How far this is really true, or how far some at least of the villagers tried to develop individual proprietorship, must remain doubtful, but there can be no doubt that localism and the Soviet idea have become marked features in Russia, with the paralysing of the more modern schemes of life which were previously trying to spread in the country with the growth of industry and commerce. That the more modern schemes seemed to permit a larger population seems clear, but that they were faced with difficulties due both to climate and to history is not always appreciated. The west in the nineteenth century was too apt to think its individualism applicable to all conditions and peoples the world over; it had not sufficiently understood its individualism as a historic growth under western conditions which masked the conflict, for example, {76} between it and the Christianity the west supposed itself to accept. Of the life of the Russian village we shall have more to say later on, but it is well to have its attitude in mind so that we may contrast this with the characteristics of the Baltic fringe. Here, since the war, new states have been created and recognized (1921) by the League of Nations under the names of Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The two first have a Baltic-German element which has in the past been a land-holding class, and has its historic links both with the Teutonic Knights and with the Hanse--for Riga is an old Hanse city of special importance. The Finnish element is strong enough in Esthonia to impose its language on the people, but farther south tongues of ancient Baltic lineage are dominant, and the new states are largely on a basis of peasant language, the German elements being disregarded, and to a considerable extent dispossessed. Having passed through a stage of feudal subjection, the peasants are bent on individual proprietorship, as they were in the eighteenth century in France; and the war has brought a social revolution along this border zone between the domains of the two churches, with some marked resemblances to that of 1789-93 in France. In Esth-speaking country there is but little forest that is not pine, and only 10 per cent. of the soil can be made arable, it is said. Though the Lett country is better, it can grow neither beech nor oak to any extent; it is interested in dairying, and in this matter naturally has commercial links with Denmark. The Lithuanians are a grave European problem; they escaped the Germanizing efforts of the Teutonic Knights, and felt instead the Polonizing of their aristocracy, the abler scions of which have long found opportunities at Warsaw. Set in the Lithuanian country is Vilna, the station on the one reasonably dry entry from the west into Central Russia, and therefore a trading town with large German, Jewish, and Polish elements illustrating more tragically {77} than any other town the difficulty of creation of states in this eastern boundary zone of Western Europe. The forests of