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Book I.
Chap. ii.
Sect. 4.

Labor

have Rents in

sessors of the soil, and introduced a new class of proprietors. These have been, on the whole, more diligent in pushing cultivation than their predecessors on their estates, and their enterprises already created an increased demand for labor. The Poland. effects of this have shewn themselves in the only manner in which, in a country so occupied and so cultivated, they could shew themselves, in increased wages, obtained by increased allotments of land granted on the reserve of less labor, and with every encouragement to the peasantry to use their freedom, and migrate to the estates on which their labor is most wanted'.

1 See Mr. Jacob's First Report, p. 27. The Appendix to this Report contains some detailed returns from the managers of Polish estates, and taken with Mr. Bright's book, presents a perfect picture of the practical working of the system of labor rents in Poland and in Hungary. For a graphic sketch of the state of manners and morals it has produced, the reader may consult Burnett. In Poland, in Austria, and other parts of Germany, the proprietor's domain, with his implements, animals, and capital of all sorts, are sometimes let at a low money rent to a tenant, together with the right of exacting and using the labor due from the serfs. The superior tenant is, in Poland, very often a younger branch of the family, occasionally a stranger. This substitution of another person as cultivator of the domain, leaves, however, the labor rents of the serfs (our present object) precisely where they were. It is considered a very disastrous mode of disposing of the domain: the stock and capital are usually, as might be expected, ruined at the expiration of the lease; it is not now practised extensively; though it appears from Mr. Jacob's Second Report, to be now spreading in the North-west of Germany. It may, however, possibly prove hereafter, one stepping-stone

Book I.

SECTION V.

On Labor Rents in Livonia and Esthonia.

THE state of the peasantry in Livonia is reChap. ii. markable, because it presents the results of a deliSect. 5. berate experiment on the best means of gradually converting a serf tenantry into a race of freemen.

Labor
Rents in
Livonia and
Esthonia.

Till the reign of Alexander the condition of the Livonian peasantry was similar to that of the Russian slave. The servile condition of the cultivators had attracted some attention under the Empress Catharine, and she had encouraged the men of letters in her dominions to communicate their ideas on the best means of gradually modifying it. M. de Boltin, M. de Kaïsarof, and M. de Stroïnovsky, successively wrote upon the subject. The work of the last written in Polish was translated into Russian: it entered into a detailed account of the measures proper to prepare and forward what was treated as a great and useful reform. Nor were these notions confined to literary men, or to individuals. In 1805 the whole body of proprietors in Esthonia agreed among themselves on some preliminary regulations for the peasantry on their estates, which, it was avowed, were meant to pave the way to their ultimate emancipation. These

to a different system; and if the dilapidation of the stock could be effectually guarded against, it most probably would do so.

Book I.
Chap. ii.
Sect. 5.

Labor

Livonia and

regulations received a formal sanction from the Emperor. The alterations in Livonia began a year earlier, and seem to have originated in minds equally alive to the importance of a change, and to the Rents in practical reasons for its being effected gradually. Esthonia. Their object appears to have been, to elevate the serf by degrees, and while that elevation was in progress, to retain considerable control over him, partly for his own advantage, partly to secure the interests of the proprietors. The personal liberty at first conceded to the peasant was much less complete than that of the Hungarian and Pole, for he was still attached to the glebe, and had no power of chusing his employment or residence. But a benefit was bestowed more important in the outset than freedom itself, to persons so wholly dependant on the soil for subsistence; a benefit which had been withheld from him in Hungary and Poland: every individual peasant was invested with a secure interest in the allotment of land which he cultivated.

The edict of the Emperor finally legalizing these regulations appeared in 1804. The Livonian serf was declared the hereditary farmer of the land he occupied. The rent was fixed in labor, to be performed on the domain of the proprietor. It was to leave the peasant master of at least two-thirds of his time. If this labor rent should at any time be commuted for a money payment, the amount of that payment was limited and fixed, and it was never to be increased. A lease was to be granted on these terms, irrevocable, and only subject to for

BOOK I.
Chap. ii.

Sect. 5.

Labor

Rents in

feiture in case the rent should be two years in arrear; and then only after the decision of a legal tribunal, which was to direct the lease to be renewed to the next heir of the defaulter. Some rights of cutLivonia and ting both firewood and timber for building, in the proprietor's forests, were also reserved to the serf. He was enabled to acquire property in moveables or land, and to marry at his own discretion.

Esthonia.

With all these privileges, however, he remains attached to the soil. He can no longer be sold away from it, but he is sold with it, or rather the benefits arising from his compulsory occupation of his allotment are sold with the rest of the estate: he is subject to a correctional discipline of fifteen lashes.

On the whole, these regulations do credit to the good feelings and good sense of the framers of them. The emancipation of the serf is incomplete; but it would have been evidently rash to have abandoned at once all control over the industry of so rude a race; on whose exertions the subsistence of the proprietors themselves, and the whole cultivation of the country, must for some time depend'. The successful results to be looked for from such an experiment could not be expected to appear at once; but it is unpleasant to observe the little effect apparently produced in fifteen years. Von Halen, who travelled through Livonia in 1819, observes, Along the high road through Livonia, are

66

1 For an instance of the bad results of a benevolent but ill-judged attempt at a hasty and complete emancipation, see Burnett, page 106.

Sect. 5.

Rents in

Esthonia.

found at short distances filthy public houses, called BOOK I. in the country Rhartcharuas, before the doors of Chap.ii. which are usually seen a multitude of wretched carts and sledges belonging to the peasants, who Labor are so greatly addicted to brandy and strong liquors, Livonia and that they spend whole hours in those places, without paying the least regard to their horses, which they leave thus exposed to the inclemency of the weather, and which, with themselves, belong to the gentlemen or noblemen of the country. Nothing proves so much the state of barbarism in which these men are sunk, as the manner in which they received the decree issued about this time. These savages, unwilling to depend upon their own exertions for support, made all the resistance in their power to that decree, the execution of which was at length entrusted to an armed force."

The Livonian peasants, therefore, received their new privileges yet more ungraciously than the Poles, though accompanied with the gift of property, and secure means of subsistence if they chose to exert themselves. Subsequently their discontent appears to have taken a different turn. They are said to have constituted a part of the peasantry, against whom that edict of the Emperor Nicholas was directed, which accuses the serfs of wishing to throw off all rents and services at once.

2 Narrative of Don Juan Von Halen, &c. Vol. II. p. 38. Don Juan was mistaken as to the date of the decree, which had been issued since 1804 by the Emperor Alexander, for partly emancipating some of the Livonian serfs.

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