178 THE ZEMSTVOS DURING THE WAR
zemstvos and the rural communities which they represented, the
problem of the rise in the cost of foodstuffs was naturally less acute;
apon the whole, the peasantry during the War were accumulating
an abundance of money. According to some calculations, the pro-
hibition of liquor alone had yielded to the peasants a cash surplus
of nearly 1,000,000,000 rubles a year. To this must be added the
government separation allowances, which gave them 500,000,000
rubles in the first year of the War and something like 1,000,000,000
rubles in 1916. Furthermore, the peasants benefited by the higher
grain prices, although it is true that in the north the peasants, even
before the War, had not been producing sufficient grain for their
swn needs and were obliged to make additional purchases. Yet it so
happened that grain prices were mounting more rapidly in the
north than in the south; for instance the price of wheat flour in
December, 1915, was 2.63 rubles per pud in Kiev, and 3.48 rubles
m Moscow.
Under normal conditions the increased flow of money into the
rural communities, coupled with the reduction in the rural popula-
tion due to the calling of a large number of men to the army, would
probably have afforded compensation for the increase in the grain
prices even in the north. The difficulty, however, was in the distribu-
tion of foodstuffs. Russia as a whole had, it is true, sufficient sup-
plies of grain available, and, as regards the apprehension of a dis-
astrous reduction in the cultivated area, it was soon found to have
been exaggerated. Poor harvests in certain localities were offset by
the fact that the mormal peace-time exports of grain to foreign
countries had ceased with the outbreak of hostilities. Unfortunately,
'n order to transport the grain to the places where it was urgently
required, “almost insurmountable difficulties,” as the Yaroslav pro-
yincial zemstvo board put it in one of its reports, had to be over-
come. Railway facilities for the transport of grain were inadequate
aven in time of peace. Now, under war conditions, they had become
completely disorganized and were able to satisfy only a very small
proportion of the needs of the civilian population. Moreover, the
numerous conflicting orders issued by government commissioners
were interfering with regular traffic. No uniform plan was any-
where in evidence. There were frequent changes among the officials
in charge of the food supply organization and the local work was
greatly complicated in consequence. Government officials were work-
