The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1900-07-29
Siberia No More.

IF is six yenrs short OF a century since
Mime Coffin published Elizabeth; gu,
Les Exiles de Sibere. and during all this
time children have drawn from its pages
their first notions of Russian Government
and Russian life Apart from whatever
merit the book may have-a point on
which the recollections Of few people,
probably are clear enough to speak-there
was something about the penalty of ban
:shment and Punishment to Siberia, which
took an extraordinary hold on the imagi-
nation The enormous distance which the
exiles had to travel, the Arctic climate
and surroundings in which they were
supposed to be doomed to drag out what
remained of life, the impossblity of es-
cape except at the cost OF untold risk nnd
suffering-all helped TO make a picture OF
appalling cruelty. The horror was height
ened by the Circumstance that the whole
body Of ex:les were popularity invested
with an interest which really belonged to
a single, and that a small. clnss No one
remembered the crimes Of which the ma
jority had been guilty: they were all as
sumed TO be sufferers for conscience's
sake. Siberia in the Imagination, at all
events, of Western Europeans. was peo-
pied by political prisoners. 1t is quite
conceivable that the French judges, who
sent consprators against the Second En-
pire to Cayenne. with comfortable con-
viction that they We're doing a service to
society," discoursed to their children when
they went home on the wckedness of the
Russian system of political punishment.
1t is possible thut if the popular idea Of
Siberia and its eXes had been nearer the
truth the Cars latest reform might not
have been proclaimed. Iad Siberia re-
sembled the north pole as closely as we
thought when we We're children. it would
have mattered very little by whom it was
peopled. Had all the eXes been sent to
Siberia for political reasons. they might
have gone on living there without the Rus
sian Government taking any further
thought about them. But the true Siberia
and the real exiles brought in a different
set of considerations. The Siberia of fact
has very little in common with the Siberia
of fiction. 1t has been the fate of many
countries to be judged entirely by their
winter climate, and this has been specially
the case with Siberia. For many years
past geographers and men Of science have
known the value of some. at all events,
of the vast provinces which go under
this general name, and the slow develop
ment Of Russian policy in the far East
has of late turned the mind OF the Gov
eminent in the same direction. The great
Siberian railway has not been constructed
merely to carry prisoners. 1t if has its
political end in Manchur!a, it has its
economic end on the road to Manchuria.
The vast plains over which the new line
is carried have agricultural possibilities,
yet to be developed, and in the combination
of farming and mineral industry the Rus
sian Government sees, or thinks it sees, a
future of uneNampled prosperity. But
how is the country to be peopled? That
is problem which presents no difficulty
to a Russian statesman. He is confronted
by the spectacle of poverty nearer home,
and the simplest way to remedy
this is to move the Russian peas
ants from land where they are too thick
upon the ground to land which is waiting
for some one to cultivate il. Russia, like
ireland, has her congested districts-con-
gested in point of proportion of popula-
ton to means Of subsistence, if not in
proportion of inhabitants 10 the square
mile-but Russia, unlike Ireland. has
ground enough and to spare for her whole
population, with sea 10 cross in order
to get to it, and no change Of life or I'd
ministration to encounter on their arrival.
AS soon as this state Of things came TO
be realized the Russian authorities could |
not but reconsider the contribution they
have hitherto been making TO the settle |
ment of the provinces in question. They
have managed to associate Siberia with !
crime, and with the punishment of crime |
1t has been the empty space into which the |
criminals of the Empire have been shot |
like so much rubbish. The transportation |
system may have more advantages than
are accustomed to see in it.
1t may give men a chance OF making new /
lives for themselves which no other way
of d.sposing of them can give in the same |
degree. It may plant population in re-
gions which, though no one would ever
90 to them of their own accord, can yet
be made habitable. and even profitable If
inhp b:tants can once be goE there. But
there IS one thing which a transportation
system will not do. It will not dovetail INTO
a system Of voluntary labor. Emigrants do
not care to work side by side with con-
victs, or to see their children intermarry-
ing with the children of convcts Conse-
quently, as the future of Siberia grew in
Importance. as Its possibilities as field