Though the Imperial Administration has a most voracious appetite for symmetrically constructed statistical tables--many of them formed chiefly out of materials supplied by the mysterious inner consciousness of the subordinate officials--no attempt has yet been made, so far as I know, to collect statistical data which might throw light on this important subject.

In spite of the systematic and persistent efforts of the centralised bureaucracy to regulate minutely all departments of the national life, the rural Communes, which contain about five-sixths of the population, remain in many respects entirely beyond its influence, and even beyond its sphere of vision! But let not the reader be astonished overmuch.

He will learn in time that Russia is the land of paradoxes; and meanwhile he is about to receive a still more startling bit of information.

In "the great stronghold of Caesarian despotism and centralised bureaucracy," these Village Communes, containing about five-sixths of the population, are capital specimens of representative Constitutional government of the extreme democratic type! * This has been somewhat modified by recent legislation.
According to the Emancipation Law of 1861, redistribution of the land could take place at any time provided it was voted by a majority of two-thirds at the Village Assembly.

By a law of 1893 redistribution cannot take place oftener than once in twelve years, and must receive the sanction of certain local authorities.
When I say that the rural Commune is a good specimen of Constitutional government, I use the phrase in the English, and not in the Continental sense.