RUSSIAN EMANCIPATION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2258, 19 October 1889, Page 2

RUSSIAN EMANCIPATION

After a trial of a quarter of a oentury, the Km am; pation Act is now aoknow- j led Red to have utterly filled. The reports i of Russian effioia 8, of statistical pro foßßors at Moscow, suoh as Jaason, aid the Nihilists wi h Btepniak at tholr head allaMke agree than the misery of the rural clubj ia greater that even m the days of serfdom ; cultivation is at the lowest ebb, the yield is wre'ohed and less than m any other European country, Each ppasHnt must plough, s >w, and reap as his neigh b-'rado, Tho threa- field system of oirn, green crops, and fallow, which wan abandoned m ull good agaioulture long ago goes on with disastrous resnti. As tho lota are ohaigcd. by the Mir at their pleasure, after every year, tbe tempora y Ovvnor does not care to manure, to , or m auy way to improve hid land. Although the lent ia someticaeo as low as 2a &o aoie, yet the paasant cannot live. Agriou)tnre is a busineps n quiring capital, knowledge, and a sufficient amount of land •o ontble differon^ crops to be grown, co • hit If one f«iiß It doe* not ma»n starvation, for another may oacoood Tho Raeslan peanant has none of those qa«l|fioitlons. Tho pe»s»nt proprietors o»n neither pay ths money owing to the Gbv rnnaeut fo: tholr land, nor o^n tbe Sta-e ar.d oomm anal taxes, and are flogged by hundreds for non-payment. In one distrloi of Novgorod fifteen hundred peasants wero thus ondomned In 1887. Fve hundred and fifty had already been flogged, Th<n the inspootor totaraoded for the retnalcdar. Widespretd famine is leond over a groat p*rt of tbe country ; usurers, fie baue of poissnt proprietor)) In »ll 0 jauttiee, »ra in posae^iou of the sitaatlon ; the Koulaka and Jew " mlroatera " supply money on mortgage, tien f ireolooe, and srhen tbe land is m their own possession get tho work done for nothing as Interest. Tbeae " bondage laborers " nu they are called, are m f«ot slave*, and are nearly starved, while the sm«ll pieces of land are of>en reunitsd into considerable estates, and their new owners conßMer they fcava only rights and no dntiea. 1 Meantime, as forood labor is at an end and free labor ie of the worst; possible kind, tho old landowners can net nothing done ; they hive tried to employ maohinea, bought by borrowing from tbe banks and ! are now unable to repay the money. The 1 upper class haa been rained with no advantage to the peasant. "The was'eft.l culture of t'lo cottier," as Slepniak cal sit, ' ' on these small plots ib bo bad that tho general we'fare of tho country," saya Profts>or J<ußjn, "ia m dung«r by the small yield of tha soil." Id epite of tho philanthropic intentions of the Czw, j he is believed to bave aimed at dlminisai ing the pow c of the nobles as moch as I improving the oondition of the peasan t, eucooedef); tho nobioa m many diatriots ar» ontlroJy ruiDed, and thora i« n< t ing now between the nolimted power of the autocrat and hie 90,000 000 subjects, five sixths of whom «re pe&smts,— 'J'ho ••Nineteanth Oentnry,"