re becoming
impoverished, and were therefore more likely to listen to the insidious
suggestions of Socialist agitators; and already agrarian disturbances
had occurred in the provinces of Kharkof and Poltava. The industrial
proletariat which was being rapidly created was being secretly organised
by the revolutionary Social Democrats, and already there had been
serious labour troubles in some of the large towns. For any future
revolutionary movement the proletariat would naturally supply recruits.
Then, at the other end of the social scale, a class of rich capitalists
was being created, and everybody who has read a little history knows
that a rich and powerful tiers etat cannot be permanently conciliated
with autocracy. Though himself neither an agrarian nor a Slavophil
doctrinaire, M. Plehve could not but have a certain sympathy with those
who were forging thunderbolts for the official annihilation of M. Witte.
He was too practical a man to imagine that the hands on the dial of
economic progress could be set back and a return made to moribund
patriarchal institutions; but he thought that at least the pace might
be moderated. The Minister of Finance need not be in such a desperate,
reckless hurry, and it was desirable to create conservative forces which
might counteract the revolutionary forces which his impulsive colleague
was inadvertently calling into existence.

Some of the forgers of thunderbolts went a great deal further,
and asserted or insinuated that M. Witte was himself consciously a
revolutionist, with secret, malevolent intentions. In support of their
insinuations they cited certain cases in which well-known Socialists had
been appointed professors in academies under the control of the Ministry
of Finance, and they pointed to the Peasant Bank, which enjoyed M.
Witte's special protection. At first it had been supposed that the bank
would have an anti-revolutionary influence by preventing the
formation of a landless proletariat and increasing the number of small
land-owners, who are always and everywhere conservative so far as the
rights of private property are concerned.

Unfortunately its success roused the fears of the more conservative
section of the landed proprietors. These gentlemen, as I have already
mentioned, pointed out that the estates of the nobles were rapidly
passing into the hands of the peasantry, and that if this process were
allowed to continue the hereditary Noblesse, which had always been t