Sect. 5. Labor Rents in BOOK I. feiture in case the rent should be two years in arrear; Chap. ii. 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 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. BOOK I. Sect. 5. Rents in Esthonia. found at short distances filthy public houses, called in the country Rhartcharuas, before the doors of 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. Book I. Chap. ii. Sect. 6. Rents in SECTION VI. Of Labor Rents in Germany. WE shall understand better the present state of labor rents in Germany, if we previously recall to mind the downward progress of similar systems Labor in other countries, from which they have disappeared Germany. gradually; because we shall then see distinctly the successive steps of that slow demolition, the progress of which Germany now in its different parts exhibits in many various stages. We may take England for such a previous instance. Thirteen hundred years have elapsed since the final establishment of the Saxons. Eight hundred of these had passed away and the Normans had been for two centuries settled here, and a very large proportion of the body of cultivators was still precisely in the situation of the Russian serf1. During the next three hundred, the unlimited labor rents paid by the villeins for the lands allotted to them were gradually commuted for definite services, still payable in kind; and they had a legal right to the hereditary occupation of their copyholds. Two hundred years have barely elapsed since the change to this extent became quite universal, or since the personal bondage of the villeins ceased to exist among us. The last claim of villenage recorded in our courts was in the 15th of James I. 1618. Instances probably existed some time after 1 Eden, Vol. I. p. 7. Appendix V. Chap. ii. this. The ultimate cessation of the right to demand Book I. their stipulated services in kind has been since Sect. 6. brought about, silently and imperceptibly, not by Labor positive law; for, when other personal services were Rents in abolished at the restoration, those of copyholders Germany. were excepted and reserved. Throughout Germany similar changes are now taking place, on the land; they are perfected perhaps no where, and in some large districts they exhibit themselves in very backward stages. A short description of the condition of one state will make that of others intelligible; allowance must of course be made for an indefinite variety of modifications in the practice and phraseology of different districts. The domain lands, those which in Hungary Poland and many German states are still cultivated by the nobles themselves, are generally in Hanover let for a money rent to persons who occupy the domain as a farm, and have the benefit of the services which the peasant tenants are bound to perform. Some of these larger tenants, under the name of Amtmen, exercise the important territorial jurisdiction, still invested in the nobles, and kept alive and distinct even on the demesnal possessions of the crown3. The amtmen are not usually practical farmers themselves, but lawyers or officers of government, the only classes which seem to possess capital for such undertakings. They reside sometimes in towns, and employ stewards or bailiffs to 2 See 12th Charles II. c. 24. 3 Hodgskin, Vol. II. p. 5. "The Amtman frequently unites," &c. Chap. ii. Sect. 6. BOOK I. look after their very large farms'. These stewards are the best practical farmers in Germany, are usually well educated (often in the agricultural institutions); and are inferior in general and proGermany. fessional knowledge to no set of cultivators in the world. Labor Rents in It would be well for the strength and prosperity of Germany, if its soil were universally under such management. But by far the larger proportion, it has been loosely said four fifths, is occupied by a class of men called collectively Bauers. These, under another name, are the serfs, who in Poland, Hungary, and Russia, form the laboring tenantry of the nobles. When the laws are recollected, (passed as before remarked for fiscal purposes) which in many German states forbade the cultivation by the proprietor of any land which had once been in the hands of a bauer, the spread of this order and the proportion of the land occupied by them will not appear extraordinary. In some parts of Hanover these men now present themselves in two distinct classes, with a variety of subdivisions. They are called Leibeigeners and Meyers. The leibeigeners are in the state of the English villein, when his labor rent had ceased to be arbitrary, but was still paid in kind, after his hereditary claim to his allotment had been recognized. The leibeigener pays a labor rent, in kind, and cultivates the lands of the landlord, for a certain number of days in the year; brings home the lord's wood, performs other 1 Hodgskin, Vol. II. p. 90. |