Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1861-06-01

OF Poland are not in command of any large
amount OF ready money. They live up to
their incomes, if not beyond them and, more
over, the greater portion of their revenues is
received in kind, and not in money, viz: in
the products of their land iarmed by them
selves. Moreover, if this substitution were
made at one and the same time the demand
for all kinds of farming stock and plant would
be so great that the difficulty l have adverted
TO would be greatly aggravated by the increas-
ed price that must be paid for them. And
further, it is very questionable whether the
comparatively small sums the landlord would
receive as rent would be sufficient to pay the
wages of the new class of laborers.
But this is not the only difficulty. From
long possession strong notion OF tenant right
to the fee simple of their holding has sprung
up among the peasantry, which has been very
considerably strengthened by the Russian gov
eminent Partly, perhaps, from the small
value of land in Russia, partly also from its
being almost entirely an agricultural country,
to be possessed of no portion of soil, however
snlall-to be proLetaire, is not only disgrace,
but almost crime in a Russians eyes Hence
it was that by an imperial edict, published, l
believe, in 1886, no Polish proprietor has the
power of re!aking into his own hands those
portions of his estate which ne has once let
out to peasants but in case of failure Of heirs
in the peasants family, or OF his bankruptcy
or voluntary departure, he is compelled to put
some other peasant into the holding The
peasants are, therefore, a sOrt of copy holders,
the proprietor having the right of revising the
rental in some cases every twenty or twenty.
five years, while in others it is fixed for ever.
The difficulty, then, of this quasi copyhold
tenure and this tenant right claim to posses
SION had to be met in connection with the sub
stltnion OF money payments in lieu of com
pulsory labor. And to this question it was
that the Agricultural Society, with the writ
ten permission of Prince Gortschakoff, had
given its serious attention. The value of land
IN Roland is about twenty years purchase
The recommendation, then, of the society was
that for sixteen and two-thirds years pay
ments, calculated at this rate, or at a loss to
himself of one.sixth of the real value OF the
land, the proprietor should sell the peasant in
possession of the fee simple of his holding.
But this was not all. By the establishment If
credit banks, 1t was proposed to put the pea
SAINTS into the actual position of free laborer,
and to sever at once all connection between him
self and the proprietor. These credit banks in
each department were to become virtual pro-
prietors of the peasants copybods for the
proposed term of l6S years, paying the land
owners the purchasemoney at once in the ne
gotlabe debenture bonds (papier de qdg), with
coupons for interest, and receiving the annual
payments, both principal and rent, from the
tenants This would have furnished the pro-
prletors with sufficient capital to stock their
estates when compulsory labor was abolished,
and would have made the peasants freeholders
Ill few years by small annual payments,
amounting in all to five-sixtIs of the real value
OF their freeholds, the difference being volun-
tarily sacrificed by the proprietor.