The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-07-30
THE SIBERIA OF TODAY.
No Longer to he Known as n Land of
Torture and Horrors


and Russian life. Apart from whatever
| merit the book may hsye--a point on which
tue recoiiections of few people. probably.
are clear enough to speak-there was
something about the penalty of banish-
nent' and bsuishment to Siberia which
zoos an extraordinary hold on the imagina-
tion' The enormous distance which th,.
exiles had to travel. the Arctic climate an,
surroundings in which they were sun,osea
to be doomed to drag out what remained
of life. the inlpossibility of escape except
at the cost Of untold risk and suffering
! all helped to make a picture OF appalling
cruelty. The horror was heightened by
| the circumstance that the whole body OF
exiIes was popularity invested with an in
terest which really belonged to a single
| ana that small. class No one remam-
oered the crimes of which the majority
had neen guilty. they were all assumed to
DC sufferers Tor conscience sake. Siberia,
| IN the imagination. at all events. of Vest
! ern Europeans. was peopled by politiea.
prisoners. 1t is quite conceivable that the
French judges who sent conspirators
| against the Second Empire to Cayenne,
| with comfortable conviction that they
were doing service to society discoursed
to their children when they went home on
the wickedness of the Russian system of
political punishment
It Is possible that II the popular idea
Of Siberia and its exiIes had been nearer
the truth the Cars latest reform might
| not have been proclaimed. Had Siberia
resembled the North Pole as closely as We
thought when we were children. it would
have mattered very little By whom 1t was
peopled- Had all the exiles been sent to
Siberia for political reasons, they might
have gone on living there without the
Russian Government taking any further
thought about them. But the true ST.
IBERIA and the real exile5 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 hY
their winter climate. and this has been
specially the case with Siberia. For many
years past geographefs and men OF science
have known the value of some. at all
events, OF the vast provinces which So
under this general name, and the slow
development OF Russian policy In the Fer
East has of late turned the mind of the
Government in the same direction The
great Siberian railway has not been con-
strueted merely to carry prisoners. II it
has its political end in Manchuria 1t has
its economic end on the road to Man
ehuria, The vast plains over which the
new line is carried have agricultural pos
sfbilitiss yet to be developed, and in the
coordination OF farming and mineral in
dustry the Russian Government sees, or
thinks 1t sees a future Of unexampIed
prosperity. But how is the country to be
pecDled? That is a problem which pre-
sents no difficulty to a Russian statesman.
He is confronted by the spectacle OF pow
erty 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
waiting for some one to cultivate it.
Russia, like Ireland. has her congested
districts-congested in point OF proportion
OF population to means of subsistence il
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 it, and no change of
life or administration TO encounter on their
arrival.
ASS 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
Erglishmen are accustomed TO seeing n it.
1t may give men a chance OF making new >
lives for themselves which no other way :
of dsposing of them can give in the same /.
degree. 1t may plant a population n re-
gions which. though no one would ever
go to them of their own accord. yet can
be mode habitable and even profitable,
IL inhabitants can once be got there. But
there is one thing which a transportation
system will not do. 1t will not doyetail
into a system of voluntary labor. Emil
grants do not care to work side by side
with conyicts, or 70 see their children in
termarrying with the children of convicts.
Consequently, as the future of Siberia grew
in Importance, as its possibilities as a
field for emigration became better known,
as the centre Of gravity for the Empire
tended to move eastward. and the Asiatic
provinces played larger and larger part
in the dreams of Russian politicians. the
question how to relieve Siberia from the
convict faint must often have presented
itself to the Gear and his advisers. The
result Of their meditations on it issyisibls
in the news that has come to hand this
week. The Gar, 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 forcibly bring
home to us what Siberian exile meant to
the sufferers. In future, a criminal SEN
fenced to imprisonmeHt-the penalty which
is to take the place Of that which is to be
lone away with-will lose his freedom for
the term of his sentence and nothing
more. When he comes out CT prison he will
resume the ordinary relations OF life,
which have only been suspended during his
detention. But the sentence Of Punishment
% Siberia carried with it civil and social
ieath. The property OF the criminal went
o his heirs; the wife or husband of the
criminal was free to marry again; what
.ver provision he had made for the guar
lianship Of his children came at once into
fleet. TIE sense of impossible distance
ay at the root OF all these provisions
family relations imply the possibility Of
ihysical contact, and Siberia was so far
#. and the means OF intercourse with its
Inhabitants so wholly wanting. that 1t
eemed natural to assume that the criminal
lad actually passed out of the world So
ong as the conditions Of life in Siberia
ent themselves to this view OF the criIni-
iaTs position the punishment was deter
ent in the highest degree. But with rail-
Fays and population IL must have soor,
cme to be regarded in very different and ~
much less serious light. In that case the
Elections to using Siberia as a place Of
enlistment would have retained all their
cree, while the supposed advantages Of
his method OF punishment would have dis
ppeared
There can be no question. therefore, even
! the minds of the most conservative Rus
ians as to the wisdom Of the step the
gar has taken. 1t must, so to ssy, have