finds these Asiatic possessions a serious drain on its resources. The problem of local self-government has been solved, and indigenous institutions have not been ruthlessly trampled upon. Respect for the dominant race has been inculcated by prompt and severe punishment meted out for revolt or outrage on a European’s person or property. Every picture has its shadows, and it is not difficult to point to defects in the administrative machine. Russia has carried an attitude of _laissez-faire_ to an extreme limit in dealing with education, and it has been left in the hands of a class which must always be bitterly hostile to infidel rule. The process of Russification has been pushed with excessive zeal. Local colour and racial characteristics have been swept away, which were precious indeed in times when mankind was oppressed by a deluge of commonplace throughout the Eastern world. Structures which made the cities of Central Asia the theme of Eastern poets have been suffered to lapse into hopeless ruin. And what shall be said of a commercial policy framed on principles exploded a century ago by Adam Smith, and proved by the history of our own East India Company to be positively injurious to the Government which cherishes them? That policy aims at nothing less than the maintenance of a Chinese Wall round the Russian Empire, albeit that railways and steam navigation have made the whole world kin and brought about a solidarity between nations which renders each unit sensitive to the injuries inflicted on the commerce and manufactures of the rest. The heavy protective tariff, the unwillingness to admit consular agents for the protection of English trade, and the jealous restrictions on the movements of Europeans are strangely out of date at the dawn of the twentieth century. An Anglo-Indian official travelling in Central Asia would find it difficult to avoid instituting comparisons between our own methods of dealing with Orientals and those employed by the Russians. The dissimilarity of the conditions encountered deprives the process of half its value. We have in India a swarming population, which overtaxes the productive power of the soil and yet shows no sign of having reached its utmost limits. In the bitter struggle for life an enormous criminal class has been evolved, which is a perpetual thorn in the side of authority. And then, we are face to face with a civilisation more ancient than our own, and on its own lines, as complex, presenting features which baffle the closest study. Nor must the religious problem be left out of account. Hinduism is stirred to its inmost being by a revival, and displays an elasticity and a militant spirit which appear incompatible with its principles. The forces of Islām are also equipped for a coming struggle. A Puritan movement, inaugurated by Wahabi missionaries eighty years ago, has spread far and wide, and the Mohammedans of India have formed secret societies which are exploited by wirepullers for their own ends.