175 Central Chamber of Agriculture (UK), 145 Central Union of German Manufacturers (Centralverband Deutscher Industrieller), 99, 142, 174 Centre Party, see under Christian parties Chamberlain, Joseph, 99, 104, 132; and Tariff Reform, 139, 140, 146, 168 Chambers of Agriculture (Landwirtschaftskammern) (Ger.), 87, 145; German Agricultural Labour Exchange (Deutsche FeldarbeiterZentralstelle), 119 Chartist Land Plan, 64 Christian Farmers’ Associations (christliche Bauernvereine) (Ger.)

279

INDEX

government, 69; and farm labour policies, 136; and government support of farm progress, 127; and land reform, 104, 132, 133–134: mutinous mood of, at eve of WW1, 147; Peelite secession from, 66, 69; rural-revivalist, 127, 132, 133, 136, 140, 147; under Salisbury, 108, 111–112; and Tariff Reform, see Tariff Reform Movement; and ‘Tory democracy’, 108, 147; see also under United Kingdom Dutch: disappearance as political current, 70; see also under Netherlands German, 100, 105, 112; and agricultural protection, 99, 144; benefiting from liberal-labour division, 148–149, 169; and German-Conservatives, 149; isolation and mutinous mood of, at eve of WW1, 149–150; reaction to 1848 uprising by, 69; and settlement policies, 105; see also under Germany consolidation of farms, 18, 44, 49; reintegration in demesnes, 46; small farmer resistance to, 64 constitutional conflict (Verfassungskonflikt) (Ger.), 69 Corn Production Act (UK, 1917), 158 corporatism, agrarian, 37, 89, 144–146, 164–165; ambivalence and tensions of, 144 Cort van der Linden, Pieter, 95 cottage industry, see rural industries Country Life Movement (US), 129, 132, 151; and agrarian fundamentalism, 152; Country Life Commission (1909), 129, 135 County Agricultural Committees (UK), 158, 164 Crofters’ Holdings Act (Scotland, 1886), 87, 106 Crofters’ Party (Scotland), 98 Crofters’ Commission (Scotland), 87, 134 crop-witholding actions, 138 culture struggle (Kulturkampf) (Ger.), 112 Cummins, Albert, 137 Cunningham, William, 140

Customs Union (Zollverein) (Ger.), 51, 69, 70 Damsma, D., 170 debt peonage thesis, 79, 171 deer forests (UK), 106 Democrats (US), 90, 111, 112; antebellum, 68; Bryanites, 92, 137, 151; postbellum southern, 108–109, 150–151; see also under United States demographic development, 6, 11; and demand for farm products, 11, 13, 21; and farm labour, 4, 13 Department of Agriculture (Directie van de Landbouw) (Nl.), 145 Derby, Lord, (Edward Stanley), 58 Desert Land Act (US, 1877), 88 Deutsche Feldarbeiter-Zentralstelle, see German Agricultural Labour Exchange development policies, agricultural, see government support of farm progress Development Commission for Agriculture and the Rural Economy (UK), 127, 130 Diehards’ revolt (UK), 147 differentiation between farms, 18, 43–44, 45, 46, 48, 131 Dingley Tariff Act (US, 1897), 137; reaction in Germany to, 141 Directie van de Landbouw, see Department of Agriculture disfranchisement, see under United States Disraeli, Benjamin, 58 Distribution Act (Nl., 1916), 161 Dobbelman, T.T.J.H., 95–96 domestic market, significance of agriculture for, 5, 31, 33, 43, 50, 98, 100, 102, 140, 142, 143, 168, 169 Dutch Agricultural Committee (Nederlands Landbouw-Comité), 89, 94, 95, 145 Dutch Agricultural Congress (Nederlands Landhuishoudkundig Congres), 94, 133 Dutch Farmers’ League (Nederlandse Boerenbond), 96, 138–139, 213, 228 Dutch Protectionist Agricultural Association (Nederlandse Protectionistische Landbouw Vereniging), 95

280

INDEX

Economic Commission (Ger., 1898), 143, 174 economies of scale: in agriculture, see under large farms; in industry, 15, 16 education for agriculture, 60; orientation of, 60, (conflicts about) 62, 93, 94, 130; at lower level, 86, 127, 130; see also under government support of farm progress Eley, G., 175 Elsen, Gerlacus van den, 96 emancipation, 53–54; effect on farm structures, 31–32, 54; landlord attitudes to, 31 Employment Agency Act (Stellenvermittlergesetz) (Ger., 1910), 119 enclosure acts, 51–52, 54 enclosures, 46; pursuit by wealthy classes of, 30; and rural poor, 13, 30, 54, 64 Engels, Friedrich, 63 Engerman, S.L., 47 English Agricultural Society, see Royal Agricultural Society of England evictions and clearances (Scotland, Ireland), 49, 64 evolutionary theory of economic change, 6 experiment stations, 53; character of research by, 62, 130; see also under government support of farm progress exports of farm products, 21, 32, 33, 40, 96, 113, 114; and fall of agricultural prices, 10, 72, 170; and ineffectivity of tariffs, 51, 85, 137; pursuit of expansion of, 91–92, 94, 112, 128, 168; subsidization of, 50, 59, 84, 85, 138, 141, (Grange proposal for) 90; and trade policy liberalization, 59; during WW1, 155, 159–161 passim

Farm Bureaus (US), 145, 165; American Farm Bureau Federation, 165 Farmer-Labor Party (Minnesota), 165 farmers in politics: and classical liberalism, 66–68 passim; competition of other interests for support from, 36, 68, 92, 141, 169; demands of, for: commutation of feudal burdens, 67; division of estates, 64; fiscal concessions, 99; flexible monetary policies, 91; protection, 93, 97, 99, 139–141 passim, 144, 163–164, 169, 173; regulation of carriers and traders, 91; and landlords, 67, 68, 97, 141, 148, 169, 175; mobilization of, 64, 67, 90, 92, 164, 165; and populism, 68, 90–92 passim, 109–111, 112, 151; support for political parties from, 66–68 passim, 92, 99, 109–111 passim, 147–148, 150, 151; and urban labour movement, 36, 110, 111, 165 see also under individual countries Farmers’ Alliances (US), 90, 91, 111; subtreasury plan of, 91 Farmers’ Alliance (UK), 97 Farmers’ Union (US), 138, 151 Fellenberg, Phillip von, 60 fertilizers, as explanation for decline of large farms, 26, 27, 83 First World War, 154–166; after-effects of, 162–166; agriculture and food supply during, 23, 155–161, (influence of prewar policies on) 162 (see also under individual countries); landlord power at eve of, 3, 174–175; origins of, 154, 234–235 (landlordblame thesis about) xiii, 175–176, price guarantees during, 158, 160, 161, 163–164 Fischer, F., 154 Fitzpatrick, D., 198 Fletcher, T.W., 170 Flürscheim, Michael, 105 Fogel, R.W., 47 Food Control Act (US, 1917), 159 food prices, fear for rise of, 128, 168 Food Production Department (UK), 158 food security, 5, 34, 95, 98, 100–102

Factories and Workshops Act (UK, 1878), 88 factory capitalism, classical, see under politico-economic configurations Fair Trade League (UK), 98 family farms, see small farms farm building costs, 48 farm colonies (US), 105, 132, 135 Farm Labourers’ Act (Nl., 1918), 135 Farm Loan Act (US, 1916), 129

281

INDEX

passim, 103, 140, 142, 143, 154, 163, 168, 169 Fordism, see under politico-economic configurations Free Land League (UK), 104 Free Peasantry (Freie Bauernschaft) (Ger.), 164 Freedmen’s Bureau (US), 56 Freedmen’s Bureau Act (US, 1865), 55 Frisian People’s Party (Friese Volkspartij) (Nl.), 105–106

enclosure acts, 51–52 farm structures, 10; evolution of, 46, 49, 81, 117–118, 120, 121, (estate farms) 46, 48, 117–118; as factor in farm progress or stagnation, 46, 48, 79, 126, 127; and farmer-landlord coalition, 99 farmers and politics: attitudes to Weimar republic, 164, 165; and Nazism, 165–166; role in 1848 uprising, 67; support for Democrats and Liberals, 67, 148; support for Conservatives and Centre, 67, 109–110, 148–149 general economic development, 9, 40, 71, 113 government support of farm progress, 53, 60, 61, 62, 85–86, 128, 130 Junkers in politics: accepted view on, xiii, 66, 174–176; enlightened currents after 1848, 67; extent of control over farmers, 148; liberal currents before 1848, 66–67; and origins of WW1, 154, (landlordblame thesis about) 175–176; power of, 120, 174, (contained by state) 10, 69, (decline of) 10, 149, 174–175; reaction to 1848 uprising, 67; shift to conservatism, 108, (radical) 108, 149–150, (reformist) 108, 149 labour policies in agriculture: lagging behind those in industry, 136; for immigrant labour, 88–89, 119; repressive character of, not to be exaggerated, 55–56, 65, 89; repressive character of, 119; and social insurance for farm workers, 89, 112, 136 land reform, 87, 135, 163; landlord attitudes to, 106–107, 133, 134; and ‘national question’, 104; non-agrarian support for, 104–105, 132; results of, 134 liberalization of trade in farm products, 51; endorsed by Junkers, 59 output and productivity of agriculture, 42–43, 44, 75, 76, 77–78, 101–102, 122–123, 124, 125, 126, 184–187 political structure and franchise reform, 9–10, 69, 149, 174 Gerschenkron, A., 173 Gevers van Endegeest, D.Th., 67

General Educational Board (US), 129 George, Henry, 105 German Farmers’ League (Deutscher Bauernbund), 148 German Board of Agriculture, see German Agricultural Council German Agricultural Council (Deutsche Landwirtschaftsrat), 107, 133, 173 Germany: acts, institutions and organizations, see names of idem agrarian corporatism, 89, 145, 164 agrarian influence on general political evolution, 69–70, 112, 148–150, 165–166 agriculture and food supply during First World War, 155–157; effect of prewar protection on, 162 agricultural prices and terms of trade, 41–42, 73, 74, 114, 115, 181–183 agricultural protection, 10, (import certificates) 84, 141, (sanitary restrictions) 84, 141, (tariffs) 84, 85, 141–143 passim; accepted view about, 90, 101, 102, 143, 144, 172, 173; agrarian demand for 99, 142, 144, 169, 173; as condition for continued agricultural development, 80, 96; effects of, 101–102, 144, 169, 172–173; introduction of, 84, 169; moderation under Caprivi, 84, 169; non-agrarian support for, 99–101, 139, 141–143, 169, 173–174; restoration under Bülow, 139, 141, 143, 169; and trade treaties, 84, 141, 142, 174 agricultural reforms (emancipation), 46; not encouraging small farms, 54; loss of peasant land to Junkers by, 46 difficulty of adapting to agricultural crisis, 78–79, 96

282

INDEX

Gilbert, Joseph, 20 Gladstone, William, 87, 106, 108 Goodman, G.L., 219 gold prices, 72 Gordon, D.M. et al., 6 government support of farm progress, 5, 167; as condition for continued development, 35, 127, 130–131; and corporatism, 145–146, 164; in the field of education, 52, 53, 60, 86, 127–130 passim; in the field of research, 53, 86, 128, 129; in the field of advisory work, 86, 127–128 passim, 129, 164, (farmers attitudes to) 35, 129, 131; increase of, 85–86, 127–130; and international competition, 32, 34, 128, 131; limited character of, 51–53, 60, 61, 86–87, 127; oriented to small farms, 35, 130–131; see also under non-agrarian interests, wealthy rural classes in politics, and individual countries Granger movement (US), 68, 90, 91, 110, 151 Grantham, G.W., 192 ‘Great Depression’, 71, 205; fall of farm prices as factor in, 71–72 Great Famine, 49, 54, 64 Greenback Parties (US), 90, 91, 110 Groningen agricultural college (Nl.), 60

Hoover, Herbert, 159, 160 Houten, Samuel van, 106 Imperial Settlement Act (Reichsiedlungsgesetz) (Ger., 1919), 163 Imperial Food Offices (Ger.), 156 import certificates, see under Germany income policies, agricultural, see protection of agricultural prices and tax reductions industrial and agricultural structures: divergence of, 29, 167; parallel development of, 19, 29 industrial development, restriction of, 32 Industrial Revolution: first Industrial Revolution, 6, 11, 40; and agricultural labour markets, 12, 13–14; and agricultural productivity, 12–13; and demand for farm products, 11–12; and economies of scale in agriculture, 16; and supplementary employment for small farmers, 17 second Industrial Revolution, 6, 19, 71, 113, 153; and agricultural labour markets, 24–25, 114–115; and deindustrialization of countryside, 25, 26; and economies of scale in agriculture, 25–26; and land productivity, 20; and substitutes for farm products, 21–22, 72 industry and farm policies, see under non-agrarian interests intervention by government in agriculture (in general), 8, 9, 37, 84, 163, 167; as condition for development based on small farms, 35, 172; perpetuating the crisis of agrarian capitalism, 37 Iowa idea, 137 Irish (Gladstone’s) Land Act of 1881, 87, 106 Irish Nationalists, 98; farmer support for, see under United Kingdom Irish Land Acts of 1860 and 1870, 54

Hall, Daniel, 130 Hansen, Georg, 152 Hatch Act (US, 1887), 86, 93 Health Insurance Act (Nl., 1913), 136 Heim, Georg, 148 Hereditary Leasehold Acts (Rentengutsgesetze) (Prussia, 1890, 1891), 87, 107, 134, 135 high farming, 44–45, 48, 60; and Corn Laws repeal, 57; and second Agricultural Revolution, 44 Highland and Agricultural Society (Scotland), 60 Historical School in Economics: and agrarian fundamentalism, 152; in Germany, 143; in United Kingdom, 140 Hoek, P. van, 130 Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, Chlodwig, 174 Homestead Act, see under United States

Jackson, Andrew, 51 Jefferson, Thomas, 63, 68; apocryphal interpretation of, 63 Jessop, B., 6

283

INDEX

Kaarlehto, P., 195 Kanitz proposal (Ger.), 174 Kartell der schaffende Stände, see Cartel of Productive Estates Kautsky, Karl, 110 Kehr, E., 173 Kehrite school, 175, 188, 230 Kindleberger, C.P., 213 Kitchen, M., 220–221 Knapp, Seaman A., 129 Knibbe, M., 41 Knights of Labor (US), 111 Kulturkampf, see culture struggle Kuyper, Abraham, 110

rural exodus, 103–104, 106, 132, 167; as means to defend land rents or reduce debts, 33, 106, 107, 167; as means to strengthen defence of private property, 104, 132, 167; and national interest, 132; as preventive against revolution, 28, 34; as valve for urban unemployment, 105, 135; see also under non-agrarian interests, wealthy rural classes in politics, and individual countries land productivity, see individual countries: output and productivity of agriculture Land Commission (1879) (US), 105 Land Settlement Facilities Act (UK, 1919), 163 Land Nationalization Society (UK), 104 Land Restoration League (UK), 104 Land Union (UK), 147 Land Nationalization League (Nl.), 105 Land War, see agitation for rent reduction Land Settlement Act (Scotland, 1919), 163 landed elite, see wealthy rural classes Landes, D.S., 6 Landesökonomiekollegium, see Prussian Board of Agriculture landlords, see wealthy rural classes Lane, Franklin, 163 large farms: advocates of, 34, 62–63; among social reformist thinkers, 63, 172 balance between, and small farms, 16; tipping to large farms, 18, 167; tipping to small farms, 26–27, 120 causes of persistence in some regions of, 28, 115–118, 167 decline of, 4–9 passim, 27–28, 81–83, 120–121, 167; other explanations of, 27–28, 83, 121, 172 definition of, 14–15 different forms of, 4, 14, 18–19, 43–50 passim economies of scale of, 4, 15, 16, 25–26 increase or recovery of, 4–9 passim, 18–19, 43–50, 115–118 labour management on, 15, 45, 47 technical lead of, 4, 15; factors leading to increase of, 17, 44–49 passim;

La Follette, Robert, 137, 151 labour policies in agriculture: and free movement of labour, 25, 32, 89; and general absence of protection for labourers, 55–56, 64–65; lagging behind industrial policies, 64–65, 88, 135–137; and minimum wage, 136; and prohibitions of ‘combination’, 55, 89; and repression of immigrant and black labour, 32, 33, 56, 65, 88, 89, 118–120; and social insurance for farm workers, 89, 136; see also under non-agrarian interests, wealthy rural classes in politics, and individual countries labour productivity in agriculture, see individual countries: output and productivity of agriculture labourers in agriculture, 48; casual, female and child, 45, 79; dependent sharecroppers as, 15, 47, 117; immigrant, 25, 32, 80, 117–118; proletarianization of, 13; share in farm population of, 81–82, 120–121; skilled and unskilled, 15, 45; underemployed, 45, 49; unfree, 15, 18, 31, 46 (see also emancipation); see also labour policies in agriculture; rural exodus; wages in agriculture laissez faire, see classical liberalism land reform, 87–88, 103, 133–135, 152, 163; absence of, 54–55; absence of polical need for, 64; agitation of rural poor for, 64, 97, 103, 131; and conflicts about compensation, 34, 133–134; and land productivity, 36, 103, 104, 132, 167; as means to curb

284

INDEX

Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen, see Society for Public Welfare Mansholt, Derk, 105 Marshall, Alfred, 140 Marx, Karl, 63 Mathew, W.M., 197 Mayer, A.J., 65, 175, 239–240 McKinley Tariff Act (US, 1890), 85, 90; and reciprocity, 92; reaction in Germany to, 101 McKinley, William, 92, 151 Meat Inspection Act (US, 1890), 85 Meat and Livestock Inspection Act (Ger., 1900), 141 mechanization, 14, 20, 27, 45, 46, 47–48, 77–78 passim, 122–123, 125, 126, 127, 163, 168, Meer, C.L.J. van der, 41 Mendel, A., 230 Meyer, J.R., 47 migration, international, 20, 113; after potato blight, 49 Mill, John Stuart, 63 Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (UK), 164 Ministry of Food (UK), 158 Miquel, Johannes von, 105, 144 ‘monopoly’ capitalism, classical, see under politico-economic configurations Moore, B., 65, 175 Morrill Land Grant College Act (US), of 1862, 52, 53; of 1890, 86, 93 ‘national efficiency’, 8, 9, 38, 139, 153

profit squeeze limiting, 26, 79, 80, 83, 126, 172 see also individual countries: farm structures Lawes, John, 20 Lebergott, S., 170, 202 liberal trade policies for agriculture, 84–85, 137–141, 168–169; acceptance by wealthy rural classes of, 56–59 liberalism, classical, 6, 8, 38, 111; agrarian contribution to, 4–5, 39, 65–70; agrarian interests and decline of, 107–112 liberalizing tendency in farm policies, 7, 9, 32, 37, 50–56, 65 Liberals: British, 98, 154; and agrarian fundamentalism, 152; benefiting from opposition to Tariff Reform, 140–141, 146–147; and farm labour policies, 136; and government support of farm progress, 127; and land reform, 104, 132, 133–134; Liberal Unionist secession from, 99, 108, 111, 112; radical faction of, 69, 99, 132; Whig faction of, 66, 69; see also under United Kingdom Dutch: and farm labour policies, 136; and government support of farm progress, 95, 128; and land reform, 132; progressive Liberals, 112; see also under Netherlands German, 112, 142; and agricultural protection, 143; East Prussian Whig faction of, 67; National Liberals, 101, 105, 148–149 passim; progressive Liberals, 101, 143, 149; and settlement policies, 105, 132; Wochenblatt faction of, 67, 69; see also under Germany Liebig, Justus von, 20, 61, 62 livestock numbers, 20, 46, 76–77, 78, 101–102, 121, 122, 126 HNB: tabel 5.7, 126, 127, 170 Livestock Diseases Act (Ger., 1880), 84 Lloyd George, David, 148, 158; and land campaign, 134, 136, 141; and landlord-blame thesis, 175–176; and People’s Budget, 127, 147 Locke, John, 39 long wave theory, 8, 189

National Insurance Act (UK, 1911), 136 National Farmers’ Union (UK), 145, 164 National Ministry for Food and Agriculture (Ger.), 164 National Federation of Tenant Farmers’ Clubs (UK), 97 National Agricultural Labourers’ Union (UK), 89, 103 National Soil Fertility League (US), 129 nationalism, agrarian right-wing, 110, 149 naval arms race (Germany–UK), 98, 140 naval question (Ger.), 143, 144 Netherlands: acts, institutions and organizations, see names of idem agrarian corporatism, 89, 145, 164

285

INDEX

agrarian influence on general political evolution, 70, 112, 150, agriculture and food supply during First World War, 160–161 agricultural prices and terms of trade, 41–42, 73, 114, 181–182 comparative advantage in agriculture, 38, 43, 78, 90, 93, 96, 137, 168 division of commons, 51 farm structures, 10; as factor in agricultural progress or stagnation, 45, 79, 80, 126; evolution of, 45, 49, 116–117, 120 farmers and politics: support for Christian parties, 110, 150, (and pillarization) 150; support for Liberals, 67, 110, 150 general economic development, 9, 40, 71, 113 government support of farm progress: near-absence of, 52, 60, 61; rapid increase after 1886, 10, 86, 128, 130, (agrarian demand for) 94, 168, (nonagrarian support for) 95, 128, 168 holding to free trade in farm products, 10, 85–86, 137, 138; agrarian attitudes to, 93–94, 96, 138–139; non-agrarian attitudes to, 94–95, 168 labour policies in agriculture, lagging behind those in industry, 136 land reform measures: attitudes of wealthy rural classes to, 133, 135; Farm Labourers’ Act, 135; less urgent, 88, 132; non-agrarian support for, 105–106, 132 landlords, political attitudes of, 67, 108 liberalization of trade in farm products, 50; agrarian attitudes to, 58–59; and trading interests, 50, 58 output and productivity of agriculture, 42–43, 44, 75, 76, 77–78, 122, 123–124, 125, 184–187 political structure and franchise reform, 9, 95 price support for farm products: price guarantees during WW1, 161, 163 price support after 1929, 165 tithes redemption, 52 New Era (Ger.), 69 Newlands Reclamation Act (US, 1902), 129, 135 Nipperdey, Th., 69, 175

non-agrarian interests: and agrarian fundamentalism, 152 and agricultural trade policies, 5, 31, 33–34, 35–36, 50–51, 94–95, 100–101, 137, 139–144, (industrial attitudes), 50–51, 98, 101, 139–144 passim, 168, 169, 173, 174, (commercial and financial attitudes) 50–51, 58, 98, 140, 143, 168, 169, (urban labourers’ attitudes), 98, 100, 140, 143, 168, 169 and government support for farm progress and export expansion, 34, 36, 59–60, 92, 95, 127–128 passim, 128–130, 168 and land reform, 34, 36, 64, 94, 104–106, 132, 133, 167 and repressive farm labour policies, 31, 33, 119–120 see also under individual countries Non-Partisan League (US), 164 Noordegraaf, L., 170 Northcote, Stafford, 108 November revolution (Ger., 1918), 164, 165 Offer, A., 80 Ohm, H., 195 Oldenberg, Karl, 143 Oppenheimer, Franz, 105 organic (manure-intensive) agriculture, confinements of, 12, 20, 31 Ostmarkenverein, see Society for the Eastern Marches output of agriculture: world, 21, 72, 171; national, see under individual countries Owen, Robert, 63 Pan-German League (Alldeutscher Verband), 105, 132, 149, 154 Parliament Act (UK, 1911), 134, 147 Patent Office (US), 52, 53 Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act (US, 1909), 137, 138 peasants and farmers, no fundamental difference between, 190 Peel, Robert, 57 People’s Party (US), 90, 91, 111, 151; coalition with Democrats, 92, 111, 151 Perkins, J.A., 207 Perry, P.J., 170, 238

286

INDEX

Pierson, Nicolaas, 95 Pinchot, Gifford, 131 Planters’ Protective Association (Kentucky), 138 political evolution, general, and agrarian politics, 38–39, 68–70, 111–112, 146–151; see also under individual countries politico-economic configurations: proto-industrial configuration, 6, 11, 7, 8, 15, 38 (see also rural industries); classical factory capitalism, 6, 7, 8, 38, 40; classical ‘monopoly’ capitalism, 6, 7, 8, 38, 71, 113; Fordism, 8 Poor Law reform, see United Kingdom: labour policies in agriculture (workhouse system) population growth, see demographic development populists (US), 68, 150; see also People’s Party potato blight, see Great Famine Pre-emption Act (US, 1841), 54 press, agricultural, 60, 61 price of gross domestic product in agriculture, see individual countries: agricultural prices and terms of trade prices of agricultural products: determinants of, 3–4, 11–13, 19–23, 24–25, 72, 113, 163, 171; movement of, 4, 7, 22–23, 40–42, 71, 72–73, 113–114, 163, 167, (cotton) 72, (grain or wheat) 14, 22–23, 24, 72, (livestock and other) 72; terms of trade, 41–42, 73–74, 113–114, 115; see also under individual countries Priester, P.R., 196, 206 productivity in agriculture, see individual countries: output and productivity of agriculture; see also technical development in agriculture profits and rents in agriculture, 4, 14, 114; squeeze on, 4, 25, 27, 163, 167, 171 Progressive Movement (US), 129, 132; and farmers’ populism, 151 protection of agricultural prices, 32, 152; accepted view about, 2, 90, 101, 102, 143, 144, 172, 174; as condition for continued development, 5, 35, 80, 139, 167–168; contemporary economists on, 95, 140, 143; decrease of, 50–51, 84, 85, 101, 169; effects of,

101–102, 144, 169, 172–173; generalization after 1929 of, 165; introduction or increase of, 84, 85, 100, 139, 141–143, 169; see also under farmers in politics, non-agrarian interests, wealthy rural classes and politics, and individual countries protection(ism), industrial, 5, 33, 51, 66, 92, 99–100, 137, 138, 139, 141–142; agrarian attitudes to, 67, 68, 137–138, 142 proto-fascism, 111 proto-industry: theory, 6; protoindustrial configuration, see under politico-economic configurations; see also rural industries Provincial Advisory Service (UK), 127 Prussian State Development Bank (Seehandlung), 51 Prussian Ministry of Agriculture, 53, 119 Prussian Board of Agriculture (Landesökonomiekollegium), 133 Public Land Commission (US, 1905), 135 Puhle, H.-J., 196, 230–231, 233 racism, 109, 110, 111, 151, 152 Rallying Policy (Sammlungspolitik) (Ger.), 141, 175; British Tariff Reform as a kind of, 146 recent farm policy discussions, 1–2 reciprocity, see under McKinley Tariff Act and United States reclamation in new countries, 20, 72 Reichs Insurance Law (Ger., 1911), 136 Reichsiedlungsgesetz, see Imperial Settlement Act rent theory, classical, 27, 167 Rentengutsgesetze, see Hereditary Leasehold Acts repeal of the Corn Laws, see under United Kingdom Republicans (US), 68, 90, 92, 112, 150, 151; insurgent, 137, 151 research, agricultural, see experiment stations and under government support for farm progress Revolution of 1848 (Ger.), 52, 53, 64, 67, 69 Robertson Scott, J.W., 139 Rockefeller, Nelson, 129

287

INDEX

Rodbertus, Johann Karl, 63, 67 Roosevelt, Theodore, 129, 132, 151; and agrarian fundamentalism, 152 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 166 Roscher, Wilhelm, 63 Rosenberg, H., 3 Rothamsted research centre (UK), 62 Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester (UK), 60 Royal Agricultural Society of England, 57, 60 Royal Commission on Agriculture (UK): of 1879, 97, 106; of 1894, 97; of 1919, 163 Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes (UK, 1885), 104 Royal Commission on Labour (UK, 1893), 88 Royal Settlement Commission for Posen and West Prussia, 87, 134 rural exodus, 25; attempts to stop, 25, 101, 119; fear for, 5, 33, 103–104, 140, 152, 168; see also under land reform rural industries, 6, 11; and agricultural la bour supply, 13, 19; decline of, 25, 116; and supplementary employment for small farmers, 17; see also Industrial Revolution, second: deindustrialization of countryside ‘rye and iron’ (Ger.), 175; see also Rallying Policy and Cartel of Productive Estates

small farms (family farms): advocates of, 63, 172 definition of, 14 development based on, 5, 7, 35–36 disadvantages for farm progress of, 34–35, 63–64, 127 factor (labour) price advantage of, 4, 16, 26; factors leading to increase of, 26, 83, 120, 167, 172; factors limiting, 17, 28 innovation by, 17, 126–127 logic of, 17 low transaction costs of, 16 as product of modern industrial capitalism, 29 revival of, 4, 29 risk aversion of, 35, 131 see also land reform and individual countries: farm structures smallholdings, labourer-farms etc., 14, 15, 18, 19, 54; caused by fragmentation of small farms, 18, 19, 49; decrease of, 29; as means to curb rural exodus, 25, 132; as means to defend land rents or reduce debts, 32, 106, 107, 132; see also land reform Small Holdings Act (UK, 1892), 87, 104 Small Holdings and Allotments Acts (UK, 1907, 1908), 134 Small Landholders Act (Scotland, 1911), 134 Smith-Hughes Act (US, 1917), 129 Smith-Lever Act (US, 1914), 129, 131 social imperialism, 7, 38, 112, 175 Social Democrats (socialists), 142; agrarian debates of, 110, 150, 151; and agrarian fundamentalism, 152; and agricultural protection, 143; American, 151; British, 133, 143; Dutch, 150; German, 110, 148, 149, 156, 165; and land reform, 133; and wartime food policies, 156, 165 Society for the Eastern Marches (Ostmarkenverein) (Ger.), 105, 132 Society for Public Welfare (Maatschappij tot Nut van ‘t Algemeen) (Nl.), 105 soil exhaustion, 129; planters and, 47, 197 solid south (US), 151 Soviet Republic of Bavaria, 164 Sparks, William, 88 Stanley, see Derby Staring, Winand, 62

Salisbury, Marquis of, (Robert Cecil), 104, 108, 146 Sammlungspolitik, see Rallying Policy sanitary import restrictions, see under Germany Schaepman, Hermanus, 110, 213 Schmitt, G., 192 Schultz, Th.W., 22 scientists, attitudes of, 61–62, 93, 129, 130 Secondary Education Act (Nl., 1862), 62 Seehandlung, see Prussian State Development Bank self-exploitation, see small farms: factor (labour) price advantage Sering, Max, 105, 107 Servants and Agricultural Labourers Act (Prussia, 1854), 55, 65

288

INDEX

State Commission in Agriculture (Nl.): of 1886, 86, 95, 105; of 1906, 135 State Commission of Land Colonization and Rural Credits (California, 1916), 135 Stellenvermittlergezets, see Employment Agency Act Stoecker, Adolf, 108 Stolper-Samuelson theorem, 173 strategic-relational state analysis, 6 Stuijvenberg, J.H. van, 193 substitutes for farm products, see under Industrial Revolution subtreasury plan, see under Farmers’ Alliances (US)

Thünian circles, 38 Timber Culture Act (US), suspension of (1886), 88 Timber and Stone Act (US, 1878), 88 Tönnies, Ferdinand, 152 Tracy, M., 2, 56, 170, 173, 207, (v. Bairoch) 216 trade balance, significance of agriculture for, 92, 128 trade unions, of farm labourers, 65, 89 trade treaties, see under Germany Trade Boards Act (UK, 1909), 136 Trades Union Congress (UK), 103 transport: costs of, as barrier to international trade in farm products, 13, 78; revolution of, 20–21, (and comparative advantage in agriculture) 78, 168, (and demand for farm products) 12, (and global supply of farm products) 19–20, (and international migration) 20, (and international trade in farm products) 13, 72, 78 Troelstra, Pieter Jelles, 150 Turner, Frederick, 105

Tariff Reform Movement (UK), 139–141, 146–147, 168; and agrarian fundamentalism, 152; Agricultural Committee of, 139, 141; as industrial-agrarian coalition, 139, 140; and rural revivalism, 140; and Tory democracy, 147; during WW1, 158; after 1929, 165 tax reductions, 84 Taylorism, 130 technical development in agriculture, 12–13, 20–21, 44–49 passim, 121–125, 74–78 passim; based on private initiative, 59–61; as explanation of decline of large farms, 27, 83; influence of farm structures on, 27, 192–193; on large and small farms, 17, 126–127; see also Agricultural Revolution and individual countries: output and productivity of agriculture Ten Hours Acts (UK): of 1847, 64; of 1878, see Factories and Workshops Act tenant protection, 32, 36, 87, 141 tenant-purchase policies, 87, 133, 134; see also under wealthy rural classes in politics tenants, bargaining position of large and small, 30, 36 terms of trade farm/non-farm, see individual countries: agricultural prices and terms of trade Thaer, Albrecht, 60, 63 Thorbecke, Johan, 67 Thünen, Johann von, 63, 67

Ulster question, 147 Underwood-Simmons Tariff Act (US, 1913), 138 United Kingdom: acts, institutions and organizations of, see names of idem agrarian corporatism, 89, 144–145, 164 agrarian influence on general political evolution, 68–69, 111–112, 146–148, agriculture and food supply during First World War, 157–159 agricultural prices and terms of trade, 41–42, 57–58, 73, 74, 114, 115, 181–183 comparative advantage in industry, 43 difficulty of adapting to agricultural crisis, 78–79, 96 farm structures, 10; and agricultural progress or stagnation, 44–45, 79, 80, 81–82, 126, 127; evolution of, 43–44, 45, 48, 49–50, 115–116, 120; as factor in divisions between landlords and farmers, 97, 168; as factor in farm progress or stagnation, 79 farmers and politics: disappointed with Conservatives, 141, 147; support for Conservatives, 66, 109; support

289

INDEX

for Irish nationalists, 109, (Sinn Fein) 147–148, (Irish Republican Army) 164; support for Liberals, 66, 109, 147 general economic development, 9, 40, 71, 113 government support of farm progress, 140; increase after 1910, 127–128, 130; limited character of, 52, 60, 61, 86–87, 127 holding to free trade in farm products, 10, 85–86, 168–169; agrarian attitudes to, 96–97, 168; as factor in stagnation of agricultural development, 80, 96; non-agrarian attitudes to, 98, 140, 168–169; only possible by UK hegemony, 99, 168; see also Tariff Reform Movement labour policies in agriculture: lagging behind those in industry, 88, 136; social insurance for farm workers, 136; workhouse system, 55, 65, 89 land reform, 10, 54, 87, 140, 163; agitation of rural poor for, 97, 103, 131; conflicts and results of, 133–134; landlord attitudes to, 106, 133; nonagrarian support for, 104, 132; Tariff Reformers’ support for, 132, 140, 147 landed aristocracy in politics: divisions between Tory leadership and gentry, 140–141, 146, 175; liberal leanings of, 66; limited control over farmers of, 147; power of, 56, 68–69, (decline of) 98–99, 146–147; shift to conservatism, 107–108, (negative) 107–108, 147, (radical) 147, (reformist) 146–147 liberal land policies, 54; General Enclosure Act, 51, 54 output and productivity of agriculture, 42–43, 44, 75, 184–187; stagnation of, 75–77, 79, 121–122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 168 political structure and franchise reform, 9, 66, 98 price support for farm products: price guarantees during WW1, 158, 163, 164; price support after 1929, 165 repeal of the Corn Laws, 50; agrarian attitudes to, 56–58; effect on prices, 57–58; impossible without consent of

landowners, 56; and manufacturers, 50–51; traditional interpretation of, 56 tenant protection, 10, 54, 141 tenant-purchase legislation, 87; landlord attitudes to, 106, 133 United States: acts, institutions, organizations, see under names of idem abolition of Indian rights, 51 agrarian corporatism, 89, 145, 164 agrarian influence on general political development, 70, 112, 150–151, 166 agricultural prices and terms of trade, 41–42, 72–74, 114, 115, 181–183 California large growers in politics, 119–120 comparative advantage in agriculture, 78, 90, 96, 137, 168 disposal of public domain: in antebellum period, 54; Homestead Act, 48, 54, 64, (erosion of intention of) 54–55, 64, (restoration of) 88, 107 farm structures, 10; evolution of, 46–47, 48, 82–83, 117, 118, 120–121, (bonanzas and suchlike) 47, 48–49, 79, 80, 126, 127, (plantations) 46–47, 82, 117; as factor in farm progress or stagnation, 47, 48–49, 79, 80, 126, 127 farmers and politics: antebellum coalition with planters, 68; and New Deal coalition, 166; political weight during antebellum period and Civil War, 64; support for populism and third parties, 68, 90, 110–111, 151; support for Republicans, 68, 92 food policies during First World War, 159–160 general economic development, 9, 40, 71, 113 government support of farm progress, 60, 61; rapid increase from late 1880s, 10, 86, (agrarian attitudes to) 93, 128, 129, 131, 168, (non-agrarian support for) 93, 128–129, 131, 168; limited character of, in antebellum period, 52; moderate increase during Civil War, 52–53 labour policies in agriculture: absence of social policies for farm labourers, 56, 137; government and immigrant

290

INDEX

Wirtschaftsreformer, see Association of Fiscal and Economic Reformers Verfassungskonflikt, see constitutional conflict Vollmar, Georg von, 110 volume of gross domestic product in agriculture, see individual countries: output and productivity of agriculture

labour, 88–89, 119; and repressive control of black labour, 56, 65, 88–89, 109, 118 monetary policies, 74, 91, 92, 112; agrarian attitudes to, 91 output and productivity of agriculture, 42–43, 44, 75, 76, 77, 122, 123, 124–125, 184–187 political structure and franchise reform, 9, 70 price support for farm products: price guarantees during WW1, 160, 163–164; price support after 1929, 165 regulation of carriers and traders, agrarian demand for, 91 settlement and farm colonies: abortion of land reform in the South, 55, 64; California large growers’ attitudes to, 133, 137; non-agrarian support for, 105, 132, 135, 163; results of, 135 slave emancipation, 53–54; not leading to end of plantations, 47 southern planters in politics: attitudes in antebellum period, 67–68; and disfranchisement, 109, 150; power, (local) 119, 150–151, (small at national level) 151; and Redeemers, 108–109 trade policies in agriculture: agrarian attitudes to, 59, 90, 137–138, 168; non-agrarian attitudes to, 92, 137; and reciprocity, 85, 92, 137; tariffs little effective, 10, 51, 85, 92, 137; tariff reductions, 51, (one-sided) 137–138 urban labour and agrarian politics, see under non-agrarian interests and farmers in politics US Department of Agriculture, 52, 53, 86, 129, 145, 164; Bureau of Animal Industry, 85; Section of Foreign Markets, 85; upgraded to cabinet status, 89 US Food Administration, 159–160; farmer opposition to, 164; Food Administration Grain Corporation, 160, 163 US Reclamation Service, 135

Wageningen agricultural college (Nl.), 86, 128 wages in agriculture, 171; determinants of, 4, 13–14, 24–25, 114–115; movement of, 4, 8, 14, 22, 23–24, 73, 114–115, 163, 167; proportion to non-farm wages of, 25, 79, 115 Wagner, Adolf, 143 War Cereals Office (Ger.), 155 War Food Department (Ger.), 156, 164 Warehouse Act (US, 1916), 129 wealthy rural classes in politics: accepted view about, 2, 3, 65, 66, 90, 143, 173, 174–176 and agrarian fundamentalism, 152, 153 attitudes of, to: agricultural protection, 5, 30, 32, 56–59, 93–94, 97, 99, 139–141 passim, 174; enclosure legislation, 30; farm labour policies, 88–89, 109, 119–120, 135–137 passim; government support of agricultural progress and export expansion, 59, 91–92, 94, 168; land reform, 33, 36, 106–107, 132–133, 137, 167; tenantpurchase legislation, 106, 133 and classical liberalism, 4–5, 39, 65–70 demand for fiscal concessions, 99 extent of control over farmers by, 146, 147, 148 and farmers’ populism, 91, 110, 148, 151 and origins of WW1, 154 political power of, 68–69, 119–120, 143, 174; decline of, 5, 39, 98–99, 146–151, 175; economic base of, 4, 29 shift to conservatism by, 107–109, (reformist) 108, 146–147, 149, (negative) 39, 107–109 passim, 146, 148, 150–151; 108, 146, 148, 149–150 see also under individual countries wealthy rural classes, modern or premodern character of, 3–4

Verein für Sozialpolitik, see Association for Social Policy Vereinigung der Steuer- und

291

INDEX

Webb, S.B., 102, 216 Weber, Max, 105, 173 Wehler, H.-U., 175 Wheatland riot (California), 118 Whigs: American, 68; East Prussian, see under Liberals; British, see under Liberals Wilhelm II, emperor of Germany, 142, 174 Wilson, William, 135 Windom Committee (US, 1873), 91 Woollens Act (US, 1867), 51 Woorst, G.J. ter, 195

workhouse system, see under United Kingdom Workmen’s Compensation Act (UK), extension to agriculture of (1900), 136 World Policy (Weltpolitik) (Ger.), 142, 143, 169, 175 Wye agricultural college (UK), 86, 127, 130 Wyndham Act (Ireland, 1903), 133 yields, 12, 21, 75, 78, 121, 122, 125 Zanden, J.L. van, 170, 221 Zollverein, see Customs Union

292