CHAPTER VI.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE FARMER INTO THE AGRICULTURAL LABORER.

In the vast majority of cases tenure at will did but take the place of the old relations between master and serf.[67] The obligation of the serf toward his master was discharged on some estates in labor (_corvée_), on others by payments, either in money or in kind. It is only natural to find the old practice inherited by modern economy:

+---------------------+--------------+----------------+------------+ | | Communal | Individual | | | | tenure. | tenure. | In all.[68]| | +--------------+----------------+------------+ | |Communities. |Communities. | | | | | Land. | | Land. | Land. | | Rented for | +-----------+ +------------+------------+ | | |Dessiatines| |Dessiatines.|Dessiatines.| | | | |Per | | | Per | |Per | | | | |cent. | | |cent. | | cent.| +---------------------+--+----+------+---+-----+------+-----+------+ |Share in crops | 3| 47| 1 | 4| 382| 2| 429| 2| |Money rental (merely)|34|3330| 76 | 84| 6687| 43|10017| 50| |Labor (merely) | 1| 48| 1 | 8| 562| 4| 610| 3| |Labor compulsory and | | | | | | | | | | money in addition |10| 958| 22 |132| 8065| 51| 9023| 45| +---------------------+--+----+------+---+-----+------+-----+------+ | Total |48|4383| 100|228|15696| 100|20079| 100| +---------------------+--+----+------+---+-----+------+-----+------+

The patriarchal custom of division of the product itself between landlord and tenant (_métayage_) has now become about entirely obsolete, and is now to be found only in combination with extra payments in money. Forced labor on the part of the peasant for the benefit of the landlord continued in use. Abolished by law, it has been upheld until to-day, through the economic pressure of the need of land. The free tenant was compelled to bind himself to do a certain amount of work for the landlord. If he failed in this he could not get the opportunity of renting land. Pecuniary agreements were in vogue on those estates alone, whose owners did not care for farming.

The economic tendency of the time, however, is toward money economy and “free contract.”[69] As in the matter of taxation, the change is brought about by the rise of rent.

On the one hand, the amount of work done by the tenant for the landlord has enormously increased, thereby diminishing the demand for compulsory labor.

On the other hand, whenever the rent is to be paid in cash, at least one part must be advanced in the spring, _i. e._ at a time when most of the peasants are short of money. Moreover, the extraordinarily heavy rents exacted have made the leasing of land a very hazardous business; one bad yield is sufficient to upset all the tenant’s calculations, and to throw him into insolvency.[70] The circle of tenants who can pay their rents in cash has thus been reduced to the “stronger” householders.[71] The natural consequence was increased offers of farm labor in exchange for land, on the part of those who could not afford to lay out ready money.

Thus in the process of the economic evolution, compulsory labor becomes obsolete. It was only in the minority of cases that the promise of labor was required as an essential part of the rental agreement, and even then it was only in exceptional cases that farm work was to be performed for the full amount of the rent. Generally only a part of the latter was to be covered through labor; the rest could be paid, at the option of the tenant, either in work or in money.

In this transitional form of agreement prevalent in 1882, the peasant appears, properly speaking, as tenant and laborer at once. The next step is toward the differentiation of both.

The purely money form of rent has already won the field over about one half of the whole area of rented land.

That this is the form which is finally to prevail, follows from the fact, undisputed by Russian statisticians, that peasants in good standing avoid working on the landlords’ estates, and prefer to pay their rent in money. The miserable remuneration for farm work is the very obvious reason of this dislike.

These are the average amount of rent and the average price paid for the full work of cultivating, and harvesting one dessiatine, and carrying the crops to the barn:

Rent rubles 14.78 Labor ” 4.75 ------------------------------------------------ Rent for 1 dessiatine ＞ Wages for 3 dessiatines.

The average figures can be considered, however, merely as representing static conditions at any given moment. The tendency of the movement is rather indicated by the extreme limits.

When work is offered in payment of rent, wages very often sink far below the level. At the same time rent is ever on the rise.

Let us take for purposes of comparison, some communities in which piece wages are lowest, and some others in which rent is highest:

----------------+-------+--------+----------+-----------+------------- District |Commu- | Land | Average | Wages per |Rates of rent of Ranenburg. |nities.| rented | rent per |dessiatine | to wages. | |(dessia-|dessiatine| (rubles). | | | tines).|(rubles). +-----+-----+------+------ | | | |From.| To. | From.| To. ----------------+-------+--------+----------+-----+-----+------+------ Minimum of wages| 44 | 1909 | 15.16 | 3.00| 4.00| 5.2:1| 3.9:1 Maximum of rent | 12 | 833 | 23.72 | 4.00| 5.00| 5.9:1| 4.3:1 ----------------+-------+--------+----------+-----+-----+------+------

As the ratio of rent to wages is moving from 3:1 towards 5:1, it finally becomes questionable whether we should class among tenants or among laborers a peasant who has to till five dessiatines for the landlord in exchange for one dessiatine given to himself.

Thus land tenure is degenerating into wage labor.