The Board in the report in question starts by saying that the most salient fact in the present state of the Zemstvo in the district of Morshansk for the past year is a want of funds, owing to the fact that the taxes due both from peasants and landowners by which the Zemstvo is supported are no longer forthcoming. The taxes are not forthcoming because neither the peasants nor the landowners are willing to pay them, this unwillingness being in some cases a matter of principle and in others the result of the peculiar psychology of the Russian landed class at the present time. The peasantry is neither sufficiently developed nor does it possess the requisite knowledge to form conceptions of principle with regard to the payment or the non-payment of taxes consciously. Conceptions of this kind, however, obviously exist, and they have reached the mass of the peasantry in the form of ready-made watchwords or party cries. These watchwords have the characteristic of releasing the peasantry from some kind of moral tie or obligation; it is not therefore surprising that being sown broadcast among the masses at a time of popular excitement they are eagerly absorbed. In the Daily Press stress was laid on the significance of not paying the Zemstvo taxes. The idea was spread among the peasants that the Zemstvo of the present day is an aristocratic institution, which draws on the resources of the peasant without giving him anything in return. Such was the elementary philosophy which was absorbed by the peasants. And now, although the cry against paying the Zemstvo taxes is no longer heard, doubt and confusion have been instilled into the peasant as to what is truth, and in what the Zemstvo taxes in reality consist, as to whether they are simply a “squeeze” or a matter of public necessity and local interest. Such a question can only be settled by an inspection of figures and facts, but before going into these it is necessary to say a few words with regard to the non-payment of taxes by the landowners. The landowners were not so much actuated in this case by a principle as by a feeling of alarm resulting from the horrors of the Agrarian agitation. At one moment it seemed as if the end of private property had come, and that the only course left was to liquidate one’s affairs and to flee from one’s burning house, and if such was the case the landowner said to himself, “What is the use of paying taxes when my house is on fire, and I am lucky if I get off with my life?” In the places where, as in this district, there were no such violent incidents, a cooler argument obtained, namely, “If the peasants were not paying, why should we pay?” Some landowners, an infinite minority it is true, went so far in the organs of a reactionary character as to invert and apply the simple party-cry of the peasants, speaking thus: “The Zemstvo is simply a peasants’ institution drawing on the resources of the large landowners, and is incompatible with