ose from under ten
millions in 1868 to over forty-seven millions in 1900. No wonder that
the landowners who find it difficult to work their estates at a profit
should complain!

Though this increase is disagreeable to the rate-payers, it does not
follow that it is excessive. In all countries rates and local taxation
are on the increase, and it is in the backward countries that they
increase most rapidly. In France, for example, the average yearly
increase has been 2.7 per cent., while in Austria it has been 5.59. In
Russia it ought to have been more than in Austria, whereas it has been,
in the provinces with Zemstvo institutions, only about 4 per cent. In
comparison with the Imperial taxation the local does not seem excessive
when compared with other countries. In England and Prussia, for
instance, the State taxation as compared with the local is as a hundred
to fifty-four and fifty-one, whilst in Russia it is as a hundred
to sixteen.* A reduction in the taxation as a whole would certainly
contribute to the material welfare of the rural population, but it is
desirable that it should be made in the Imperial taxes rather than
in the rates, because the latter may be regarded as something akin to
productive investments, whilst the proceeds of the former are expended
largely on objects which have little or nothing to do with the wants
of the common people. In speaking thus I am assuming that the local
expenditure is made judiciously, and this is a matter on which, I am
bound to confess, there is by no means unanimity of opinion.

* These figures are taken from the best available
authorities, chiefly Schwanebach and Scalon, but I am not
prepared to guarantee their accuracy.

Hostile critics can point to facts which are, to say the least, strange
and anomalous. Out of the total of its revenue the Zemstvo spends about
twenty-eight per cent. under the heading of public health and benevolent
institutions; and about fifteen per cent. for popular education, whilst
it devotes only about six per cent. to roads and bridges, and until
lately it neglected, as I have said above, the means for improving
agriculture and directly increasing the income of the peasantry.

Before passing sentence with regard to these charges we must remember
the circumstances in which the Zemstvo was founded and has grown up.
In the early times its members were well-meaning men who had had very
little experience in administration or in pract