This was not the first peasant who had brought up the question of foreign loans to Russia. Nor was this the first time I had failed in attempting to explain to the muzhik why foreign loans are possible. In Kostroma, at the very outset of this journey, I had met with the same thing, and there, as here, failed in my attempt to explain the theory of foreign loans. To the peasant the only principle involved was that of oppression. Every ruble loaned to the Russian government was another lash across the back of a struggling, starving peasant. No other issue loomed before their eyes. Withal, the kindliness of their attitude always amazed me. To the ignorance of the people of England, of France, and of Austria, do the peasants ascribe their willingness to open their purses to the stained hand of tyranny. “If the people of other countries only knew,” they said. There was something inspiringly beautiful in the ingenuousness of sturdy men so simple--even Russian peasants--who still not only believed in the supremacy of plain morality, but who had no understanding of the “business,” the financial considerations which in the workaday world we know do supplant the innate ethics which make for right, for justice, and for fair play among men. At the beginning I was startled when violent sentiments were expressed by peasants, but now I was accustomed to them. So recently such boldness would not have been possible, and now--it was truly amazing. In each government I had visited on this trip the same spirit prevailed and similar utterances were freely heard. The territory I traversed was so great that all theory of this being the result of agitation was done away with. These were the spontaneous conclusions of the peasants, not only in widely different sections, but in all sections I passed through. At this point I became satisfied that at last the peasants were awake to their true situation. The Duma did it. Its propaganding influence was felt throughout Russia, and here were the fruits. The boast of the peasants that they would not wait for another Duma, that they would rise presently, was, of course, dependent upon circumstances. But whether conditions were propitious in the autumn of 1906, or the spring of 1907, or 1908, or some other year, makes no material difference in the ultimate outcome. A year or two, or a decade or two, is of small moment in the history of an empire. In the summer of 1906 it became clear that the Czar had lost his peasants--and through his own faithlessness.