"In the government of Yaroslaf the whole inhabitants of one place are potters. Upward of two thousand inhabitants in another place are rope-makers and harness-makers. The population of the district of Uglitich in 1835 sent three millions of yards of linen cloth to the markets of Rybeeck and Moscow. The peasants on one estate are all candle-makers, on a second they are all manufacturers of felt hats, and on a third they are solely occupied in smiths" work, chiefly the making of axes. In the district of Pashechoe there are about seventy tanneries, which give occupation to a large number of families; they have no paid workmen, but perform all the operations among themselves, preparing leather to the value of about twenty-five thousand roubles a year, and which is disposed of on their account in Rybeeck. In the districts where the forest-trees mostly consist of lindens, the inhabitants are princ.i.p.ally engaged in the manufacture of matting, which, according to its greater or less degree of fineness, is employed either for sacking or sail cloth, or merely as packing mats. The linden-tree grows only on moist soils, rich in black _humus_, or vegetable mould; but will not grow at all in sandy soils, which renders it comparatively scarce in some parts of Russia, while in others it grows abundantly. The mats are prepared from the inner bark, and as the linden is ready for stripping at only fifteen years of age, and indeed is best at that age, these trees form a rich source of profit for those who dwell in the districts where they grow."
We have here a system of combined exertion that tends greatly to account for the rapid progress of Russia in population, wealth, and power.
The men who thus a.s.sociate for local purposes acquire information, and with it the desire for more; and thus we find them pa.s.sing freely, as interest may direct them, from one part of the empire to another--a state of things very different from that produced in England by the law of settlement, under which men have everywhere been forbidden to change their locality, and everywhere been liable to be seized and sent back to their original parishes, lest they might at some time or other become chargeable upon the new one in which they had desired to find employment, for which they had sought in vain at home. "The Russian" says our author--
"Has a great disposition for wandering about beyond his native place, but not for travelling abroad. The love of home seems to be merged, to a great extent, in love of country. A Russian feels himself at home everywhere within Russia; and, in a political sense, this rambling disposition of the people, and the close intercourse between the inhabitants of the various provinces to which it leads, contributes to knit a closer bond of union between the people, and to arouse and maintain a national policy and a patriotic love of country. Although he may quit his native place, the Russian never wholly severs the connection with it; and, as we have before mentioned, being fitted by natural talent to turn his hand to any species of work, he in general never limits himself in his wanderings to any particular occupation, but tries at several; but chooses whatever may seem to him the most advantageous. When they pursue any definite extensive trade, such as that of a carpenter, mason, or the like, in large towns, they a.s.sociate together, and form a sort of trades" a.s.sociation, and the cleverest a.s.sume the position of a sort of contractor for the labour required. Thus, if a n.o.bleman should want to build a house, or even a palace, in St. Petersburgh, he applies to such a contractor, (_prodratshnik_,) lays before him the elevation and plans, and makes a contract with him to do the work required for a specified sum. The contractor then makes an agreement with his comrades respecting the a.s.sistance they are to give, and the share they are to receive of the profit; after which he usually sets off to his native place, either alone or with some of his comrades, to obtain the requisite capital to carry on the work with. The inhabitants, who also have their share of the gains, readily make up the necessary sum, _and every thing is done in trust and confidence_; it is, indeed, very rare to hear of frauds in these matters. The carpenters (_plotniki_) form a peculiar cla.s.s of the workmen we have described. As most of the houses in Russia, and especially in the country parts, are built of wood, the number and importance of the carpenters, as a cla.s.s, are very great in comparison with other countries. Almost every peasant, whatever other trade he may follow, is also something of a carpenter, and knows how to shape and put together the timbers for a dwelling. The _plotniki_ in the villages are never any thing more than these general carpenters, and never acquire any regular knowledge of their business. The real Russian _plotniki_ seldom carries any other tools with him than an axe and a chisel, and with these he wanders through all parts of the empire, seeking, and everywhere finding, work."
The picture here presented is certainly widely different from that presented by Great Britain and Ireland. A Russian appears to be at home everywhere in Russia. He wanders where he will, everywhere seeking and finding work; whereas an Irishman appears hardly to be at home anywhere within the limits of the United Kingdom. In England, and still more in Scotland, he is not acknowledged as a fellow-citizen. He is _only an Irishman_--one of those half-savage Celts intended by nature to supply the demand of England for cheap labour; that is, for that labour which is to be rewarded by the scantiest supplies of food and clothing. The difference in the moral effect of the two systems is thus very great. The one tends to bring about that combination of exertion which everywhere produces a kindly habit of feeling, whereas the other tends everywhere to the production of dissatisfaction and gloom; and it is so because that under it there is necessarily a constant increase of the feeling that every man is to live by the taxation of his neighbour, buying cheaply what that neighbour has to sell, and selling dearly what that neighbour has to buy. The existence of this state of things is obvious to all familiar with the current literature of England, which abounds in exhibitions of the tendency of the system to render man a tyrant to his wife, his daughter, his horse, and even his dog. A recent English traveller in Russia presents a different state of feeling as there existing. "The Russian coachman," he says--
"Seldom uses his whip, and generally only knocks with it upon the footboard of the sledge, by way of a gentle admonition to his steed, with whom, meanwhile, he keeps up a running colloquy, seldom giving him harder words than _"My brother--my friend--my little pigeon--my sweetheart_." "Come, my pretty pigeon, make use of your legs," he will say. "What, now! art blind? Come, be brisk! Take care of that stone, there. Don"t see it?--There, that"s right! Bravo! hop, hop, hop! Steady boy, steady! What art turning thy head for? Look out boldly before thee!--Hurra! Yukh! Yukh!"
"I could not," he continues, "help contrasting this with the offensive language we constantly hear in England from carters and boys employed in driving horses. You are continually shocked by the oaths used. They seem to think the horses will not go unless they swear at them; and boys consider it manly to imitate this example, and learn to swear too, and break G.o.d"s commandments by taking his holy name in vain. And this while making use of a fine, n.o.ble animal he has given for our service and not for abuse. There is much unnecessary cruelty in the treatment of these dumb creatures, for they are often beaten when doing their best, or from not understanding what their masters want them to do."
Of the truth of this, as regards England, the journals of that country often furnish most revolting evidence; but the mere fact that there exists there a society for preventing cruelty to animals, would seem to show that its services had been much needed.
The manner in which the system of diversified labour is gradually extending personal freedom among the people of Russia, and preparing them eventually for the enjoyment of the highest degree of political freedom, is shown in the following pa.s.sage. "The landholders," says the author before referred to--
"Having serfs, gave them permission to engage in manufactures, and to seek for work for themselves where they liked, on the mere condition of paying their lord a personal tax, (_obrok_). Each person is rated according to his personal capabilities, talents, and capacities, at a certain capital; and according to what he estimates himself capable of gaining, he is taxed at a fixed sum as interest of that capital.
Actors and singers are generally serfs, and they are obliged to pay _obrok_, for the exercise of their art, as much as the lowest handicraftsman. In recent times, the manufacturing system of Western Europe has been introduced into Russia, and the natives have been encouraged to establish all sorts of manufactures on these models; and it remains to be seen whether the new system will have the antic.i.p.ated effect of contributing to the formation of a middle cla.s.s, which hitherto has been the chief want in Russia as a political state."
That such must be the effect cannot be doubted. The middle cla.s.s has everywhere grown with the growth of towns and other places of local exchange, and men have become free precisely as they have been able to unite together for the increase of the productiveness of their labour.
In every part of the movement which thus tends to the emanc.i.p.ation of the serf, the government is seen to be actively co-operating, and it is scarcely possible to read an account of what is there being done without a feeling of great respect for the emperor, "so often," says a recent writer, "denounced as a deadly foe to freedom--the true father of his country, earnestly striving to develop and mature the rights of his subjects."[179]
For male serfs, says the same author, at all times until recently, military service was the only avenue to freedom. It required, however, twenty years" service, and by the close of that time the soldier became so accustomed to that mode of life that he rarely left it. A few years since, however, the term was shortened to eight years, and thousands of men are now annually restored to civil life, free men, who but a few years previously had been slaves, liable to be bought and sold with the land.
Formerly the lord had the same unlimited power of disposing of his serfs that is now possessed by the people of our Southern States. The serf was a mere chattel, an article of traffic and merchandise; and husbands and wives, parents and children, were constantly liable to be separated from each other. By an ukase of 1827, however, they were declared an integral and inseparable portion of the soil. "The immediate consequence of this decree," says Mr. Jerrmann,[180]
"Was the cessation, at least in its most repulsive form, of the degrading traffic in human flesh, by sale, barter, or gift.
Thenceforward no serf could be transferred to another owner, except by the sale of the land to which he belonged. To secure to itself the refusal of the land and the human beings appertaining to it, and at the same time to avert from the landholder the ruin consequent on dealings with usurers, the government established an imperial loan-bank, which made advances on mortgage of lands to the extent of two-thirds of their value. The borrowers had to pay back each year three per cent of the loan, besides three per cent. interest. If they failed to do this, the Crown returned them the instalments already paid, gave them the remaining third of the value of the property, and took possession of the land and its population. This was the first stage of freedom for the serfs. They became Crown peasants, held their dwellings and bit of land as an hereditary fief from the Crown, and paid annually for the same a sum total of five rubles, (about four shillings for each male person;) a rent for which, a.s.suredly, in the whole of Germany, the very poorest farm is not to be had; to say nothing of the consideration that in case of bad harvests, destruction by hail, disease, &c., the Crown is bound to supply the strict necessities of its peasant, and to find them in daily bread, in the indispensable stock of cattle and seed-corn, to repair their habitations, and so forth.
"By this arrangement, and in a short time, a considerable portion of the lands of the Russian n.o.bility became the property of the state, and with it a large number of serfs became Crown peasants. This was the first and most important step toward opening the road to freedom to that majority of the Russian population which consists of slaves."
We have here the stage of preparation for that division of the land which has, in all countries of the world, attended the growth of wealth and population, and which is essential to further growth not only in wealth but in freedom. Consolidation of the land has everywhere been the accompaniment of slavery, and so must it always be.
At the next step, we find the emperor bestowing upon the serf, as preparatory to entire freedom, certain civil rights. An ukase
"Permitted them to enter into contracts. Thereby was accorded to them not only the right of possessing property, but the infinitely higher blessing of a legal recognition of their moral worth as men. Hitherto the serf was recognised by the state only as a sort of beast in human form. He could hold no property, give no legal evidence, take no oath. No matter how eloquent his speech, he was dumb before the law.
He might have treasures in his dwelling, the law knew him only as a pauper. His word and honor were valueless compared to those of the vilest freeman. In short, morally he could not be said to exist. The Emperor Nicholas gave to the serfs, that vast majority of his subjects, the first sensation of moral worth, the first throb of self-respect, the first perception of the rights and dignity and duty of man! What professed friend of the people can boast to have done more, or yet so much, for so many millions of men?"--_Ibid_, p.
24.
"Having given the serfs power to hold property, the emperor now," says our author, "taught them to prize the said property above all in the interest of their freedom." The serf
"Could, not buy his own freedom, but he became free by the purchase of the patch of soil to which he was linked. To such purchase the right of contract cleared his road. The lazy Russian, who worked with an ill-will toward his master, doing as little as he could for the latter"s profit, toiled day and night for his own advantage. Idleness was replaced by the diligent improvement of his farm, brutal drunkenness by frugality and sobriety; the earth, previously neglected, requited the unwonted care with its richest treasures. By the magic of industry, wretched hovels were transformed into comfortable dwellings, wildernesses into blooming fields, desolate steppes and deep mora.s.ses into productive land; whole communities, lately sunk in poverty, exhibited unmistakable signs of competency and well-doing. The serfs, now allowed to enter into contracts, lent the lord of the soil the money of which he often stood in need, on the same conditions as the Crown, receiving in security the land they occupied, their own bodies, and the bodies of their wives and children. The n.o.bleman preferred the serfs" loan to the government"s loan, because, when pay-day came for the annual interest and instalment, the Crown, if he was not prepared to pay, took possession of his estate, having funds wherewith to pay him the residue of its value. The parish of serfs, which had lent money to its owner, lacked these funds. Pay-day came, the debtor did not pay, but neither could the serfs produce the one-third of the value of the land which they must disburse to him in order to be free. Thus they lost their capital and did not gain their liberty. But Nicholas lived! the father of his subjects.
"Between the anxious debtor and the still more anxious creditor now interposed an imperial ukase, which in such cases opened to the parishes of serfs the imperial treasury. Mark this; for it is worthy, to be noted; the Russian imperial treasury was opened to the serfs, that they might purchase their freedom!
"The Government might simply have released the creditors from their embarra.s.sment by paying the debtor the one-third still due to him, and then land and tenants belonged to the state;--one parish the more of _Crown peasants_. Nicholas did not adopt that course. He lent the serfs the money they needed to buy themselves from their master, and for this loan (a third only of the value) they mortgaged themselves and their lands to the Crown, paid annually three per cent. interest and three per cent. of the capital, and would thus in about thirty years be free, and proprietors of their land! That they would be able to pay off this third was evident, since, to obtain its amount they had still the same resources which enabled them to save up the two-thirds already paid. Supposing, however, the very worst,--that through inevitable misfortunes, such as pestilence, disease of cattle, &c., they were prevented satisfying the rightful claims of the Crown, in that case the Crown paid them back the two-thirds value which they had previously disbursed to their former owner, and they became a parish of Crown peasants, whose lot, compared to their earlier one, was still enviable. But not once in a hundred times do such cases occur, while, by the above plan, whole parishes gradually acquire their freedom, not by a sudden and violent change, which could not fail to have some evil consequences, but in course of time, after a probation of labour and frugality, and after thus attaining to the knowledge that without these two great factors of true freedom, no real liberty can possibly be durable."--_Ibid_.
The free peasants as yet const.i.tute small cla.s.s, but they live
"As free and happy men, upon their own land; are active, frugal, and, without exception, well off. This they must be, for considerable means are necessary for the purchase of their freedom; and, once free, and in possession of a farm of their own, their energy and industry, manifested even in a state of slavery, are redoubled by the enjoyment of personal liberty, and their earnings naturally increase in a like measure.
"The second cla.s.s, the crown peasants, are far better off (setting aside, of course, the consciousness of freedom) than the peasants of Germany. They must furnish their quota of recruits, but that is their only material burden. Besides that, they annually pay to the Crown a sum of five rubles (about four shillings) for each male person of the household. Supposing the family to include eight working men, which is no small number for a farm, the yearly tribute paid amounts to thirty-two shillings. And what a farm that must be which employs eight men all the year round! In what country of civilized Europe has the peasant so light a burden to bear? How much heavier those which press upon the English farmer, the French, the German, and above all the Austrian, who often gives up three-fourths of his harvest in taxes. If the Crown peasant be so fortunate as to be settled in the neighbourhood of a large town, his prosperity soon exceeds that even of the Altenburg husbandmen, said to be the richest in all Germany.
On the other hand, he can never purchase his freedom; hitherto, at least, no law of the Crown has granted him this privilege."--_Ibid_, 156.
That this, however, is the tendency of every movement, must be admitted by all who have studied the facts already given, and who read the following account of the commencement of local self-government:--
"But what would our ardent anti-Russians say, if I took them into the interior of the empire, gave them an insight into the organization of parishes, and showed them, to their infinite astonishment, what they never yet dreamed of, that the whole of that organization is based upon republican principles, that there every thing has its origin in election by the people, and that that was already the case at a period when the great ma.s.s of German democrats did not so much as know the meaning of popular franchise. Certainly the Russian serfs do not know at the present day what it means; but without knowing the name of the thing, without having ever heard a word of Lafayette"s ill-omened "_trone monarchique, environne d"inst.i.tutions republicaines_," they choose their own elders, their administrators, their dispensers of justice and finance, and never dream that they, _slaves_, enjoy and benefit by privileges by which some of the most civilized nations have proved themselves incapable of profiting.
"s.p.a.ce does not here permit a more extensive sketch of what the Emperor Nicholas has done, and still is daily doing, for the true freedom of his subjects; but what I have here brought forward must surely suffice to place him, in the eyes of every unprejudiced person, in the light of a real lover of his people. That his care has created a paradise that no highly criminal abuse of power, no shameful neglect prevails in the departments of justice and police--it is hoped no reflecting reader will infer from this exposition of facts. But the still-existing abuses alter nothing in my view of the emperor"s character, of his a.s.siduous efforts to raise his nation out of the deep slough in which it still is partly sunk, of his efficacious endeavours to elevate his people to a knowledge and use of their rights as men--alter nothing in my profound persuasion that Czar Nicholas I. is the true father of his country."--_Ibid_, 27.
We are told that the policy, of Russia is adverse to the progress of civilization, while that of England is favourable to it, and that we should aid the latter in opposing the former. How is this to be proved? Shall we look to Ireland for the proof? If we do, we shall meet there nothing but famine, pestilence, and depopulation. Or to Scotland, where men, whose ancestors had occupied the same spot for centuries are being hunted down that they may be transported to the sh.o.r.es of the St. Lawrence, there to perish, as they so recently have done, of cold and of hunger? Or to India, whose whole cla.s.s of small proprietors and manufacturers has disappeared under the blighting influence of her system, and whose commerce diminishes, now from year to year? Or to Portugal, the weakest and most wretched of the communities of Europe? Or to China, poisoned with _smuggled_ opium, that costs the nation annually little less than forty millions of dollars, without which the Indian government could not be maintained?
Look where we may, we see a growing tendency toward slavery wherever the British system is permitted to obtain; whereas freedom grows in the ratio in which that system is repudiated.
That such must necessarily be the case will be seen by every reader who will for a moment reflect on the difference between the effect of the Russian system on the condition of Russian women, and that of the British system on the condition of those of India. In the former there is everywhere arising a demand for women to be employed in the lighter labour of conversion, and thus do they tend from day to day to become more self-supporting, and less dependent on the will of husbands, brothers, or sons. In the other the demand for their labour has pa.s.sed away, and their condition declines, and so it must continue to do while Manchester shall be determined upon closing the domestic demand for cotton and driving the whole population to the production of sugar, rice, and cotton, for export to England.
The system of Russia is attractive of population, and French, German, and American mechanics of every description find demand for their services. That of England is repulsive, as is seen by the _forced_ export of men from England, Scotland, Ireland, and India, now followed by whole cargoes of women [181] sent out by aid of public contributions, presenting a spectacle almost as humiliating to the pride of the s.e.x as can be found in the slave bazaar of Constantinople.
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW FREEDOM GROWS IN DENMARK.
Compared with Ireland, India, or Turkey, DENMARK is a very poor country. She has, says one of the most enlightened of modern British travellers--
"No metals or minerals, no fire power, no water power, no products or capabilities for becoming a manufacturing country supplying foreign consumers. She has no harbours on the North Sea. Her navigation is naturally confined to the Baltic. Her commerce is naturally confined to the home consumption of the necessaries and luxuries of civilized life, which the export of her corn and other agricultural products enables her to import and consume. She stands alone in her corner of the world, exchanging her loaf of bread, which she can spare, for articles she cannot provide for herself, but still providing for herself every thing she can by her own industry."[182]
That industry is protected by heavy import duties, and those duties are avowedly imposed with the view of enabling the farmer everywhere to have the artisan at his side; thus bringing together the producers and the consumers of the earth. "The greater part of their clothing materials," says Mr. Laing--
"Linen, mixed linen and cotton, and woollen cloth, is home-made; and the materials to be worked up, the cotton yarns, dye stuffs, and utensils, are what they require from the shops. The flax and wool are grown and manufactured on the peasant"s farm; the spinning and weaving done in the house; the bleaching, dyeing, fulling done at home or in the village." * * * "Bunches of ribbons, silver clasps, gold ear-rings, and other ornaments of some value, are profusely used in many of the female dresses, although the main material is home-made woollen and linen. Some of these female peasant costumes are very becoming when exhibited in silk, fine cloth, and lace, as they are worn by handsome country girls, daughters of rich peasant proprietors in the islands, who sometimes visit Copenhagen. They have often the air and appearance of ladies, and in fact are so in education, in their easy or even wealthy circ.u.mstances, and an inherited superiority over others of the same cla.s.s." * * * "In a large country-church at Gettorf, my own coat and the minister"s were, as far as I could observe, the only two in the congregation not of home-made cloth; and in Copenhagen the working and every-day clothes of respectable tradesmen and people of the middle cla.s.s, and of all the artisans and the lower labouring cla.s.ses, are, if not home-made and sent to them by their friends, at least country made; that is, not factory made, but spun, woven, and sold in the web, by peasants, who have more than they want for their family use, to small shopkeepers. This is particularly the case with linen. Flax is a crop on every farm; and the skutching, hackling, spinning, weaving, and bleaching are carried on in every country family."--Pp. 381, 382, 383.
The manufacture of this clothing finds employment for almost the whole female population of the country and for a large proportion of the male population during the winter months. Under a different system, the money price of this clothing would be less than it now is--as low, perhaps, as it has been in Ireland--but what would be its labour price? Cloth is cheap in that country, but man is so much cheaper that he not only goes in rags, but perishes of starvation, because compelled to exhaust his land and waste his labour. "Where," asks very justly Mr. Laing--
"Would be the gain to the Danish nation, if the small proportion of its numbers who do not live by husbandry got their shirts and jackets and all other clothing one-half cheaper, and the great majority, who now find winter employment in manufacturing their own clothing materials, for the time and labour which are of no value to them at that season, and can be turned to no account, were thrown idle by the compet.i.tion of the superior and cheaper products of machinery and the factory?"--P. 385.
None! The only benefit derived by man from improvement in the machinery of conversion is, that he is thereby enabled to give more time, labour, and thought to the improvement of the earth, the great machine of production; and in that there _can_ be no improvement under a system that looks to the exportation of raw products, the sending away of the soil, and the return of no manure to the land.
The whole Danish system tends to the local employment of both labour and capital, and therefore to the growth of wealth and the division of the land, and the improvement of the modes of cultivation. "With a large and increasing proportion--
"Of the small farms belonging to peasant proprietors, working themselves with hired labourers, and of a size to keep from five to thirty or forty cows summer and winter, there are many large farms of a size to keep from two hundred to three hundred, and even four hundred cows, summer and winter, and let to verpachters, or large tenant farmers, paying money rents. This cla.s.s of verpachters are farmers of great capital and skill, very intelligent and enterprising, well acquainted with all modern improvements in husbandry, using guano, tile-draining, pipe-draining, and likely to be very formidable rivals in the English markets to the old-fashioned, use-and-want English farmers, and even to most of our improving large farmers in Scotland."--_Laing_, 52.
The system of this country has attracted instead of repelling population, and with its growth there has been a constant and rapid advance toward freedom. The cla.s.s of verpachters above described
"Were originally strangers from Mecklenburg, Brunswick, and Hanover, bred to the complicated arrangements and business of a great dairy farm, and they are the best educated, most skilful, and most successful farmers in the North of Europe. Many of them have purchased large estates. The extensive farms they occupy, generally on leases of nine years, are the domains and estates of the n.o.bles, which, before 1784, were cultivated by the serfs, who were, before that period, _adscripti glebae_, and who were bound to work every day, without wages, on the main farm of the feudal lord, and had cottages and land, on the outskirts of the estate, to work upon for their own living when they were not wanted on the farm of the baron. Their feudal lord could imprison them, flog them, reclaim them if they had deserted from his land, and had complete feudal jurisdiction over them in his baronial court."--P. 53.
It is, however, not only in land, but in various other modes, that the little owner of capital is enabled to employ it with advantage. "The first thing a Dane does with his savings," says Mr. Brown,[183]