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.