ad seen,
and they explained it to me. Smolensk is no longer one of the poorer
provinces; it has become comparatively prosperous. In two or three
districts large quantities of flax are produced and give the cultivators
a big revenue; in other districts plenty of remunerative work is
supplied by the forests. Everywhere a considerable proportion of the
younger men go regularly to the towns and bring home savings enough to
pay the taxes and make a little surplus in the domestic budget. A few
days afterwards the village secretary brought me his books, and showed
me that there were practically no arrears of taxation.

Passing on to other provinces I found similar proofs of progress
and prosperity, but at the same time not a few indications of
impoverishment; and I was rapidly relapsing into my previous state of
uncertainty as to whether any general conclusions could be drawn,
when an old friend, himself a first-rate authority with many years of
practical experience, came to my assistance.* He informed me that a
number of specialists had recently made detailed investigations into
the present economic conditions of the rural population, and he kindly
placed at my disposal, in his charming country-house near Moscow, the
voluminous researches of these investigators. Here, during a good many
weeks, I revelled in the statistical materials collected, and to the
best of my ability I tested the conclusions drawn from them. Many of
these conclusions I had to dismiss with the Scotch verdict of "not
proven," whilst others seemed to me worthy of acceptance. Of these
latter the most important were those drawn from the arrears of taxation.

* I hope I am committing no indiscretion when I say that the
old friend in question was Prince Alexander Stcherbatof of
Vasilefskoe.

The arrears in the payment of taxes may be regarded as a pretty safe
barometer for testing the condition of the rural population, because
the peasant habitually pays his rates and taxes when he has the means of
doing so; when he falls seriously and permanently into arrears it may be
assumed that he is becoming impoverished. If the arrears fluctuate
from year to year, the causes of the impoverishment may be regarded as
accidental and perhaps temporary, but if they steadily accumulate, we
must conclude that there is something radically wrong. Bearing these
facts in mind, let us hear what the statistics say.

During the first twenty years after the Emancipa