Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/371

Rh our farmers are deeply in debt, and are at the mercy of all kinds of intermediary agents whose honesty is not of a very high standard. With regard to this, the singular fact appears that last year, at such an important market as Kharkov, the farmers were not informed as to the prices current of grain; so that oats of the same quality were sold simultaneously at thirty-five cents and seventeen cents and a half the pood of thirty-six pounds. Further, instead of upholding our commerce in cereals with foreign markets, our exporters continue to compromise their reputation. A great number of merchants in London and other seaport markets complained in 1886 that the cargoes of cereals and flax coming from Russia contained an abundance of heterogeneous matter."

Owing to imperfect or expensive transportation, the peasant is not in the best position to obtain the full benefits of markets. "The harvest ended, each man brings his grain to market. Hoping to realize a more remunerative price by carrying his produce to a central or larger market, he makes application to travel. Here the factor steps in. In conjunction or in collusion with the local police, obstacles are thrown in his way week after week. Ten, twenty, or one hundred are in the same predicament. Finally, with the local station or market glutted with the yield of a county, the factor steps in and agrees to take all the grain in sight for about twenty-five per cent below its market value. They have no choice, and thus a crop grown at a cost of twenty-five per cent interest (paid to the factor for advances) frequently pays twenty-five per cent additional after its maturity." Not only does such a system of handling grain cause loss to the farmer through low prices, but even more through the actual destruction of grain. It is estimated that millions of bushels of grain are lost annually on account of the failure of railways to afford transportation facilities or shelter for grain brought to them for transportation.

Nor is the question of transportation the only indication of inchoate economic conditions. The land is, as a rule, subject to a mortgage indebtedness, which takes each year an appreciable part of the produce. The usurer or money lender (in Russia the terms are almost synonymous) calls for his per cent on loans, and this per cent may range from a moderate rate to one that is virtual confiscation. A failure in the crops only throws the peasant deeper into debt, for he must borrow to obtain seed and food; the latter for immediate support, and the former as a venture in the future. Two bad seasons bring ruin, for the means of obtaining further advances have been exhausted, and only as a tenant, bound to the soil as