These administrative and judicial abuses gradually reached the ears of the Government, and in 1889 it attempted to remove them by creating a body of Rural Supervisors (Zemskiye Natchalniki).  Under their supervision and control some abuses may have been occasionally prevented or corrected, and some rascally Volost secretaries may have been punished or dismissed, but the peasant self-government as a whole has not been perceptibly improved.

Let us glance now at the opinions of those who hold that the material progress of the peasantry is prevented chiefly, not by the mere abuses of the Communal administration, but by the essential principles of the Communal institutions, and especially by the practice of periodically redistributing the Communal land.  From the theoretical point of view this question is one of great interest, and it may acquire in the future an immense practical significance; but for the present it has not, in my opinion, the importance which is usually attributed to it.  There can be no doubt that it is much more difficult to farm well on a large number of narrow strips of land, many of which are at a great distance from the farmyard, than on a compact piece of land which the farmer may divide and cultivate as he pleases; and there can be as little doubt that the husbandman is more likely to improve his land if his tenure is secure.  All this and much more of the same kind must be accepted as indisputable truth, but it has little direct bearing on the practical question under consideration.  We are not considering in the abstract whether it would be better that the peasant should be a farmer with abundant capital and all the modern scientific appliances, but simply the practical question, What are the obstructions which at present prevent the peasant from ameliorating his actual condition?

That the Commune prevents its members from adopting various systems of high farming is a supposition which scarcely requires serious consideration.  The peasants do not yet think of any such radical innovations; and if they did, they have neither the knowledge nor the capital necessary to effect them.  In many villages a few of the richer and more intelligent peasants have bought land outside of the Commune and cultivate it as they please, free from all Communal restraints; and I have always found that they cultivate this property precisely in the same way as their share of the Communal land.  As to minor changes, we know by experience that the Mir opposes to them no serious obstacles.

The cultivation of beet for the production of sugar has greatly increased in the central and southwestern provinces, and flax is now largely produced in Communes in northern districts where it was formerly cultivated merely for domestic use.  The Communal system is, in fact, extremely elastic, and may be modified as soon as the majority of the members consider modifications profitable.  When the peasants begin to think of permanent improvements, such as drainage, irrigation,