One day, when dining with a Swede, a banker in St. Petersburg, I was struck by the quick eyes and ready hands of my host's butler, and, on my dropping a word in his praise, my host broke out, "Ha, that fellow is a golden man; he is my butler, valet, clerk, cashier, and master of the household—all in one."
"Is he a peasant?"
"Yes; a peasant from the South. I get him for nothing—for the price of a common lout."
"He comes to you from an artel?"
"Yes, he and some dozen more; he is worth the other twelve."
"You pay the same wage for each and all?"
"To the artel, so; but, hist! We make up for extra care and service by a thumping New-Year's gift."
"Then the artel is beginning to fail of its original purpose—that of securing to the weak, the idle, and the stupid men as high a wage as it gave to the strong, the enterprising, and the able men?"
"Can you suppose that clever and pushing fellows will work like horses, all for nothing, now that they are free? A serf might do so; he lived in terror of the stick; he had no notion of his rights; and he had worked for others all his life. An artel is a useful thing, and no one (least of all a foreign banker) wishes to see the institution fail; but it must go with the times. If it can not find the means of drawing the best men into it by paying them fairly for what they do, it will pass away."
An artel is a vast convenience to the foreign masters, whatever it may be to the native men.