GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE NEW RUSSIAN LAND REFORMS 1 43 



§ 4. Reforms with the object of increasing the area 

 of land held by peasants. 



In the preceding sections we have dealt exclusively with the work in 

 connection with the readjustment of farms and the redistribution of those 

 held by the peasants ; we shall now deal with the provisions relating to 

 the third great problem of agricultural politics, that is to say : the increase of 

 the area of land held by the peasants who, in general, are insufficiently sup- 

 pHed with land. 



It is partly to the Peasants' Land Bank and partly to the land commiss- 

 ions that the solution of the problem has been entrusted in a series of ukase>> 

 promulgated in 1906, with which we shall deal hereafter. Although, owing 

 to the very nature of the work of farm readjustment, there has been a contin- 

 ual and close collaboration of the Peasants' Land Bank with the land com- 

 missions, we shall here, in order to emphasize them more, show separately 

 the various measures taken for the purpose and their effects, beginning 

 with the work of the Peasants' Bank, as this Bank has played the principal 

 part in relation to the increase of the peasants' land. 



(a) Operations of the Peasants' Bank. 



The Peasants' Land Bank, founded in 1882, had at the start the sole 

 duty of advancing money to peasants for the purchase of farms. These 

 loans were granted for long terms (24 /4 " 3 4^2 years) up to the amount 

 of 60 % (in some cases even 90 %)ofthe estimated value of the land bought. 

 The maximum loan obtainable, however, was 500 roubles per household 

 or 125 roubles per individual (adult male). The loans \^-ere repaid in very 

 large annual instalments ; 8 ^ % (interest and sinking fund) on loans for 

 24 Y2 years, 7 ^4 % 011 those for 34 ^ years ; in November, 1894, these 

 rates were reduced to 7 % and 6 14 % respectively. By an Order of Decem- 

 ber 6th./T9th., 1898, five periods for extinction were fixed (13, 18, 28, 41 

 and 55 ^ years) with annual instalments of 10 ^1 i, 8 ^/4, 6 ^'j ^, 5 ^/^ and 5 V4 % 

 respectively. By this change, the rates were virtually again reduced, on an 

 average by l^ %. 



We have not here to study these operations from the financial point 

 of view. That important part of the work of the Peasants' Land Bank was 

 dealt with in our article on Russian Agricultvual Credit, whilst here we have 

 only to consider the work of the Bank in regard especially to farm read- 

 justment and above aU the service rendered by the Peasants' Bank for the 

 encouragement of home colonisation. The Bank, since the publication, 

 towards the end of 1895, of its new rules, has been authorized to purchase 

 landed estates for its own account, in order to subdivide them and sell them 

 again in lots, as far as may be, to peasants. At first, these powers were 

 conferred on the Bank up to 191 1 ; the term was later indefinitely extended 

 by the 3rd. Duma. 



