g contracted. In 1873-74
nine private land-mortgage banks were created, and there was such a rush
to obtain money from them that their paper was a glut in the market, and
became seriously depreciated. When the prices of grain rose in 1875-80
the mortgage debt was diminished, but when they began to fall in 1880
it again increased, and in 1881 it stood at 396 millions. As the rate of
interest was felt to be very burdensome there was a strong feeling among
the landed proprietors at that time that the Government ought to help
them, and in 1883 the nobles of the province of Orel ventured to address
the Emperor on the subject. In reply to the address, Alexander III., who
had strong Conservative leanings, was graciously pleased to declare in
an ukaz that "it was really time to do something to help the Noblesse,"
and accordingly a new land-mortgage bank for the Noblesse was created.
The favourable terms offered by it were taken advantage of to such
an extent that in the first four years of its activity (1886-90) it
advanced to the proprietors over 200 million roubles. Then came two
famine years, and in 1894 the mortgage debt of the Noblesse in that and
other credit establishments was estimated at 994 millions. It has since
probably increased rather than diminished, for in that year the prices
of grain began to fall steadily on all the corn-exchanges of the world,
and they have never since recovered.

By means of mortgages some proprietors succeeded in weathering the
storm, but many gave up the struggle altogether, and settled in the
towns. In the space of thirty years 20,000 of them sold their estates,
and thus, between 1861 and 1892, the area of land possessed by the
Noblesse diminished 30 per cent.--from 77,804,000 to 55,500,000
dessyatins.

This expropriation of the Noblesse, as it is called, was evidently not
the result merely of the temporary economic disturbance caused by the
abolition of serfage, for as time went on it became more rapid. During
the first twenty years the average annual amount of Noblesse land sold
was 517,000 dessyatins, and it rose steadily until 1892-96, when it
reached the amount of 785,000. As I have already stated, the townward
movement of the proprietors was strongest in the barren Northern
provinces. In the province of Olonetz, for example, they have already
parted with 87 per cent. of their land. In the black-soil region, on the
contrary, there is no province in which more than 27 per cent. of t