THE Temuka Leader SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1892. THE RUSSIAN MIR.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2427, 19 November 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1892. THE RUSSIAN MIR.

The avidity with which our Conservative friends at the present time, clutch at any little things which has a tendency to support their own peculiar views is most remarkable. Their chief trouble is the tenure of land. If they could make the people believe that large freehold estates are best calculated to promote prosperity they would be happy, but, unfortunately for themselves, they do not find the task very easy. The Christchurch Press, the most Conservative paper in New Zealand, in its vain efforts ‘to prove this has gone to Russia for an example. and has found it in the Russian “ Mir.” Under the Russian Mir system, which the Press says is socialistic, there has been a terrible famine, therefore we must carefully uphold the freehold tenure of land. We published an article recently on the Russian Mir system, but it may be as well to explain what it is once more. In 1861, when the serfs were emancipated, a certain area of land was apportioned to each village, and arental was attached to it by a Government assessor. The land was not individualised, but each family got its share, according to its numerical strength. A man with a large family got more than the man with a small family, and so on. As families are continually changing, some getting larger and some smaller, it becomes necsssary to re-divide the land occasionally, but it has been shown that these changes do not take place very frequently. Every village like this forms a local government of its own, and is called a Mir, and it attends to education, roads and bridges, and other local works, A number of these villages combined together form a Commune, and a number of Communes form what are called the larger Communes, and these again form a City. (Little’s Short History of Russia.) Over all these a Governor appointed by the Czar rules with despotic power ; his will is law, and if any of the local bodies do anything to displease him he can punish them in various ways. Now is not this almost exactly similar, only far less liberal, to the system of Government which existed in England before the Norman Conquest. Under the old Saxon Kings local government consisted of the Township, the Borough, and the Hundreds, with the Wii(' na 2 emot > or I’mdiament, supreme _ 1 ~ » Township was, like the over al , i.ie u J , r . . . -■* small farms. JMir, an association o. which had its own officers, man.

own laws, and elected members to represent it in the Hundred’s Court. The position of the Borough was SCjtnewhat analagous, and then came the Court of the Hundred, which embraced a larger m'ea and had wider powers. Exactly like the local bodies of Russia at. the present time, these English institutions administered Justice. collected rates, and attended to all manner of local matters, so that the analogy between the two systems is very striking, the great difference being that whereas the English 10U0 years apo could appeal to a national Parliament, called the AVitenagemot,' the Russians of to-day cannot go beyond the local Governor, Over 1000 years act), therefore, the political condition of England was immensely more Liberal than that which exists at the present time in Russia, and yet it is to the Russian Institutions of the present day that our Conservative friends turn for a bogey with which to frighten us. They, in fact, drag out the old clothes we threw off 1000 years ago, and try to make us believe they look like those we wear to-day.

Nothing could be more ridiculous than this. It is really most astonishing how men who have a reputation to maintain can allow themselves tb do such a foolish thing as to draw an analogy between Perpetual Leaning and tlie Russian Mir, and try to make people believe that both are calculated to retard progress, But the great

point is that they conceal the vital facts connected with the Mir. They try to make us believe that all the land is worked on the Mir system and that all the peasants are State tenants. Nothing of the kind. When, twenty years ago, the Mir system was instituted, the land was divided into three parts, one part of which remained the property of the noble, and the other two parts was given to the serfs. But the land was by ny means free ; the serfs had still to pay their landlords rent for it, either in labor or in money. The rents were fixed by a public officer at “ from 20 to 40 men’s days, and 15 to 30 women’s days, labor a year, or 8 to 12 roubles per allotment.” They must also pay rates and taxes, and these are often far heavier than the rent. But perhaps what explains the miserable condition of the Russian peasant best of all is the fact that, under any circumstances, he does not get enough land to work. In some places the size of each allotment is under an acre, and they range from that to 11 acres per male member of the family. The peasants require from 28 to 42 acres to support a family, and consequently, the Encyclopaedia Britannica says, “ Land must be rented from the landlord at fabulous prices.” The landlord is at the bottom of Russian peasant poverty just as he is at the bottom of Irish poverty, and now, who is the landlord in either place V He is the owner of a large freehold estate, and, therefore, if New Zealand is wise she will never allow such a class to prosper within her territory. We have now seen the miserable condition of the Russian Mir settler ; but there is still perhaps a greater evil than all with which he has to contend. Little, in his short history, says: “The official class combine together for offensive and defensive purposes, and are the bane of the community. They oppress the poor and are open to bribery from the highest to the lowest. They are hated by the agricultural classes,” And yet it is to this country, where both landlord and public officer combine together to rob the poor small farmer of the miserable pittance he makes out of his few acres, that the Christchurch Press goes for an example of the frightful consequences of State-ownership of land. If the Press likes to make itself ridiculous it is its own look out, but we are sure no one will be deluded by its senseless ravings.