put in possession of about one-third of the landed estates at prices,
fixed by the Government, to be paid to the landlords. Those prices were
not always equitable. Table-land which was cultivable was assessed at
the same value as hill-country to the disadvantage of the former.
However, such as it was, the arrangement was carried out. The peasants
of course had no money; therefore the Government paid the boyards,
taking the titles of the land in pledge, and the peasants were bound to
repay the amount to the State in annual instalments. The Government in
turn created a loan, the 'Obligations Rurales,' which were to have been
paid off in 1880, but they were not quite extinguished a year after they
should have been, and a portion of the remaining debt was converted into
a new loan which will expire in 1924. It was, however, only a small
proportion of the original debt, and this fact speaks volumes for the
industry of the peasants.[59] The change did not, however, end there.
About five or six years since _State_ lands were allotted to about
50,000 of the peasants who were too young in 1864 to profit by the
emancipation; and this was done on still more favourable terms, the land
being sold at the old prices of 1864, although it had risen greatly in
value, and the purchase-money repayable in fifteen years. Now, to all
intents and purposes, every peasant is the proprietor of his holding,
and one of the wisest things done by the Roumanian Government was to
pass an act before the expiration of the 'obligations rurales,' which
prevented the alienation of their holdings by the peasantry for a period
of thirty years; otherwise a portion of the land would have fallen to
usurers and harpies who were speculating on being able to secure it when
it came into possession of the nominal proprietor, by advancing loans
upon it, as they do upon that of the improvident landlords.

But this leads us to the dark side of the picture. The industrious
peasantry, who form the large majority, have paid for their allotted
lands, and a great many continue to buy from the indigent boyards. Many
are, however, still embarrassed, and some even in virtual servitude,
this being the result of their own indolence and misconduct. For a large
number of idle or destitute peasant holders, being unable to pledge
their land in consequence of the act just named, are forced to sell
their labour for one, two, or more years in consideration of money
payments by their land