THE LAND OF THE FUTURE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVII, Issue XLVII, 8 March 1912, Page 6

THE LAND OF THE FUTURE.

.RUSSIA'S CHEAT SCHEME OF SIBERIAN EXPANSION. Russia's dramatic coup in the Far East, by which she lias deprived the Chinese Empire of the vast province of Outer .Mongolia, will not only add a million square miles of territory and some 3,000,000 people to th e Russian sphere of influence, but also means another step forward in the groat sch • - t Sibor.an expansion which have occupied the <>overnment unceasingly since the war w.th Japan. Siberia, Russia's vast hinterland, stretching from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, has long been recognised as a land of immense potentialities. Once it was the land of the exile. Now it is the land of the emigrant, where the Russian peasant under his own flag may find a new home and newopportunities. The policy of peopling Siberia received a set-back from the war. but immediately peace was declared the Government" again turned its attention eastward, and since then the tide of emigration to the east has been constantly incrw i i volume.

To-day the population of the 4,817,637 square miles comprising Siberia. is 8,220,100. or under two people to thesquare mile. When it is pointed out that in European Russia the population averages 62 persons to the square mile it will be understood what vast solitudes there remain to be filled. RICHES OF SIBERIA. In the popular imagination .especially the» imagination fed by melodrama and sensational fiction, Siberia is a desert waste, icebound and snow-covered, with salt mines dotted here and there, in which victims of Russian tyranny grind out their lives in daily misery. As a matter of fact it is a country, with wide stretches of rich black earth, waiting only for the farmer to become fruitful, with, vast hidden stores of coal, iron, silver, and even gold, and with magnificent forests, rivalling in their lumber possibilities the great 'wooden harvests ot the American Continent.

Whether it be soon or late, it is a country destined to play a larg e part in the production of the world's food supply, and even to-day, when its development had but begun, it is producing 170,000,000 poods—a pocd equalling 36lbs—of cereals a year, while great flocks of sheep are being reared on :ts great prairies and steppes. Despite the evidences on all hands, however, of the possibilities of the country, comparatively little has been dene. Its cultivated area is but a patch on the vast tracts of virgin soil, its immense coal deposits- have °niy been scratched, while its timber —in the Amur and maritime provinces alone there are 509,000,000 acres of forest land—is still uncut. Many schemes for the creation of new industries and the exploitation of the vast mineral and agricultural wealth of the country have been put forward, but the difficulties in the way have militated against success. The greatest want of STberia is railways, and now that the Government is realising this th e new era for the country is beginning to open UP " A MATTER OF MILLIONS.

The first great achievement in this direction was the construction of the great Siberian railway, in wluch over £140.000.000 was sunk before it was completed. It stretches from Moscow to Vladivostok, a distance of 5527 milts, every inch, except the last strip acros** Manchuria, being in Russian territory. This great achievement was but the foundation, as it were, of the Russian Government's plans for the development of its great eastern possession. Other immense railway schemes have since been projected, and in some cases decided on, involving the expenditure ot further vast sums of money. They may be summarised as follows :

Doubling and improving the present railway ..£22,000.030 Opening up Southern Siberia by a line running from Orsk through Orenburg to Semipalatinsk and Barnaul to the railway at Taiga ... £18.000,000 Connecting up St. Petersburg with a direct line to the Siberian railway, hitherto approached only via Moscow . £9.000,0C0 The Amur line, connecting the Siberian railway witli the eastern coast round the north of Manchuria, thus making it possible to travel from east to west entirely in Russian territory £31,000.000 A branch line from east of "Lake 'Baikal to Kaj:hkta through the Gobi Desert in Mongolia through Urga, and on to Pekin £IS,COO.OuG This gives a total sum of £95,C00,000 which Russia is planning to spend on the opening up of her Eastern Empire. COMMERCIAL POSSIBILITIES. So far as the line to Pekin is concerned, it was at first proposed that Russia should bear the cost of the line to Kaihkta, and that the remainder of the work should be carried on by the Chinese authorities. Now Russia announces that she has determined to construct the railway herself as far as Urga, in Mongolia, in order to tap the trad e route through Mongolia into China. The continuation of the line to i: ekin is a matter for the future, and it will be probably constructed under interna.tional auspices should the condition of China make her unwilling or unable to undertake the work. i The great commercial possibilities 1 | Siberia are already being recognised n Europe, especially in Germany. Since the war the Russian objection to foreign consuls has been withdrawn, and the German Government, ever awake to the interests of its trading community, has established consuls in all the important towns along the Siberian railway, while German commercial travellers are ajready to be found busily selling thei* wares from one end of Siberia to tlio other. A few British consuls are also .t • •->© found there, but so far the possibilities of the country have bsen recogn.sed in but a half-hearted manner, both by the British Government and British merchants.