HOW THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS ARE LEAVING THE LAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 75

HOW THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS ARE LEAVING THE LAND.

A SOCIAL TRAGEDY AND ITS RESULTS.

Although Russia has a peasant population of more than 100,000,000. it is confronted with a oerious problem—the scarcity of common labour. The story told by the Russian papers is an extraordinary one, and shows how widespread is the revolt of the landless and how mighty is the lure of the town all over Europe. The story forms a striking parallel to the picture 'of rural England, to which Mr Rowntree calls attention in his remarkable new book. A Mysterious Process.— “In the depths of Russia there are going on some very mysterious processes which ought to attract the most serious attention of society,” says M. Menshikov, of the Novoye Vremya (St. Petersburg). " All of a sudden a coal famine has hit us, a famine which threatens to stop the immense and constantly growing network of railroads, not to speak of the groat industries which daily require coal as man does bread. Besides the railroads, the navy needs coal, not less than powder. “ And the cause of this "sudden shortage of coal is that ‘ there are not enough labourers in Russia. The Don coal mines alone during nine months last year produced 1.500.C00 tons of coal more than during the whvfle year previous. There is no scarcity of coal, but of labourers. In June, 1912, there were 142,000 labourers, at the end of June 140.500. a month later 126.500. and still another month later 125.000. The labourers are disappearing somewhere.

Avoiding Coarse Labour.—

Referring to an article bv a well-known agricultural Russian writer, A. T. Meshtchersky, on this new tendency of the Russian peasant, M. Menshikov goes on to &av: —

“ The muzhik deserts not only the coal mines, where a large army of labourers have steady employment; the marhik deserts not only the factories, net caring much for the present quite satisfactory prices and conditions. He deserts agriculture, as well as the farms of large and small land-owners, which is for the latter an actual catastrophe. In summer a gr-;a-t

need of labourers, accompanied with an unusual rise in prices, was felt in the South and throughout all Central Russia. . . .

“ That the muzhik is avoiding coarse labour is attested not only by M. Mesrhtchersky and the Don mine operators. According to the newspaper Syvet, ‘ there was a scarcity of hands not only in Novorossia and in Caucasus . . . but even in Central Russia, in Kursk, and the Smolensk governments, where the crops were not particularly large, there were not enougli working men during the whole summer, in the cities, on construction works, in the coal mines, and in the textile mills. The land-owners of the governments of Podolia and Kiev have requested the military commander of the district to detail soldiers to do the gathering of sugar-beet, because the lack of labourers and the exorbitant prices demanded by them threatened to ruin the main branch of industry of that region. On the estates of tha Smolensk (government) land-owners tha fields have remained unsown for next year. . . . and the magnificent crops of rye, flax, oats, and potatoes were not gathered, and perished in the fields. . . .” Some Suggested Causes.—

M. Menshikov dwells on the fact that the rise in the, price of agricultural labour has occurred simultaneously in all parte of Russia, ‘‘as if by common consent or at someone’s command,” and attmmtes it to the activity of the revolutionary agitators who have “ for many decades been preaching to the peasants expropriation of the land, hatred toward the highear classes, envy of the rich, atheism, and nihilism.” He considers as one of the chief causes of this ‘‘passive strike of tho peasants ” the Government’s ‘‘too liberal'* aid to the famine-stricken districts, and continues:—

“ The common people see to whom and how aid is given, and they form tho dangerous conviction that ... if tho muzhik ha-s' no bread the Government is under obligation to feed them. Reasoning thus, they soon come to adopt a purely Socialistic view on Government: if the Government is under obligation to feed the muzhik, why is it not obliged to clothe him, to give him a horse, a cow, a- house, etc. ?”

The Village Has Changed.—

Speaking of the change that has oomo over the muzhik, the writer continues: “The village has changed entirely for the last 30 years. The patriarchal ago of plougheirs and cattle-raisers is coming or has come to an end. There is only half the number of families engaged in agriculture ; all the rest —some have turned into ‘ gentlemen,’ some have become merchants or learned a trade. In the words of a peasant. ‘ there are five army officers from our village, there are telegraphers, railway conductors, officials.’ The appearance in the village even of few such * fortunates ’ leads to terrible temptation. Seeing only gentleman’s dress, epaulets, and cockades, and not knowing about the other . . . conditions of semiintellectual labour, the village folk lose all semblance of content with their station ’n life, and are striving to leave the village and go' anywhere. . . . In the time of serfdom, when there existed an insurmountable caste barrier between him and the other classes, tho muzhik considered his positon absolutely normal, and when material conditions were satisfactory did not wish for anything better. The extreme disabilities and restrictions imposed upon them did not. seem degrading : the disgrace of their position has been discovered now when access to everything is open to all. The young generations take to imitating the ‘ gentlemen ’ with great eagerness; but not being able to copy the "ood sides, they copy the bad —foppery, idleness, tion, . . .

—lnvading the Cities. — “The masses are invading the cities an< deserting the village: this must be takeC to mean that Labour decreases and idlencaC increases. But is there much happines* in the city ? It is true, there the muzhik is no more a muzhik. Hiring himself out ae a janitor, or clerk, he feejs that ho ceases to be a peasant—that is, departs from a state which is deeply offensive to him, according to present-day standards, and which ho himself despises. He becomes something like a maggot, from which, at some future time, a ‘ gentleman ’ will come forth. But for the great majority of them this transitory stage lasts without an end, and is accompanied with extreme want. In the cities the cost of the necessaries of life rises with extreme rapidity. Only the rich and officials living iii Government residences do not feel it. . “People cannot understand what the cause of this growing calamity is which hits the poor classes particularly hard. And the cause is a very simple one. The muzhik, the main producer of grain, bread, flour, meat, milk products, and all other foodstuffs, is disappearing. Besides the bread famine, we have a firewood famine, a coal famine, and all possible famines. . The population grows and the number of labourers decreases. . .