156 RUSSIA - MISCELI^ANEOUS 



It is from this point of view we shall now study the work of the land 

 commissions and if it is impossible for us to take the reader for a tour through 

 Russia, we can nevertheless follow in thought the authors who have made 

 investigations on the spot and have recorded the things they have seen. 



The objections made by these investigators on the spot may easily 

 be divided into two classes, according to their nature, objections on prin- 

 ciple and practical objections. Let us first consider the former : 



{a) The essential question of principle in regard to the whole problem 

 was stated in the following terms by Prince W. A. Obolensky (i) at the end of 

 his book above referred to : " Will the Hberation of the individual peasants 

 from the commune certainly last ? What will become of the individual farms 

 when at the death of the present owners they have to be divided among the 

 heirs ? WiU there not be again subdivision and scattered lots ? ". 



It cannot be denied that the prevalent system in other European 

 countries and in North America, that is to say the free disposal of owners' 

 rights over land has led to e\dls which attempt is being made of late years 

 to remedy by means of laws that might be considered " antiliberal ". We 

 refer particularly to the special laws passed in America and France for the 

 encouragement oi homesteads and "undistrainable family holdings", by which 

 endeavour is being made to assure the maintenance of farms of a certain 

 area under aU economic circumstances against the arbitrary arrangements 

 of the respective owners. A precisely similar " servitude of the soil " exist- 

 ed in Russia, as the peasants or the communes, up to 1905, could only 

 sell their land to others in certain very definite cases and their principal hold- 

 ings, the nadiel lots could not be mortgaged. Does it not seem strange 

 that at the very moment w^hen the Western nations, with a peasant popul- 

 ation certainly far more enlightened and educated than the Russian, find 

 themselves obliged, so to say, to protect agriculture against the farmers 

 themselves by the institution of a conditional right to property, Russia 

 should follow the opposite course, affording, even in the opinion of favour- 

 able critics, the greatest freedom to the caprice of ignorant farmers ? 



The partisans of the new movement in Russia object that the experience, 

 especially of the Scandinavian countries and North Germany, has undoubtetly 

 shown that the more perfectly and scientifically the peasants' farms are 

 readjusted, the better they resist the danger of excessive subdivision or 

 unscientific division among heirs. Even in countries where the permanence 

 of the small farm is not legally assured, as in Norway by Aasaede, and in 

 various parts of Germany by Anerbenrecht, that is to to say by a succession 

 law, by which the land passes to one of the sons under favourable conditions, 

 the division of the inheritance is, according to the ancient customary law 

 of the peasants, very seldom made in kind; the farm passes generally undivid- 

 ed to one of the sons and each of his co-heirs receives his share in money ; 

 generally the amount of these shares is less than the value oi the land due 

 to the coheirs, so that the farm may not be burdened by excessive charges 



(1) Agriculturist, member of the zemstvo, statistician. 



