that, the increasing demands of the
State, the province, the municipality hit both farmer and farmhand, and
make them still more rebellious.

True enough, many farm products have greatly risen in value during this
period, but not in even measure with the taxes and the cost of living.
On the other hand, transmarine competition in food materially
contributes toward reducing prices: this reduces incomes: the same can
be counterbalanced only by improved management: and nine-tenths of the
farmers lack the means thereto. Moreover, the farmer does not get for
his product the price paid by the city: he has to deal with the
middlemen: and these hold him in their clutches. The broker or dealer,
who at given seasons traverses the country and, as a rule, himself sells
to other middlemen, wants to make his profits: the gathering of many
small quantities gives him much more trouble than a large invoice from a
single large holder: the small farmer receives, as a consequence, less
for his goods than the large farmer. Moreover, the quality of the
products from the small farmer is inferior: the primitive methods that
are there generally pursued have that effect: and that again compels the
small farmer to submit to lower prices. Again, the farm owner or tenant
can often not afford to wait until the price of his goods rises. He has
payments to meet--rent, interest, taxes; he has loans to cancel and
debts to settle with the broker and his hands. These liabilities are due
on fixed dates: he must sell however unfavorable the moment. In order to
improve his land, to provide for co-heirs, children, etc., the farmer
has contracted a mortgage: he has no choice of creditor: thus his plight
is rendered all the worse. High interest and stated payments of arrears
give him hard blows. An unfavorable crop, or a false calculation on the
proper crop, for which he expected a high price, carry him to the very
brink of ruin. Often the purchaser of the crop and the mortgagee are one
and the same person. The farmers of whole villages and districts thus
find themselves at the mercy of a few creditors. The farmers of hops,
wine and tobacco in Southern Germany; the truck farmers on the Rhine;
the small farmers in Central Germany--all are in that plight. The
mortgagee sucks them dry; he leaves them, apparent owners of a field,
that, in point of fact, is theirs no longer. The capitalist vampire
often finds it more profitable to farm in this way than, by seizing the