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34
In the rural districts, agricultural industrial works have been
expropriated en masse. Lately, in the neighbourhood of Riga and Wenden
alone, there were expropriated: — ’ mills in Lennewarden,
Studden-bach, Stubbensee, Idsel, Bilsteinhof, Bersehof, Kempen, Ronneburg,
Horstenhof, Lubahn, Lirsenhof, Lenzenhof, Festen, Castle-Serben, and
Fehteln-Odsen; a lime-kiln in Lindenberg, brick-kilns in Kastran,
Adia-munde, Koltzen, Bersehof, Siggund, Fistehlen, Serben and Dewen;
breweries in Bersehof, Notkenshof and Lubahn; saw-mills in
Lindenberg, Augustenthal, Lenzenhof and Mahrzen; a plaster-of-Paris factory
in Pawassern; a fishcuring factory in Zarnikau and nurseries Sesswegen.
In Eesti no land whatever, was granted to the proprietors, forests
have been expropriated without any compensation, while the
expropriated agricultural land in Latvija will be compensated by only
one tenth of the value it had before the war. But even this decimal
compensation will not be paid in cash, but by mortgage bonds to be
issued by a new State Agrarian bank having the express purpose — as
the Bill itself sets forth — to destroy existing private Agrarian banks.
Compensation for expropriated land is therefore practically
non-existent. In Eesti this is even more apparent. The Estonian Agrarian
Reform law does not lay it down as part of the duty of the State to
offer compensation for expropriated land, but leaves the question of
compensation — if any — to be dealt with by a law which will be
drawn up in the future. Three years have passed since the
Estonian Agrarian Reform law was issued, and no law regulating the
question of compensation has, as yet, come into existence! Under such
circumstances, the expropriation of the larger landed property can
hardly mean anything else but pure and simple confiscation.
Agricultural implements, the property of the larger estates, are
compensated according to the decisions of a government commission, which
makes it a point of fixing the compensation so low as to be ridiculously
inadequate, averaging one tenth of the market value of the expropriated
property. For instance, in Latvia a complete threshing machine, which
%
before the war cost approximately 5,000 roubles in gold, is now
estimated at 25,000 Lettish roubles, which are only equal to 250 gold
roubles. However, the proprietor is not permitted to receive even this
compensation until he has paid all the exhorbitant taxes demanded by
the State, mortgage debts and the like. But as the landed property has
been taken over by the State, the unhappy proprietor is naturally unable
to pay up, and here again, the much vaunted compensation evaporates
into thin air. Another similar case may be quoted of a Balt whose
threshing machine, insured for 120,000 Roubles, was expropriated and a
compensation of only 50,000 Roubles in paper was given to him, minus
the cash! At the same time, he was charged for using the same machine,
as price of hire, for one single occasion, 20,000 Roubles plus 4,000
Roubles insurance premium*). Such cases of systematic pauperisation are
characteristic of the spirit of the Lettish government.
The expropriation of the larger landed property in Latvia and
*) Dr. P. Schiemann in the „Rigasche Rundschau" of November 12th 9121,
on ,.Government and Chauvinism".
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