; and the reckless haste and violence with
which it attempted to carry out its schemes aroused a spirit of positive
opposition among the masses. A considerable section of the people long
looked on the reforming Tsars as incarnations of the spirit of evil, and
the Tsars in their turn looked upon the people as raw material for the
realisation of their political designs. This peculiar relation between
the nation and the Government has given the key-note to the whole system
of administration. The Government has always treated the people as
minors, incapable of understanding its political aims, and only very
partially competent to look after their own local affairs. The officials
have naturally acted in the same spirit. Looking for direction and
approbation merely to their superiors, they have systematically treated
those over whom they were placed as a conquered or inferior race. The
State has thus come to be regarded as an abstract entity, with interests
entirely different from those of the human beings composing it; and in
all matters in which State interests are supposed to be involved, the
rights of individuals are ruthlessly sacrificed.

If we remember that the difficulties of centralised administration must
be in direct proportion to the extent and territorial variety of
the country to be governed, we may readily understand how slowly and
imperfectly the administrative machine necessarily works in Russia. The
whole of the vast region stretching from the Polar Ocean to the Caspian,
and from the shores of the Baltic to the confines of the Celestial
Empire, is administered from St. Petersburg. The genuine bureaucrat has
a wholesome dread of formal responsibility, and generally tries to
avoid it by taking all matters out of the hands of his subordinates,
and passing them on to the higher authorities. As soon, therefore,
as affairs are caught up by the administrative machine they begin to
ascend, and probably arrive some day at the cabinet of the minister.
Thus the ministries are flooded with papers--many of the most trivial
import--from all parts of the Empire; and the higher officials, even
if they had the eyes of an Argus and the hands of a Briareus, could not
possibly fulfil conscientiously the duties imposed on them. In reality
the Russian administrators of the higher ranks recall neither Argus
nor Briareus. They commonly show neither an extensive nor a profound
knowledge of the country which they are supposed to gover