The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-25 00:00:00

RUSSIAN RAILWAYS.

A " Hertfordshire Incumbent," in writing to the
Tirrtes, says :
"In a letter which you did me the honour to
insert a few days back I called attention to the
fact that the construction of railroads in Russia
would, having regard merely to the amount of iron
required, bo altogether incompatible with the ex-
isting tariff of that country.
"It seems that the Russian authorities have
opened their eyes to this circumstance, and w' are
told that not only rails, but all other articles of
iron bearing directly or indirectly on the great en-
terprise, are to be admitted free of duty. This is
a result upon which the English ironmaAer and the
Russian labourer are equally to be felicitated, as
indeed every one else is who has no vested interest
in the amount of the Custom-house duties on im-
ported iron, for that these will rapidly become an
evanescent quantity under the proposed relaxation
is almost too obvious to remark.
" Nevertheless, although one obstacle to the con-
struction of these lines has been removed, many
others still exist. However, as we are informed by
.Le Nord that a strong Government at the head of
70,000,000 of subjects having decided on the neces-
sity of them they will certainly be constructed,
without any need of resorting to either the experi-
ence' the capital, or the iron mines of England, it
maybe as well to let the " strong Government" find
out at its leisure what these are. In the meantime
the following table may serve to console the British
public for their exclusion from the tempting pro-
ject. The first column gives the Russian govern-
ments through which the intended lines will pass,
the second the number of inhabitants which they
respectively contain to a German square mile,
and the third and fourth the corresponding num-
ber in the Eoglish (or rather Scotch and Welsh)
county which comes the nearest in density of popu
lation. The Russian and the English numbers are
both taken from the official re urns of the census of
1851, so that there can be no reasonable doubt of
their authenticity.
" The first and second lines, from St. Petersburg
to Warsaw, with a branch from Kowno to the
Prussian frontier, will pass through the—

Ci.ntaining Cos,taining
to the English Counties to the
Governments. German of German
square mile— nearest density. square mile -
Inh a bitants o Inhabitants.
..,
- ---- -- --- ec ---
St. Petersburg .. 1,180 9, Caithness ...... 1,144
Pskov .• ••..• • • • 832 'g Selkirkshire .... 783
Vitebsk ........ 908
,g Kirkcudbright .. 953
Courland •• •• .. 1,00 r, I Perthshire ...••• 1,038
Wi1e5.......... 1,066 ' Ditto 1,038
~
Grodno ........ 1,255 f., I Radnorshire .... 1,228
Kingdom of Po I Cardiganshire ..
__ 2,160
land . ..... 2,111
---
Average .... 1,203 L Average .... 1,192

. The third
rod, passes e

Moscow

[Me, from Moscow to Nishni Novgo
rough the Governments

2,591 A ) Cumberland

... 2,648

Vladimir 1,35i
Niahni Novgorod

I Merionethshire ... 1,377
Ditto ... Do.

- 1
Average ... 1,76%3 ) ) Average ...... 1,801
~The fourth, from Moscow, to Theodosia Mafia),
passes through the Governments
Mono vr - . 2,5310
Tonla ...
Orel
Konrsk 2,112'41
Kharkoff 1,202
EkaterinosLff . S2l i'a.
Taurida

Average
And the fifth line, froi
Libau, through the Govel
Kaarsk 2,112.1-;
Tschernigoff
Mohileff
Minsk .........
Wilna
Courland 1,003 t

Av;.lraga

Cumberland
Cardiganshire
Westmoreland
Cardiganshire 2,160
Radnorshire
Orkney anst Shetland 847
Argyleshire 572

Average
In Maio Arehangelsk to
rninents

Cardiganshire
Merionethshire
Kirkcudbright
Peebles
Perthshire ...
Ditto

. . I,lro 8 3

Average

... 1,200

" It will be seen that only two English counties
have been used in the comparison—viz., Cumber-
land and Westmoreland, the two i❑ which popula-
tion is the least dense ; and of these two it is only
the latter which is exceeded by the most populous
of all the governments of the Russian empire—
Moscow. The county of Kent, which, if it did not
lie between London and' Dover, would scarcely be
regarded as a favourable field for railway enterprise,
contains a population standing three times as thick
as in that government which is in the heart of
Russian commercial enterprise. _ _

" A strong Government at the head of 70,000,000
of subjects may do a great deal of mischie', if not Of
good
• 5 and if the Czar has set his heart upon these
railroads he may probably contrive to obtain them.
Most men, whether Emperors or not, can carry out
a favourable plan, if only they are determined to
snare no cost. An eminent agriculturiAt, at one of
the society's meetings a few years ago, declared that
he would grow a turnip on a deal table, and he was
Is good as his word. But what Mr. Huxtable did
not attempt, and what the
i strongest of govern-
ments will never succeed in, s to induce men who
have not been deceived by false representations to
undertake a similar task as a desirable investment.
There is no royal road to commercial development
any more than to mathematics, and if theprojected
Russian hued. are to be, profitable I will not say,
but even self-supporting, it is useless to set them on
foot until at least a generation has passed away in
the enjoyment of a liberal tariff, in the accumula-
tion of capital, and the ventilation of enlightened
commercial ideas. At present, if they could be
made, they would subserve only one purpose—to
menace Western Europe by the facilities they would
offer for moving armies, and thus to revive that
oppressive sense of indefinite dread which has re-
cently been dissipated through the happy co-opera- '
tion of this country and France."