RUSSIA.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 328, 8 June 1878, Page 2

RUSSIA.

“ Were thy person as large as thy desires,” said a Scythian to Alexander the Great, “ the world would not contain thee.”—The scene is changed. He who rules in the room of Alexander the Greek, might now feelingly return the compliment to Alexander the Scythian. But little more than a century and a half ago, Muscovy was merely an object curiosity to the English. Robinson Crusoe in his first part, luxuriates on a lonely island, visited now and then by' savages. Liking this sort of thing, he, iu his second part, makes a tour through the dominions of the Czar. “ With her brow recumbent at the North Pole, and her feet upon Caucasus, Holy-Russia slept,” and dreamed of r Vartary and tribute. She was awakened by the dawning of light from the West. She arose, and chafed her colossal limbs; they' have strengthened year by year, and now she

“ Stamps her foot, and nations feel the shock.” A glance at the map shows us the vast extent of the Russian Empire. ■lt comprises at least one-sixth of the surface of the globe, above high water mark. There is no other empire, save our own, that is half that extent.'

It is true that a large proportion of those eight millions of square miles, cannot be counted in the habitable globe. Yet travellers assure us that there are vast tracts of the best land in the world in Russia—-deep, black soil, fhat without manure, grows abundant crops year after year. Even Siberia, which we have regarded as an Arctic Sahara, “ contains”— says Mr 11. Barry’—“A great deal of laud. . . . Where anything would flourish. . . . Year after year the crop is the same, with no manure, yet the yield is abundant enough to indicate the enormous production that might bo worked out of the soil, with a little intelligent industry'. . . . I know of no other country that offers equal advantage to a young man with small capital. . . . Such a man said to me ‘Twenty years ago, I came hero with 800 roubles (£100). I have made that into five millions.’ I always wonder

why' our countrymen go to the antipodes in search of a colony'. . . . The climate is not worse than that of Moscow.” In the light of this, we can understand the regret of the young Russian lady, daughter of a great noble, who lived in Siberia for State reasons, who, on being asked if she did not admire Naples, admitted it was beautiful, adding earnestly', “ But it’s not equal to Siberia.”

The population of Russia is 83 millions. About seven-eights of these, inhabit that fourth of the empire which is in Europe. \ r et European Russia is not a crowded hive ready to swarm over the civilized West; there are on an average, only 14 persons on that space which in England carries 114 ; and as there are only eleven cities in Russia with over 50,000 inhabitants, it is evident the people are pretty evenly' scattered.

The Czar then, has territory and people, two of the chief elements of a great nation ; but as China has both these, and yet Is not great, let us enquire into other matters —national wealth, public revenue, debt, education, &c. . There is no doubt that the Czar himself is enormously rich. The cost of the Imperial Household is about five times the cost of that of England. His Majesty has also private estates, worth three quarters of a million per annum. Some of the nobles are also very wealthy ; but as a whole, Mr Wallace declares they are poor. Turning to the trading community, we find few of those merchant princes who throng about the Exchange in English cities." We need not look twice at the map, to see that Russia is not cut out for commerce with the outer world. By far the greater part of her extent is hundreds —we had almost said thousands—of miles from the sea. Even the gates of the seas to which she has access, she does not keep. This last, however, she hopes to remedy. But she does not make the best of such advantages as she has. An able writer in the Nineteenth Century, declares that Russia scarcely has a middle class. She makes armies of merchants and bankers an impossibility, by her absurd commercial policy. Instead of buying from Europe that which Europe can produce more cheaply than she, and selling to Europe that in which she can undersell the world; instead of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest, she, by an elaborate system of protective duties, tries to bolster up for herself industries for which she is quite unsuited. She thus taxes her subjects to fill the pockets of a few capitalist's, some of whom are not her subjects. The infatuation that makes a great people think that it is better to make their own stuffs at a shilling a yard, than to buy them at mnepence, is a little perplexing to most Engishmon ; but Russia is not alone in her error.

■ Railways and free trade would soon give her a wealthy middle class. At present she does not possess it. We need not look to the lower orders for the national wealth when we remember that in 1861 twentytwo millions of them were serfs, and that on account of the antiquity of this evil and the incompleteness of the remedy it is hard to say whether they are any better off now. .We conclude, therefore, that the national wealth of Russia is not great in comparison with that of England and Prance. The revenue is about equal to that of the United Kingdom. In 1874 it was £73,907,119, while the revenue of Great Britain and Ireland, for the same year, was estimated at a little less, but proved to be £3,500,000 more. We need not say that large and populous as Russia is, this sum is raised by shore grinding. In the same

year about £12,000,000 were required to pay interest on the national debt, which then amounted to about £170,000,000. We may add by the way that the war which began in April, 1877, bad at the end of September cost about £80,000,000. We may therefore venture to say that the debt of to-day will be almost that of 1874. But to return to that year. " Over a million and a-half was also expended on public education. There is some improvement going on in this matter, and it is much needed. In 1860, two in every hundred of Russian recruits could read. Now, however, the proportion has risen to about fourteen in the hundred. Russians of the upper class are of course better educated. It is said that, if he is caught young, and thoroughly saturated with Western ideas, the Russian is one of the best products of civilisation. Though they have now many eminent men of science, they cannot be said to have a literature worth the name, or to have produced their chance as an earnest of better things to come. We are assured that their 500 monasteries have not done as much for learning as some single monasteries in the west of Europe. After this hasty review we leave our readers to judge whether Russia is or is not one of the loading nations of the earth. In our opinion she is potentially the greatest of people ; but we are not sufficiently endued with the spirit of prophecy to say whether she will overbe more than potentially so. We think however that she is on the wrong track at present. She is coverting only that barbaric greatness founded on murder and plunder which was attained by the Tartar’s who oppressed her of old and by the Turks whom she opposses now.

In her mines, forests, pasture and soil she has unexhaustable wealth ; in her vast territory she has security from invasion, and from the necessity of scattering her children over the earth to seek a home ; in her great public revenue she has the instrument of good Government for her people and of rapid development for her resources, and in her geographical position she has the means of withdrawing as completely from European quarrels as do the United States of America. A ruler with a good heart, an enlightened mind, and a strong hand, might make her happ} r Russia, and himself a Greater Fetor. But what do we see ? A people groaning under taxes to support gigantic armies. So far from seeking peace she in 1970 adopted the Prussian military system which will yield her an army —all branches included—of 1,945,000 men. We are templed to ask the Bear Hamlet’s question : “ Good sir, whoso powers are these, and how proposed I pray you?” To keep peace at home, indeed ! Your Government must be infernally bad if you want a tenth part of the number ! 0! indeed! they are to repel invasion! You are in great danger of that we think from what we’ve heard of 1812 ! No, sir, Bear ! Don’t toll us. If they are not simply to enable your beloved Czar to say that he has as big an army as his brother of Germany, they are for aggression on your neighbours. We’ve heard of you before, sir !