knowledge of an Indian specialist, Sir John Strachey can hardly complain much if English statesmen make mistakes.

Sir John Strachey's statements seem to bear out the doubts we have expressed, whether the very favourable yield of the revenue for the year just expiring can be relied on to continue. He mentions the extraordinarily favourable character of the season. He does not venture to anticipate an Opium revenue so large as that now reached, estimating less by fully a million. The surrender of part of the licence-duties brings down the famine-taxation to about a million, or half a million less than was originally expected.

As regards public works, though Sir John Strachey is more guarded in his language than Sir Ashley Eden, his expressions leave no room for doubt that he and the Government of India, as at present constituted, regret the restrictions imposed by the Home Government and supported by the Commons' Committee. He dwells much on the success and advantages of railways and some other works, and in doing so quotes largely from a speech of the Viceroy. He thinks there are no drawbacks to be weighed against the advantages to be derived from an extension of the railway system. He is pathetic over the way in which their hopes of such extensions have been blighted by orders from home; and while not calling in question the sufficiency of the reasons by which these orders were dictated,' he wishes to make it clear that for the failure to carry out great works of material improvement no responsibility rests with the Government of India.' We understand, however, that these remarks can only apply to the restriction on borrowing money for reproductive works. The restrictions on the ordinary public works, defrayed from current revenue, certainly emanated from the Government of India themselves. It is only where they may borrow that they would be liberal. We have no doubt that if they can establish a real surplus, they may enlarge their expenditure on works of improvement. Still, we do think with them that there may be ground for borrowing more for really profitable works, especially for railways.

With respect to the Customs' revenue, Sir John Strachey's speech very fully bears out our statements of fact, but at the same time increases our apprehensions. When on a former occasion he dropped expressions pointing to a surrender of the Customs' revenue, he was much criticized in India; and it was supposed that he had somewhat rashly expressed an individual wish, rather than stated the matured opinions of the Government of India. Now, however, after a long interval for consideration, he expresses with great circumstantiality and emphasis views

6

which must, we presume, be taken to be those adopted by the Government of which he is a member. He shows how the concessions granted to cotton goods have already led to a loss of revenue larger than was anticipated, and how by the adaptation of the manufacture the attempt to draw a distinction between different classes of cotton goods, and to maintain a duty on the finer kinds, is being completely defeated. In truth, Sir John Strachey seems in this somewhat vehement part of his statement to be in danger of proving a good deal too much. He avows that he has always passionately desired the total abolition of the Customs' duties that has been the dream of his life-for that he accepted office, and now the fulfilment of this vision seems to me not far off. The cotton duties are in my opinion virtually dead.' Then- Cotton goods are the sole article of foreign production which the people of India largely consume, and there is no present possibility of a large Customs' revenue from anything else—so the rest of the import duties must go. After that, 'we cannot count on the export duty on rice as a permanent source of revenue;' and so the consummation is reached. We cannot help thinking that when a gentleman holding Sir John Strachey's position and Sir John Strachey's views had the duty of making such a compromise as was made last year (when cotton goods of yarn of not higher count than 30s. were freed from duty), and now relates with such force and gusto the failure of that compromise, he lays himself open to the imputation of not having been very much in earnest, or very hopeful of success, when he made the compromise destined to such early failure.

At any rate the practical result is, that we have it on the highest authority that the Customs' duties are doomed to very early extinction. We very much fear lest Sir John Strachey's passionate zeal for the objects (not to say crotchets), on which he has set his heart, should induce him to carry out a measure of this kind without providing sufficiently for the consequences. We see no expression of an intention to make any such provision. On the contrary, he abandons his publicly declared intention of extending the licence-tax (or something corresponding to it) to the professional, official, and moneyed classes, on the sole ground that, though the step would remove to some extent the reproach, which undoubtedly is true, that certain classes do not at present bear their full share of the public burdens,' still, in the present state of the finances, we do not absolutely require the 240,000l. which the contemplated taxation of these classes would yield.' It does seem then as if Sir John Strachey were in danger of being led by the present prosperous yield of the revenues, and the surplus-which would be a surplus if there

were

were no war, as well as no famine or other misfortune-into the attempt to carry out the desire of his heart, the abolition of the whole Customs' duties, without providing any substitute.

We must again strongly express the opinion-considering that, while Afghan affairs are not arranged, there is no real surplus; that of the contingent surplus much is uncertain in the extreme; that we cannot expect a repetition of the abnormal opium revenue of one year; that much of the famine taxation has been abandoned; that there is crying need for the resumption of public works; that we have still to provide for future famines and other misfortunes ;-that, considering all these things, we cannot prudently abandon, and ought not to abandon, the Customs' revenue, without providing some other income to take its place.

ART. VIII.-1. Russia and England, 1876 to 1880. By O. K. London, 1880.

2. Russia Before and After the War. 3. Il Nihilismo. By J. B. Arnaudo.

London, 1880.
Turin, 1880.

HE relations of England and Russia have been so unamiable during the last few years, they have been so embittered by angry discussion, and so aggravated by continual recrimination, that it is impossible not to feel grateful to any one who comes forward animated by an honest desire to amend them. Such professedly is the object of the work that stands at the head of this article, called 'Russia and England.' Mr. Froude, in some observations prefixed to the volume, informs us that it is written by a Russian lady, under the initials of O. K.,' and the sex of the author serves both to pique curiosity and to put the reader in a proper frame of mind for receiving what he is assured are friendly approaches. It will perhaps be thought that Mr. Froude is hardly the person to serve to introduce a friendly ambassador from the Russian people. If we remember rightly, Mr. Froude has more than once expressed himself with his usual decision upon the merits of the controversy between the friends and the opponents of Russia; and we get no further than the second page of his prefatory remarks before being reminded that we are listening to an uncompromising partisan. Alluding to the danger of a collision between the two countries, when the Russian armies menaced Constantinople, and the English Fleet forced the Dardanelles and entered the Sea of Marmora, Mr. Froude observes:

The

The moderation of Russia prevented so frightful a calamity. The Treaty of San Stefano was modified, and the English Cabinet, if it won no victory in war, was able to boast, with or without reason, of a diplomatic triumph. Continental statesmen could no longer speak of the effacement of England as a European Power. England had shown that she had the 'will and strength to interfere where she chose, and when she chose. But the question remains whether our interference answered a useful purpose, or whether in effect we had proved more than a boy proves who shows that he cannot be prevented from laying a bar across a railway, and converting a useful express train into a pile of splinters and dead bodies.'

It might have been thought that 'splinters and dead bodies' were portions of a figure of speech more applicable to the authors of the Russian campaign against Turkey, than to the persons who put an end to that sanguinary conflict by the pacific labours of the Congress. But Mr. Froude, with praiseworthy candour, proceeds to instruct us as to the cause of the singular confusion of mind and metaphor to be observed in the foregoing passage. He thus continues:

It is hard to credit that the English Tory party really believes that Russian autocracy is dangerous to rational liberty. The love of the Tory party for liberty has not hitherto been of so violent a kind. My own early years was spent among Tories, and Russia I heard spoken of among them as the main support that was left of sound principles of government. Docile as they are under the educating hand of their chief, the country gentlemen of England cannot have fallen into their present attitude towards Russia on (sic) political conviction. I interpret their action as no more than a passing illustration of the working of Government by party. Having obtained power, they wish to keep it. They have seen an opportunity of making themselves popular by large talk about English dignity, and by appeals to the national susceptibility. The interests of Europe, the interests of Asia, have been simply used as cards and counters in a game where the stake played for is the majority at the next election.'

We are unable to say who the Tories were among whom Mr. Froude passed his early years, and who considered Russia the main support of sound principles of Government. But we are all aware who were the Liberals among whom Mr. Froude spent his manhood. They were Earl Russell, Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gladstone, Sir James Graham, and the late Lord Herbert, who, it is generally supposed, entertained for Russia so little sympathy, that they caused this country to embark in a bloody and costly war, in order to baffle the fulfilment of her schemes. Their conduct was popular, though we are not aware that any one, even Mr. Froude, imputed to them the desire to make themselves

themselves popular' by talk about English dignity and English interests. We fear Mr. Froude is as indiscreet in his innuendoes as he is paradoxical in his metaphors. It would not be fair, however, to condemn, or even to judge, a work written by a Russian lady, for the purpose of reconciling the conflicting claims of England and Russia, by the tenor of introductory remarks written by an Englishman, whose preface from the first word to the last may justly be regarded as 'no more than a passing illustration of the working of Government by party. It will be well, therefore, to dismiss and forget Mr. Froude, and to devote our attention to the substance of the volume.

In O. K. we have to deal with no novice. She has mastered our language with conspicuous success. She expostulates as easily as she reproaches; and she exhibits as much facility in barbing shafts of satire, as in framing specious excuses for daring acts of diplomacy. Shall we be forgiven if we venture to hint further that O. K., besides being a patriotic Russian, has enjoyed special opportunities of becoming acquainted not only with the central objects of Russian policy, but also with the peculiar means by which they are promoted? No doubt she tells us the truth; but perhaps she is too practised a diplomatist to tell us the whole truth.

We are merely repeating an open secret when we say that O. K. is Madame Olga de Novikoff. Her parents were the late Alexis de Kiréeff, a Russian noble, owning estates in the provinces of Moscow and Tamboff, and Alexandrine his wife, a lady of equal birth, who still lives and retains traces of the extraordinary beauty which had won her in the days of her youth an almost European renown.

The children of that marriage were: Alexander de Kiréeff, Nicholas de Kiréeff, and Olga de Kiréeff. For all three children the late Emperor Nicholas stood godfather. Alexander de Kiréeff is a General Officer, attached to the staff of the Grand Duke Constantine. Nicholas de Kiréeff attained the rank of colonel in the cavalry of the Imperial Guard, and, after having quitted the army, became a volunteer in the war undertaken by Servia in 1876, where he died at the head of the brigade he commanded. An account of his death is given by Mr. Kinglake, with his usual vividness of description, in the Preface to the first volume of the last edition of his History of the Crimean War.' Olga de Kiréeff, now Olga de Novikoff, the writer of this book, is the wife of a Russian noble, Ivan de Novikoff, a General Officer, formerly attached to the staff of the Grand Duke Nicholas, and afterwards Adjoint Curator (what we should call Vice-Chancellor) of the University of Kieff.

She