The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-13
OBJECT LESSON
 IN PA1ERNALlSM
POVERTY or RUSSIAN MASSES DUE TO WASTEFULNESS OF
 THAT SYSTEM.
The Country's Tea Trade an nlustra- tion-Growth of Socialism in This Country Following Lines
 of Labor Union Agitation.

Washington poverty of the Rus sian masses Is due chiefly to the waste fulness of Russian paternalism," re- marked a retired army officer to-day. who has long made a study of Russian affairs. His thesis and the illustrations with which he supports it would make excellent material for labor unionists to consider Nearly all the plans which are proposed on this holiday for social bet torment sift down to more paternal- ism" If the railroads are not managed in the interests of the people. the Labor Day orator declares, let the government take them and run them. The specific is the same for street cars, and gas and electricity, and a score of the services of the world. The Russian government is to-day fulfilling in most respects the purposes which many persons think that our government should serve. and yet that very paternalism is an assigned req son for its economic backwardness.
 The illustration which Pierre Leroy Beaulieu gives of the way Russian pa- ternalism affects the tea trade Is case in point. The Russians are probably the greatest tea drinkers in the world. Han kow, on the Yang-tsze. in China. is their great supply market. There are two ways by which its output may reach the Rus sian consumers: one is by sea via Odes sa, and the other is overland. largely on camel back. From official data. regis tered in 1S93 it costs s9.s0 to convey pood, or thirty-six of our pounds, from Hankow to Nijni-Novgorod, while the same quantity of tea can be transported through the Suez canal to Odessa, and from there to Mini by rail for $3.12 Economic laws have marked out the tea route. but Russian paternalism, assum- ing to be wiser than nature. sketches different course. At Odessa the custom house authorities meet the tea with a duty of ST for the pood, while at Kiakh- ta ,on the other route, they ask but ss.72 on leaf tea. and less than one- fourth as much on the tea pressed into bricks. such as the poorer people use.
 The immediate and outward effects of the radical piece of paternalism are, of course, good; it's real effects would be, could consuming interest be ignored This transit supplies thousands of Siber- ians with livelihood. Tea begins to pour into Kiaktha in November; in December 1t is not uncommon to see 5000 boxes de- livered daily. Tea destined for this point from Hankow, as he described the pro- cess in 1900 is first sent by boat to Tien- tsin. whence it goes up the Pei-ho on junks to the foot of the Great Wall, where 1t is packed on the backs of cam els. It's first journey is one of 300 miles across the desert to Urga. the sacred town of Mongolia. Transport can take place only at this end of the line in Oc- tober when the roads are hardening with frosts and the camels have return ed from their summer pasturage. These camels are hired from the Mongolians, and for them the tea merchants have to compete vigorously. since there is great profit for those who secure the first of the crop of tea. certain quantity of tea is also conveyed in little Mongolian carts which, in turn, carry back wood.
 The camels are unloaded at Kiaktha, and the wicker boxes, each containing about 15O pounds of tea. are divested of the camel's hair covering which has serv- ed to protect them across the desert of Obi, where rain is almost unknown. For the rest of the journey across Siberia it is necessary to screen them with water proof covering. The earlier teas which arrive are carried by sledge for the next stage of their journey although river boats and ultimately the railroads help in their further conveyance. The out lines of this trip show something of the difficulties of getting tea by an over land route through such a stretch of country; 1t often takes a year from the time of gathering the leaves. The mo- ton that this method of conveyance i'm proves the quality of the tea is regarded by experts as something of a supersti- tion. In any event it must ride many miles on the sea. and that Is the sup posed deteriorating influence. The Han kow-Peking Railroad will doubtless cut out the sea trip, but this had not be- come a factor when Beaulieu wrote his scholarly treatise on the subject. The Siberian Railroad. great as its ef- fleets as a trade route have been, does not remove the need of government sub vention if 1t is to compete with water borne freight. This 1t gets in the form of lower duties at it's ports of entry. The iron horse and the camel are treated alike whenever economic law would of itself decide against either.
 Tea costs, after these transportation charges and miGdlemen's profits have been met, about five times its value where it grows. This the Russian consumer has to pay for. The difference between the du- ties at Odessa and those by the land route the Russian treasury loses No one gains the difference: 1t is wasted in an expensive method of transportation. It comes to pass thaat, although tea Is the great drink of Russia. occupying a larger place in the country's social life than al most any article that we have in America, the peasantry drink a wretched quality made from sleeping of the leaves over and over again till the decoction is only straw -colored water. Suppose the Rus sian Government left this business to economic law and assessed on the water borne tea only the duty that she now col lects from that which comes overland. what would be the result? Tea would be cheaper. Her people would consume more of it. Business of the transporting agen- cies would increase by leaps and bounds. Perhaps some of the money that the peasantry saved in ths way they would expend on something else. and so employ the labor temporarily thrown out by sidy But this would not be paternal- ism.
 Russia's railroads are largely in Gov ernment control. and efforts are now mak. ing to bring into line those not already so. Her steel works are Government works on the theory that the Government Is the great and almost the only consumer in Russia of this article. and that war necessities demand that 1t should be In- der the Czar's hand. In other manufac- turing industries the tie between Govern ment and laborer Is very close. but her paternalism costs; her people are poor
 The United States Is so rich, individual. ism is so well developed that such little touches of Government control as We have do little harm. There is hardly one of them, perhaps. that does not entail a less on the everyday consumer, Why do the labor unionists of socialistic inclina- tion rejoice in having an industry turned over to the Government, when. as sure as night follows day, the products of tha. Industry will cost vastly more than if left to private enterprise. and somebody