and he kindly placed at my disposal, in his charming country-house near Moscow, the voluminous researches of these investigators.  Here, during a good many weeks, I revelled in the statistical materials collected, and to the best of my ability I tested the conclusions drawn from them.  Many of these conclusions I had to dismiss with the Scotch verdict of “not proven,” whilst others seemed to me worthy of acceptance.  Of these latter the most important were those drawn from the arrears of taxation.

     * I hope I am committing no indiscretion when I say that the
     old friend in question was Prince Alexander Stcherbatof of
     Vasilefskoe.

The arrears in the payment of taxes may be regarded as a pretty safe barometer for testing the condition of the rural population, because the peasant habitually pays his rates and taxes when he has the means of doing so; when he falls seriously and permanently into arrears it may be assumed that he is becoming impoverished.  If the arrears fluctuate from year to year, the causes of the impoverishment may be regarded as accidental and perhaps temporary, but if they steadily accumulate, we must conclude that there is something radically wrong.  Bearing these facts in mind, let us hear what the statistics say.

During the first twenty years after the Emancipation (1861-81) things went on in their old grooves.  The poor provinces remained poor, and the fertile provinces showed no signs of distress.  During the next twenty years (1881-1901) the arrears of the whole of European Russia rose, roughly speaking, from 27 to 144 millions of roubles, and the increase, strange to say, took place in the fertile provinces.  In 1890, for example, out of 52 millions, nearly 41 millions, or 78 per cent., fell to the share of the provinces of the Black-earth Zone.  In seven of these the average arrears per male, which had been in 1882 only 90 kopeks, rose in 1893 to 600, and in 1899 to 2,200!  And this accumulation had taken place in spite of reductions of taxation to the extent of 37 million roubles in 1881-83, and successive famine grants from the Treasury in 1891-99 to the amount of 203 millions.* On the other hand, in the provinces with a poor soil the arrears had greatly decreased.  In Smolensk, for example, they had sunk from 202 per cent, to 13 per cent. of the annual sum to be paid, and in nearly all the other provinces of the west and north a similar change for the better had taken place.

These and many other figures which I might quote show that a great and very curious economic revolution has been gradually effected.  The Black-earth Zone, which was formerly regarded as the inexhaustible granary of the Empire, has become impoverished, whilst the provinces which were formerly regarded as hopelessly poor are now in a comparatively flourishing condition.  This fact has been officially recognised.  In a classification of the provinces according to their degree of prosperity, drawn up by a special commission