Siberians. He told me that he was much impressed with the richness and the possibilities of Siberia; but, with the shrewdness of a cultivated man of the world, he realized that the primitive state of society and the inefficient and centralized bureaucratic administration were influences which precluded a very rapid and sudden development. He complained of the low standard of education in Siberia, which he said was far below the standard of even old Russia as regards the percentage of the population that could read and write. Nor did he hold out hopes of much improvement till a greater outlay of public money for elementary schools is sanctioned by the Imperial Government. But, he continued, difficulties lie in the way. Military railways on the Amur, strengthened fortifications in the Far East, and an immense standing army in Siberia, besides the constant drain of Russian peasant youths, who are being drafted into the army from all parts of the Empire, impose a gigantic and unproductive burden on the community, which it is almost impossible adequately to estimate. The overweighting of the finances of the Empire is crushing out progressive expenditure, and yet this is the policy favoured by those in authority in St Petersburg. Having once created unproductive official posts, the vested interests which become firmly established upon them use all the influence at their command to prevent their removal. Nevertheless, as he pointed out, and as I was bound to admit, Russia is not the only country where progress is arrested by the growth of the unproductive burdens and vested interests which fatten on war and rumours of war. And indeed I had to own that Russia, with her long land frontier
