154 RUSSIA - MISCELLANEOUS 



§ 5. Other operations in connection with the work 

 OF readjustment carried out by the land commissions. 



In the course of earning out the new land refoims experience showed 

 that in order to accelerate the operation, two measures were necessary: 

 1st., small loans had to be granted for the initial estabHshment of those 

 peasants who, possessing very little or no land at all at date of purchase, 

 could not benefit by the credit given by the Peasants' Bank, and 2nd., model 

 and experimental farms had to be organized to show the peasants the advant- 

 ages of the new system of farm readjustment in such regions in which the 

 rural communes themselves had no practical notion of it. 



In accordance with the regvilations of Novemberi7th.,/3oth., i9oS,the 

 land commissions distribute their subsidies in money under the form of 

 loans, not at interest, up to the amount of 150 roubles, repayable in five 

 annual instalments, beginning with the 6th year. It is in fact a very effic- 

 acious system of assistance, since the cost of removal and initial instal- 

 ment of the peasants generally amounts to between 200 and 500 roubles, 

 according to the locaHty. We must not consider these figures from the point 

 of view of Western Europe, where the monetary regime also prevails in 

 agriculture, so that it would be out of the question to build new houses 

 at such prices. It should be added that the land commissions are still able 

 to assist peasants with loans in kind, especially providing them with cheap 

 timber for building from the State forests ; in this way among the Russian 

 peasants, who are pooi, but live to a large extent under the system of bar- 

 ter, new colonies are formed of a size and with a rapidity which would be 

 inconceivable, in the case of the richest farmers of Western Europe, if only 

 for financial reasons. It must be allowed that it is fortunate for Russia and 

 not at all a mere incidental fact that the reforms have been commenced at 

 this moment. A hundred years hence the monetary regime and the credit 

 institutions prevalent in Western Europe will also prevail by natural force of 

 circumstances on the Russian peasant farms and the rise in price of material 

 and labour, as well as the increased needs, would render this work of re- 

 form, already in itself difficult, entirely impossible, on purely financial 

 grounds. 



Account must be taken of these special conditions if we are to appreciate 

 at its real value the amount of 13,452,543 roubles, seemingly a small sum, 

 distributed by the land commissions under the form of loans in 1907-11 (i). 



Out of this sum, 147,640 peasant famiUes received loans of an average 

 amount of 100 roubles each to meet the cost of their initial establishment, 

 not including that of building material received at very- low prices. 

 It is true that 337,741 families apphed for such loans and we shall see in the 

 following section that the available resources of the commissions are instif- 



(i) The Commissions further distributed 864,597 roubles as special subventions among 

 32,100 peasants. 



