ows:--The dues were
capitalised at six per cent., and the Government paid at once to the
proprietors four-fifths of the whole sum. The peasants were to pay to
the proprietor the remaining fifth, either at once or in installments,
and to the Government six per cent. for forty-nine years on the sum
advanced. The proprietors willingly adopted this arrangement, for
it provided them with a sum of ready money, and freed them from the
difficult task of collecting the dues. But the peasants did not show
much desire to undertake the operation. Some of them still expected a
second Emancipation, and those who did not take this possibility into
their calculations were little disposed to make present sacrifices for
distant prospective advantages which would not be realised for half a
century. In most cases the proprietor was obliged to remit, in whole or
in part, the fifth to be paid by the peasants. Many Communes refused to
undertake the operation on any conditions and in consequence of this
not a few proprietors demanded the so-called obligatory redemption,
according to which they accepted the four-fifths from the Government as
full payment, and the operation was thus effected without the peasants
being consulted. The total number of male serfs emancipated was about
nine millions and three-quarters,* and of these, only about seven
millions and a quarter had, at the beginning of 1875, made redemption
contracts. Of the contracts signed at that time, about sixty-three per
cent, were "obligatory." In 1887 the redemption was made obligatory
for both parties, so that all Communes are now proprietors of the land
previously held in perpetual usufruct; and in 1932 the debt will have
been extinguished by the sinking fund, and all redemption payments will
have ceased.

* This does not include the domestic serfs who did not
receive land.

The serfs were thus not only liberated, but also made possessors of
land and put on the road to becoming Communal proprietors, and the old
Communal institutions were preserved and developed. In answer to the
question, Who effected this gigantic reform? we may say that the chief
merit undoubtedly belongs to Alexander II. Had he not possessed a very
great amount of courage he would neither have raised the question nor
allowed it to be raised by others, and had he not shown a great deal
more decision and energy than was expected, the solution would have been
indefinitely postponed. Among the members