Must we, then, accept for Russia the Malthus doctrine that population increases more rapidly than the means of subsistence, and that starvation can be avoided only by plague, pestilence, war, and other destructive forces?  I think not.  It is quite true that, if the amount of land actually possessed by the peasantry and the present system of cultivating it remained unchanged, semi-starvation would be the inevitable result within a comparatively short space of time; but the danger can be averted, and the proper remedies are not far to seek.  If Russia is suffering from over-population, it must be her own fault, for she is, with the exception of Norway and Sweden, the most thinly populated country in Europe, and she has more than her share of fertile soil and mineral resources.

A glance at the map showing the density of population in the various provinces suggests an obvious remedy, and I am happy to say it is already being applied.  The population of the congested districts of the centre is gradually spreading out, like a drop of oil on a sheet of soft paper, towards the more thinly populated regions of the south and east.  In this way the vast region containing millions and millions of acres which lies to the north of the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Caspian, and Central Asia is yearly becoming more densely peopled, and agriculture is steadily encroaching on the pastoral area.  Breeders of sheep and cattle, who formerly lived and throve in the western portion of that great expanse, are being pushed eastwards by the rapid increase in the value of land, and their place is being taken by enterprising tillers of the soil.  Further north another stream of emigration is flowing into Central Siberia.  It does not flow so rapidly, because in that part of the Empire, unlike the bare, fertile steppes of the south, the land has to be cleared before the seed can be sown, and the pioneer colonists have to work hard for a year or two before they get any return for their labour; but the Government and private societies come to their assistance, and for the last twenty years their numbers have been steadily increasing.  During the ten years 1886-96 the annual contingent rose from 25,000 to 200,000, and the total number amounted to nearly 800,000.  For the subsequent period I have not been able to obtain the official statistics, but a friend who has access to the official sources of information on this subject assures me that during the last twelve years about four millions of peasants from European Russia have been successfully settled in Siberia.

Even in the European portion of the Empire millions of acres which are at present unproductive might be utilised.  Any one who has travelled by rail from Berlin to St. Petersburg must have noticed how the landscape suddenly changes its character as soon as he has crossed the frontier.  Leaving a prosperous agricultural country, he traverses for many weary hours a region in which there is hardly a sign of human