THE QUESTION OF WHEAT. 361 



places actually deteriorated since lie is free. The soil has become 

 exhausted, the fields have even sometimes been abandoned, so that in 

 many regions bad crops and dearth have come to be of almost regular 

 occurrence." 



The helplessness of the peasant, the importance of food supplies, 

 and the necessity of foreign markets for surplus product have induced 

 the Russian Government to devise an extensive system of state aid, 

 apart from the measures arising out of the emancipation. This policy 

 was initiated in 1888, and offers a most elaborate plan for facilitating 

 the marketing and transportation of grain, without endangering the 

 home supply. It was formerly the practice among rural communities 

 to set aside a certain quantity of grain each year of good return to 

 be held as a store against a deficient crop or actual famine. This 

 salutary system had been allowed to fall into disuse in many gov- 

 ernments where the development of agriculture seemed to promise 

 an immunity from want or even from high prices that are inseparable 

 from a really short production. The events of 1891 gave a rude 

 shock to this feeling of confidence, and the Government determined 

 to enforce the old system of storing grain, or to create a fund out of 

 which actual suffering through a partial famine could be relieved. 

 The Minister of the Interior, in calling the attention of the local 

 authorities to this matter, proposed two methods of attaining the 

 end desired: (1) by returning the grain borrowed, where a general 

 store lias been maintained, and filling new storehouses; or (2) by 

 substituting a grain tax where the old stores have not been kept up, 

 for a money tax designed to make a fund for the purchase of supplies 

 when needed. 



" The Ministers of Finance and of the Interior have solicited 

 the imperial permission for giving the zemstvos the right to collect 

 the land tax from peasants in grain instead of money, and that, 

 furthermore, in order to give the zemstvos means to meet the neces- 

 sary expenses, a credit should be opened for them in the Government 

 bank at the low rate of three and a half per cent per annum and to 

 the full amount of the sums they were entitled to receive in grains. 

 The loans thus made must be returned to the bank out of the money 

 received from the sale of the grain, or, if necessary, from special 

 taxes, and not later than June 1, 1894." * 



A second object to be gained through state agency was to relieve 

 the peasant from the necessity of selling his grain as soon as gathered 

 in order to provide the means of continuing the oi^erations of the 

 farm. 



Since 1888 liberal loans have been made to farmers on grain 

 stored in warehouses or delivered to the railroads. These advances 



* Consul General Crawford's report, December, 1893. 



