Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Siegfried Strakosch’s Die Grundlagen der Agrarwirtschaft in Österreich (1916)

Schullern’s review evaluates Strakosch’s study of Austrian agriculture as an empirical contribution to a broader argument against economic liberalism. Its organizing concern is the wartime revelation that domestic provisioning and balanced economic development are indispensable. While endorsing these lessons, Schullern doubts that their evident truth will secure their acceptance in postwar economic conflicts:

Es wird eben auch in diesem Punkte darauf ankommen, ob es gelingt, die überwuchernde Macht des internationalen Großkapitalismus zu brechen.

English translation: On this point too it will simply depend upon whether it proves possible to break the rampant power of international large-scale capitalism.

This political judgment frames the book’s relevance: Strakosch supplies facts and arguments for opponents of economic liberalism, backed by practical experience in both agriculture and industry. Schullern largely agrees with his criticism of existing policy, but uses the review to articulate his own criteria for judging agricultural protection.

His account of the book moves from its extensive treatment of Austria’s natural agricultural regions to the political conditions of agrarian production. Agricultural difficulties arise partly outside agrarian policy itself: the persistence of scattered holdings, for example, reflects wider legislative dysfunction. Schullern reads this as evidence of the organic interdependence of social institutions. He likewise singles out chapter XI for demonstrating the mutually sustaining relationship between agriculture and industry, while observing that a general study of economic policy would need to develop that relationship further.

The central conceptual move is to treat agricultural tariffs as a question of degree and social purpose, rather than abstract legitimacy:

Die Agrarzölle habe ich stets als ein rein quantitatives Problem aufgefaßt; nicht ob Schutzzölle für Agrarerzeugnisse und gerade für solche an sich überhaupt zulässig sind, schien mir zu erörtern, sondern welche Ober- und Untergrenzen ihnen abzustecken sind.

English translation: I have always conceived of agricultural tariffs as a purely quantitative problem; what seemed to me to call for discussion was not whether protective tariffs on agricultural products, and precisely on such products, are at all admissible in themselves, but what upper and lower limits are to be marked out for them.

Production exists to satisfy legitimate human needs, not simply to generate producers’ profits. Yet consumption depends on continued production, which requires prices sufficient to cover costs. Domestic production of necessities therefore protects consumers against exceptional disruptions. Tariffs should sustain production in the service of consumption, with their levels carefully adjusted rather than permanently fixed. The difficulties of such adjustment lead Schullern to consider state control of international agricultural trade worthy of examination.

His endorsement of Strakosch’s evidence remains qualified. The book makes it plausible that protection encouraged agricultural expansion and intensification, but multiple interacting causes complicate causal attribution. Schullern proposes Tyrol, with its special grain surcharge and comparatively bounded production and consumption area, as a promising case for further investigation. He also warns against equating grain prices with bread prices:

Ich möchte hier auch noch erwähnen, daß die Getreidepreise noch lange nicht die Brotpreise sind und daß zwischen den Preisen aller, wenigstens aller kulturell unentbehrlichen Güter ein meist überschener Zusammenhang besteht, der natürlich auch seinerseits eine exakte Untersuchung des Einflusses gerade der Zölle auf die Preise ungeheuer erschwert.

English translation: I should also like to mention here that grain prices are by no means the same as bread prices, and that between the prices of all goods — at least of all culturally indispensable goods — there exists a connection that is for the most part overlooked, which of course for its own part makes an exact investigation of the influence of tariffs in particular upon prices enormously more difficult.

This insistence on price interdependence supports a welfare-centered approach to wartime scarcity. Schullern favors direct limits on consumption compatible with health over prohibitive prices, which suppress essential nourishment as well as waste and endanger future generations. He also welcomes Strakosch’s criticism of the “Weltmarktpreis” as a misleading policy slogan.

The closing discussion turns to chapter XVIII and the position of small farmers under grain tariffs. Schullern distinguishes the preferences of particular groups from the welfare of society as a whole. Equal rights do not, in his account, imply equal social weight: he assigns small farmers exceptional national importance, explicitly above large industrialists. Nevertheless, sound policy requires evidence across farms of every size. Accurate accounts, especially production-cost figures differentiated by operating conditions, would provide an indispensable basis for judgment. The review thus combines a forceful anti-liberal political position with a demand for careful empirical measurement: agricultural protection must be assessed through its contribution to secure provisioning, viable production, and collective welfare.