RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT, THE. 



801 



understood, at the time of the emancipation in 

 1861, that the peasant owed compensation to 

 his former landlord, and that the payment of 

 his ransom should extend over a period of 

 forty-nine years, or till the year 1910. The 

 Government, however, coming to the peasant's 

 assistance, took upon itself to advance to the 

 landlord at once, in bonds at eighty per cent, 

 four fifths of the ransom due, leaving the 

 peasant to settle with the landlord for the re- 

 maining fifth ; and, at the same time, exacting 

 from the peasant the interest of five per cent 

 on the money advanced by the Government to 

 the landlord. For the payment of this five 

 per cent interest, as well as for the fifth of the 

 ransom-money still due to the landlord, and of 

 all other land-taxes or duties, the commune or 

 whole village is responsible, and is, therefore, 

 empowered to levy on all and each of its mem- 

 bers whatever money is needed, taking care 

 that the share each has to bear of the common 

 burdens should be proportionate to his share 

 of the common property. 



If the population of each village remained 

 stationary ; if the share of land allotted to each 

 family was sufficient for its wants; if every 

 family and each member of it were equally 

 sober, industrious, and thrifty; and if the re- 

 distribution of lots, which usually takes place 

 every three years, were always made on fair and 

 equitable terms this system might work as 

 beneficently as was apparently intended. But, 

 even in that case, the fact would remain that 

 the peasant is almost as effectually bound to 

 the soil, under the commune, as he was as a 

 serf under the landlord. He is compelled to 

 pay for the possession of his land quite as much 

 in money as he formerly paid in labor. In 

 some of the provinces, where the soil is fertile, 

 enough may, perhaps, be made out of the com- 

 mon land to meet the common liabilities ; but in 

 poorer districts it is necessary to eke out the rev- 

 enue proceeding from the land by allowing some 

 of the members of the commune to go forth and 

 "better themselves" by seeking employment 

 in any capacity which will enable them, not 

 only to bear their share of. the burdens of the 

 commune, but also to benefit the commune 

 by paying a percentage of their extra earnings. 

 This leave of absence for the good of the estate 

 was as usually granted by the landlord as it is 

 now by the commune ; and so much of the 

 fruit of his toil as an able and willing serf had 

 formerly to yield to his master, an intelligent 

 and laborious freedman has now to contribute 

 to make up for the short-comings of his idle 

 fellow-villagers. Practically, however, the 

 peasant takes more liberty than the emanci- 

 pation was meant to award him. The emi- 

 gration of the land-laborers from the country 

 to the town, and from the poorer to the richer 

 districts, is incessant, and assumes every day 

 more alarming proportions. As pilgrims, as har- 

 vest-men, as peddlers, or simply as runaways, 

 a large proportion of the rural population of 

 Russia is perpetually on the tramp. The nu- 

 VOL. xxi. 51 A 



merons manufactories, of every description, 

 that a protective system of customs duties has 

 called into existence, have a tendency to crowd 

 the city at the expense of the country, in spite 

 of the hindrance of the pas-sport regulations, 

 and of the control that both the commune and 

 the police are supposed to exercise on the 

 movements of all Russian subjects. The re- 

 sult is already that " about one million and a 

 quarter of peasants habitually live in the 

 towns." 



Much of the soil of Great Russia is capable 

 of being made very fruitful by careful and in- 

 telligent cultivation, but the peasant has nei- 

 ther the intelligence, the energy, nor the capi- 

 tal to develop its capabilities, and the interest 

 of the landlord has been eliminated by the 

 emancipation. Migration to the mines of the 

 Ural districts, to the factories of the central 

 provinces, and to the naturally more produc- 

 tive soil of the south, is constantly going on, 

 and threatens the population and strength of 

 the most important part of the empire. This 

 migration is not the normal result of over- 

 population or a high development of industries, 

 for what the country thus drained most needs 

 is an active and energetic application of labor 

 and capital to its hidden resources. Neither 

 is there any healthy assimilation of the shift- 

 ing population in its new situations. Beyond 

 the boundaries of Russia proper there are vast 

 zones of conquered territories, inhabited by 

 mixed, half-subdued races Finlanders and 

 Germans of the Baltic provinces in the north- 

 west ; Tartars in the east and southeast, from 

 the Volga all across the Asiatic continent; 

 Tartars and other half-tamed, half-civilized 

 tribes in the south, in the Caucasus, and the 

 Crimea ; finally, Poles, Ruthenes, Lithuanians, 

 and other south -Slavic or alien races in the 

 southwest, in Little and New Russia, or in 

 the west, in White Russia and in the former 

 kingdom of Poland. In all these territories 

 and among these various nationalities Russia 

 can scarcely be considered as thoroughly at 

 home ; the subject people are held in check, 

 here by long habits of submission, there by 

 considerations of common interest, everywhere 

 by the consciousness of their own weakness 

 and of the irresistible material preponderance 

 of the ruling race ; yet all, or most of them, 

 are cherishing local traditions and aspirations, 

 resenting and, passively at least, resisting in- 

 trusion, encroachment, and any attempt at 

 amalgamation, smarting under the sense of 

 unmerited defeat and intolerable oppression, 

 and harboring unfriendly or even implacably 

 hostile feelings against their conquerors. In 

 no European state is the need of a strong and 

 wise government more deeply felt than in the 

 Russian Empire, and nowhere, perhaps, are 

 the rulers of the land more helplessly and 

 hopelessly bewildered ; nowhere are the peo- 

 ple on whom the state relies for its stability 

 more deplorably disorganized and disheart- 

 ened. 



