Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/285

at the nearest town. A portion of the live stock, corresponding roughly with the average rate of increase of the herd during the year, was sold annually. The combined sales of cereals and live stock for a peasant with a forty-acre holding amounted in a case under the writer's notice to a sum of 170 roubles (£19) gross annual return. Out of this the peasant had to pay his direct taxes, which seemed extraordinarily low, amounting to no more than 15 roubles (30s.) a year. The direct taxes are 10s. a year house tax, 5d. per head for each horse and cow, from 2d. to 1s. per acre for tillage land, according to quality, and 1s. per annum for the right to cut timber. The total contribution for 1907 in direct taxation paid by the peasants of the Yenisei Government amounted to 900,000 roubles per annum, which is equivalent to a tax of only 3s. per head of the population. There are, of course, indirect taxes on tobacco, tea and matches, which are not inconsiderable. I estimated that each family in a certain village in the Southern Yenisei Government spent about 50 roubles (over £5) annually for the purchase of household necessaries and small luxuries. The chief articles of food—bread, meat and cabbage—cost the peasant nothing more than the tax for the ground on which they have grown, while his sheep-skin coats, felt boots, and rough flax clothes were all made by the women. The Central Siberian peasant is therefore more than self-supporting, and his principal outside purchases consist of tea, sugar, tobacco and small hardware, which he can easily obtain with his balance of 155 roubles after paying his taxes. He is also assisted by co-operative societies, which exist in many villages for the supply of household neces-