THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY, AUGUST 5, 1889.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9435, 5 August 1889, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. MONDAY , AUGUST 5, 1889.

The relations between the Russian and the Chinese Empires are again strained, and the Russian ileet in the Pacific has been strengthened materially. In this we have another reminder that two great Pacific Powers exist to the westward, and that their respective capacities for growth, and the influence that they are likely to exercise, have yet to be appreciated. About Russia we have lately had mucli new information, and each addition to our stock shows more clearly the great future before the Asiatic possessions of that empire. Siberia is the generic name by which these great territories .are known. They stretch over nearly 2500 miles of latitude and 5000 miles of longitude. Various illustrations have been used by recent travellers to bring home to the mind the vast country which these figures indicate. One points out that a map on the six-inch scale of the British Ordnance Survey would require to be 210p feet wide. Another tells us that the whole of the great States of the United States of America might be placed in the middle of Siberia. Around it might then be placed the great Territory of Alaska, all the kingdoms and empires of Europe, with the exception of Russia herself, and there would still remain the enormous area of 300,000 square miles to spare. This 300,000 square miles, be it remembered, is half as large again as the German Empire, or, as we may put it, about three times the size of New Zealand. The people who inhabit that vast portion of the globe are largly nomads, but there are territories of great fertility, chiefly occupied by peasants living in. villages, and cultivating on their own account land allotted to them by the village. They harvest yearly more than 50 million bushels of grain. The climate in the southern part of their country is not surpassed by any in the world. Grapes, melons, and fruits of every kind flourish in the greatest luxuriance, and of the choicest quality. Flowers of great beauty and varietyabound.and for miles thecountry resembles a well-cared for garden. The plains extend over hundreds of miles, and where occupied they are cultivated with great care, though without fences or houses. The latter peculiarity is owing to the people living in these villages. Their social condition is low, and they are, as a rule, grossly uneducated, but this might be expected from the short time that, has elapsed since they were emancipated from serfdom. Progress has begun among them, its march is already perceptible, and before many years this great mass of naturally intelligent and kindly people will take their proper place in the civilised world. Among them have been scattered from Western

Russia thousands of convicts, some oil high character, exiled for political oii'ences, and who are centres of new ideas, and teachers of the rising Siberian generation. The influence of these teachers is permeating the mass, and a new nation will probably spring up, separating from Russia, finding new outlets in the Pacific, and playing its own part in the world's history. To procure such outlets is the great object of Russia in the East as in the West, and her quarrels with China are not only as a neighbour by land, but on account of her desire to possess seaports in Corea. The penalty of death, we may add, is not imposed in Russia, and the number of Siberian "exiles" is thereby materially increased. Those, however, who in other countries would be executed are generally sent to the mines, and there, in most cases, perish miserably, without mixing much with the rest of the people. ■ The Government of the Siberian Territory and of Asiatic .Russia generally is perfectly autocratic. The whole is divided into live governments, extending from the Caucasus in the west to the far distant Amur in the east. Over each a Viceroy or GovernorGeneral is placed, representing the Emperor, and possessed of arbitrary power, lie has the supreme control of military and civil affairs throughout the government, but in Siberia proper they have Councils to assist them in their deliberations. Under the Viceroy are civil governors, each with his Council, and in the twenty frontier provinces a military Governor is also appointed. The governments a re subdivided intodistriots, each with its own administrative institutions, and probably no new semi-civilised country has ever had more complete local government than Siberia in all that concerns social and economic life. In political life it is still little above the serfdom in which the people were so long kept, but the condition is suitable to their existing intelligence, and they are for the present satisfied, in this vast region there are only 301 miles of railway at work, and the whole population is legs than five millions. The railways are, however, being extended ; commerce is penetrating the country, .and life is stirring in many parts of this practically limitless territory. Of. its for tility, beauty, and great mineral and agricultural resources, all who visit Siberia speak in almost rapturous terms. China and Japan are their near neighbours in the east, and with them the relations of Russia must

inevitably grow closer every year. They may occasionally be interrupted by prospects of! war; but war, if it come, is little likely to be serious or lasting-, Russia's eyes are turned -to Europe, and her Asiatic possessions .sutler much of the wholesomest neglect, saving always the rigid military rule, and the rigid military conscription to which they arc subject.