The tenths in Greece are usually farmed to speculators, and, as the collection is a matter of difficulty, extraordinary powers are conferred on the farmers; hence it happens, that the social position of the cultivators and the farmers is one of constant hostility. If the cultivator has it in his power, he cheats the farmer of the revenue, and if the farmer is able to do so he cheats the cultivator. The result is, that probably not one individual in the Greek kingdom really pays the exact tenth of the produce of his land. A few of the most active rogues contrive to cheat the farmers of the revenue; but these gentlemen, in virtue of the great powers with which the law invests them, contrive to cheat the greater part of the proprietors. As soon as the grain is ripe, the cultivator is compelled to address himself to the tax-farmer for permission to cut his crop; but as the farmer must keep a very sharp look-out after his interest, he only grants such permissions as accord with the arrangements he may have established for watching the cultivators at the smallest possible expense to himself, making the over-ripeness of the crop of the majority a very secondary consideration. It happens, consequently, that in Greece two-thirds of the grain are not gathered until it is over-ripe, and the loss is consequently very great.
When the grain is cut, it must be carried to a certain number of authorized threshing-floors collected together, in order that the tax farmer may take every possible care to secure his tenth. To these threshing-floors the whole grain of a district must be transported from the fields in the straw, though the straw may be wanted as fodder for cattle at the very spot from which it is taken, and will require to be carried back a very great distance. An immense loss of grain and labour is sustained by this regulation; but it is a glorious season for the donkeys;—long trains of these animals, lively under their heavy loads of sheaves, may be seen galloping one after the other, each endeavouring to seize a mouthful from his neighbour. The roads are strewed with grain and the broken-hearted cultivators follow, cursing man and beast.
The grain is at last collected in immense stacks round the threshing-floors—a cultivator perched on the top of each stack, defending it from the attacks of man and beast; and a tax-gatherer, seated with his pipe cross-legged in the middle of the circle, is watching the manœuvres of the cultivators. No person who has not examined the subject with attention can imagine the scenes of fraud and violence which a Greek harvest produces. The grain is usually kept piled round the threshing-floors under various pretexts, for at least two months, unless the cultivator pay the farmer an additional sum, to facilitate the housing of his crops. Even in the vicinity of Athens, the operations of the wheat and barley harvest generally occupy the exclusive attention of the agricultural population for three months. The grain is trodden out by cattle; and a Greek who bought a winnowing machine at Athens, was not allowed to make use of it, as the farmers of the revenue contended that the introduction of such instruments would facilitate frauds.
The farmers of the tenths likewise increase the evils of this ruinous system, by throwing every difficulty in the way of the cultivators, in order to compel them to consent to pay for each facility they may require. We have known regular contracts entered into with the peasantry, by which they agreed to pay from 3 to 5 per cent more than the legal tenth. We believe no honest man ever paid less than from 12 to 13 per cent on his crop, even in the neighbourhood of the capital. It may be supposed that some redress can be obtained, in cases of gross oppression, by applying to the courts of law; but this is not the case. A special tribunal, consisting of administrative officers of the Crown, and municipal authorities, and from which lawyers have been always carefully excluded, is appointed to judge summarily all cases relating to the tenths. The infamous conduct of these administrative tribunals excited general discontent, and an article has been inserted in the constitution abolishing them, and sending all the pending cases to the ordinary courts of law. Government, however, defended them to the last, and even pressed for decisions down to the very hour in which King Otho took his oath to the constitution. There is here, however, some ground for consolation; for it is clear that the Greek ministers fear the ordinary administration of justice as being above their control.
It is needless to say, that under such laws the improvement of agriculture in Greece is impossible. No green crops can be grown with profit at any distance from a large town. The tenth of garden produce and green crops being generally valued and paid for in money, the disputes concerning the valuation, and the impossibility of obtaining any redress, in case of injustice, have induced the cultivators to give up such cultivation. We have known proprietors pay half the value of a crop of potatoes as the value of the tenth; and in one case, on our asking the farmer of the tenths, who after all was not a bad fellow at heart, though he wished to make his farming of the revenues turn out a good speculation in his hands, what he would recommend a proprietor to do in order not to lose money by cultivating potatoes; he looked grave, and after a few moments’ thought, candidly replied—“Never to plant them as long as the present law remains in force!” Vineyards which have been planted with care, and cultivated for eight years, have been lately abandoned, as the high valuation of their produce renders them unprofitable. The only agriculture which can be pursued in Greece without loss, is that in which only the simplest and rudest methods of cultivation are followed. The land only yields a rent when it is in the immediate vicinity of a large market, or when it is of the richest quality; the employment of capital in improvements only opens new channels for the extortions of the farmers of the revenue. No money can be safely invested on mortgage in such a country, and no loans by the Three Allied powers to the Government, no national bank, no manufactory of beet-root sugar, no model farms, and no schools of agriculture can introduce prosperity into a country taxed in such a manner.
We do not intend to discuss any plan for ameliorating the condition of the Greeks; but we can easily point out what it is necessary for them to do before they can, by any possibility, better their condition. The system of selling the tenths must be abolished; for a government so inefficient as to be unable to collect them by its own officers, is incompetent to perform the functions for which it was created, and ought to be destroyed. The owners of the land must be rendered the real masters of their property. They must be allowed to reap their crops when they are ripe, and to thresh their grain when and where they please. Until this is the case, we can assure the Three Protecting Powers, they count without the people if they suppose that they have established a permanent monarchy in Greece. We do not hesitate to say that the royal dignity, even with the support of England and France, is not worth ten years’ purchase until this is accomplished.
Every traveller who visits Greece declaims against the number of coffee-houses throughout the country, and the hosts of idle people with which they are filled. But nothing else can be expected in a country where the system of agriculture keeps the cultivators idle for three months annually, and deprives the proprietor of all profit from his land. Under such circumstances the demand for labour becomes extremely irregular. Many of the lower classes turn brigands and plunder their neighbours; the educated and higher classes turn government employés and plunder the country. This evil has arrived at an alarming pitch; the Greek army contains almost as many officers as privates; the navy has officers enough to man a fleet twice as large as that which Greece possesses, for she has three admirals, a hundred and fifty captains, and two hundred and seventy commanders. It has been in vain pressed on every successive administration, that a list of the army, navy, and civil employés ought to be published, in order to put an end to the shameful system of jobbing which has always existed. No minister would, however, adopt a principle which would so effectually have put an end to his own arbitrary power of quartering his friends and relations on the public. The loans of the three powers might be doubled to-morrow, and it is evident that, unless all the population of Greece were made pensioners, no surplus would be found to employ for any public improvement.
Indeed the national revenues of the Greek kingdom, as of old those of Athens and Rome, seem to be considered the property of that body of citizens who pursue no useful occupation, and possess no taxable property; while the unlucky proprietors are viewed as a species of serfs, existing to supply a revenue to the state. This political principle has been exemplified in a decree of the late national assembly, excluding every Greek or foreigner from public employment who happens not to be a born subject of the new kingdom, or who did not take part in the war against the Turks before the end of 1827, and perhaps even more strongly in a very unconstitutional private vote of a committee of the whole house, giving 800 drachmas to each member—this vote being in direct violation of one of the articles of the constitution, which requires that all grants of money should originate from the crown. We do not deny the necessity of allowing the deputies this small grant; many of them were poor, and their conduct had been disinterested; but we are bound to complain of the slightest infraction of constitutional principles by those who frame a constitution.
The length of this article compels us to leave a few observations we desire to make on the municipal government of the Greeks, and on the state of education, and of their judicial and ecclesiastical affairs, to another opportunity. The late debates in the House of Commons, and the able statement which Sir Robert Peel gave of the principles of our policy with regard to Greece, render it unnecessary for us to say one word on that subject. We can assure our readers that the policy of our present ministers has been applauded by every party in Greece, except the Philorthodox; and they, as they could find no fault, remained silent. We believe that no two governments ever acted more disinterestedly to a third than Great Britain end France have lately done to Greece, and that no ministers ever acted more fairly, in any international question, than Lord Aberdeen and M. Guizot have done on the subject of the Greek revolution; but for this very reason we feel inclined to warn our countrymen against the leaven of old principles, which still exists in the palace at Athens. Let us judge of the new government of Greece by its acts, and let Great Britain and France remember that they are not looked on without some suspicion.
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