directories of Moscow, or Petersburg, or Kiev, provides a most instructive commentary on the extent of the German domination.
XIII
Securely entrenched in the Russian Court, in the army, in the bureaucracy, in the universities, in the diplomatic service—the Germans secured a no less commanding influence in trade and industry. As we already pointed out, Russia until recent years had remained an agricultural country without a middle class. The trade remained almost entirely in foreign hands. Already in the Middle Ages, Russian cities, like Novgorod, were affiliated to the German Hanseatic League. In the sixteenth century adventurous English explorers and traders, whose exploits are amongst the most thrilling of "Hakluyt's Voyages," tried to oust their German competitors, but they utterly failed. The Russians themselves are excellent traders, and the merchant guilds of Moscow have been for centuries a powerful commercial organization. Even to-day you will meet in Moscow unassuming Russian merchants leading the simplest of lives and possessed of enormous wealth. But the Russian merchant is generally conservative, unen-
