These objections are in their turn met with the following counter-arguments. It is said that the first objection has been proved to be groundless by the cases of emigration in Turkestan, where it is seen that the peasants who emigrate thither adapt themselves with surprising facility and rapidity to new conditions, which include a peculiarly complicated system of irrigation, and have nothing in common with the agricultural conditions of Russia proper. It might also be stated that Russians in general, and the peasants in particular, are a singularly adaptable race, as is proved by the ease and the speed with which those who emigrate to Europe and America adapt themselves to their altered circumstances. As to the second question, that of expense, it is far more serious. But here it is objected that the premises on which those who are opposed to emigration on the grounds of expense base their arguments are derived from the results obtained at an epoch when emigration, like everything else, was as badly managed as possible; and that owing to this bad management hostility towards emigration was aroused among the peasants themselves, who as it is, do not care to leave their homes unless they are obliged to do so. That emigration is one of the possible radical methods of solving the land question is obvious. It is further obvious that if it is to be adopted a system of investigation into the suitability of places for emigration and likewise a system of means of communication must be organised. It is equally obvious that the State must not only furnish material aid but moral aid by furthering educational progress and the amelioration of general culture by every means at its disposal. It is hardly necessary to say now that up to the present the State has acted in the contrary sense by every means at its disposal. There was a moment after the emancipation under Alexander II. when this was not so, and efforts towards general improvement were made; this epoch did not last long, and progress was definitively checked by the reactionary _régime_ of Alexander III., which reached its culminating point under the reign of M. Plehve. That it is feasible to make for progress in Russia and that this is not a Utopian ideal is proved by the simple fact that in spite of all the obstacles created by the Government, schools, instituted by the Zemstva, have flourished, with the result that, roughly speaking, 40 per cent. of the younger generation in Russia can now read and write, whereas at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, when the Zemstva came into existence, 2 per cent. only could read and write.