THE RUSSIAN LAND PROBLEM.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 18, 20 July 1907, Page 13

THE RUSSIAN LAND PROBLEM.

M. Stolypin explained the Government schemo of agrarian reform to the Duma, on Thursday afternoon. All* estates' coming into the market will be purchased, and with the Crown and State lands will form a State Land Eand, whence the peasants will be • able to acquire land through the State Bank at reduced rates, tho difference being chargeable to all ratepayers. He described the scheme as practical Socialism, with tho object of encouraging individual ownership. But in view of tho demands of tho peasantry and the increase of population — involving the provision of about nine million acres annually — the plan in itself was unworkable without emigration, which ho regarded as absolutely indispensable. He complained of the haste with which vie Agrarian Committee had committed themselves to the principle of expropriation without consulting tho ministry, and declared that the Government would accept no schemo based on that principle) The Socialist 'demand for land nationalisation was not only revolutionary, but impracticable ; that of the Constitutional, Democrats — which proposes expropriation when necessary at a fair, but not at the inarkot, valuation — was inequitable and disingenuous. If private landowners were to be expropriated, why should the peasante be exceptod? He therefore preferred tho Socialist proposal as more honest. The Government was not for half-measures, but was resolutely opposed to tho forciblo dispossession of one hundred and thirty thousand private landowners. In conI elusion, tho Premier remarked : "We do not believe in a grand panacea.; wo want a grand appeasement." M. Stolypin spoke with ins usual moderation and good sense, and, assuming tho correctness of hie figures, he made out -a strong case for tho Government policy. The Premier's speech was cheered by the Right, but tho accoptance of the Government measure, ana with it the existence of tho present Duma, depend on tho readiness of the Constitutional Demoncrats to modify their views, and this at the moment seems unlikely.