Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/262

246 from the outside, mainly from Germany and more especially from the German Baltic provinces of Esthonia, Livonia and Courland. Teutonic barons from those Baltic provinces have filled the higher ranks of the diplomatic service and of the civil service for a hundred and fifty years. The Russian Tsars found the German barons far more serviceable tools than the Russian boiars. In a previous age one Emperor after another had been removed by a rebellious aristocracy. The highest nobles in the land had been implicated in the Decabrist conspiracy at the end of Alexander I's reign. Even under Alexander II there were always a few members of the nobility to be found as accomplices in the revolutionary plots. But there never was one single German from the Baltic provinces implicated in a conspiracy against reaction. It is easy to understand, therefore, why a Russian autocrat should have preferred the services of the German Baltic barons. The Russian nobleman is casual, lavish, a bad economist, easy-going, generous, and he is corrupt because he is easy-going and generous. He is also much more independent. The Junker is punctual, precise, disciplined, generally poor always