Chapter 32

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.