The Portland daily press., 1898-09-01
RUSSIA AND CHINA.
How Emancipation of the Serfs Stimulates
China's Partition.
fFrom the London Times.)

OF tho SeTlS III huSSltt dl4tl llit iCCCAo apSSAP
tion of large slice of China INTO the Far
Eastern regions of the empire would seem
Mt first sight sufficiently remote To the
Russian mind, however. this latest stage OF
Ihe expansion of the empire is the natural,
and, indeed inevitable result of series Oh
events which commenced thirty-seven years
ago. glance ut the Russian view OF the
question is doubIy interesting from the hgh'
IL throws upon the economic changes III Uao
empire that are now taking place.
The transference of 80, 100000 acres OF laho
to the eInancipated serfs-the most stupeuu-
Gus national land endowment known III MS
tory has unquestionably had many results
that were by no means foreseen at the oihie.
Tho vastness of this change IN the hatiohai
life was, 1t is true, fully realized, puC IL WAS
then and, indeed, for many years after
ward the general opinion that IL wouio
open 10 Kussia a new epoch Oh agricultural
development, in which all hef energies
would be confined for many generations to
come While the peasantry were pfovloeo
not only with freedom, but with land amply
sufficient to supply all their simple needs,
the monetary compens alton received by the
landowners for the compulsory rel1nqulsh-
meut of their rights would, it was believed,
supply them with the capital they required
for the profitable development of the re-
mainder of their estates by improved and
more scientific systems of farming. Russia
would become the "granary, the larder, and
the airy of Europe; the demon of poverty
and the dangerous discomfort that 1T en-
tailed would be banished forever from the
working classes. while the landowners
would find themselves. more prosperous. than
ever before. Few, indeed, realized that
before single gener alton had passed the
consequences to the agricultural population,
the vast majority of the nation, would be
the exact reverse a ruined aristocracy,
peasantry drifting nearer year by year to
the brink of famine, and a steadily increas-
ing flow of all that was most enterprising and
Intelligent, both among the educated and
the laboring classes, from the agricultural
pursuits to new and hitherto unthought of
branches of industry.
HOW AGRICULTURE SUFFERED. -
In the old. easy going days of serfdom the
first charge upon every estate was the main
tenance of the livestock upon it, includ-
ing serfs and the cattle. Overworked and
cruely treated the serfs might be, but with
exceptions they were as warmly housed and
as literally fed as the owners horses and
oxen. With the emancipation this ancient
patriarchal system disappeared. There
were gloo my forebodings of what the att1-
tude of the liberated serfs would be and
large proportion of the landed classes quit
ted their estates. Very few among them
risked sinking their newly acquired capi-
tai in their land until they saw how the new
system would work. Banking operations
of all kinds were largely developed, mainly
for the purpose of dealing with the land re-
dep,ption certificates received by the land
owners, and considerable portion of the
capital thus set free flowed into industrial
and commercial undertakings, inswhich the
profits were larger and less precarious than
in agriculture. In a few years nearly all
the estates in the empire were heavily mort
gagged and had to be worked upon the most
economical systems possible. The wages for
agri cultural labor at length began to dimin-
ish, while the fall of late years In the value
of agricultural produce compels the peas
ants to sell more than formerly of their own
small stock to meet the fixed annual pay
ments to the Government for the redemp-
ton of their lands. At the same time the
rural population is rapidly increasing so
that the total produce of the peasant hold
mai ntenahce of a family. M
HOW MANUFACTURES ARE STIMULATED
One remedy and one alone exists for the
grave distress and suffering that now weighs
upon so many millions of the Russian people
the development of native industries and to
this end every effort of the Government for
the last eighteen years has been directed
An interesting paper, d rawn up by the we'll
kno wn Russian political economist, M.
voronoffsky, throws some important light
upon this subject. In many of the richest
agricultural districts from so to 70 percent of
the peasants are without horses, ,and unable,
therefore, to plow their own land. This
means, moreover, that they can with diff
Guilty obtain employment on the lands of the
mobiles much of the agricultural work being
done by the peasants with their own horses.
Notwithstanding this, however, the coun-
try as a whole is growing richer as is proved
by the increasing deposits in the savings
banks which strange to say for some time
past have been greatest in years of agricul-
turai depression a conclusive proof that in
dustrial enterprise in Russia is increasing at
the expense of agriculture.
The emancipation by setting free both
labor and capital had therefore created the
first two essentials of mining and Industrial
development. II to these we add the almost
unlimited natural resources of homogeneous
empire which has been picturesquely de-
scribed as extending from "tle haunt of the
polar bear to the lair of the tiger it is asy
to realize what Russia as an industrial M
pire is capable of effecting.
Almost equally unlimited is the amount of
labor which the exceptional position of the
Russian peasant renders available for min
ing and manufacturing industries at wages
far below those paid in any other European
country. However rapid the growth of Rus
sian industries may be there is but little
probability of the increasing demand for
labor leading to rise in the rate of wages
for many long years to come. A very care
fully worked out estimate published by
Prof. Mendeleetf of the St. Petersburg Uni
versity shows that the total AGRICULTURAL
operations in the whole of Russia could not
possibly occupy even with the primitive ap-
pliances now generally used and all the
waste labor that they entail more than five
thousand million working days. The total
amount of labor now available, however.