Such are the arguments I have often heard advanced by these people, and I say once more that they may be right. Three years ago I was firmly convinced that they were right, and even now I have an open mind on the subject, although two years of close contact with Russians of all classes have led me to change my own opinion, and to agree with the other equally impartial people, who are just as Russian and have just as much knowledge of the country and experience of their fellow countrymen, and who flatly deny the whole thing. According to this school, the comparison with China is wrong because the Chinese are intellectually a highly civilised nation, and the proportion of them who can read and write is large. The present _régime_ in Russia is not the natural expression of national characteristics, but a fortuitous disease which has been allowed to spread without ever having been radically treated. Neither Autocracy nor Bureaucracy is a thing which has grown out of the immemorial traditions and habits of the Russian people; Autocracy was the product of a comparatively recent change in Russian history, and Bureaucracy the accidental result of the further changes introduced by a man of genius. The Government made certain things impossible: such as education for the peasants, laws for the peasants, justice, &c.; then, when the results of these prohibitions began to make themselves felt, turned round and said: “You see what these men are like; it is no use giving them anything because they are hopeless; they are like niggers and must be treated as such.” This has been the proceeding of the Government: to prevent, prevent, and prevent again; and then, when the explosion resulting from the prevention occurred, to observe how right they had been in preventing, and how necessary it was to prevent more and more, because it was the only thing the people understood. In this blindness and obstinacy, year after year deferring the payment of their debt, they have let the interest accumulate; and when they eventually have to pay, far more will be required of them than they need originally have surrendered. The people who represent these two schools of thought both say that they are Russia. They assert: “We are Russia—tout le reste est littérature.” Only time can show which is right. I have noticed that with the representatives of both these schools the wish is father to the thought and that they generalise on their own desires and their own experience coloured by those desires. Which really represents Russia, we shall know perhaps in ten years’ time. As far as my own experience goes among peasants, workmen, &c., they have all been representatives of the second school. But then, the first school would say that this is immaterial, because the people may be thirsty for law, and yet incapable of drinking it.