would flourish. The method of husbandry, however, must exhaust it very much, and could not be followed if land were not plentiful and population scarce.

Year after year the crop of corn is the same, with no manure, and yet the crops are abundant enough to indicate the enormous production that might be worked out of the soil by a little intelligent industry.

Not only does farming here, but all other industrial enterprises likewise, offer a good occupation and promise of a fortune to a man who courageously and judiciously inaugurates and carries them through. In short, I can think of no other country in the world which offers the same advantages to a young man with a small capital, as Siberia. I could give several examples of successful enterprise. It does not much matter what a man has been brought up to, for, if only he has a head on his shoulders, he must get on, and that rapidly. Most of the merchants settled in Siberia are self-made men-in fact, there are very few who are not so.

Such a man said to me a short time ago, 'Twenty years since I came to this town with 800 roubles (1007.), and I have made that into five millions; it is a good country to work in.'

Whenever I travel about Siberia, I always think why is it that our countrymen are sent away to the antipodes in search of a colony? I speak of those who set out with a small capital in their pockets. Here, nearer home, they can get better land, cheaper than in many of our colonies; they can live more cheaply, can hire labour cheaper, and enjoy many advantages of civilisation which you would want in the colonies.3

Those who read such statements from the pen of a man who, to judge from his writings, is as unimaginative as he is sensible and clear-headed, will understand the regrets of the young Russian lady, daughter of the most illustrious victim of the conspiracy of 1825, who, on being asked if she did not admire Naples, admitted that it was very beautiful, but added, to the amusement of her friends, 'Mais ce n'est pas la Sibérie.'

We merely use that province of ominously sounding name as an extreme illustration of our proposition that Russia contains vast extents of territory eminently fitted for the use of man which have not yet attracted any attention.

The same, and much more, could be said of many other regions which obey the Czar.

Three conclusions would seem to result from the facts I have adduced, with reference to area, population, and quality of soil.

1. That Russia is as far as possible from being a hive of nations ready to swarm over the civilised West.

2. That her policy ought to be directed rather to utilising what she has than to making fresh annexations, unless indeed she has some absorbing interest in acquiring this or that particular piece of territory.

3. That the withdrawal of any larger number of the population from the pursuits of peace than is wanted to keep order within her provinces or to prevent the aggression of her neighbours is a measure

• Russia in 1870.

which requires to be justified by some considerations which are far from obvious.

These conclusions would have to be drawn even if the vast territories of Russia were homogeneous; but when we recollect that they are very much the reverse-that Poland and the newly acquired Asiatic provinces are certainly no increase to her strength, but rather a deduction from it-they are brought home to us with greater intensity.

Russia, however, possessed of such an extent of territory and so scanty a population, thought fit, soon after the first successes of the Germans in France, to imitate the German military system; and the author of a very careful paper in the Times of the 4th of December, 1876, calculates that, when the arrangements which were begun in November 1870 are completed, she will have, if existing anticipations are verified by events,

Of course her army now disposable is nothing like so large, but this is what is intended.

And why? Germany lies in close proximity to three great Empires, any two of which may at any time become very dangerous to her. She dare not, in the present state of Europe, be the first to disarm. But Russia-for what possible purpose except aggression on one or other of her neighbours can she want such an army? Who is likely to attack her? All sensible Germans know that the idea of their interfering in the Baltic provinces is absurd. Turkey will not act on the offensive. Austria has enough to do at home, and neither Khiva, Bokhara, nor China, as China will be for some considerable time, is likely to menace the Russian Empire.

Why, if Russia means honestly by all the world, this colossal military preparation?

What that these 1,945,000 men can do for her in the way of the preservation of order at home and the enforcement of respect abroad, could not be effected by, say, 755,000 troops of all sorts?

What is gained by adopting for an Empire far more happily situated the unfortunate system which a cruel necessity forced upon Germany?

Why should not the English instead of the continental system find favour in a country which in its vast defensive power has so much analogy with England?

If we turn to the navy of Russia, we shall see that enlightened Russians have less to regret, and that her neighbours have for the

present nothing to fear as far as it is concerned. Mr. Reed, looking at the matter from the point of view of a naval constructor, observed in a recent letter to the newspapers, after setting out the present strength of her ironclad navy:

I think it will be seen from the foregoing summary that the pretensions of Russia, in a naval sense, are modest indeed, and I do not hesitate to say that, so far from having evinced any great ambition in this direction of late years, Russia has allowed herself to fall far behind the position she ought to occupy even in the Baltic. There are very considerable ironclad squadrons in that sea belonging to various countries, and Russia has done almost nothing of late years in competing with them. Her efforts at ironclad construction have for several years past been limited solely to the three cruising partly armoured frigates, and to the 'Peter the Great' and the two circular ironclads. I must repeat now what I have said beforeviz., that in the construction of all these vessels Russia has evinced a laudable desire to make such vessels as she does build worthy of herself, and has exhibited great originality and force of mind. I believe the 'Peter the Great' and the two circular ships to be very powerful vessels indeed in proportion to their cost-not their cost as swelled by fifty extraneous causes, but their legitimate cost as examples of naval construction. But a country may desire to distinguish itself in special designs without being supposed to enter into ambitious European competitions, and he must, I think, have either an evil mind or a diseased imagination, who finds a menace to Constantinople or to Europe in the construction, over a course of years, by the great Empire of Russia, of one powerful ship in the north and two small ones in the south.

It is clear from the very interesting little book which the gentleman just quoted lately published that Nicolaieff is rapidly replacing Sebastopol as the great arsenal of the south, and that the Russian naval authorities, with the Grand Duke Constantine at their head, are availing themselves of the newest lights; but that is all as it should be, so long as they are not devoting to the purposes of war resources which a poor and backward country can ill spare. The Turkish fleet would be very far indeed from being a contemptible adversary, even if Russia had all her naval strength in the Black Sea.

In an elaborate article of the Revue des deux Mondes for last June, a writer whose interest in Russia is quickened by his dislike of Germany, reflects severely on the method used for recruiting the fleet, and points out that even the long service of the Russian landsman on board ship will hardly suffice to make him able to meet the North German sailor. As, however, he does not see his way to propose any better remedy than the French inscription maritime, the government of the Czar will hardly follow his advice in making any change.

The revenues of Russia, though enormous and about equal to our own, are, when we look at what she has to do with them, and with

In 1874 the actual receipts into the Russian treasury amounted to 73,907,1197. The amount of revenue estimated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for that year was almost exactly the same, 73,762,000%.; but he actually received a sum larger by about 3,500,000%.

what difficulty they are raised, seen to be far more in accordance with her naval than her military establishment.

As a matter of fact, Russia just gets along in the quietest times, spending each year up to if not rather over her income; and any extraordinary charge, such as would be entailed by war, must throw her finances, public and private, for some time into the greatest confusion.

Not that I think there is any cause for the exaggerated apprehensions about Russian solvency that have been prevalent of late in some quarters. Russia has borrowed a great deal, no doubt; but then she must borrow so very much more before she can really be tolerably satisfied with her material position, that I believe she will, for a long time to come, strain every nerve to fulfil her foreign engagements.

Whether, if war were actually to break out and to continue for some time, she would go on paying her dividends during its continuance, may be open to question, but Russian securities would be good property to hold whether she did or not.

M. A. Leroy Beaulieu, whose very valuable paper in the Revue des deux Mondes for the 15th of December should be read by all who are interested in Russian finance, is probably quite right in saying that the taxation of the Empire has reached, but has not passed, the limit which the population in its present state can bear. The taxes, which have been much increased during the period which has elapsed since the Crimean war, show on each augmentation, after a brief pause, a tendency to respond to the hopes of those who direct the treasury. Still the greatest care and the most anxious economy are counselled by circumstances; and although we may be sure that considerations of this kind would not by themselves prevent a war in favour of which the passions of the people or the personal wishes of the Imperial house were enlisted, they must be all-important in determining Russian statesmen against wide-reaching plans of conquest, such as those with which they have often been credited in Southern and Western Asia. These statements as to the extremely finite character of Russia's immediately available resources do not well accord with the ideas which are very generally cherished in the West of Europe about the vast wealth of the Russian nobility. These ideas, however, are founded in illusion. The Russian nobility, taken as a whole, is the very reverse of rich. There is a great deal of wealth in the hands of a few families-the Demidoffs, the Strogonoffs, the Cheremetieffs, for example-but these cases are quite exceptional. How could a nobility be wealthy in which the principle of primogeniture is hardly recognised, and in which all the younger children have just as much right to the name of prince or princess as the eldest? The number of princes belonging to certain houses is quite ridiculous. A story is toid, doubtless mythical, but nevertheless illustrative, of a certain person of high rank being stopped on a bridge by an uncivil toll

keeper. What do you mean by treating me in such a way?' he said; 'I am Prince Galitzin.' ' And so am I,' said the other.

But how does this agree with the lavish expense of travelling Russians? Some of these Russians, it must be answered, are really wealthy people, but others we speak more especially of those who used to be met before the days of emancipation, and who acquired for their class the reputation which it still bears-were merely people who escaped for a few years from their own dreary country, and were determined to have, if a short life, assuredly a merry one, while they remained abroad. They drew no very fine distinctions between capital and income. The German steward on their estates remitted money from time to time, and no questions were asked as to whether it did or did not form part of the proper revenues of the year. Then again the wasteful loose-handed habits which were engendered by serfage made travelling Russians carry about a number of half-useful servants, three of whom did not do as much work as a tolerably efficient English, to say nothing of a French or Italian servant.

But perhaps the Russian nobility, although not directly useful to the State from the contributions they make to its revenues, are a powerful political body on which the sovereign can lean? They are nothing of the kind. The Russian nobility has been various things at various times-turbulent in the assertion of its rights, defiant as the Arragonese, in old mediæval days; crushed slaves under Ivan the Terrible; State servants, malgré eux, under Peter the Great; a humble imitation of a French noblesse under Catherine the Second, and in a fair way to return to their position of the days of Ivan the Terrible under the lunatic Paul. The courtiers of his day, however, if servi, were servi ognor frementi;' and the result was commemorated by one of the most striking sayings of modern times. The young Emperor,' said a gifted woman writing of the coronation of Alexander the First, walked preceded by the assassins of his father, followed by the assassins of his grandfather, and surrounded by his own!' From the beginning of this century to our own day the position of the Russian nobility has become progressively better, but only because the general position of Russians has become better. They are not, like the English nobility, a small but powerful political body; they are not, like the German nobility, a very large and exclusive social caste; while they have nothing of that historic illustration which sheds a sunset light over the long centuries of the aristocracy of France. Those who wish to know the more important facts about such of them as have ever emerged from the privacy of a very dull or a very frivolous life will find much interesting information in a little book by the late Prince Dolgoroukoff; and as to their future I cannot do better than quote the following passage from Mr. Wallace, which is likely, I think, to be verified by events:

5

' A Handbook of the Principal Families in Russia. London, 1858.