cook; but I dare say that even he might have been a fairly decent servant in less fatiguing conditions of service. The Siberians and the Russians right throughout we found obliging and helpful in conditions of travel that must have been pretty trying to the temper. CHAPTER XVI. OF CONCESSION-HUNTING. WHAT I have said about the work of development that is to be done in Siberia, and the opening that seems to exist, especially in mining, for English or American capitalists, may perhaps raise the question of how far the Russian Government is disposed to grant concessions to Englishmen. I say particularly to Englishmen, since it is well known that to Frenchmen Russia will be most willing to grant facilities, and since it is presumable that much the same feeling would be shown to Americans. Indeed, for some reason that no American and no Russian has ever been able to explain to me, the Russian Government and the Russian people both display a special amount of cordiality and friendship to America and to Americans. Let it be remembered that I travelled through Siberia and Russia with two companions who are Americans, and, as I think I have already said briefly, it was impossible to avoid seeing that, while the courtesies offered to me were the courtesies of a polite people to a stranger, even if at some time that stranger might be an enemy, the attentions paid to my American fellow-travellers were based on quite a different international feeling. In the way of us. friendly discussion, we tried to find out the especial reasons for this cordiality, discussing among other matters the sale to the United States of Russia's American possessions, the help sent from the United States to certain famine-stricken districts of Russia, and other political and social points that occurred to Nevertheless, neither my fellow-travellers, who were the happy recipients of these international cordialities, nor my Russian fellow-travellers, who were the amiable exponents of these kindly feelings, could give any clear reason for them. The kindly feelings were of ancient date-beyond that we did not get. In the meantime, I am content to note the fact, as showing that American capitalists, like French capitalists, might find the Russian Government willing to encourage them in Siberia. English capitalists, by the way, are possibly recognising that fact, since my mining-engineer friend already referred to, who had been examining goldmines in Siberia for South African capitalists, was hurrying back, not to London and not to South Africa, but to New York. Nevertheless, I do not think that the Russian Government would have any objection to seeing English mining adventurers in Siberia. The Government of Russia is strong enough, and has a strong enough grip of Siberia, to be wholly indifferent to such points as might trouble a weak Government. But if English capitalists should desire to become interested in Siberian mining, and should wish for their enterprise any special privileges or opportunities, they must set to work differently from an Englishman of whom a story was told me in St. Petersburg. He was a considerable capitalist, and he had come to St. Petersburg on very important business, being nothing less than a proposal to lease the whole of the Siberian goldmines that belonged to the private domain of the Tsar. Let it be understood that that is a very big matter. Apart from the ordinary rights of the Russian Government in Siberian minerals, it happens that a very large part of the gold-mining territory in Siberia, and of the gold-mines actually being worked, belong to the personal privy purse of the Tsar, and are worked for the behoof of that privy purse. Naturally abuses creep in, and naturally there is a lack of that enterprise and initiative that might be found under private personal superintendence; and therefore there arose some talk of leasing those mines to an individual or company. The Englishman whom I have under discussion came to Russia on that business. He had not, I think, himself gone to Siberia, but presumably he had been there by deputy. At all events, he came to St. Petersburg prepared to do business. He had some talk with the proper officials, and he made some inquiries, and he got some additional information, and then he made up his mind what he could afford to offer. He wrote out the points of his offer upon a sheet of notepaper, and, walking down from his hotel to the department charged with the affair, he put his sheet of notepaper on the desk of the chief, and he said: 'Now, that's what I am prepared to do.' The official concerned looked perhaps a little aghast, but he was polite, as Russians always are, and he said that the matter would duly be considered, and that at some later date the offerer might be asked to make his offer in the proper formal channel. But the English capitalist said that would not suit him. He was willing to do anything that was necessary in the way of documents, but he could not wait, and he had no representative to depute the matter to-and, in fact, he wanted an answer within a fortnight. If he couldn't get the answer within a fortnight—well, well, time was money, and he had other things to do, and he couldn't spend any more time over the matter. I really don't know what the Russian official said precisely, but I can well remember the spirit of disgust in which my informant, an Englishman long resident in St. Petersburg, told the story. |