In 1852, however, the State had come again to the assistance of the landowners for the extinction of private mortgages and the consolidation of old debts by the creation of a special 'State Mortgage Bank,' with an original capital of 291,000l., increased by successive issues of bonds representing advances on the security of real property, bearing interest at the rate of 4 per cent, (at present 4-1/2 per cent.), and repayable by drawings over a period of thirty years. The amount of the bonds issued up to 1884 was about 3,812,000l., and in 1878 about three-quarters of the bonds were held in the country itself, their market value being still almost at par.

It is principally into this Bank that the yeomen farmers have been dipping their estates at a rapidly increasing rate. Thus, while the loans on the security of real property in rural districts averaged 57,500l. per annum between 1853 and 1855, and 220,600l. between 1876 and 1880, the advances made in 1883 amounted to 396,500l. At the end of that year the balance of outstanding loans had reached the sum of 3,752,000l., of which about 77 per cent., or 2,889,000l., represented advances in rural districts, the remaining 23 per cent, having been borrowed in towns. The interest payable on those loans is respectively 4-1/4 and 4-3/4 per cent., according to whether the borrowers have been supplied with bonds bearing interest at the rate of 4 or 4-1/2 per cent. per annum; and 3 per cent. of the capital is repayable per annum until the extinction of the debt over a period of thirty years.

There is a third public source available to the landed proprietors for loans on mortgages and on bonds or bills, namely the Savings Banks. In 1884, the savings-banks, in rural districts alone, held in 'mortgage bonds' and in 'bonds and bills' a sum of about 3,553,000l.; but in what proportion that debt was incurred by local traders and by farmers, it is impossible to say. It is, however, clear that the yeomen farmers have benefited largely by the deposits made in those banks by the comparatively few who have been able to accumulate, instead of borrowing, money. Thus, the Prefect of Hedemarken reports that, 'while large amounts, realized by the sale of timber, were deposited in the savings-banks, extensive loans were made by those establishments to persons in less favourable circumstances,' and that 'the savings-banks, to be found in so many parishes, have, by the easy access they afford to loans, beguiled many into a needless borrowing of money, subsequently squandered.'

Over and above these facilities for borrowing money from public institutions, the yeomen farmers are undoubtedly heavily in debt to local storekeepers, and to merchants and traders in the towns. In fact the great bulk of the landed proprietors have been borrowing in every direction as much as they could raise by mortgage or by bill. Owing to the excellent system of registration that exists in Norway, there is no difficulty in ascertaining the extent to which the charges on real property in rural districts have increased between the years 1876 and 1880. It appears from the Reports of the Prefects that, between those dates, the balance of mortgages newly effected over those extinguished in rural districts amounted to a sum of about four millions sterling. The State Mortgage Bank is bound not to advance more than six-tenths of the value of land and buildings (forests excepted), and it is supposed that the loans have so far not exceeded four-tenths of the value of mortgaged property; but as the yeomen farmers generally contrive to borrow on second mortgages, it may safely be assumed, that their estates are charged with interest at 4-1/4 to 6 per cent. on a considerable part of the nominal value of what is not purely forest land, in addition to an annual repayment of 3 per cent. of the capital borrowed from the State Mortgage Bank. The forests, on the other hand, have been largely used up in paying the interest and capital on those loans, either by cutting them down, or by leasing or pawning them to traders, or to yeomen who have been able to keep their heads above water and to profit by the economic distress of the great majority of their fellow-landowners. The difficulty experienced by that majority in meeting the payment of interest and capital, especially at a time when the value of agricultural produce has been considerably diminished by American competition, and when also the competition of American and Baltic timber has simultaneously reduced the profits of the forest industry to a point that hardly repays the felling of trees, is clearly shown from the statistics of forced sales, of auctions and of distraints in the rural districts, and from an accompanying increase in the number of lawsuits before Courts of First Instance. It appears from the Reports of the Prefects that the sales of real property for debt have increased in every Province between the two periods 1871-1875 and 1876-1880 to an extent that ranges from 30 per cent. to 600 per cent., the greatest increase having taken place in the Provinces of Kristiansamt (600 per cent.), Norland, Nedenæs, Buskerud, Hedemarken and Akershus, where it ranged between 600 per cent. and 146 per cent. From another official source we obtain the following statement:—

1876-1880.

Number.Amount.
1. Compulsory sales of real property in rural districts.2513563,000l. averaging 224l. per sale.
2. Do. of personal property.5136134,000l. ditto 26l. per sale.
3. Distraints for arrears of taxes, &c.—1,089,000l.

But since real property is of comparatively low value in Norway, and personal property limited mostly to the veriest necessities of life, it is not so much the total of the amounts realized by forced sales, or the sums for which 'executions' and 'distraints' were effected, that give the measure of the depressed condition of the yeomen farmers, as the great and steady increase that took place between 1876 and 1880 in the number of those operations. Thus, while the number of forced sales of real property in towns, as well as in rural districts, was 424 in 1876, it had grown to 1378 in 1880. It is therefore not surprising to find in the Reports of the Prefects from which we have so largely drawn our figures that 'the means of meeting liabilities and of paying taxes at the proper time have grown more feeble, and recourse to legal enforcement of pecuniary claims has consequently become more frequent.' 'The condition of this Province' (Kristiansamt) 'is all the worse from a pretty widespread misuse of credit during the previous period' (1871-75). In another province (N. Bergen) we find that the depression in 1879 and 1880 'compelled those who had claims to enforce them rigorously. Mortgages, distraints, sales, &c., have therefore increased, and there has been an exceptionally, large number of suits before the Courts of Mutual Agreement. 'The value of agricultural produce has fallen, owing to a great extent to a scarcity of money and to great competition from a desire to convert as much produce as possible into money.' In the northern province of Tromsö 'merchants have suffered from the impoverishment of their customers' (mostly fishermen as well as landowners), 'and have caused them to be made bankrupts. Credit has been misused on a large scale. Its facility induces the population to live beyond its means. It also encourages traders to set up in business and get customers with ease, without having capital or means of their own. The one misuse reacts on the other. All products are sunk considerably in value, and this fall is even greater in the case of real estate.'

The latter statement is not generally applicable to the remaining provinces, for we find that while the average value of the 'skylddaler,' or unit of assessment, was 153l.,[17] according to prices paid for land in 1871-1875, it has risen to about 180l. in 1876-1880, thus confuting Mr. Laing's theory, that the peculiar succession of property would tend to keep land at a low value. It would not, however, be right to conclude from these figures that landed property has, on the whole, increased of late years in value, despite the general indebtedness of its owners. Land in the vicinity of towns and railways must naturally become more and more valuable, and the relatively much higher prices paid for such land have no doubt had the effect of raising the total average deduced from sales of every description of landed property. It may also be assumed that the demand for land is artificially increased by the facility with which it may be purchased, since at least one-half of the purchase money generally remains on mortgage, in addition to other encumbrances. At the same time, the financial institutions, to which so large a proportion of the real property in Norway is mortgaged, are interested in maintaining its value, and attain their object by abstaining from offering at any one period too many defaulting properties for sale; and it may also be suspected that the statistics of forced sales represent only cases in which no compromise could be effected, or in which it was expedient or possible to have recourse to the ultimate means of recovery without sensibly deteriorating locally the value of landed property. Cases are, in fact, not infrequent in which the mortgagees find themselves compelled to retain the property of the defaulter, and either to place it in the hands of caretakers, with the hope of future realization on more favourable terms, or to sell it in small lots as opportunity occurs. In any case, the full and exact effect of the pawning of all the landed property of the country at a time when its agriculture has to compete with American cereals, its timber industry with supplies from America and the Baltic, and its wooden ships with iron steamers transporting cargoes at an almost nominal freight, is not yet to be found in statistical records.

The indisputable fact remains that, notwithstanding the existence of a system of land tenure which, according to Mr. Laing, was so perfect between 1834 and 1836 as to render its adoption in this country, and especially in Ireland, highly desirable, the yeomen farmers of Norway—framers of their own laws and absolute masters of their own destinies—are not only at present suffering from the commercial and agricultural depression that obtains in other countries of Europe, in which the social state is more or less differently constituted, but also find themselves, in face of that depression, with exceptionally heavy burdens on their backs in the form of pecuniary indebtedness at a rate of interest which mere agriculture, under the most favourable circumstances, cannot possibly afford to pay.

This heavy indebtedness has not, as a rule, been incurred for productive purposes, such as drainage, improved methods of agriculture, the increase of stock, &c.; and although the use of simple agricultural machinery is somewhat on the increase in Norway, yet agriculture remains very much in the same primitive condition in which it was found by Mr. Laing.[18] The Prefects attribute this backwardness to want of skill on the part of the proprietors (Romsdal), to the poverty of the soil, to the dearness of agricultural labour, and generally to the unremunerative results of husbandry since the depreciation of the value of its products. In a letter addressed last year to the 'Morgenblad,' the leading Journal at Christiania, by a native authority on the subject of agriculture, it is urged that the landed proprietors of Norway have 'for some years past been going down hill;' the hopes of improving the condition of agriculture, entertained about thirty years ago, when efforts were first commenced in that direction, being now entirely dissipated.