152 



RUSSIA - MISCELLANEOUS 



Table XV. — Classification of Ptirchasers from the Penftants' Bank, 

 according to the Area of their Holdings. 



Thus four fifths of the Banks' customers are peasants possessing less 

 than 6 deciatines of land, that is to say just those who, as we have shown, 

 have most need to be provided with land. 

 (b) Work of the Land Commissions. 



In the previous sections we have reviewed the work of the land com- 

 missions, partly in respect to farm readjustment properly so called, and 

 partly in respect to their co-operation in the sale of the land reserve of the 

 Peasants' Bank. We shall here touch on another duty with which they are 

 entrusted, namely : the sale to the peasants of a portion of the Crown Lands 

 (Domains), placed at their disposal by ukase dated August 27th. Septem- 

 ber 9th., 1906. 



The commissions have themselves to settle in all their details the condi- 

 tions for the sale of these Crown Lands : 95 % of the price of sale is to be 

 paid off in instalments in 55 years, so that only one twentieth is paid in cash. 

 And although this payment is reduced to a minimum, those peasants may be 

 exempted from it who, after sale of their holdings, which were too small, 

 to the commune at the date of readjustment, prefer to estabHsh themselves 

 as colonists on the Crown Lands, because the yield from the sale of their 

 former holdings is generally too insignificant compared with the cost of 

 removal and initial establishment on the new holding. Thus, the cash 

 payments have in these years only been about 4 % of the purchase price. 



Although it is not possible to compare these sales of the Crown Lands 

 with those of the Peasants' Bank, yet thej^ amounted, during the years 1908- 

 1911, to 329,005 deciatines distributed among 57,243 peasants' families, 

 who had to pay altogether 32,532,284 roubles for them. The following table 

 gives the details : 



