The New York herald., 1921-04-03


4 great industrial centre, it is built far
from the coal and grain and mineral dis
tricts, so that il is difficult TO supply
IL with food and fuel and the labor or
supplying il, especially during the win
ter, uses up a tremendous amount of
energy which might be more profitably
expended In other ways.
Like Having Pittsburgh In Alaska.
1t is as though Pittsburgh instead OF
being where II is, were situated in Alas
ka and supplied there with coal, iron
ore and food at an expenditure of
energy which would exhaust the re-
sources even of the United States.
Lenipe has consequently decided to
dismantle gradually the Petrograd fac
tories and move them into the Donetz
Basin district and into the Urals, and
he has actually moved much of the ma
chinery already. The workmen of
course, will move with them and Russia's
centre of gravity will be shifted south
east while Petrograd will be left TO
wither, decayed monument of imperial
folly.
There is just a possibility, however,
that the swamps on which 1t stands will
gradually be encroached upon by the
Finno- Ugraic races, to which those
swamps rightfully belong, as histor~r
and the slightly Russified place names
of the region testify. Within fifty years
the Esthonians and Films may have all
the Gulf of Finland to themselves, with
their common frontier at the Neva. There
Is a great deal of Finnish blood, not
only in the Petrograd region but also
throughout all northern Russia as far
arc not exactly Finnish they certainly
belong to a cognatc race.
If the old fashioned Russians get back
they may not, therefore, find Russia quite
so big as 1t was, especially as the prac-
teal independence which Lenine has been
forced to accord to many of the l5O
different races which make UP the for
mer Russian empire will probably be
permanent The slogan of "self-determi-
nation has reverberated TO the ex-
tremes of Asia and Is acting in Russia as
4 disso,vent Of a most powerful kind.
All the Caucasian States have cut the
painter and the Tartar Republic on the
Nolga, north Of the Caspian, enjoys
practical independence. North OF them
lies the BashlSir Republic, and there are
also the Turcomans, the Syranni, the
Cherimyshl. the Shuvashi and many
others. The Tartars and the Bashkirs
are so advanced In civilization that the
Russians may never reconquer them,
especially as tne ftuSSldn SOluleT Will
not start again on the long Pacific trail.
He would never have done SO had 1t not
been for the pressure exercised on him
by a strong predatory government at
Moscow
Sccrs i'm Baltic Republics.
There are no better informed states
men in the world on present happenings
in Russia and none better placed for
guessing what Is going to occur there
than the statesmen of the new Baltic
republics. The wise men of the great
Powers have no longer their experienced
consuls and ambassadors In Petrograd
and have frequently TO rely for informa-
tlon on secret agents who sometimes fall
into the hands of the extraordinary
commission which makes them work
against their masters.
The Russian emigres, that is, the
escaped grand dukes. generals, cabinet
ministers and functionaries are worse
than useless, having lost touch with the
real situation and being invariably
buoyed up by a confidence that has no