Assuredly serfdom was the first and most monstrous evil to be removed, and we saw that for fifty years or more the rulers of Russia had been ashamed of this great stigma on their civilisation. At the very beginning of the reign the rumour went out that Alexander would free the serfs, and their wealthy owners were anxious. Alexander reassured them to some extent. He would like to see an end of serfdom, but it was an evil to be remedied gradually. He would like to see individuals reduce it by freeing their Serfs. Soon after the close of the war the Tsar again addressed the nobles, and begged them to give serious attention to the emancipation of the serfs. It was plain that little would be done in this fashion, and a few months later he appointed Provincial Committees of land-owners to give practical consideration to the problem. Historians seem to differ in discussing whether Alexander was moved by his own idealism or by the pressure of the growing liberalism of St. Petersburg and the clamours of the peasants. The point is of some interest in forming a general estimate of the Tsar-Emancipator. Professor Kornilov, while ascribing great reforms to Alexander II, maintains that he was impelled from without rather than within: that his moralising tutor had not been a liberal or a man of definite social views, and had implanted in his mind only such general regard for humanity and justice as a conservative may profess. Others would represent the Tsar as a practical reformer of a liberal type, a little soured in the end by the excesses and violence of “advanced” people. Perhaps we are nearest to the truth if we picture Alexander II as a man who united a real detestation of serfdom with a sincere regard for justice in the abstract, yet would never have overcome the conservatism of many of his advisers and the immense practical difficulties but for the very effective pressure put upon him by the rising impatience of educated Russians. [IMAGE img312.jpg Cathedral Erected in Petrograd in Memory of Alexander II] The Provincial Committees wasted many months in futile discussion and wrangling. Around them there now waged a great battle of amateur sociologists, and half a dozen different theories of emancipation had their schools of defenders. There was, to begin with, a vital difference of views between the serfs and their owners. The peasant wanted land even more than liberty; the owner felt that it was emancipation to give liberty, and he was, as a rule, unwilling to part with land. There was the question of compensation, which inspired endless discussion. A serf was worth a hundred dollars. In short, the committees of local owners did not want the work to proceed, and Alexander formed, at the beginning of 1857, a Central Committee of twelve members under his own presidency. The work was to be done “from on high.” Emancipation was to be a voluntary gift from the Tsar.