146 



RUSSIA - MISCELLANEOUS 



Table X — Landed Estates Bought by the Peasants' Bank to Sell again. 



{Deciatines). 



Bought 

 in the year 



Balance on January ist. 



1906 263,272 



1906 1,144,461 



1907 1,519,848 



1908 572,082 



1909 172,855 



1910 48,444 



Crown Lands 

 Transferred 

 to the Bank. 



353,713 



784,122 



57,627 



570 



Remaining with 

 the Bank, owing 

 to non-fulfilment 

 of Contract 



51.514 

 51,551 

 158,946 

 140,829 

 53,069 

 11,472 



314,786 

 1,196,012 

 2,032,507 

 1497,033 



283,551 

 60486 



Total 



3,720,962 1,196.032 



467.381 5,384.375 



This table shows that the Peasants' Bank has received a considerable 

 area of Crown Land (1,196,032 deciatines) ; unhappily the area of land 

 acquired and remaining with the Bank owing to non - fulfilment of contract 

 on the part of purchasers is also considerable : 467,831 deciatines, or more 

 than 8 % of the entire area the Bank had at its disposal. 



But it is above all the enormous number of private farms sold to the 

 Bank which deserves to be considered. In the course of the year 1907 

 alone, the 3'ear following the agrarian disturbances, the Bank bought 

 1,519,848 deciatines of such land. In order to show more clearly 

 the hastiness of the sale of these large landed estates, we reproduce below 

 a few passages from the preface of the Report of the Peasants' Bank, which 

 is an excellent commentary upon the figures reproduced above : 



" The latent agitation among the peasants which, in the course of 

 the last six months of 1905, degenerated into acts of violence, caused a 

 panic among the landed proprietors. Agitators instigated the population 

 to aggression; the landowners were to be driven from their estates in order 

 that the peasants might proceed to the occupation of their farms. Plunder, 

 destruction of live and dead stock, incendiarism, the devastation of forests 

 to which the peasants openly abandoned themselves, suspension of labour 

 and other similar acts, all rendered the management of landed property 

 impossible. The losses suffered and the want of security for the future 

 obliged many landed proprietors at once to sell their estates. The supply 

 was excessive, the number of buyers comparatively insignificant ; the 

 peasants were waiting for the division of the land {tcherny pSrediel) an- 

 nounced by the revolutionaries ; private persons did not dare to invest 

 their capital in land. It was to be feared that the large quantity available 

 would fall into the hands of speculators who, when order was once re- 

 established, would, as usual, abuse their, position and take advantage of 

 the people when reselling the land they had themselves bought at low 

 prices." 



