It was the press also which first agitated the question of the desirability of the direct interference of the Government, in order to facilitate the expropriation of the nobleman in favour of the peasants. The head of the central committee, Rostovzov, as we have already seen, thought the financial difficulties of such a measure insurmountable. Such was not the opinion of the press, which predicted that the issue of "rentes," or Government bonds, securing to the landlord a certain percentage on the capital which he should cede to the peasant in the form of land, would not lower the value of the paper money already in circulation. It was fortunate that in the end this method was adopted, for the prophecy was not only realised, but the interests of agriculture, and consequently of the country generally, were considerably advanced by the capital paid in the form of these bonds to the expropriated landlords. More than one great landowner was deeply in debt at the time emancipation took place; very few had the capital needed for the economic arrangements required for the substitution of the paid work of the free peasant for the unpaid work of the serf. They obtained it by selling or mortgaging the "rentes" or bonds paid to them by the Government.
We therefore find that on all points the press was the guide, the authoritative adviser, the sure ally of the Government. This last character plainly appeared in the struggle which the central committee had to maintain with the delegates of the provincial Committees. These bodies were composed exclusively of members of the local nobility, and were empowered to present their opinions on the impending reform. Unconscious of the alteration which had taken place in the intentions of the Government, they expressed ideas in complete accord with those at first entertained by the Emperor. The majority in each committee, seeing that it was impossible under present circumstances to maintain their old rights over the person of the serf, consented to recognise his freedom, and that without pay. They were anxious about one thing alone -- to retain as far as possible in their own hands the land actually possessed by the peasant. This feeling was the stronger where the soil was rich, as was the case in the Central and Southern Governments, where the black soil prevails. It was less so in the west and north, where the ground yielded but a small rent. We find a complete unanimity between the utterances of the central and southern nobles, both insisting on the necessity of limiting the expropriation of the land in favour of the peasants to that occupied by their homesteads, whilst in the north more than one committee consented to extend this to the arable land and the undivided common.
The provincial committees were almost unanimous (I speak of course only of the majority of their members) in their request that the individual shares of each peasant household should be readjusted according to a certain maximum and minimum fixed for each province. Many a committee insisted on the maintenance of feudal police, if not of feudal justice, and all showed an equal interest in the suppression of the uncontrolled power of the bureaucracy in matters of provincial administration.
The minorities of almost every committee, who were more or less influenced by the press, approached much more nearly in their request to the views entertained by the majority in the central committee. They gave their consent to the plan of expropriating in favour of the peasants a part of the noblemen's lands; they insisted on the participation of the Government in the act of redeeming the area formerly allotted by the landlords to the serfs of their respective manors; they strongly opposed the scheme of a transitory state in which the peasant, unable to buy back the land he owned, was condemned to continue his villein service and his feudal dues or payments in kind. At the same time they put forward certain general demands which went much beyond the promises already given by the Government. They made requests for a general change in the existing system of provincial administration. According to these bureaucracy should give place to a system of local self-government. They insisted on the necessity of amending the deficient judicial organisation. They demanded trial by jury and liberty of the press. Some of the members went even so far as to draw up a resolution in favour of the general representation of the people and the revival of the ancient system of National Councils, the Sobors.
