It is necessary to rid the Cossacks of this bondage by opening loan offices at the village authorities, where they could be credited in emergency cases for insignificant interest. Funds for this will be found both among the army and in every village, where there is always a lot of free sums of military capital from which society can pay for borrowed money. But in order for loan offices to bring real benefit to the population, it is necessary to simplify their use to the greatest extent possible, without cluttering access to loans with large formalities. The idea of establishing loan banks arose back in 1894, and at the same time it was planned to imagine where it would go. Perhaps the quick implementation of this idea would be extremely beneficial for the bufd Cossack population.
Duties,
The question of the duties of a Cossack is so complex, important and serious that it requires special attention, but here we will touch upon it only in general terms.
There is hardly any other class or community in the Empire that would be so burdened with all kinds of duties and that would receive so little for it as the Orenburg Cossack. His only wealth is land, and it is not his property, since he uses it only for life. Between tfm all sorts of responsibilities fall on him literally almost “from the cradle” and continue “to the grave.” A 5-year-old boy is already obliged in the VMFSTB with adults to exterminate harmful liquids, “drive the filly” and animals, “pour out the gophers” that are harmful to agriculture. From 9 to 5 ft he must be in school - a duty, by the way, the most desirable. From the age of 16, 15 rubles are already collected from him. for the future uniform, and from the age of 17 he is already assigned all duties associated with land surplus, both obiiya and stanitsa.
From the statistical data it is clear that all duties cost a Cossack, from 17 to 55 years of age, on average from 50 to 70 rubles. every year, and the most difficult of them is currently, as we saw above, military service and then the friends associated with it,
in a long series of which one of the first revenges is underwater conscription. This last day, due to its unevenness, deserves special attention.
All Cossacks who are able to work are required to carry out underwater conscription from 17 to 55 years of age. It, as is known, consists of the Cossack’s duty to go on guard at certain intervals in the village or village right-handed man with a horse. delivery of packages and military service personnel for military administration personnel, as well as for duty with the fire convoy. In many villages, this duty is currently performed by the Cossacks not in kind, but mainly by hiring coachmen. The driver's pay varies in different villages and depends mainly on the degree of their distance from major roads. Thus, in some m$fts it does not exceed 3 rubles, in others it reaches 16 rubles. per year from each Cossack.
I mean that the Cossacks use the land equally, it would seem that they should serve their duties equally. This cannot be achieved in kind when serving underwater duty, and therefore it is necessary to shift it to cash, distributing it equally among the inhabitants of the entire army. At the same time, persons who need to go around the villages will have to issue check books for the right to collect horses, and in the treasury, to pay check runs, open the necessary loans from military sums. Having received the check, the driver presents it to the treasury and receives runs on it, and the keeper, for the purpose of disbursing the checks, presents the ataman of the department of Bla an advance invoice with documents,
justifying the expenditure of checks. In this way, firstly, the unevenness of the underwater duty will be eliminated, and secondly, unofficial assignments in the villages, which at present some officials sometimes allow themselves to do, using open sheets. True, this will create a lot of unnecessary trouble for the military authorities in determining the annual amount of the contribution, but it is hardly possible to stop before this, especially since it is possible to oblige the society to hand over money for underwater conscription at the same time from public sums, and then replenish this later with a collection from residents. This innovation will not complicate things in the least in the villages, compared to how it currently stands there: anyway, now the money is collected by the coachmen. Where the state of public funds does not allow paying money for underwater conscription at the same time, it is possible to pay it in parts, according to the collection from the population, as is currently the case with the collection of money from Cossacks incapable of service, but capable of work.
Fire department.