The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-19 00:00:00

EMANCIPATION OF THE EUSSLIN

SERFS.

The important Ukase for the emancipation of the
Russian Serfs, expected to be promulgated in Feb-
ruary, is positively announced for March. A loan
of a very large amount was considered a accessary
preliminary to the appearance of the ordinance.
The plan adopted by the Russian Government fete
last year—we are not, certain how far it has been
persevered in—was to give each head of a serf
family the full property of his cabin, and of the
small garden or spot of ground in which it is
generally enclosed. In return fur ceding this, as
well as for abandoning his right to the forced labour
of his serfs during so many days in the year, the
Russian landed proprietor was to receive an indem-
nity, partly paid in money, which the loan was to
provide, partly in bonds, which the gradual sale of
Crown property for a certain number of years was
to meet. It was also provided that the serfs them-
selves should by degrees and by instalments pay for
the property they received and the liberation from
labour granted them.
We are exceedingly loth to criticise the Russian
Emperor or his Government in their provisions for
a social change so generous and philanthropic ;but
it would be of no advantage to blink the great
difficulties that await the carrying out of so vast
and so weighty a project. In all countries the
population of which has fallen to a state of serfdom,
emancipation has been the work of time, attended
with obstructions and relapses ; and perhaps, there
is no social revolution so difficult to accomplish as
that which converts the cultivator of the sell from
the condition of paying for the value of the ground
ohfeptailylsinign
ilnabroeunrt.
, or in kind, to the superior relation
'Phis change is easily effected, and indeed comes
of itself, in the neighbourhood of towns, where there
Is a ready market for agricultural produce. But in
Itrussia these are few. In most countries of Europe
the clergy favoured the emancipation of the artisan,
and afforded him asylum and protection beneath
the towers of the abbey or the church. When a
town was thus formed, the ways of the peasants
who supplied it became assimilated to those of
the townsmen they supplied, so far as to receive a
money price, and consequently to be ready to pay
it. But the Church occupies no such position in
Russia; and instead of allowing artisans to form
independent congregations in towns, landed pro-
prietors have undertaken to employ them, keeping
their serfs all the time.
The Imperial Ukase of emancipation will be all
and more than it pretends to be to the artisan
class. It will prove the same blessing to those por-
tions of the agricultural peasantry who are near to
a market. But there are wide regions in Russia in
which emancipation will prove a dead letter. In
many the landlords have no ready money, no means
to pay for the daily labour of the peasant, no faci-
lities for either raising or selling produce so as to
find money to pay rent. In such districts things
will remain pretty much as they are at present, ex-
cept that the peasant, made proprietor of his cot-
tage and garden, will feel a very diminished incen-
tive to work, and will probably make use of his
new liberty in not working at all. In that case,
proprietor and peasant will both suffer, and both
become poorer for the edict of forced emancipation.
Notwithstanding, we by no means address any
reproach to the Government. Without an impulse
from the higher power everything will stand still in
Russia. And it is better that innovations should,
be made, and inconvenience arise, which may b'e
met by legislation and exertion, than that so fine a
country should stand still. There is one circum-
stance, and it should be largely taken into amount,
which renders the great question of the relation of
the peasant to the soil a much more dangerous ques-
tion at present throughout the whole east of Europe
than it was in the west when the great change
took place there from serfdom to tenantry.
Throughout the east of Europe the peasant con-
siders that he has a right and property in the soil.
Any legislative act that would totally dispossess
him, and make a mere day labourer of him, would
create serious discontent and inevitable explosion.
Government, therefore, or assemblies who make a
grant of the fee simple of cottage and garden, do
a foolish thing, perhaps, in one sense, but an inevi-
table concession in the fether. Such a grant renders
the Russian peasant:half independent of either
labour or landlord, and is a terrible incentive to
idleness. But to propose to the serfs emancipation
without this, would to them wear the character of
spoliation ; and from all we learn, it would be met
by a general and formidable insurrection.
The worst of such social revolutions by ordinance
is, that they do not always find the people able or
instructed enough to profit by them. In the law-
collections of England and France we find grants
of emancipation for several lands and districts re-
peated over and over again. The peasantry could
not profit by freedom, and were obliged to relapse
into servitude. In the 'West then, as in Russia
now, the serf was but a grown child. He had land
marked out for him, seed provided for him, labour
in sufficient quantities directed now to this spot,
now to that. Is the serf everywhere ready, even
at the voice of the Emperor, to do all this for
himself? No doubt intelligent and philanthropic
landlords might do much. But these are rare, as
is sufficiently indicated by the fact that the Russian
nobles or gentry are universally opposed to the
Imperial measure. Government commissioners
might be sent down to aid and to direct ; but any
one acquainted with the corruption of Russian
functionaries must feel that such agents would
make matters infinitely worse.
We sincerely hope that we exaggerate the ob-
stacles in the way of the Emperor's noble act.
We shall watch it with care, and we shall be de-
lighted to note and to admit that we have been
mistaken. But, however slow or obstructed the
progress of emancipation may be in remote dis-
tricts, it is impossible to conceive a larger act of
justice and liberation to the immense numbers of
ingenious and industrious Russians who inhabit
towns. There every mechanic, smith, carpenter,
builder, baker, even shopkeeper, was a serf, com-
pelled to pay the greater part of his hard-won earn-
ings to a distant lord, who very often gathered
his whole income from this lucrative slave-gang.
If the Imperial Ukase did but put an end to this,
it would be in itself a blessing, of which it would be
impossible to extol too highly the beneficent re -
sults.

Even here, however, there will be for the present
generation the drawback of indemnifying existing
proprietors to a certain degree for what they lose.
The Emperor insists on cancelling no property in
serfs without indemnity ; and his financiers insist,
that since the State cannot, the serfs themselves
must pay this indemnity. For this, however, the
better class of serfs are prepared. Nor will any dif-
ficulties be found in this, not the least important
part of the transaction. But as to the rustic popu-
lation, it will be a very serious matter to free them,
yet induce them to work, to demand money pay-
ments of them in regions where no money pene-
trates, or to require provident habits of those who
have never worked but at a master's bidding.—
Daily News.