"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 stillprecisely in the situation of the Russian serf.During the next three hundred, the unlimited labour rents paid by the villeins forthe lands allotted to them were gradually commuted for definite services, still payable in kind; and they had a legal right tothe hereditary occupation of their copyholds.Two hundred years have barely elapsed since the change to this extent becamequite universal, or since the personal bondage of the villeins ceased to exist among us.The last claim of villeinage recordedin our courts was in the 1 5th of James I., 1618.Instances probably existed some time after this.The ultimate cessation ofthe right to demand their stipulated services in kind has been since brought about, silently and imperceptibly, not.by positivelaw; for, when other personal services were abolished at the Restoration, those of copyholders were excepted and reserved."Mr Jones goes on to say that throughout Germany, similar changes are taking place: though they are perfected perhapsnowhere, and in some large districts they exhibit themselves in very backward stages.We have heard lately that greatchanges in the condition of the Serfs are aimed at in Russia.The Emperor, we are told, has taken large steps for theemancipation of his Serfs.But such aims and such measures are far from new in Russia.Mr Jones describes these aims andattempts (p.63):
"A wish to extend the authority and protection of the general government over the mass of cultivators and to increase theirefficiency, and through that the wealth and financial resources of the state, has led the different sovereigns always toco-operate, and often to take the lead, in putting an end to the personal dependence of the serf, and modifying the terms ofhis tenure.To these reasons of the sovereigns and landlords, dictated by obvious self-interest, we must add other motiveswhich do honor to their characters and to the age, the existence of which it would be a mere affectation of hard-heartedwisdom to doubt; namely, a paternal desire on the part of sovereigns to elevate the condition and increase the comforts ofthe most numerous class of the human beings committed to their charge; and a philanthropic dislike on the part of theproprietors to be surrounded by a race of wretched dependents, whose degradation and misery reflect discredit onthemselves.These feelings have produced the fermentation on the subject of labour rents, which is at this moment workingthroughout the large division of Europe in which they prevail.From the crown lands in Russia, through Poland, Hungary,and Germany, there have been within the last century, or are now, plans and schemes on foot, either at once or gradually toget rid of the tenure, or greatly to modify its effects and improve its character; and if the wishes or the authority of the state,or of the proprietors, could abolish the system, and substitute a better in its place, it would vanish from the face of Europe.
The actual poverty of the serfs, however, and the degradation of their habits of industry, present an insurmountable obstacleto any general change which is to be complete and sudden.In their imperfect civilization and half-savage carelessness, thenecessity originated which forced proprietors themselves to raise the produce on which their families were to subsist.Thatnecessity has not ceased; the tenantry are not yet ripein some instances not riper than they were.a thousand years agoto beentrusted with the responsibility of raising and paying produce rents.But as the past progress and actual circumstances ofdifferent districts are found unlike, so their capacity for present change differs in kind and degree."It must be for future years to determine whether the attempts made in our time to accelerate this change arc effectual; andwhat is the result of the effort at so great a social revolution.
Transition from Ryot Rents.
Another kind of peasant rent prevails in Asia, and especially in India, called, as I have said, Ryot rents; Ryot being the namefor the cultivator.These rents are a produce rent, paid to the sovereign as proprietor of the soil.Mr Jones says (p.138):
"There is nothing mischievous in direct effect of ryot rents.They are usually moderate; and when restricted to a tenth, oreven a sixth, fifth, or fourth of the produce, if collected peacefully and fairly, they become a species of land-tax, and leavethe tenant a beneficial hereditary estate.It is from their indirect effects therefore, and from the form of government in whichthey originate, and which they serve to perpetuate, that they are full of evil, and are found in practice more hopelesslydestructive of the property and progress of the people than any form of the relation of landlord and tenant known to us.
