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- II. Causes of the Famine
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CHAPTER II.
CAUSES OF THE FAMINE.
Contrast of Famines in Russia and Western Europe—Condition at the
Emancipation—Broken Promises—Insufficiency of Allotments—Action of
Landlords—Prince Vasiltchikoff’s Opinion—Proportion of
Agriculturists in Russia and other Countries—Nomadism—Capitalism and
the Peasants—Kulacks and their Usury—Kulacks and Officials—
Oppressive Taxation.
Thirty-five millions of people starving, at the close of the
nineteenth century, with its marvellous network of railroads and
other means of communication, its wonderful development in
all the means of production, and its loudly boasted organisation
of labour, in times of peace, and in a country endowed with
unlimited natural resources! This is so remarkable a
phenomenon, that it can only be explained by a concurrence of
abnormal causes.
It is well known that years of dearth and famine decrease
both in intensity and frequency as civilisation and means of
communication develop. In England, for example, during the
fifteenth century, when in normal years food was cheap, labour
well paid, and wealth, as it was known at that time, more
generally diffused than in any century since, there were times
Avhen the crops failed through bad seasons, and the population,
limited hy its crude husbandry and without foreign or colonial
cornfields to draw upon, suffered severely by disease and death.
Under the cruel Corn Laws of later times, which shut out the
people’s bread to fill the pockets of one class, the same
phenomenon was seen. In Western Europe, generally during
the middle ages, famines occurred on the average every eighth
or tenth year, and were accompanied by great mortality among
the poor. But in the present day, by the remarkable
development of international trade and the opening up of gigantic
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