挥霍瑞典的公共土地：1820-1870

Squandering the Public Domain in Sweden: 1820-1870 Author(s): Rudolf Freund Source: The Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics, Vol. 22, No. 2 (May, 1946), pp. 119- 130 Published by: University of Wisconsin Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3159025 . Accessed: 04/04/2011 15:02 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uwisc. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. University of Wisconsin Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics. http://www.jstor.org Squandering the Public Domain in Sweden: I820o 870 By RUDOLF FREUND* IN 542, King Gustavus Vasa, the founder of modern Sweden, declared that "lands which are not under cultiva- tion belong to God, Us and the Swedish Crown, and to nobody else."' By virtue of this pronouncement, the Swedish gov- ernment laid claim to vast stretches of unappropriated land, especially in the northern provinces of the realm. In the more densely settled parts of southern and central Sweden, waste and wood- lands had long been in the possession of manorial estates, open-field villages and the ancient hundreds. From the very be- ginning, the public domain of Sweden thus comprised lands of little agricul- tural value. Northern Sweden is a moun- tainous country with short growing sea- sons and severe winters. Contiguous stretches of level and fertile soil are found along the Baltic Coast and the lower river courses only. The interior ascends slowly to the high plateaus of the Scandinavian Rockies, is serrated by swift mountain rivers, and interspersed with lakes, bogs, and moraines. The tundra vegetation of the higher latitudes and altitudes afford only a scant living for Lapps and their reindeer. Neverthe- less, Northern Sweden is by no means a stepchild of nature. Mineral deposits are found in both its southern and northern corners; the swift streams pro- vide power; and, above all, coniferous forests cover the lower mountain slopes and stretch down to the Baltic Sea and the central lakes in a succession of seem- ingly endless waves. The map shows, on the right hand side of the page, that forests cover be- * University of Virginia. tween 65% and 75% of the coastal and southern regions of Northern Sweden, and claim up to 85 % of the central inter- ior. The western and northern parts (half of which lie above the limit of forest growth) average lower shares, but still contain about 1/3 of all the forest land in Sweden, against over two-fifths in the remainder of Northern Sweden. The map on the left hand side shows the administrative division of Sweden into Lan. Northern Sweden, in the broader sense of the word, includes the Lan north of the central lakes, while the nar- rower term "Norrland" applies only to the Lan north of the two Dal-rivers. Early Land Policies Factors of human geography explain why King Gustav's pronouncement, quoted above, was not followed by active steps towards the administration of the new Crown lands in the north. Settle- ments in the interior were far apart, means of transportation were lacking, and the large forests had little, if any, economic value except for the peasants who cut timber, gathered fuel, cleared patches by burning, and grazed their cattle in the woods adjoining their farms. Willy-nilly, the King refrained from exercising the Crown's property rights beyond enjoining the peasants and villagers not to exploit and damage the forests, or to expand their commons beyond the limits of their real needs. However, the Vasa-king and his succes- sors insisted on two points of legal im- portance; first, that the peasants pos- 1 'ppet bref till menige man i Gistrikland, Halsing- land, Medelpad och Angermanland den 20 April 1542. Gustav I. registratur. Del. XIV. p. 40. 120 THE JOURNAL OF LAND & PUBLIC UTILITY ECONOMICS THE PROVINCES AND FOREST LANDS OF SWEDEN '4 , ',, LAN POI EsTFOREST i?S I \^ \ * ^\\\\ ^^^^^v^^ \ ..* * \\ \ \ \ 4 / j ;vA'\Boms\ rERBoNNM ^ 45 -.r~~~~~~~~~~,, <, ' ,, ,, , 5 IL 65-'YT-^~~~~~~\\ , 4+. .... K PA E G ' 0 I^/L .. I '. ...AS.A . A ,"" ,,".A 4D E M N , . , \ LANDS To a' + t . K 4 4 44 4 ::::::::::::::: I\ \ \ \ \ \ ~~\ ?-\. 0\v ./ ~ ~ ~ ~ \ \\\ ,~~~~\ \ ~~~\\ ~--- Od l + ~\\\\\ ~,r ,, ~,",'o,s,o, I(I '% - ,,o ',L,vS:fi/ \ \\ \\\\\\\\~~~~~~~' :"~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~\\\\\\\+:.. kx. ~ ~ ~ \ k\\\','~ ,.~ xx \ \, x ~ v NO -75 % -65 ? -55 ' -45 ' -35 -25 s ing grse lingsgransen I- 0o s ,0o n *oo K Source: Jordbruksatlas over Sverige, utarbetad av 0. Jonasson, Ernst Hoijer, Th. Bjorkman, pp. 15, 23. Stock- holm: 1937. 3 I 1, , .. \.< 0 25 !O n 100 St SQUANDERING THE PUBLIC DOMAIN IN SWEDEN sessed lands not under cultivation only by the sufferance of the Crown; and secondly, that unappropriated land should remain wide open to prospective settlers. Internal colonization was indeed near to the heart of the Vasa dynasty, mainly because the wished-for expansion of settlement would benefit the Royal Exchequer by the assessment of the new farms for taxes. It was only after the middle of the seventeenth century that the Swedish Crown became more actively interested in its lands, and especially the forests on them. The mining and processing of iron and copper ores in the southern- most parts of Northern Sweden gained momentum and depended for its ascend- ancy on cheap and plentiful supplies of fuel and timber. Under the influence of mercantilistic ideas, and roughly be- tween 1670 and 1750, the Crown as- signed large forest tracts to these key industries. The grants, for which only small fees or none at all had to be paid, conveyed cutting rights and entitled the grantees to all charcoal rendered'within a certain distance from the mills. At first, no definite boundaries marked off the areas so used from the commons of the neighboring villages and bitter quarrels ensued, especially with respect to the old and harmful peasant practice of clearing forest land by burning it over. From 1638 on, Crown lands in the vicinity of the mines and mills were therefore set in bounds and were divided between the villages and the industrial grantees-the lion's share usually going to the latter. Compared to the yet un- touched reserves of forest lands farther north, the areas involved were not large. But they were located on the fringe or even within the old-settled provinces of Central Sweden, which contained the best timber stands of the realm and some good farming land as well. It is not sur- prising, therefore, to hear contemporar- ies complain that these earliest examples of delimitation wrought grave hardship on the peasantry and hampered severely the further expansion of settlement. As a matter of fact, the government ceased to encourage new settlers from moving north during this period. Delimitation and Partition of Crown Land A. Principles and Method.2 During the second half of the eighteenth cen- tury, the land policy of Sweden entered into its decisive phase. Mercantilistic ideas were slowly replaced by the physio- cratic belief in the prime productivity of the soil. At the same time, a growing population and increasing grain imports demanded the stimulation of domestic food production. Both viewpoints led to a policy which set out to promote more efficient farming methods and better living conditions in the countryside by giving the tiller of the soil unfettered control over the soil he worked. This was to be accomplished by breaking the ties of an outmoded village economy and by offering land to settlers on terms of fee-simple ownership. In either case, joint as well as public ownership in land stood in the way of the desired individ- ualization and better utilization of all land fit for farming. From about 1750 on the Swedish government was resolved to remove these obstacles, but had to pro- 2 The motives, methods and effects of the numerous government measures pertaining to the delimination and partition of Crown lands in the north are the subject of a detailed study by Jan Eric Almquist, "Det norrlandska Awittringsverket," published in the three-volume work Svenska Lantmiteriet 1628-1928, Del. I. pp. 365-494. These volumes contain authoritative essays on the history of sur- veying in Sweden, and were published in commemoration of the 300th birthday of the Swedish Office of Surveys. They are exceedingly valuable for gauging the historical developments of Sweden's land tenure system and land policy. 121 THE JOURNAL OF LAND & PUBLIC UTILITY ECONOMICS ceed with caution and to adapt its poli- cies to regional land tenure conditions. In the long-settled and fertile parts of southern and central Sweden, joint holdings in land and arrangements for its common use were most numerous and were participated in by free- and copyholders, manors, villages, hundreds, and the Crown itself. Whenever and wherever these partnerships were dis- solved, the consensus of its members was deemed indispensable. The role of the government in promoting separation was confined, therefore, to coaxing and prodding, to the pronouncement of gen- eral principles and procedures, to the insistence on proper surveying through licensed officials, and to the settling of disputes. These purposes were first served by the so-called Great Partition decrees of 1749-1762, at first of limited scope but soon followed by more sweep- ing ones. In 1827, the so-called Legal Partition was promulgated, which ef- fected the final re-distribution and con- solidation of all types of land holdings into severally-owned and individually- managed farms and estates. Conditions in the Northern provinces were different on several counts. Vast stretches in the interior were completely uninhabited, but settlements along the coast and the lower river basins, around some of the larger lakes and in the south- ern section were fairly numerous, and some had even grown into large villages. Readily accessible farm land had been taken up everywhere, and a growing population began to press against the limited supply of arable land. However, in one important respect the northern farmer was better off than his southern colleague; he could and did use the un- cultivated land around the settlements unhindered and without stint. Farms had come to depend on the forests not only for their fuel, timber, fences and working material, but also for the feed- ing of their livestock. Scattered moun- tain meadows of often luxurious grass growth were extensively used for graz- ing and hay-cutting; in places, the entire livestock were moved from one moun- tain headquarter to another during the warmer seasons of the year and returned to the permanent abode for the winter. These practices, and others, had given rise to joint enterprises among the north- ern farmers which resembled in many ways the village commons farther south, and were held in the same high esteem. In whatever way the northern farmers used the uncultivated lands, they did so by virtue of old customs and practices, and only by sufferance of the Crown. If and when the state decided, therefore, that the interests of agriculture in the north were best served by granting the farmers control over the land they worked and used, the running of a de- marcation line around these lands was all that was required. Generally speak- ing, unilateral separation of land from the public domain was indeed the sole purpose of delimitation ("avvittring"), but its practical application involved more far-reaching decisions. There was, for one thing, the primary question of whether or not Crown land should be assigned directly to farmers for their individual and several enjoyment, there- by dissolving in effect the old arrange- ments for common forest and pasturage utilization. The answer was in the nega- tive, largely because the thorough-going individualization of farm land necessi- tated the repartition of the arable as well, and infringed upon vested rights in the mountain meadows and other joint enterprises. But neither was the individual farmer left out of the picture completely. His 122 SQUANDERING THE PUBLIC DOMAIN IN SWEDEN claims and needs for uncultivated land were indeed taken into account (see be- low), but they were lumped together, and only the outer bounds of the total area, thus determined, were run by the government. The further subdivision of the tract was left to the farmers them- selves. If and when decided upon, the marking of internal lines and the ulti- mate consolidation of holdings and in- terests had to be carried out according to the methods of partition ("skifte") mentioned above. The delimitation of Crown lands by unilateral action of the state was thus the indispensable pre- requisite for the eventual transfer of uncultivated land to the private owner- ship of each farmer, but it was not its direct cause. In practice, delimitation was often followed immediately by par- tition but, quite as frequently, long years elapsed before partition was agreed upon, partly because the peasants wanted to continue their old arrange- ments, and partly because they had to bear the costs of partition themselves. It may be added here that delimitation and partition were synonymous in the cases of isolated farms and, of course, in those of new settlements as well. The second, and hardly less important isssue involved in delimitation con- cerned the amount of land the govern- ment was willing to separate from the public domain and turn over to the peasantry. In this respect, already exist- ing arrangements could be built upon, at least in part. The farmers of the north, as elsewhere, paid their taxes on the basis of a cadastre, and according to a common yardstick called "mantal," which measured the relative income and tax-producing capacity of their farms through assigned digits and fractions (e.g., 1/1 mantal, 1/2 mantal, etc.). For our further discussion it may be borne in mind that throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the 14 mantal was considered to be the lower limit of a fully independent farm in most parts of the North. After the government had decided, on the basis of more general deliberations, how much land should be granted per full mantal, the total size of an area to be marked off from the public domain was determined by adding up the mantal digits and fractions in a given community and by multiplying this sum by the stipulated full mantal allotment. The items of the sum indicated the fu- ture size of the individual farm proper- ties-after partition was carried out. Legally speaking, this modus operandi proceeded from the assumption that the tax assessments embodied proportionate claims of the farmers in the common fund of uncultivated land which they had used of old and which was now be- ing alienated from the public domain. By the same token, farmers did not have to pay for the land thus transferred to them because they were believed to have acquired it by virtue of being assessed for taxes. The same principle was applied to land granted to new settlers. Already existing laws prescribed that, after a period of free occupancy which ran up to 30 years in the more remote parts of the country, new farms had to be as- sessed for taxes on the mantal basis also. Into these stipulations, delimitation could be fitted easily by promising the settler as much land as would correspond to the mantal digit or fraction, which he was willing to accept eventually. The land was staked off for him after he had complied with certain provisions, such as clearing a couple of acres, erecting buildings, fencing in his arable, etc., 123 THE JOURNAL OF LAND & PUBLIC UTILITY ECONOMICS and final title was conveyed after his term of free occupancy was over. Older laws required the payment of a fee at that time, but this was usually waived during the period under consideration. B. Measures. The delimitation policy of the Swedish government passed through two distinct periods, the first one extending from about the middle to the end of the eighteenth century, the second and decisive one commencing during the 1820's and ending in the 1870's. The earliest decrees were issued in 1742 for Angermanland (southern part of Vasterbotten's lin), where vil- lage commons were still being marked off in favor of neighboring mines and iron works. The decree of 1742 intended to check these practices, but only 20 years later surveyors were ordered to respect more fully and rigorously the claims and needs of the farmers when running the boundaries between village areas and Crown lands. Shortly there- after, in 1770, delimitation was intro- duced into Jamtland, dovetailing the earlier stipulations with new and forward-looking plans. In this province, agricultural progress languished owing to an antiquated and cumbersome tax and land tenure system; in the course of a much need reform, the severance of claims in Crown lands was meant to solve some of the state's fiscal and ad- ministrative problems and to prod farm- ers into taking more land under culti- vation. Together with the fact that mining and other industrial interests were of little importance in Jamtland, these circumstances explain why the terms of delimitation were rather favor- able to farmers. Crown lands were to be granted on the scale of 875 to 1750 acres of agriculturally usable land per full mantal, not including the unproduc- tive stretches within the confines of the allotted area; a farmer assessed for 1/4 mantal would thus receive 220 to 440 acres of reasonably good land. More moderate measures applied to parts of Vasterbotten's lan, for which delimita- tion was decreed in 1780. The full mantal carried a claim of 720 to 1440 acres, depending on the quality of the land. Small farms were treated as 14 mantal units, and farmers were allowed to augment their claims by adding a mantal fraction to their old one, if they could show good reasons for wanting more land than their assessment war- ranted. On the whole, these decrees were neither radical nor very effective. The Angermanland decree showed plainly that the government had the interests of the mines and iron works still close at heart, and only in Jimtland was the farmer and his needs placed squarely into the center of delimitation. In VXas- terbotten, a compromise between the two objectives seems to have been struck. More importantly, the political situation of the closing eighteenth and the begin- ning nineteenth centuries hampered