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The Legal System and Economic Development of Greece*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

A. A. Pepelasis
A. A. Pepelasis
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis
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Extract

A side from some overworked generalizations regarding poor soil, shortage of capital, lack of arable land, population density and such, there are no studies in English that deal with the general economic history of Greece or with specific problems in her economic development since the establishment of the modern Greek state in the third decade of the last century. An analysis of the influence of the legal system on this development, therefore, may throw light on Greek economic history in general and open a useful discussion. It may also add something to our knowledge of the larger problem of the relation of socialcultural institutions and economic activity.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1959 , pp. 173 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1959

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References

1 The High Clergy maintained its economic and social privileges throughout the Ottoman period. Some social stratification developed in the seventeenth century with the rising importance of the Phanariote Greeks in the affairs of the Ottoman state, the increasing communal self-determination, and the increasing number of Christian landowners.

2 In the Aegean island of Chios, for example, the clergy owned 32 of 68 villages, 300 monasteries, and 700 churches. Ownership patterns were similar on the island of Evelpides, Samos. Ch., Oikpnomike Kai Koinonikje Istoria tes Ellados [Economic and social history of Greece] (Athens: Papazeses, 1950), p. 38Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., p. 29.

4 Svoronos, N., Histoire de la Grice moderne (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1953), ch. iGoogle Scholar.

5 Economic activity in the Peloponnesus increased considerably after the Ottoman reoccupation of Morea in 1715. Some of the reasons were: the limited Turkish interference with trade, less onerous taxation than that imposed by the Venetians, and the immediate interest of the local Turkish administrator in higher land output.

6 Svoronos, , Histoire, pp. 26–28Google Scholar.

7 It was estimated that more than eighty thousand Greeks moved to central Europe after the ill-fated Orloff expedition ended. Const. Phliippides, , New Geography, Vol. I (1810), p. 136Google Scholar, as cited by Cordatos, J., “Regas Pherraios kai e epoche tou” [R. Pherraios and his epoch], Archeion Koinonikpn kfli Oikpnomikon Epistemon [Archives of social and economic sciences], X (1931) 205Google Scholar. See also Landes, David S., Bankers and Pashas (London: Heinemann, 1958), pp. 24–28Google Scholar.

8 The history of the Greek merchants and entrepreneurs in central Europe and Russia during this period is both fascinating and enlightening. Unfortunately, no study is available in English. Insights into the conditions that permitted an ethnic group to develop such entrepreneurial skills are found in the stories of the three generations of Sinas from Moschopolis, who started as cotton peddlers to become barons of Austria, directors of the Bank of Austria, and owners of insurance companies; of the Makrides brothers and the Bendeti family, who operated publishing houses; of the Zosimades brothers and the Zappas in Rumania; of Terzes, mayor of Pest (1750); of Priggos in Amsterdam; Vallianos and Varvakes in Russia; and many others. Lampros, Sp., Selides ek. tes Istorias tou en Ougaria kfli Austria Makedonikou EUenismou [Pages from the history of the Macedonian Greeks in Hungary and Austria] (Athens, 1912)Google Scholar, reprint from Neos Ellenomnemon, VIII (1911)Google Scholar. Also “Kataloipa bibliothekon diaforon, Romes, Venetias, Pestes kai Viennes di ‘on Manthanomen ta onomata, ta epagelmata, tous gamous, tas vaptiseis kai thanatous Ellenon paroikon” [Information, names, professions, marriages, and deaths of Greek immigrants, from the libraries of Rome, Venice, Pest, and Vienna], Ibid., XVII (1923) and XIX (1926); Stavrianos, L. S., Balkan Federation (Northampton, Mass.: Smith College Press, 1941), pp. 8, 30Google Scholar. For detailed bibliographies on the Greek communities and their economic and intellectual activities in the last two centuries see Megale Ellenike Encyclopaedia (24 vols.; Athens, 1934)Google Scholar, Vol. X, ch. ix; Horvith, A., Magyar-Gorog bibliographia (Budapest, 1940)Google Scholar and the volumes of Magyar-Görög Tanulmanyok, (Budapest); Tomadakes, N., “Peri ton Ellenekon Koinoteton Bibliographia” [Bibliography of the Greek communities abroad], Athena, LVII (Athens, 1953), 20–33Google Scholar.

9 Pecz, A., Die Griechischen Kaufleute in Wien (Vienna, 1888), p. 2Google Scholar; and Korais, Adamantios, Mimairc fur Vital actuel de la civilisation dans la Grece (Paris, 1803)Google Scholar.

10 After the introduction of the Continental System output, exports and prices of Greek products rose significantly. For example, exports of silk from the Peloponnesus rose from 35,000 okas in 1794 to 74,000; its price increased from 12 to 65 grossi (Turkish piasters). In the same period total agricultural output of the Peloponnesus rose by 25 percent and its value from 15,-000,000 to 63,000,000 grossi. Sakellariou, M. B., E Peloponnesos kflta ten Deuteran Tourkpkra-tian [The Peloponnesus during the second Turkish domination] (Athens: Verlag der Byzan-tinisch-neogriechischen Jahrbiicher, 1939), pp. 212–15Google Scholar.

11 Adamantios Korais, in his memorandum of 1803 to the Society of the Observers of Men in Paris, reported that the Greek merchant marine had 556 ships totaling 131,110 tons and manned by 16,131 seamen. The French consul in Patras estimated that in 1813 six islands owned 417 ships employing 11,805 crewmen. Pouqueville, F., Voyage de la Grice (6 vols.; Paris, 1829), VI, 294Google Scholar, estimated that by 1813 the Greek merchant marine included 615 ships of a total tonnage of 153,580 and crews of 37,526. See also Andreades, A., Oeutrres (3 vols.; Athens: Facultè de Droit de I'Universite d'Athenes, 1939)Google Scholar, “La marine marchande grecque,” II, 240-45; Megale Ellenike Encyclopaedia, X, 565; Stavrianos, L. S., Balkan Federation, p. 31Google Scholar.

12 The influence of the French Revolution on the aspirations of the Greek communities abroad and on their preparation for the independence of Greece was considerable. Example of this influence was the constitution of the revolutionary Pherraios, written about 1798. See Svolos, Alexander, “Ta Prota Ellenika Politevmata” [The first Greek constitutions], in Ephemeris ton Ellinon Nomikpn (26 vols.; Athens, 1935), II, 737–47Google Scholar.

13 George Petropoulos of the Law School at the University of Athens mentions eleven such manuscripts of collections of civil and canon laws used in the period of Turkish occupation. Istoria kflt Eisegeseis Romaikou Dikaiou [History of and introduction to Roman law] (Athens, 1943), ch. viiGoogle Scholar. Also Megale Ellenike Encyclopaedia, X, 640.

14 Stavrianos, L. S., “Antecedents to the Balkan Revolutions of the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of Modern History, XXIX (12 1957), 337–39Google Scholar; idem, The Balkans Since 1453 (New York: Rinehart & Company, 1958), ch, iiGoogle Scholar.

15 For descriptions of the dispensation of justice and the development of law during Turkish rule see Heimbach, G., “Griechisch-romisches Recht in Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit,” Allgemeine Enzyklopadie der Wissenschaften und Kiinste (Leipzig, 1869)Google Scholar; Lingenthal, Zachariae von, Geschichte der griechisch-römischen Rechts (3d ed.; Berlin, 1892)Google Scholar; Geib, G., Darstellung des Rechtszustandes in Griechenland wdhrend der tiirkischen Herrschaft und bis zur Ankunjt des Konigs Otto (Heidelberg, 1835)Google Scholar; Albertoni, A., “Diritto bizantino, dirritti balcanici, diritto italiano,” Studi Rumeni, IV (1929–1930)Google Scholar; Moschovakes, N., To en Elladi Demo-sion Dikaion epi Tourkokratias [Greek public law during the Turkish rule] (Athens, 1882)Google Scholar; Petropoulos, G., Istoria, pp. 262–83Google Scholar; Petropoulos, G., “Dikaion,” in Megale Ellenike Encyclo-paedia, X, vi, 639–50Google Scholar; Pappoulia, D., To Ellenikpn Astikpn Dikaion en te Istorike Autou Exelixei [The Greek civil law in its historical evolution] (Athens, 1912)Google Scholar; Triantaphyllopoulos, K., “Ellas,” Encyclopaedikon Lexikpn (12 vols.; Athens, 1929), V, 418–21Google Scholar; Vallendas, P., “To Ellenikon Idiotikon Diethnes Dikaion” [Greek private international law during the first half of the nineteenth century], Archeion Oikpnomikpn k Koinonikpn Epistemon [Archives of economic and social science], XV (1935), 39–41Google Scholar; Maurer, G. L. von, Das Griechische Volk in dffentlicher, krcnlichen und privatrechtlicher Beziehung vor und nach der Freiheitskampje bis zum jo juli 1834 (3 vols.; Heidelberg, 1835)Google Scholar; Zepos, P., Greek Law (Athens, 1949), chs. ii and iiiGoogle Scholar. Useful information will be found in Mortreuil, J., Histoire de droit byzantin (Paris, 1846)Google Scholar, Part III; Witken, H. von, Die Entwicklung der Rechts nach Justinian (Halle, 1928)Google Scholar.

16 For information on fees charged by the Cadi and his judicial arbitrariness see Pouqueville, H. L. C., Travels Through the Morea (London, 1806), pp. 67–68Google Scholar.

17 It has been argued that the function of the church in administering justice was arbitrative rather than judicial. This was of little practical significance in view of the threat of excommunication used by the Orthodox church against those who did not comply with its rulings on court disputes.

18 In the eighteenth century some Aegean islands (Syros, Naxos, Santorini) collected their local customary law into codes of customs, written in simple, popular Greek.

19 Triantaphyllopoulos, K., To Ellenikon Idiotikpn Dikfiion kata ton 19011 Aiona [Greek private law during the nineteenth century] (Athens, 1924), pp. 4–5Google Scholar.

20 See the excellent edition with comments and introduction by Zepos, P. in Akademia Athenon Pragmateiai, Vol. IV, No. 2 (Athens, 1936)Google Scholar.

21 Petropoulos, , Itoria, pp. 276–77Google Scholar; Triantaphyllopoulos, K., “Sur les sources du Code Galli-maque,” Revista Istorica Romana, I (Bucharest, 1931Google Scholar). The Greek law codes of Rumania were edited by I. and Zepos, P. in Jus Graecoromanum (Athens, 1931), Vol. VIIIGoogle Scholar.

22 Economic and social conditions during the decade following independence were vividly described by Frederic Thiersch: “Le paysan Grec un peu a son aise, possede ordinairement, pour labourer sa terre, une charrue et une paire de boeufs avec quelques anes pour transporter les produits des ses champs. La forme de la charrue correspond encore aujourd'hui exactement a la description qu'en a faite Hesiode; depub trois mille ans rien n'y a été change,” De I'etat actuel de la Grice (Leipzig, 1833), I, 293Google Scholar; also II, 44-89. Cf. Maurer, George V., Das griechische Volk,, Vol. IIGoogle Scholar.

23 Strong, Fr., Greece as a Kingdom (London, 1842), p. 3Google Scholar; Sideris, Aristotle, Georgike Politie tes Ellados [The agricultural policy of Greece during the hundred years (1833–1933)] Athens: Papadogiannes, 1934), p. 59, n. 3Google Scholar.

24 Greece, , Annuaire statistique de la Grice, 1938 (Athens, 1939), p. 471Google Scholar; Law, E. F. G., “Greece,” in Great Britain, Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance, No. n 69 (London, 1891), pp. 26, 82Google Scholar.

25 Greece, , Annuaire statistique, 1938, p. 480Google Scholar.

26 In 1880 the rate of exchange between the drachma and the gold franc was 1:1; by 1895 the drachma depreciated to a rate of 1.83:1. Zolotas, X., Griechenland auf dem Wege zur Jndustrialisierung (Leipzig: Teubner, 1926), pp. 20, 142Google Scholar; Kapsalis, T., La balance des comples de la Grice (dissertation; Lausanne: University of Lausanne, 1927), p. 250Google Scholar.

27 Smith, Bickford, Greece under King George (London, 1893), p. 52Google Scholar.

28 Ed. About, La Grèce contemporaine (Paris, 1863), p. 95Google Scholar, as cited by Sideris, Aristotle in Georgike Politike, p. 59Google Scholar.

29 Stephanides, Demosthenes, Eisroe Xenon Kefalaion [The influx of foreign capital] (Salo-nika: School of Law and Economics, 1930), pp. 172–73Google Scholar.

30 Law, E. F. G., Greece, p. 31Google Scholar.

31 Stephanides, , Eisroe Xenon Kefalaion, p. 198Google Scholar.

32 The rapid development of the Greek communities in Egypt began under the reign of Mohammed Ali, from Kavalla, who was favorably disposed toward the Greeks. For an interesting insight into Mohammed Ali's administration and his intimate relations with eminent Greeks of Egypt see Politis, Athanase G., Les Rapports de la Grice et de I'Egypte pendant 1833-1849 (Roma: Society Royale de Gèographie d'Egypte, 1935)Google Scholar. Also, by the same author, L'Hellènisme et I'Egypte moderne (2 vols.; Paris, 1929-1930)Google Scholar.

33 Greek economists (Evelpides, , Oikpnomike, p. 110Google Scholar; Sideris, Georgike Volitike; Chari-takes, G., Ellenike Viomechania [Greek industry] (Athens, 1926)Google Scholar; and others have often decried emigration of Greeks as a drain of entrepreneurial skills and as one of the reasons for the slow economic development of the country. Of course, it is true that many of the Greeks who were driven away by poverty or dissatisfaction to the Balkans, central Europe, and Egypt were of the more enterprising and progressive elements of the society. It is questionable, however, whether their emigration impaired progress in Greece. Public administration in the nineteenth century was notoriously irresponsible and inefficient. (Notable was the exception of the Trikoupes administrations: 1882-85, 1887-90.) Under conditions of maladministration, insecurity, and uncertainty, opportunities were limited. If these emigrants had stayed home, they would have been lost in the crowd of the poor, and Greece would have had to do without an influx of private foreign capital in the form of emigrant remittances and direct investments. Furthermore, despite the exodus of Greek merchants and artisans and the consequent loss of energy and entrepreneurial skills, the Greek economy did not suffer unduly from lack of these skills. The following case is offered as an example. After the successful mining operations of the French company, H. Roux et Cie, in Lavrio during 1867-69, as many as 1,086 applications by Greeks were submitted to the Ministry of Interior for licenses to exploit and operate ore mines; 360 were granted. Evelpides, , Oikpnomike kai koinike Istoria, p. 59Google Scholar. One suspects that the arguments against emigration as a drain of skills and economic potential were in fact connected with considerations of military strength, which was thought necessary to rebuild the Byzantine Empire.

34 MacNeil, William H., The Greek. Dilemma (New York: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1947), p. 21Google Scholar. The density of population rose from about 24 persons per square kilometer in i860 to 42 in 1907 and 48 in 1928. On the other hand, the occupational distribution changed, and employment in industry, handicrafts, and mining increased from 10 percent in 1880 to 18 percent in 1928. Greece, , Annuaire statistique de la Grece (Athens, 1939)Google Scholar.

35 The Food and Agricultural Organization Mission to Greece stated unequivocally that “Greece has resources and people capable of sustaining far higher productive levels than those so far attained. The country can very materially increase its per capita production and national income, probably to double or triple its present level within two or three decades.” Food and Agricultural Oragnization, Report of the FAO Mission for Greece (Washington, D.C., 1947), p. 3Google Scholar. Similar views were expressed by the UNRRA Committee on the Development of the Productive Resources of Greece and by the High Board of Reconstruction in its Memorandum on the Long-Term Programme for Greece (Athens, 1950), p. 9Google Scholar.

36 Legal philosophers, even some of those with Marxian inclinations, have eloquently avoided discussion of cause and effect in economic and legal relationships. O. Kahn-Freund, in his introduction to Renner's, KarlThe Institutions of Private Law (London: Routledge and Kegan, 1949), p. 4Google Scholar, writes: “Insofar as the economic and legal systems of a given society can be understood in terms of cause and effect at all, changes in the economic relations are often the result of legal developments, though it is far more usual to find that a transformation of the economic system ultimately produces a change in the law. However—and this is one of Renner's cardinal arguments—not only does such a change never occur automatically (i.e., without a political development), it also invariably occurs after a time lag, which may have to be measured in centuries. During this time lag norms which, at an earlier period of history, may have been a true mirror of social relations, may cease to be an adequate expression of factual conditions.” Cf. Ibid., pp. 56-58.

34 Daskalakes, A., “Die Verfassungsentwicklung Griechenlands,” in ahrbuch des offentlichen Rechts, XXIV (1938), 227 et setGoogle Scholar.

38 The introduction of Byzantine law into modern Greece was in essence a reflection of national pride and of the romantic conception of the young state as the natural continuation of Byzantium, a conception that later in the nineteenth century was to become the ideological basis of the policy of the “Grand Idea.” This desire to link modern Greece with the Byzantine and classical past prevented the founding fathers from adopting French or odier European civil law, or the Greek civil codes of Wallachia and Moldavia. These were written in Greek by Greek jurists of Rumania in 1817 and 1818 and were to remain in force there until 1865. The law of these codes, Byzantine in style and form, was in substance a blend of Austrian law and legal customs developed in the Greek communities of central Europe. See Encyclopedicon Lexicon, V, 419; Berechet, St., Istoria vechiului Drept Romanesc, I: lzroarele (Iasi, 1933), pp. 199Google Scholar, 208, 224-26; Zamfiresco, H., Les origines du droit roumain (Paris, 1923), pp. 94, 115-21Google Scholar; Petropoulos, , Istoria, pp. 276–78Google Scholar and n. 30; also, Zepos, , Greek Law, pp. 65–71Google Scholar.

39 For example, the principle that “the upper belongs to the lower”; and that the right of ownership extends up in an imaginary column of air. Thus the owner of upper floors would have to be the owner of the ground floor and lot. Until 1929 this principle seriously obstructed multiple ownership of apartment houses badly needed in the larger cities, where population was rising rapidly with urbanization and the influx of refugees from Turkey.

40 The inconsistency and complexity produced by the heterogeneous national law were compounded by three regional civil law codes: the code of the Ionian islands (French law and the law of “Veneta Statuta”), the one of Samos (French-Italian law), and the Cretan (German law). In addition, family law cases in Crete were regulated by the Charter of the Church of Crete and inheritance by the law of the mainland. This conglomeration of local codes raised intricate conflicts of laws that must have undermined business confidence and initiative. An example of such a conflict could be drawn from the contract of sale. Under the Samian and Ionian codes and the influence of the traditio ficta theory, ownership was transferable “par le seul con-sentement” as in French law. In Crete and the rest of Greece, however, the contract of sale involved two independent obligations: the contract pure and delivery (transfer of the possession).

41 Balogh, E., “Influence de l'economie social sur revolution du droit dans l'histoire comparative du droit et de l'edinologie juridique,” in Introduction a I'etude da droit compare; rccueil d'etudes en I'honneur d'Edouard Lambert (Paris, 1938), p. 200Google Scholar; Petropoulos, , Istoria, pp. 24–30Google Scholar; Phaff, I., Ober den rechtlichen Schutz des wirtschaftlichen Schwachern in der romischen Kaisergesetzgebund (Weimar, 1897), pp. 13–16Google Scholar; Oertmann, Paul, Die Volswirt-schaftslehre des Corpus Civilis (Berlin, 1891)Google Scholar; Bonfante, P., Storia di diritto Romano (Firenze, 1900)Google Scholar. Also Triantaphyllopoulos, K., To Ellenikpn Idiotikpn Dikaion kata ton Decatonennaton Aiona [Greek private law in the nineteenth century] (Athens, 1924)Google Scholar; idem, “Istoria ton Schedeion Astikou Kodikos” [History of the civil code], Archeion Idiotikpn Dikfliou (Athens, 1931). IV, 433–49Google Scholar.

42 See O. Kahn-Freund's penetrating remarks and critique of legal positivism in his introduction to Renner's, KarlThe Institution of Private Law, pp. 8–16Google Scholar and p. 37. Legal positivism may pardy be explained by reference to the social structure of the legal profession on the Continent and as a response to the needs of a rising judicial and administrative civil service. Positive legal concepts would make for unity of administration and smoother supervision of the workings of the legal system. Ibid., p. 12. For a concise critique of the theory of “gaps of law” and the opposite doctrine of J. C Cray that “all law is judge-made law” see Kelsen, H., General Theory of Law and State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949), pp. 55–53Google Scholar.

43 Greece, , Schedion Astioti Kodikps; Genikca Archai [Draft of civil code; general principles] (Athens, 1936), pp. 60–63Google Scholar.

44 The Committee to Revise Civil Law also criticized the law of chattel mortgage and later chattel laws as inadequate means to promote agricultural and industrial credit. See Schedion, Empragmaton, pp. 14–15, 50–52, 142–47, 246–47. For a critique of the chattel law of 1836 and its effects on agricultural credit see Sideris, , Georgiht Politike, pp. 192–94Google Scholar.

45 From 1838 to 1856 sixty-seven such cases appeared before the courts. Vallendas, P., “To Ellenikon Idiotikon Diethnes Dikaion,” Archeion Oikpnomikon, XV (1935), 55Google Scholar.

46 For example, Article 688 of the civil procedure code withheld certain privileges from foreigners; Articles 78, 79 introduced bond posting. See Articles 999, 1045 regarding imprisonment; Article 28 regarding jurisdiction of courts to decide on cases involving foreigners. Amusing is a circular from the Department of Justice, July 8, 1837: “The privileges of beggars are granted to Greeks alone, about whom the legislator ought to take special care. Transfer of such favorable advantages to foreigners, who are not possessed with the same rights in bringing action before courts, would be against the spirit of the law.” As cited, Ibid., p. 45.

47 Supreme Court decisions 178 (1838), 23 (1845), M9 (1849) and decisions of the Court of Appeals at Athens 8874 (1847), 7326 (1850), 9926 (1852).

48 The Committee to Revise Civil Law unanimously condemned the “family trust” and proposed that it be limited to one generation. Although data on the value of inheritance in trust are not available, some members of the above committee expressed the opinion that there must be a considerable number of estates and funds in such trusts. See Schedion, , Cleronomikpn, pp. 37–39, 132Google Scholar.

48 Hagen, E., “The Process of Economic Development,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, (1953), V, 201–2Google Scholar.

50 The new civil law code of 1946, Article 1889, introduced the exception that, in case the bequested estate is an agricultural enterprise and an economic unit, the court can order the preservation of its unity by transferring it to the heir considered most able to operate the estate.

51 Land fragmentation is also partly the result of agrarian reform measures initiated at the beginning of the century and completed in the 1920's. Large estates and reclaimed lands were broken into small parcels and given to landless peasants. These reforms aimed primarily at satisfying land hunger rather than at increasing output. Consequently, they failed to increase the marketable surplus of food per unit of land, which would have facilitated the transfer of rural manpower to urban occupations.

52 The present author found that in 1955 in the three south-western counties of the Peloponnesus land was parceled out on the average in eight lots per farm. In 1950 agricultural land was divided into 6,592,049 strips, and the average number of strips per farm was 6.5. The average number of acres per lot was 1.1 for the country and 0.8 for the Ionian and Aegean islands. In 1948, in Crete, the average number of land strips per farm was about 13, with an average 0.7 acres per strip. The average walking distance from the village to the farthest lot was about one and one-half hours.

53 For all practical purposes, bank credit was restricted to large farmers. The wholesale merchants of tobacco and raisins made credit available only to farm owners who kept producing these two commodities. Evelpides, Ch., Georgia tes Ellados [The agriculture of Greece] (Athens: Logos, 1944), p. 185Google Scholar; also, Institute National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques, Memento èconomique, Série M 6: La Gréce (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1952), pp. 64–65Google Scholar.

54 It has been argued, for example, by R. Nurkse, Problems of Capital Formation in Underdeveloped Countries, that in densely populated peasant economies (presumably such as Greece) advances in farming techniques are not “a logically primary condition of economic advance.” In this view the problem is rather how to mobilize the concealed saving potential of disguised rural unemployment. There are two objections to this thesis in the case of Greece. In the first place, there has always been considerable urban unemployment. Urban labor resources could be mobilized more easily and more effectively than rural workers. Secondly, Greece depends on foreign markets for more than 30 percent of its basic food requirements. Possibilities for expanding nonagricultural exports to pay for food imports are limited. Increasing agricultural output per man through reductions in rural unemployment is not sufficient to sustain a program of capital formation. Increased food output is necessary. Even if we assume that the marginal product of farm labor is insignificant, increased demand because of higher total expenditures will be reflected in higher food prices—given the chronic inflationary forces in the Greek economy—thus presenting new strains on the balance of payments and jeopardizing development projects.

55 The law of bankruptcy may serve as an example of the complexity in commercial law. Bankruptcy was regulated by the Law of Bankruptcy of 1878, four laws dealing with bankruptcy of banks, and law 4580 of 1929. Law 4580 was modified by a decree issued in July 1929, and by an interpretative law of 1931. The 1929 decree was further supplemented by law 5639 of 1932, which was later revised.

56 Anastasiades, H., Ellenikpn Emporikpn Dikaion [Greek commercial law] (5th ed.; Athens, 1949), I, 170Google Scholar.

57 For a critical discussion of the law of bankruptcy see Perdicas, P., “Anatheoresis tou Ptocheutikou Dikaiou” [Review of bankruptcy law], Ephimeris Ellenon Nomikpn [Journal of the Greek jurist] (Athens, 1934), I, 844–45, 189-90Google Scholar; and G. Doubouniotes, “To Dikaion tes Ptocheuseos” [The law of bankruptcy], Ibid., II (1935), 97-98.

58 Ephemeris, I (1934), 113–14Google Scholar; Ibid., II (1935), pp. 497, 848, 881-83.

59 Greece, , Annuaire statistique, 1935, PP. 316–17Google Scholar.

60 Ephemeris II, 881.