Eugen Peter Schwiedland · 1896
Eugen Peter Schwiedland’s review examines Theodor Freiherr von der Goltz’s 1894 book on Germany’s agricultural crisis and its remedies. It proceeds from prices, indebtedness, and rural social change to proposals for improving production, credit, inheritance, and agricultural education. Schwiedland presents Goltz as a knowledgeable conservative committed to restoring German food independence, while questioning whether his reliance on sound management and voluntary restraint adequately addresses existing practices.
The central economic distinction is between increased production and declining profitability. Decades of prosperity encouraged buyers and heirs to value estates on the assumption that net returns would continue rising. When returns fell, mortgage interest absorbed a growing share of income, while excessive acquisition costs left insufficient working capital. Faulty valuations compounded the problem by overlooking building depreciation, repairs, and inadequate equipment. Falling grain prices mattered, especially to large cereal-producing estates, but Goltz’s diagnosis extends beyond foreign competition:
Der Verfasser glaubt jedoch, dass, die Gesamtheit der deutschen Landwirtschaft ins Auge gefasst, die Ursache der Abnahme der Reinerträge mehr in der Steigerung der Wirtschaftskosten, als in dem Sinken der Preise der Producte liegt.
English translation: The author believes, however, that, German agriculture as a whole being kept in view, the cause of the decline in net yields lies more in the rise of operating costs than in the fall in the prices of products.
Higher output required greater expenditure on fertilizer, feed, and labor. Mortgage interest further burdened owners, although it was conceptually distinct from operating costs. The review thus separates agricultural productivity, the profitability of cultivation, and the financial position of proprietors. Larger and northeastern estates were particularly vulnerable; differences in indebtedness, skill, and thrift prevent a uniform account of agricultural distress.
This economic history is placed alongside the social consequences of peasant emancipation. Goltz describes the differentiation of the rural population into independent landowners and landless workers, most sharply in northern and northeastern Germany. Yet he also maintains that rural living standards improved. Similarly, rising agricultural output coexisted with growing grain imports because production failed to keep pace with population. These distinctions explain how material progress could accompany a crisis of ownership and income.
Goltz’s remedies combine intensified cultivation with public support: agricultural instruction, technical advice, improvement loans, breeding assistance, and better crop rotation. His qualified support for grain tariffs favors duties that rise when world prices fall. More contentious are proposals governing indebtedness. He recommends prudent borrowing limits, secure loans, and expanded cooperative credit, while opposing general statutory restrictions as administratively impracticable and injurious to economic freedom.
Schwiedland’s critical voice becomes clearest in the comparison with Sering. Goltz treats proper valuation as an established standard; Schwiedland insists that actual valuations often serve merely schematic credit or taxation purposes:
In Wahrheit wird den Vorschriften von Goltz dermalen kaum je entsprochen.
English translation: In truth, Goltz's prescriptions are at present hardly ever complied with.
The objection exposes the gap between recommending rational conduct and creating institutions that secure it. Schwiedland also narrows Goltz’s apparent disagreement with Sering: despite rejecting broad restrictions, Goltz accepts limits on mortgage borrowing for newly established rent-charge holdings.
Bei näherer Erwägung ergibt sich dieser Unterschied: Goltz befürwortet das Rentengut mit Schuldbeschränkung nur bei neubegründeten Stellen — Sering überhaupt!
English translation: On closer consideration this difference emerges: Goltz advocates the rent-charge holding (Rentengut) with a restriction on indebtedness only in the case of newly established holdings — Sering for all of them!
The distinction concerns the scope of intervention, not an absolute opposition between freedom and regulation. Schwiedland also records Goltz’s regionally conditional support for single-heir inheritance, his advocacy of rural credit associations, and his proposal to bring estate owners, peasants, and laborers together in agricultural chambers. Goltz’s brief treatment of other cooperatives prompts Schwiedland to call for a fuller, objective account of German rural cooperation.
The review closes with agricultural education, bringing its technical and institutional concerns together. Natural science alone cannot supply the principles of successful farming:
Das Gleichgewicht zwischen der technischen und der wirtschaftlichen Seite der Landwirtschaftslehre wäre nun herzustellen.
English translation: The balance between the technical and the economic side of the science of agriculture would now have to be established.
This balance captures the review’s relevance: agricultural crisis demands attention to costs, valuation, credit, and social organization as well as yields. Schwiedland ultimately commends Goltz’s expertise and the book’s usefulness to practitioners, without surrendering his reservations about remedies whose effectiveness presupposes precisely the prudent practices that prevailing institutions fail to ensure.
This work was divided into 1 sections when it entered the library's research corpus—an apparatus for search and citation, not necessarily the author's own table of contents. Each title opens its summary.
Put a question to this work; the Librarian answers from its 1 sections and cites the passage.
Ask the Librarian