The name is absent



234


AGRICUbTUBE OX THE RHINE.

From this table we see that the annual return from a
morgen, two-thirds of an acre, is estimated very low. The
average of the Steinberg vineyards for twenty years is
half a pipe per morgen : now as the cheapest wine is worth
in the Rhinegau 200 florins per pipe, the valuation at 50
florins, on which the simple rate amounts to 12⅜ kreutzers,
or
4d. English, is very moderate. When five simpla, as
they are called, in the year are required, the majority of
the Rhinegau vineyards do not pay more than about
2s. 6d. per acre. In the same manner the return sup-
posed to be derivable from arable land is rated very low
in all the German States, although the Governments went
to vast expense and trouble, when the land-tax was regu-
lated, to discover what the cost of cultivation under its
rudest form amounted to. Prices also ranged generally
low in the years in which this regulation was effected, and
the result has been a very moderate assessment. In Nas-
sau, Hesse, and Baden, the return having been deter-
mined by commissions of inquiry, and established at some-
thing like the rate found in Prussia, a tax of one kreutzer
in the florin, or one in sixty, was levied upon the supposed
net produce, to form what is called the simplum. The
number of simpla to be levied for the year’s expenses is
determined in Nassau, Hesse, and Baden by a vote of the
Chambers. The direct taxes, and not the indirect taxes
and excise duties, form the fluctuating items of the budgets
of these States. The customs’ duties are regulated by the
periodical congresses that assemble to fix the tariff of the
‘ Zollverein.* On adhering to this customs’ league each
of the German States that has representative asssemblies
was obliged to resign, by a vote of the Chambers, the ar-
rangements of the customs’ duties to the executive, and

AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.

235


they are managed IndipIomatic form like treaties of peace
and war. The Chambers have given up their claim to
control the import, export, and transit duties, but retain
the privilege of voting the number of simpla of which the
land-tax is to be composed.

As the Government undertakes the charge of many
things that in England form objects of local taxation,
what we should call county and even parish rates are
usually included in the consolidated tax raised from the
land, and from the traders and industrious classes gene-
rally, whose assumed profits have been calculated, like
those of the farmer, at a very low rate. In all the Rhe-
nish States the care of the high roads is undertaken by
Government. In Prussia a charge is specified for this
purpose in the provincial budget. In Nassau there is a
foundation fund, appropriated from the proceeds of the
alienated church lands confiscated during the revolu-
tionary wars. This fund furnishes a sum annually for the
care of the high roads, another for augmenting the revenues
of the poorer clergy, and a third sum in aid of education.

We have already noticed the excellent system of
schooling that is met with everywhere in Germany, and
must here point to a feature that has been generally dis-
regarded by both French and English writers on this
interesting subject, but which seems to us to form the
mainspring that causes the German system to work so
well. The schoolmaster in Germany is a public officer
placed in the district to which he devotes his labour. His
miportance is in no way dependent upon the power of
courting parents or of tyrannising over children. His
acts are all public, and he is under the constant control
ɔfpublie opinion. But with these restraints against mis-



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