ion of the Noblesse-Rapid Increase in the Production and
Export of Grain--How Far this Has Benefited the Landed Proprietors.

CHAPTER XXXI

THE EMANCIPATED PEASANTRY

The Effects of Liberty--Difficulty of Obtaining Accurate
Information--Pessimist Testimony of the Proprietors--Vague Replies of
the Peasants--My Conclusions in 1877--Necessity of Revising Them--My
Investigations Renewed in 1903--Recent Researches by Native Political
Economists--Peasant Impoverishment Universally Recognised--Various
Explanations Suggested--Demoralisation of the Common People--Peasant
Self-government--Communal System of Land Tenure--Heavy
Taxation--Disruption of Peasant Families--Natural Increase of
Population--Remedies Proposed--Migration--Reclamation of Waste
Land--Land-purchase by Peasantry--Manufacturing Industry--Improvement of
Agricultural Methods--Indications of Progress.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE ZEMSTVO AND THE LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT

Necessity of Reorganising the Provincial Administration--Zemstvo Created
in 1864--My First Acquaintance with the Institution--District and
Provincial Assemblies--The Leading Members--Great Expectations Created
by the Institution--These Expectations Not Realised--Suspicions and
Hostility of the Bureaucracy--Zemstvo Brought More Under Control of the
Centralised Administration--What It Has Really Done--Why It Has Not
Done More---Rapid Increase of the Rates--How Far the Expenditure
Is Judicious--Why the Impoverishment of the Peasantry Was
Neglected--Unpractical, Pedantic Spirit--Evil Consequences--Chinese and
Russian Formalism--Local Self-Government of Russia Contrasted with That
of England--Zemstvo Better than Its Predecessors--Its Future.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE NEW LAW COURTS

Judicial Procedure in the Olden Times--Defects and Abuses--Radical
Reform--The New System--Justices of the Peace and Monthly Sessions--The
Regular Tribunals--Court of Revision--Modification of the Original
Plan--How Does the System Work?--Rapid Acclimatisation--The Bench--The
Jury--Acquittal of Criminals Who Confess Their Crimes--Peasants,
Merchants, and Nobles as Jurymen--Independence and Political
Significance of the New Courts.

CHAPTER XXXIV

REVOLUTIONARY NIHILISM AND THE REACTION

The Reform-enthusiasm Becomes Unpractical and Culminates in
Nihilism--Nihilism, the Distorted Reflection of Academic Western
Socialism--Russia Well Prepared for Reception of Ultra-Socialist
Virus--Social Reorganisation According to Latest Res