THE REAL SIBERIA.

Otago Witness, Issue 2623, 22 June 1904, Page 72

THE REAL SIBERIA.

SOME SELECTIONS I'ROM MR JOHN FOSTER FRASER'S BOOK "THE I REAL SIBERIA." } Siberia, to that useful but ill-informed individual, "the man in the street," i.« a horrible stretch of frigid desert, dotted with I gaunt prison houses, and the tracks over tiie steppes are marked -with the bones of exiles who have died beneath the -weight of , chain-, starvation, and the inhospitable treatment of savage Russian soldier*. Britishers and Americans love to sup on , horrors. An Armenian atrocity, the life of ' Captain Dreyfus on, Devil's Island, the slow death of men chained to barrows in Si- , beiian mines, all that is gruesome and cruel, j thrills ! It is the convict life of Siberia — i 5-0 contrary to all that we enlightened ones ■ of the West think right — that we have deI pioted luiidly in books of travel, magazine articles', and in melodiama. j It is not so much becatise travelleis have ' "mitten about Tihat they have never ?etn. as the insatiable thirst of the public for sensation that has been ministered to. i Prison horrors are more attractive than i i methods of cattle-rearing, and so the ten- j dency has been for writeis to pick out the woi'it feature in Sibeiia, the convict system, weave together all the dreadful stories they can find, dwel! on the horrible life in | tii3 snow, uni.l the rublic, reading ?bo"t nothing but convicts and snow in Sibeiia, imagine that Sibeiia has nothing to show but convicts and snow. I had not. hoy. ever, been long in Sibc-ria before I realised that the deM.ie on the pait of witters to give the public something dramatic to read about { had led thcin to exiggerate quc feature.

of Silxiian life, and to pi.ii.ln.. illy luylcct the r<?\l Sibeikt, full (if iiHeie-t, but lacking sensation.

Ay ay noith, Vi litre the land boidei^ ti.f Arctic, there is no ve^talioii but mo >-.<■■ .1,!,! luhen. Ueneith that, souths aid 1 -, comes the greot forest zone, a belt of e'en?' in,, d.-, 2.000 mill 11 ! vide, nimung ca^t and vest across Asia. But further south still is the agricultural region, through which 1 travelled, and -which the Russian author] tie* s cm aidently anxious to develop, and it in this region, between the Urals and Lake -b.uka], thai there ar^ thoiis-unl'- oi mi't.-. Oi country vs flat as a billiard table, iuh! t-iousands ot miles of pkasmlly undulating wooded land — not, I admit, a^place to go in search of picturesque scenery, but about as fair as I have scon, and xipe for agricultuial project?. There is hardly any spring in Siberia, the change from the" long "ninltr to the blazing summer being little moie than the matter of a fortnight. To talk of a Siberian winter is, I know, to make one shudder. Yet in «11 the 1 towns I visited people said, "Why do you come here in th« summer, when our roads are so -dusty? It is in winter we have a good time. It is cold, 30deg of frost, but you don"t feel it much, lor it h so dry and tho air so still. The sky is cloudless for a month at a time. Then the sledging — ah, it is when the sledging is in full "swing you should see a Siberian town!'' What impressed me as soon as I crossed the Ural 3 •was that the human race — beyond a few migratory tribes — should not have flourished more in this land. Yet, now, since the opening of the railway, the Russian Government is almost going on hs knees to induce European Russians, who, on the southern sandy steppes, find it so hard to make both ends meet, to emigiate to Siberia. Eurojrean Russia is thinly enough populated in all truth. But the parts good enough for cultivation, arc under peasant proprietorship, and a father's land is divided among the sons, so each generation has a smaller and smaller piece of ground to nurture. The more venturesome have their eyes of Siberia, -nheie they hope a less starvation life is to be got. 'ihere has been a .steady flood of emigrants to this side the Urals. On some of the trains, are fourth-class carnages, about as bare as a guard's van on an English 1 goods train, and as much lacking m luxury. But the absence of cushions and lavatory accommodation does not. I fan-cy, trouble the newcomers. Most of them have 0 stolid content. They pay about a shilling fare per hundred miles. In cases of j need the (Government will make an advance of £10 without interest.

A Russian who desires to emigrate here must get permission from the authorities. The pel-mission is necessary, for land has to be allotted, and arrangements made for State officials to conduct the parties. For the fiist three ysais no immigrant is called upon to pay taxes. In Western Siberia a grant of some 32 English square miles U made to every man, and in some cases there is an additional grant of six miles of forest. In Central Siberia the extent of the grant is determined by the quality of the land. As the settlers are practically State tenants, sale and mortgage of land is forbidden. U an immigrant has a little money, and wants to purchase a particular strip, he can, however, do *o on paltry terms. Near the large towns the cost for a square verst (a ver&t is about two-thirds of a mile) ranges from 10s to 12s, whilst in other places good land can be bought for 6s a, versl. ' The buyer must deposit half the sum in the local treasury. This ensures the delivery oi the land for three years' use for profits. j. ull pioprietorship is obtained by the buyer spending, on plant and working, a sum not less than twice the cost of allotment.

From 1893 to 1901, 18,900,000 acres of State laud in Western Siberia were*transformed into immigiation plots. May is the month when the tide of immigration sets in. As Russian official red tape is quite as slow unwinding as elsewhere, there are often huge crowds of emigrants at .stations, thousands even, waiting for days till they can be conducted to their plots. Naturally enough, there is miseiy among the ignorant iinmnigrants who get dumped in a particulardistrict, knowing little about the climate or the soil. So the Government have appointed Commissions of Inquiry, though neither the immigrant nor those a/ready settled have any voice. Further, there has been organised among Russian philanthropists a Relief Committee winch has representatives at 30 stations wh-eie immigrants chiefly stoi), and these men give advice to the discouraged and sick. I confessed to being amazed by the inducements held out so that Siberia may be speedily peopled. Not-, only at every station is Ihe big steaming samovar, so that hot water may be oblaired for the constant occupation of teadrinking, but at every station is a big chest of medic v: appliances, and there is always an official who mtisi know how to render first aid to the injured. Food for cnildreti, sick peisous, and indigent may be got fr^e. Other immigrants buy their "food at cost price. Then, on arriving at theiv destination, the Immigrants leceivo seed fiom the Government for nest to nothing.