blesse Not a New Phenomenon--Mortgaging of Estates--Gradual
Expropriation of the Noblesse-Rapid Increase in the Production and
Export of Grain--How Far this Has Benefited the Landed Proprietors.

When the Emancipation question was raised there was a considerable
diversity of opinion as to the effect which the abolition of serfage
would have on the material interests of the two classes directly
concerned. The Press and "the young generation" took an optimistic view,
and endeavoured to prove that the proposed change would be beneficial
alike to proprietors and to peasants. Science, it was said, has long
since decided that free labour is immensely more productive than slavery
or serfage, and the principle has been already proved to demonstration
in the countries of Western Europe. In all those countries modern
agricultural progress began with the emancipation of the serfs,
and increased productivity was everywhere the immediate result of
improvements in the method of culture. Thus the poor light soils of
Germany, France, and Holland have been made to produce more than the
vaunted "black earth" of Russia. And from these ameliorations the
land-owning class has everywhere derived the chief advantages. Are not
the landed proprietors of England--the country in which serfage was
first abolished--the richest in the world? And is not the proprietor of
a few hundred morgen in Germany often richer than the Russian noble who
has thousands of dessyatins? By these and similar plausible arguments
the Press endeavoured to prove to the proprietors that they ought, even
in their own interest, to undertake the emancipation of the serfs. Many
proprietors, however, showed little faith in the abstract principles of
political economy and the vague teachings of history as interpreted by
the contemporary periodical literature. They could not always refute the
ingenious arguments adduced by the men of more sanguine temperament, but
they felt convinced that their prospects were not nearly so bright
as these men represented them to be. They believed that Russia was a
peculiar country, and the Russians a peculiar people. The lower classes
in England, France, Holland, and Germany were well known to be laborious
and enterprising, while the Russian peasant was notoriously lazy,
and would certainly, if left to himself, not do more work than was
absolutely necessary to keep him from starving. Free labour might
be more profitable than serfage in countries