Page:Peasant proprietary in Ireland; a rejoinder.djvu/15

 collector each month one twelfth part of a rent calculated at 4½ or 5 per cent, on this capital sum of purchase according as the tenant elected to free his land from the charge in 41$1/12$ or 56$1/12$ years—the respective terms in which at compound interest the 1 or ½ per cent. paid in addition to the 4 per cent. interest on the debentures would extinguish the capital. That in general terms was the Prussian land banking system.

The Grand Duchy of Hesse presents so very instructive a case in point, and offers so attractive a picture of peasant proprietary, that it would be impossible in any article which pretended to be a review of the European systems to overlook that district. There, in 1836, 'a great law was passed by which all rent-charges already in existence could be compulsorily redeemable at the instance of the rentee or renter.' And a very thorough and effective plan of transfer was at the time devised by which transactions could be most economically and expeditiously effected. The general principles involved in that measure were universal truths based upon the two following economic considerations:—Firstly, that where the finances are properly administered, the State, representing the total sum of the credit of all its members, can borrow money more cheaply than its individual members can. Secondly, that by means of its ordinary administrative machinery, the State can collect rents and enforce their payments more cheaply and effectually than the individual. Acting upon these economic axioms, the Hessian reform was framed, and it has since been most successfully carried out. There also land banks were established upon the plan subsequently adopted by Prussia. Eighteen years' purchase of the rental was allowed—the State paying the landlord a capital sum equivalent to that amount, and charging 3 per cent. on the sum and 1 per cent. interest towards the