Excerpt from Turkey The great want of the Russian peasant is a fair chance to reap the fruits of his own industry. From this the communal system in great measure de bars him. The commune, or Village, owns the land, assigns to every family the fields it is to occupy for the year, fixes every man's social position, has a hold upon him from which he mnnot release himself, assigns his taxes arbi trarily, will not permit him to leave uithout a pass, and can call him back imperativ ely, e men from St. Petersburg, and from the midst of the most important business, at a moment's warning. The Russian peasant has thus no freedom Of action, no fair field for the exercise of his industry and his powers. He is in complete bondage to the commune. This ancient princi ple of social organization, so peculiar to the eastern and southern Slavonian peoples, must be abandoned, or greatly modified, in Russia - the peasant must be made the master Of his own hands, his own fortunes, the products of his own industry - before there can be rapid and substantial progress among the common people. It is clear from Mr. Admirable work that this second and final emancipation has already begun, and that the time is not distant when it will be fully accomplished. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.