Agricultural History Review, Volume 52 Part 1 (2004), p. 121

Over the past two decades a dramatic shift has occurred in the interpretation of modern German history. Previously, there was axiomatic acceptance of the thesis presented by non-agricultural historians that the decision of 1879 to adopt a grain tariff made a fundamental contribution to the rise of Nazism. It was presumed that duties on imported grain, which were increased in 1885 and 1902 (and supplemented with protection for the livestock sector), maintained the economic existence and political power of the Junkers – a class of large (in German rather than British terms) landowner-farmers of the nobility that became a particular bête noire of British First World War propaganda – as inefficient agriculturalists. Historians have since atleast mitigated the link between the Junkers and National Socialism. Agricultural historians have established that Junker farming under the tariff was decidedly progressive.

A basic problem is determining ‘efficiency’. In the absence of other satisfactory data, the author of the work under review simply adopts estimated output/yields perhectare over time, as indicating that German arablefarming had clearly overtaken that of Britain by the eve of the First World War. This occurred despite the retreat from marginal arable land in Britain from the 1870s, as compared with an increase in the area in Germany. The measure, however, ignores labour and capital productivity. Even allowing for the substantially higher real wages of British agricultural workers, low as they were, it is questionable whether German labour productivity exceeded that of Britain before 1914. The increase of German arable output came increasingly todepend upon hundreds of thousands of seasonal immigrants, mainly from Russian Poland, who were poorly paid and, partly on that account, not highly 122 the agricultural efficient. Paradoxically, the influx of cheap Polish labourinto Germany’s Junker-dominated eastern territories, insofar as it stimulated the migration of German workers to western urban centres, posed a political threat to the German state that the tariff wassupposed to prevent. The continuous increase in application rates of artificial fertilizer per hectare of arable land in Germany (especially in comparison to France), which accounted for an increasing proportion of capital outlays, was presumably reaching the point of diminishing returns.

In this light the exploration of the Franco-German comparison, as in the volume under review, has considerable merit. France also resorted to tariff protection at a comparable level in response to the rapid expansion of grain exports from North America and Russia. For agricultural as well as political reasons, both experienced an intensification of arable farming which, temporarily at least, was seen as requiring protection. For the large area of poor, mostly sandy soils in the eastern territories of Germany, the only alternative was the reversion of the land to extensively-farmed permanent pasture. The latter would have considerably increased the already substantial indebtedness among farmers. In both countries steps were taken to reduce the debt burden. The structure of holdings in the two countries was comparable. A significantly greater proportion of the agricultural area of France was occupied by leaseholders. If anything, however, as the author argues, leaseholders were more motivated than owners to adopt improved methods. And leasehold land in France was particularly concentrated in the north where the farming was relatively progressive. Nevertheless, in overall terms such progress in the case of France was retarded as compared with Germany.

The comparatively poor performance of French agriculture behind the tariff barrier is essentially ascribed to history review two factors. First, whereas the state in Germany was prepared to impose arrangements, such as chambers of agriculture, to promote modernization, in France (at least before the 1920s) this was left to self-help organizations. Second, as compared with Germany, France’s demographic and industrial retardation limited the growth of the protected market for agricultural produce. This conclusion has interesting implications for the intense ‘agricultural versus industrial state’ debate in Germany before 1914, where many contributors assumed it was a choice between alternatives.

While the volume is a useful contribution, there are several deficiencies. It is essentially based on secondary sources, and selective ones at that. The focus is more on the political debates over the issues than on the outcomes in terms of the impact of agricultural policy on production. The work veers away from examining the political process in relation to policy formulation to explore the Franco-German protectionist response as the forerunner of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Hence an entire chapter is devoted to the international agricultural congresses, essentially Franco- German, which were little more than forums for discussion. If the protectionist agricultural policy adopted by Germany marks the origins of the CAP, then perhaps the statement made by the historian Hans Rosenberg in the 1960s can be extended:

When one considers ... the fateful long-term irrational ideological domestic and foreign policy consequences of agricultural policy up to National Socialism, with the benefit of hindsight it can be proven that the turning-point of 1879 was the greatest mistaken decision of German and thereby European history in the nineteenth century.