Agricultural Administration in Austria-Hungary. 681 
The nobles pay no taxes or imposts of any kind, so that you may form 
some idea of the state of society. In Hungary a noble may screw his boor 
out of bis last farthing, and imprison bim when be has no longer anything 
to pay; but if by chance be should lose his temper, and hang or shoot 
him, he must pay a fine to the Emperor of nearly thirty shillings. The 
noble is considered, to he of a different species from the peasant, and in 
consequence is allowed to live as a drone in the hive, feeding on the produce 
of the others' labours, disclaiming all active employments, and feasting on the 
sense of his own dignity. 
You see at every step the consequence of such a wretched system. No 
bridges, no roads, no great public works can be undertaken while the only 
classes able to pay are exempt from the payment of tolls and rates, by which 
alone the expenses could be defrayed. The wretched boors are in a state of 
the most deplorable ignorance, and consequent immorality. 
This state of things, which existed in a modified form even 
in the more civilised Austria, endured until the revolutionary 
year of 1848, when land laws applying to the whole Empire 
were decreed which abolished the feudal system, with all its 
privileges, exemptions, and monopolies. 
In return for the robot (from the Czechish word i£ robota "), 
or forced labour of the peasant, with its attendant dues in money 
or kind, a certain portion of land had been allotted to him by 
the " noble " whose serf he was, this land being cultivated by the 
peasant exclusively on his own behalf and for his own profit. 
By the new law the conditions of forced service and feudal 
imposts were abolished, and the peasaut was invested by the 
State with the free and unconditional ownership of the land 
allotted to him. 
It is not necessary to describe at length the method by which 
this sweeping change was made acceptable to, or endurable by, the 
great proprietors, with whose immediate fortunes it so ruthlessly 
interfered. A certain amount of compensation for the abolition 
of these feudal rights (about two-thirds of the estimated pecuniary 
value) was assigned to them, in the shape of 5 per cent, bonds ; 
but as half the amount necessary for the service of these bonds 
was assessed as a surtax on the local taxation of each province, 
of which the " nobles " had to paj their share, the actual com- 
pensation was only one-third of the value of the properties 
alienated. 
So great a change could not, of course, be effected without 
serious inconvenience and heavy pecuniaiy loss to many of the 
great proprietors; but it taught them the useful lesson that, 
instead of leading idle and worthless lives, and resting content 
with the yield of the soil under the primitive agricultural 
methods and lazy administration of the past, they must, to 
escape ruin, cultivate their estates more carefully, and supply the 
place of forced labour by the application of scientific knowledge 
