The average figures can be considered, however, merely as representing static conditions at any given moment. The tendency of the movement is rather indicated by the extreme limits.
When work is offered in payment of rent, wages very often sink far below the level. At the same time rent is ever on the rise.
Let us take for purposes of comparison, some communities in which piece wages are lowest, and some others in which rent is highest:
| District of Ranenburg. | Communities. | Land rented (dessiatines). | Average rent per dessiatine (rubles). | Wages per dessiatine (rubles). | Rates of rent to wages. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| From. | To. | From. | To. | ||||
| Minimum of wages | 44 | 1909 | 15.16 | 3.00 | 4.00 | 5.2:1 | 3.9:1 |
| Maximum of rent | 12 | 833 | 23.72 | 4.00 | 5.00 | 5.9:1 | 4.3:1 |
As the ratio of rent to wages is moving from 3:1 towards 5:1, it finally becomes questionable whether we should class among tenants or among laborers a peasant who has to till five dessiatines for the landlord in exchange for one dessiatine given to himself.
Thus land tenure is degenerating into wage labor.
CHAPTER VII.
THE WAGES IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS.
The amphibious character of the peasant, who is at once farmer and laborer, proves a very important factor in shaping the relations of Russian economic life.