In my travels through India and the Orient generally I took notice of her enormous capacity to export wheat. As a result, I predicted that the export, then but fairly begun, would soon menace our supremacy in the British market. I began at the same time to study the social and industrial condition of Russia, and was soon satisfied that she was in the dawn of a great day. I predicted the eastern extension of her enterprises, and increased political influence, especially with China, and the consequent absorption of western gold and capital generally. It appears from the latest summary of the United States Bureau of Statistics that Russia had, on the first of January, 1892, $324,828,300 in gold in her banks, and on the last of last May $424,193,700. If she carries out her present policy, this is less than half of the amount she will require. On a strictly gold basis we must allow her at least $10 per capita, which would make for the empire $1,200,000,000. But if we greatly reduce the per capita, in view of the undeveloped condition of her subjects, the amount still to be required will be enormous. During the same four years and five months the Bank of France has increased its holdings of gold from $260,888,299 to $391,519,658; the Austrian-Hungarian Bank from $26,634,400 to $133,006,312, and the Bank of England from $109,342,800 to $232,791,709, while the Banks of Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands have also increased their holdings some $30,000,000. Thus we see that in these few years the leading nations have added nearly $500,000,000 to their previous hoards of gold, which shows too plainly that they are looking forward to a gold famine. How much more will Asia demand? In my opinion, India, notwithstanding British rule and influence there, has developed less rapidly than China will when she once comes into as intimate contact with western nations as has India, for the rigid system of caste which prevails in India and which does not exist in China has been and will be the cause of greater immobility. It is not possible to say how long it will operate as an impediment to a high industrial development, but from the lessons taught in other countries where race and religion create similar castes, we may believe in its long continuance. I take pleasure at this point in referring to the late able work of Prof. Charles H. Pierson, of Oxford, who passed twenty years in the Orient. In his "National Life and Character" he points out that China in 1844 had doubled her population in eighty years, and there since has been a great increase; that Russia has doubled since 1849, very largely by natural increase, the Russian peasant being the most prolific of human beings; and the Hindoos, who had doubled in eighty years, have recently gained 20,000,000 in ten years.