On all proprietors the Emancipation had at least one good effect:  it dragged them forcibly from the old path of indolence and routine and compelled them to think and calculate regarding their affairs.  The hereditary listlessness and apathy, the traditional habit of looking on the estate with its serfs as a kind of self-acting machine which must always spontaneously supply the owner with the means of living, the inveterate practice of spending all ready money and of taking little heed for the morrow—­all this, with much that resulted from it, was rudely swept away and became a thing of the past.

The broad, easy road on which the proprietors had hitherto let themselves be borne along by the force of circumstances suddenly split up into a number of narrow, arduous, thorny paths.  Each one had to use his judgement to determine which of the paths he should adopt, and, having made his choice, he had to struggle along as he best could.  I remember once asking a proprietor what effect the Emancipation had had on the class to which he belonged, and he gave me an answer which is worth recording.  “Formerly,” he said, “we kept no accounts and drank champagne; now we keep accounts and content ourselves with kvass.”  Like all epigrammatic sayings, this laconic reply is far from giving a complete description of reality, but it indicates in a graphic way a change that has unquestionably taken place.  As soon as serfage was abolished it was no longer possible to live like “the flowers of the field.”  Many a proprietor who had formerly vegetated in apathetic ease had to ask himself the question:  How am I to gain a living?  All had to consider what was the most profitable way of employing the land that remained to them.

The ideal solution of the problem was that as soon as the peasant-land had been demarcated, the proprietor should take to farming the remainder of his estate by means of hired labour and agricultural machines in West European or American fashion.  Unfortunately, this solution could not be generally adopted, because the great majority of the landlords, even when they had the requisite practical knowledge of agriculture, had not the requisite capital, and could not easily obtain it.  Where were they to find money for buying cattle, horses, and agricultural implements, for building stables and cattle-sheds, and for defraying all the other initial expenses?  And supposing they succeeded in starting the new system, where was the working capital to come from?  The old Government institution in which estates could be mortgaged according to the number of serfs was permanently closed, and the new land-credit associations had not yet come into existence.  To borrow from private capitalists was not to be thought of, for money was so scarce than ten per cent. was considered a “friendly” rate of interest.  Recourse might be had, it is true, to the redemption operation, but in that case the Government would deduct the unpaid portion of