When we come to consider the past history of Roumania, we shall find that in the earlier periods the peasants were first independent tillers of the soil; that later on they were enslaved by the boyards, or sold themselves and their families to secure sustenance; that they were nominally emancipated from the ownership of the native boyards, only to be transferred as scutelnici to officials and other favoured nobles; and that eventually a democratic government and the increasing power of the people secured for them not only actual liberty but a real ownership of the soil which they had for centuries tilled for landlords who lived in idleness.

It will be interesting, especially during the present attempted land reforms in Great Britain and Ireland, to state here what has occurred in Roumania during the last few years, and to consider what further changes are likely to result from the conversion there of a large portion of the soil into peasant holdings.  Previous to the year 1864 there were three kinds of tenure in Roumania in which the peasantry were interested.  The soil of the country was practically divided between the boyards and the State, the former holding by far the larger share.  The peasants owned a small patch of land contiguous to their huts or hovels (many of which are, as we have already stated, to this day semi-subterranean), and so much was their undoubted property.  But they cultivated the soil on three different conditions or principles.  In Moldavia the boyard allotted a certain portion of the estate to his peasants for cultivation for their own use, and in return the latter rendered stipulated services to their landlord.  In Wallachia a portion of the fruits of the soil was given to the boyard for the right to cultivate a definite quantity of land; and in the neighbourhood of Bucarest a kind of mixed system prevailed.  In 1864, however, the Government practically said to the boyards, ’The peasantry have been deprived of their right to the soil, but you, having inherited it, have also a vested interest in it, and your respective ownerships must now be equitably adjusted.’  The peasantry were therefore put in possession of about one-third of the landed estates at prices, fixed by the Government, to be paid to the landlords.  Those prices were not always equitable.  Table-land which was cultivable was assessed at the same value as hill-country to the disadvantage of the former.  However, such as it was, the arrangement was carried out.  The peasants of course had no money; therefore the Government paid the boyards, taking the titles of the land in pledge, and the peasants were bound to repay the amount to the State in annual instalments.  The Government in turn created a loan, the ‘Obligations Rurales,’ which were to have been paid off in 1880, but they were not quite extinguished a year after they should have been, and a portion of the remaining debt was converted into a new loan which will expire in 1924.  It was, however, only a small proportion of the original