Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/605

Rh itself with the masses. It seeks to lift them from poverty into comparative well-being. It is theirs to seize the opportunities offered them. As they do so they will enter upon a new life.

There are those in Russia who point to the many mistakes made by officials and surveyors in the execution of this land reform. It is true that in the beginning the work was pushed so rapidly that it was not always well done. There was a dearth of good surveyors and the government was often obliged to make use of those inadequately prepared. Roads were not always well placed, possibilities of obtaining good drinking water were not everywhere thoroughly investigated and peasants withdrawing from the mir were allowed to retain meadow and pasture land in common. The mistakes of the first years are certainly to be deplored, but it must be recognized that they were almost inevitable in so vast an enterprise. Now, however, the various district and provincial commissions have profited by their experiences and are directing operations more wisely. Certainly there is in the higher commission to which they are responsible one man fitted in every possible way to inspire and direct the great undertaking. I refer to Mr. A. A. Koefoed. He was connected for many years with the Peasants' Bank. He traveled widely in Russia studying at first hand the question of land tenure and the prevalent methods of cultivation and has become the most eminent authority on this subject. Moreover, he understands the mujiks and knows how to meet them and is heartily desirous of furthering their best interests.

Again there are those who say that this policy of the government will bring only temporary well-being. In less than a century the peasantry will be as badly off as ever. The family provided with land enough to yield it a livelihood now will divide this land among its children and so rapidly do the mujiks increase in numbers that it will not be long before their farms will be so small as to throw them back into indigence. This assumes that the children of all those now tilling the Boil will also till the soil, a supposition which is scarcely tenable considering the ever-increasing demand for laborers in industry. It would be well, however, to take some precautionary measures against the contingency of redividing the land into small parcels. Denmark has enacted an inheritance law which fixes a minimum size for farms. If Russia were to do the same no peasant could divide his freehold between two heirs unless it were at least twice the size of the minimum. The farm incapable of division could be left to one of the children, this one to make good the shares of the others by money payments, a practise which prevails in Norway and in certain parts of Germany. There is, however, very little occasion to fear that the sizable freeholds of to-day will in the future be divided into minute parcels. Rather it may be confidently expected that the number of small freeholds will steadily