56. 



RUSSIA - CREDIT 



Table X. — Sale from 1901 to 1915 of Lands mortgaged to the Bank. 



Area of lands sold' 



Purchasers 



Institutions (the 

 Bank of the Agri- 

 culturists) . . . 



Peasants 



IVIiddle class .... 



Traders 



Various others . . 



Total. . . . 



1901-1905 



deciatines 



16,735 

 477,096 



89.585 

 434,329 

 471,728 



1906-1910 

 deciatines 



2,045,197 



1,866,164 



72,861 



159,474 

 336,657 



1911-1915 

 deciatines 



117,058 



1,168,402 



78,902 



162,894 



472,782 



Total 

 deciatines 



2,178,990 

 3,511,662 



241,348 



756,697 



1,281,167 



1.489,483 4,480,353 2,000,028 7,969,864 



The large extent of land which in these fifteen years became the pro- 

 perty of persons outside the nobihty, namely 7,969,864 deciatines, confirms 

 the statements in " Material for Statistics as to the Transmission of I^ands 

 in Russia. " The fact is therefore that nobles lose land and peasants come 

 to possess it. Most of the land bought bj^ the credit institution is resold 

 on privileged terms to small landless cultivators ; and if the 2,178,999 de- 

 ciatines bought by these institutions be added to the 3,511,622 sold directly 

 to the peasants, the enormous total is reached of 5,691,621 deciatines which 

 have passed from the hereditary nobihty to small cultivators in the space 

 of only fifteen years. 71,6 per cent, of these lands were sold to persons 

 outside the nobihty. If we examine the sale of mortgaged lands during 

 the same fifteen j^ears we find that the nobility constitute a large percentage 

 of the purchasers, which is to sa^^ that a large although a diminishing per- 

 centage of the lands sold remain in the possession of the nobility. In the 

 first quinquennial period, that lasting from 1901 to 1905, 63.2 per cent, 

 of the total number of purchasers of lands m.ortgaged to the bank belonged 

 to the nobihty and only 14.8 per cent, to the peasantry. In the second 

 quinquennial period, 1906 to 1910, the nobles constituted 29.6 per cent, 

 and the peasants 61.2 per cent of the purchasers. From 1911 to 1915 the 

 nobles constituted 46.1 per cent and the peasants 31.2 per cent, of the pur- 

 chasers, which is to say that the nobles had regained a predominance. But 

 if the figures for this last period be examined from year to year a marked 

 rise in the percentage of peasant purchasers is discovered in the first year 

 and a fall of 32.3 per cent, in 1915. Not oidj- does a large extent of mort- 

 gaged lands pass to persons outside the nobility and especially to the pea- 

 sants, but this extent tends to increase while the purchasing power of the 

 hereditary nobility diminishes. At the same time a certain extent of land 

 passes to traders, that is to say the capitalist middle class. Tliis merely 

 confirms the perspicuous remarks of Leroy-Beauheu in his work on Russia: 

 " The Russian nobility, no longer protected against others and themselves 

 by the impossibility of selling to persons of a class not sheltered by the 

 system of succession, are exposed to slow expropriation in favour of the 



