AGRARIAN TENDENCIES IN EUROPE 73 



brought even larger freedom to the rural population 

 of eastern Prussia. The reforms were followed by 

 the agrarian laws of 1848. 



The next great wave of agrarian reform in eastern 

 Europe came in the sixties. It was in 1861 that 

 Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia. "By the 

 sixties of last century," says Ifor L. Evans, "Agra- 

 rian Reform, beginning in France, had spread right 

 across the Continent of Europe and, with the sole 

 exception of some of the lands under Turkish rule, 

 the emancipation of the peasants was practically, 

 complete. Their personal status at law had been 

 in every case completely changed; while in addition 

 they had acquired, in a great number of cases, full 

 proprietary rights over a very large proportion of 

 the area previously cultivated by them. It is impor- 

 tant, however, to emphasize the fact that the landed 

 aristocracy also acquired a full legal title to the land 

 which it had previously cultivated; and from the 

 economic point of view, this legal reform had been 

 accomplished without any parallel change in the 

 average size of the actual unit of production. . . ." 7 



The forty-year period immediately preceding the 

 World War was not characterized by very much con- 

 structive agrarian legislation in Europe. But 

 Europe, during this period, was undergoing impor- 

 tant social and economic changes that have greatly 

 influenced agrarianism since 1917. The rural popu- 

 lation increased rapidly, especially in eastern Eu- 



7 The Agrarian Revolution in Roumania (1924), p. 184. 



