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In reply to the address, Alexander III., who had strong Conservative leanings, was graciously pleased to declare in an ukaz that "it was really time to do something to help the Noblesse," and accordingly a new land-mortgage bank for the Noblesse was created.
On the contrary, it deprives the serfs of all legal protection, and expressly commands that if any serf shall dare to present a petition against his master, he shall be punished with the knout and transported for life to the mines of Nertchinsk. * These words are taken from an Imperial ukaz of April 15th, 1721. Polnoye Sobranye Zakonov, No. 3,770.
Rathhaus, burgomasters, guilds, aldermen, and all the other lifeless shadows which had been called into existence by Imperial ukaz would instantly have vanished into space. In this fact we have one of the characteristic traits of Russian historical development compared with that of Western Europe.
* See ukaz of October 7th, 1792. As an example of making presents of serfs, the following may be cited. Count Panin presented some of his subordinates for an Imperial recompense, and on receiving a refusal, made them a present of 4000 serfs from his own estates. Belaef, p. 320. * See the ukazes of August 22d, 1767, and March 30th, 1781.
The change in the position of the peasantry, together with the hardships and oppression by which it was accompanied, naturally increased fugitivism and vagrancy. Thousands of serfs ran away from their masters and fled to the steppe or sought enrolment in the army. To prevent this the Government considered it necessary to take severe and energetic measures. * Ukaz of June 2d, 1742.
All this required very little creative effort; to create a spirit of commercial and industrial enterprise among the population was a more difficult matter and could not be effected by Imperial ukaz. To animate the newly-imported municipal institutions, which had no root in the traditions and habits of the people, was a task of equal difficulty.
One form, indeed, of oral procedure had been preserved in the Code, but it had fallen completely into disuse, and seems to have been overlooked by the elaborators of the new system.* * I refer to the so-called Sud po forme established by an ukaz of Peter the Great, in 1723. I was much astonished when I accidentally stumbled upon it in the Code.
He regarded the proprietors as his most efficient officers of police, but he desired to limit their authority, and for this purpose issued an ukaz to the effect that the serfs should not be forced to work for their masters more than three days in the week.
After his death the work was carried on in the same spirit, and the tendency reached its climax in the reign of Nicholas, when the number of students to be received in the universities was determined by Imperial ukaz! In the reign of Catherine a new element was introduced into the official conception of social classes.
For a whole month the Government took little notice of the unprecedented excitement and demonstrations. It was not till December 25th that a reply was given to the public demands. On that day the Emperor signed an ukaz in which he enumerated the reforms which he considered most urgent, and instructed the Committee of Ministers to prepare the requisite legislation.
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