The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-08-03

tsI some, at all events, or the vast prov inces which go under this general name, and the slow development or Russian policy in the far east has or late turned the mind of the government in the same direction. The great Slbe- rian railway has not been constructed merely to carry prisoners. If it'has its political end in Manchuria, it has its economic end on the road to Manchu- ria. The vast plains over which the new line is carried have agricultural possibilities yet to be developed, and in the combination of farming and mlne~ ral industry the Russian government sees, or thinks it sees, future or un- eXampled prosperity. But how IS the country to be peopled? That is pro- blenl which presents no difficulty to Russian statesman. He is confronted by the spectacle of poverty nearer home, and the simplest way to remedy this is to move the Russian peasants from land where they are too thick upon the ground to land which is wait ing for some one to cultivate 1t. Rus- sia, like Ireland, has her congested dis tricts--congested in point of proportion of population to means Of subsistence II not in proportion of inhabitants to the square mile-but Russia, unlike Ireland, has ground enough and to spare for her | whole population. with no sea to cross in order to get to 1t, and no change of life or administration to encounter on their arrival.
 As soon as this state of things came to be realized the Russian authorities ppt but ,.acnpci5e- inc Cnrtrihu- ton they have hitherto been making to the settlement of the provinces in ques- ton. They have managed to associate Siberia with crime, and with the pun ishment of crime. It has been the emp ty space into which the criminals of the empire have been shot like so much rubbish. The transportation system may have more advantages than Eng | lishmen are accustomed to see in 1t. It may give men a chance of making new | lives for themselves which no other way of disposing of them can give in the same degree. It may plant popu- lation in regions which, though no one would ever go to them of their own ac- cord, can yet be made habltable, and even profitable, if inhabitants can once be got there. But there is one thing which a transportation system will not do. It will not dovetail into system Of voluntary labor. Emigrants do not ] care to work side by side with convicts, kor to see their children intermarrying with the children of convicts. Conse- | ouently, as the future of Siberia grew l in importance, as its possibilities as field for emigration became better | of uitu f0r thp empire tended to move eastward. and the Asiatic provinces played a larger and larger part In the dreams of Rus sian politicians, the question how to re- leve Siberia from the convict ta1nt must often have presented itself to the czar and his advisers. The result or their meditations on 1t Is visible in the news that has come to hand this week. The czar we learn. has abolished exile to Siberia.
 One of the most striking incidents of exile has been abolished at the same time, and nothing perhaps could so for cibly bring home to us what Siberian exile meant to the sufferers. In future, a criminal sentenced to imprisonment the penalty which is to take the place or that which is to be done away with will lose his freedom for the term of his sentence and nothing more. When he comes out of prison he will resume the ordinary relations of life, which have only been suspended during his deten- tion. But the sentence of banishment to Siberia carried with it civil and so- cial death The property of the criml- nal went to his heirs; the wife or hus- | a.i, i.,a1 1tyu fraa fp again; whatever provision he had made for the guardianship of his children came at once into effect. The sense or impossible distance lay at the root Of all these provisions. Family relations imply the possibility of physical con tact, and Siberia was so far off, and the means of intercourse with it's inhabi- tants so wholly wanting, that it seemed natural to assume that the criminal had actually passed out of the world. 50 long as the conditions of life in Siberia lent themselves to this view of the crim- inal's position the punishment was de- terrent in the highest degree. But with railways and population it must have soon come to be regarded in a very diff ferent and much less serious light In that case the objections to using Siberia as place of punishment would have retained all their force, while the sup posed advantages of this method of punishment would have disappeared.
 There can be no question, therefore, even in the minds of the most conseiva- tive Russians, as to the wisdom of the step the czar has taken, It must, so to say, have been taken for him by the opening of the railway and the growth of population. That it marks an ad- vance in the treatment of prisoners may also, we think, be assumed The hardships of the journey, often very terrible, and the completeness of the consequent separation from every earthly tie. must have been great un- designed addition to the severity of the punishment. Though Russian prisons may have terrors of their own, they are less remote as regards situation and so far, less removed from the possibill- ! 4 vEAf,,n n.