RUSSIA OF TO-DAY

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 17, 27 April 1905, Page 3

RUSSIA OF TO-DAY

The present internal troubles of Russia have drawn the attention of the civilised world to the conditions which obtain in that unwieldly empire ; its wonderfully diversified character, its strange mixture of races and languages, and the habits and mode of life of its people. Russia is ranked as one of tne great Powers, not because of her huge bulk, which means nothing at all, but because of her natural equipment and the possibilities that lie in her future development. No empiie »pi the world, with anything like the territorial size of Russia, has ever nad her compactness. Her flag floats over nearly one-sixth of the total land surface ©f the globe, nearly 9,000,000 square miles, stretched clear across the northern end of the continents of Europe and Asia, an/d containing a population ol 140,000,000. In this vast extent of territory are found races of people entirely dissimilar from one another in every characteristic, no less thatn tihirty distinct languages and innumerable religious creeds and cults. The Inhabitants of Russia may be divided, for convenience, into three great branches — the Greiat Russians, with a strong admixture of Finnish blood ; the Little Russians, mixed very largely through Turkish immigration, and the White Russians, similarly affected by Lithuanian influencqs. Each ol these great branches',, it must be remembered, is again divided into innumerable smaller peoples. The Great Russians, numblering abp.ut 60,000,000, live in a vast territory bounded by the White Sea, the Ural MoJum tains, the River Volga, and a line drawn straight down fflom the Gulf of Onega to the province of Kursk. The Great Russians are also found stretched through Southern Siberia and along the courses of the River Lena and the Am)ur. Ttie Little Russians, about 20,000,000 in number, live along the steppes of Southern Russia and the southwestern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. They spread into Northern Caucasia. The White Russians, numbering about 6,000,000, occupy a splendid tract northwest of the Caspian Sea, and from there asp to the central plateau of the hills surrounding the Valley of the Volga. The Baltic Finns, northern Finns, and Volga Finns numlber about 5,000,000. In addition to these Russia has large populations of Poles, Bulgarians, Czechs, Servs, Lithuanians, Greeks, Roumanians, Armenians, Georgians, Tartars, Kalmucks, Germans, and a dozen other nationalities, b,ut all welded together in one common despotisim more or less paternal or cruel, as lofcal conditions may determine, and all suffering in greater or less tlegree from the ourse of bureaucracy, vhich extends even into the most remote districts. Naturally enough the enormous diversity of races brings albout a similar confusion in religious thought and activity. BesMe the numerous forms of Christianity, people under Russian rule profess Mahommetdjajiism, Shamanism, and Buddhism. The, great majority of Russians pflojper profess the Greek orthodox faith, or one of the numberless varieties of nonconformity in that faith. Most of the Poles and Lithuanians are Catholics ; the Western Finns, Germans, arjd Swedes are Protestants. The Tartars and Bashkirs are Mahommadans. The Vast Domains of Siberia ; the mysterious Asiatic provinces of the empire, including mixed races of Arabs, Persians, Turkomans, and Jews ; the enormous stretch of country running to the Arctic Ocean and stretching from the Yenesei River to the Pacific, wheJre the fearless race of Tunguses live ; the great Giliak tribes, inhabiting the tract from the lower Amut to the Sea of Okhotsk, who live entirely on fish <and clotflie themselves with skins ; the wide Cossack territories, the types of great physical beauty known as Georgians, who live in Transcaucasia ; the Svans, noma/dic tribes that roam through the Caucasus and have never yet been subjugateS— and the many milliona of peaceful Russian peasantry, all crossing and recrossing in various strains, marrying and intermarrying, go to niiake up weird and fantastic contrasts. These not only make it difficult for concerted educational movements to gather much headway among the masses, but also allow the petty officers of the autocracy to exercise within their own remote districts a sway as cruel and despotic as they please without the knowledge of their acts travelling very far beyond the peasantry immediately affected. The immensity of Russia and the enormous extent of Tier matdriial resources, become immediately apparent no matter what little cornier of the ermpite we choose to learn about. Russia's Siberian provinces alone are 300JO0O 'sjquare miles larger tWan the 1 , United States, Alaska,, 'arid Europe all together.

In latitude Russia extends as tar as from Greenland to the Island of Cuba. On the Taimyr peninsula, eapt of the Gulf of Obi, the ground, frozen most of the year, thaws out in summer only to t|he depth of a few inches and siuppoorts a scant growth of moss and nothing else. In the southern piart of Western Siberia thousands of tons of melons are grown every yeax, and the poas^ ants harvest more that 50,000,000 bushels of grain and grow ejnormous quantities of tobacco. One) great error in the general conception of Siberia is destroyed in a moment when we learn of the temperature registered in/great sections of it. To look on this wotntferful territory as all cold and barren and icebornnd is mi error as great as- it would be to consider all North America of the same physical character and aspect as Hudson's Bay. In Siberia there is a belt of country 500 miles wide, lying alonjg the central Asiatic and Mongolian frontier, with dozens of large towns that have a higher moan temperature during the months of June, July, and August than most parts of New Zealand. Constitution and Government. The Government of Russia is an absolute hereditary Monarchy. The whole legislative, executive, arid judicial power is united in the emperor, whose will alone i» law. There are, however, certain rules of government which the sovereigns of tHe present reigning house have acknowledged as binding. The chief of these is the law of succession to the throne, which is that of regular descent, by the right of primogeniture, with preference of male over female heirs. Another fundamental law of the realm is that every sovereign of Russia, with hiss consort and children, must be a member of the Orthodox Greek Chinch. The administration of the empire is entrusted to four great Councils possessing separate functions. The first of these is the Council of the State, consisting of a president and an unlimited number of members appointed by the Emperor. This Council is divided into three departments, namely, of Legislation,, of Cfvil and Church Administration, arid of Finajnce. The chief function of the Council of State is that of, examining into the projects of laws which are brought before it by the Ministers, and of discussing the Budget and all the expenditure to T>e made during the year. The second of the great Councils is the Ruling Senate, the functions of which are partly of a deliberative and partly of an executive character. To be valid a law rmust be prormilglated by the Senate, which is alslo the High Court of Justice for the empire. The third Council, or board of government, is the Holy Synod, to which is committed the superintendence of the religious afilairs of the empire. The fourth consists of all the Minsters. Local Government. The empire Is divided into vice-royalties, governments, iand districts. At the head of each vice-royalty is a governor-general, the representative of the Emperor, who has the supreme control and direction of all affairs, whether civil or military. These divisions are sub•divided into districts, which are again split up Into parishes, or communes in European Russia, the government of which is in the hands of the people, who elect their own assemblies and local officials. On the whole the peiople, as far as the management of local affairs is concerned, have a good deal more liberty than is generally sMppiasea, but much depends on the character of the viceroys ana governors,