44 RUSSIA - CREDIT 



Tahle XIV. ~ Percentage of Sold Lands which were sold as Olrouh 

 and Houtor Lands, respectively. 



I«ands Sold 

 Year houtor otroub 



I9IO 23.6 57.6 



1911 25.8 68.2 



1912 31.2 66.0 



1913 340 68.8 



1914 37.0 74.2 



1915 42.4 764 



This table is ore of the best ilkistrations ot the bank's agrarian policy 

 In itself a houtor represents, as compared with an otroub, no agronomic 

 progress. It unites in a single tenure various lots, only the peasant's 

 house remaining in the village. The houtor is on the other hand a single farm 

 including even the site of the peasants' house within its lands ; but, as ap- 

 pears from the circulars and the practice of commissions charged to resettle 

 the land, the houtor is often divided into various lots, sometimes widety 

 separated from one another, and tliis makes it inferior to the otroub. It is 

 however exactly this tendency to isolate the peasant at all costs, severing 

 his ties with the village, which characterizes the bank's policy. Thus the 

 circular of 19 February 1908 says that the houtor should have the lirst place 

 in the land system, and places the otroub below the houtor divided into 

 several lots. 



From the point of view of the progress of agriculttire the houtor, divided 

 into several lots, is certainly less good than the otroub ; but the houtor^ equally 

 certainly, serves better than the otroub to split up the masses of the peasant 

 population. 



In other words the polic}^ of dividing and scattering the peasants 

 was followed energetically and insistently, and it is in the predominance 

 given to a purely and simply political principle that the causes of the 

 discontent amoug the masses of the population must besought. At bottom 

 it was not brought about by the houtors, but by the lack or insufficiency 

 of the enterprise which would have rendered houtors really profitable to 

 the peasants. 



In order to have an exact idea of the movement of the bank's lands we 

 must notice that of 2,286,318 deciatines which it held on i January 1916, 

 802,261 deciatines cannot now be sold and 332,059 deciatines are not in- 

 tended to be sold to the peasants. 



The 802,201 deciatines belong to various categories : 299,058 are let 

 on a lease of several j^ears, and the remainder can either be sold with them 

 or onl}'^ after a series of works of irrigation and improvement have been 

 executed. As regards the 332,059 deciatines not intended for sale to- the 

 peasants,, they consist of 274,710 deciatines of woods to be preserved in the 

 national interest ; 19,769 deciatines destined for institutions ; 3,844 for 



