The economic and legal blow aimed at the Jews in the Statute of 1804 was to be made good by the privileges held forth to those willing to engage in agriculture. Such Jews were accorded the right of buying unoccupied lands in all the western and in two of the eastern Governments, or of establishing themselves on crown lands. In the latter case the settlers were to be assigned definite parcels of land and, for the first few years, be exempt from state taxes. However, it soon became evident that the proposed remedy was out of proportion to the seriousness of the wound that had been inflicted. While hundreds of thousands of Jews were driven from the rural occupations with which their economic life had been bound up for centuries, the new branch of labor opened to the Jews, the pursuit of agriculture, could, for some time to come, attract at the utmost only a few insignificant groups of the Jewish population. Among the favored occupations, ranging in importance beneath agriculture, the new law includes industry and handicrafts. Manufacturers and artisans are declared exempt from the double tax imposed on Jews,[247] and the founders of "the most needed factories" are promised, in addition, a Government loan. The Jewish merchants and burghers are placed in the last rank, being merely "tolerated." Manufacturers, artisans, and merchants are given permission to sojourn temporarily for business purposes in "the interior Governments, not excluding the capitals, but not otherwise than with gubernatorial passports," such as are given for going abroad. In the chapter entitled "On the Civil Organization of the Jews," the new charter establishes, on the one hand, the liability of the Jews to the authority of the municipalities, the common police, and the common law courts, and grants the Jews, on the other hand, the right of electing rabbis and "Kahalmen," who shall be replaced every three years, and shall be ratified by the gubernatorial administration. Special clauses provide that the rabbis are obliged "to look after all the ceremonies of the Jewish faith and decide all disputes bearing on religion," but they are strictly forbidden to resort to "anathemas" and excommunications (the so-called herem). The Kahals in turn are held responsible for the regular payment of the state taxes. The communal autonomy of the Jews was thus calculated to serve two masters, religion and the exchequer, God and mammon, and was expected to adjust its manifold problems to both.