The rest of Siberia, that is to say, the provinces watered by the Amur and the territory of the Irkutsk, which are very thinly peopled, does not produce a total of more than 5,500,000 bushels. Wheat, generally sown in spring, and oats form each about 30 per cent. of the total cereal product of Siberia. The balance is made up of rye, barley and buckwheat. The arable land has to undergo, especially when first reclaimed from the steppe, the usual process of preparation, manuring, etc. The Siberian peasants have not acquired even the most rudimentary knowledge of agricultural science, and, consequently, often have to abandon their farms. On the other hand, in certain favourable regions, in the Governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk, where the earth is exceptionally rich, the pastures have gone on fairly well for over a hundred years without any sensible diminution in the excellence of their grazing properties. However, land is so abundant in Siberia that often the peasants, when they find after they have reclaimed it that its productive qualities decrease, rather than be bothered with a repetition of the processes of manuring, etc., pack up their traps and migrate elsewhere, literally, to ‘fresh woods and pastures new,’ where probably the foot of man has never trod.

In Siberia, as stated already, great land-owners are non-existent. The soil is, therefore, exclusively in the hands of the peasants, but up to the present the mir collective communal property-ship, as is found throughout Russia, is quite exceptional, and then only in the more sparsely peopled parts of the west. Since 1896, however, the Government has decided to introduce, if not practically, at least theoretically, the mir principle as it exists in European Russia. Nevertheless, in Siberia the commune is not supposed to possess property, but simply to hold it on the principle of usufruct, the whole land belonging to the Crown. In those parts of the country which are nearly uninhabited the zaïmka system still holds good, whereby a peasant, although he may be a resident in a village, is allowed to build himself a hut on the steppe or in the forest where he passes the summer, and where he can cultivate and even enclose one or two large fields which are supposed to belong to him, and which he can sell or give away as he pleases, and which, in point of fact, he owns by right of being the first occupant; but this system is only provisional. With the increase of population it gives place to another, whereby the peasant is not considered an absolute proprietor, but only for so long as he chooses to cultivate his land properly. From the moment he ceases to comply with this condition another man can take his land. Everybody is allowed to cut hay in the prairies where he likes, and the pastures and woods are common property. On the other hand, it is forbidden to enclose any forest or pasture-land.

The climate of Siberia is naturally opposed to the cultivation of cereals, which have to struggle against droughts, autumnal fogs, and late and early frosts. During the last ten years some very interesting meteorological observations have been made at Irkutsk, whereby it has been discovered that July is the only month in which it never freezes. Then, again, in the government of Tobolsk, and to the west of that of Tomsk, in addition to these climatic drawbacks, the crops are often devastated by myriads of kobylkas, a sort of locust or grasshopper which comes from the Kirghiz Steppes. Under these circumstances, agriculture in Siberia may well be said to be an even more arduous way of earning a livelihood than it is in Russia proper. It not unfrequently happens that the crops fail utterly, and during the last ten years it has been noticed that these disasters are mainly due to increasing impoverishment of the soil. The irregular condition of the crops is all the more disastrous in Siberia because of the lack of means of communication which impedes the easy transport of corn from one district to another, and results in enormous fluctuations in prices, that often spell ruin to the unfortunate peasants. The introduction of the railway to Irkutsk occasioned a notable reduction in the price of bread in Eastern Siberia, but, on the other hand, the principal line, unfortunately, transports agricultural products from Siberia to the region of the Volga.

But a matter which is even of greater importance than that of intercommunication are the extremely antiquated methods of cultivation which the peasants insist upon retaining. In the first place, their notions of preparing the reclaimed soil for culture are absolutely barbarous. All they do is to scratch up the immediate surface of the earth with a sort of plough which dates from the Iron Age, and then sow their crop. When the field is exhausted, which, not having been properly manured, it very soon is, it is abandoned for a period of years until it recovers some of its reproductive qualities. With improved agricultural implements the earth could be more deeply ploughed, and at a very little distance beneath the surface it is almost invariably extremely rich. The question is how to induce the peasants to change methods which have been handed down to them from their ancestors through the ages. It is of course much to be regretted that in Siberia there exists no great land-owners wealthy enough to introduce modern improvements, and thus teach their humbler neighbours the value of progress by practical illustration; but until means of communication are facilitated and improved it will be difficult to induce men of wealth and education to settle in a country which, however naturally rich it may be, is, to say the best of it, exceptionally unattractive. Even in Russia, where so many noblemen, owing to the great losses which they sustained at the time of the emancipation of the serfs, have abandoned their lands to the peasants, and have retired to the larger towns, there are yet to be found men who have had the courage to face reverses, and who have taken their estates in hand on scientific principles, introducing the latest improvements in agricultural implements, and thereby have influenced for the better the peasantry by even inducing some of them to abandon their primeval methods of agriculture. This desirable state of affairs, however, cannot exist in Siberia, at least for the present. Then, again, there is another advantage which would accrue from the presence of rich land-owners in Siberia, namely, contact with persons of superior education and culture, which in the end would doubtless affect the peasantry for the better. In Russia the peasantry form a compact body which, by reason of its singular position in the social sphere, is absolutely unable to receive or absorb any influences from the more educated classes. This is a state of affairs which it is highly desirable should cease in the Asiatic colonies, where at present it is even more strongly marked than in Russia itself. The problem of the future of Siberia is the possibility and feasibility of inducing important land-owners to settle in the country.

CHAPTER IV
MINERAL RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES

Importance of the Siberian mines—The gold-mines—Insufficiency of organization principally due to unfavourable climatic influences—Railway extension would bring about an increase in the value of the mining industries—Silver, copper, and iron mines.

However productive Siberia may eventually become, it can never solely depend for its prosperity upon its agricultural resources. Happily, the subsoil is richer than the upper crust, on account of the great abundance of ore of various kinds which it conceals. The gold and silver mines, however, alone, up to the present, have been worked to any extent, although a few of the iron mines have been slightly exploited. Even in the case of gold, however, only the alluvial mines have been touched in those valleys where gold exists, and nowhere have the rock veins been opened. More can hardly be expected in a country which is nearly destitute of the proper means of transport; hence the extreme difficulty of conveying the necessarily heavy and elaborate machinery required for the extraction of the gold from the rock. Then, again, the rock ore is only to be found at great distances from inhabited centres in unexplored forests and mountainous regions. The diggings, on the other hand, are much easier, demanding no other implements than a sieve and a spade. The siftings have been exploited in great numbers from end to end of Siberia, their takings proving, since 1895, equal to two-thirds of the gold product of the whole of the Russian Empire, the fourth largest gold-centre in the world, coming immediately after the United States, Australia, and the Transvaal. The amount of gold abstracted from the Siberian mines since 1895 amounts to not less than £5,000,000, and this figure, high as it is, is, in all probability, much under the mark, the miners very often retaining a good deal of their findings for themselves. The Government is the only buyer of Siberian gold. It has the right to claim on purchasing the gold from the miners between 15 and 20 per cent. of the ore. This system of taxation is extremely pernicious, since it tempts the miners, as already stated, to conceal the real amount of their takings. An increase in the surface tax would compensate for the suppression of the official claim upon the net product, and would put an end to a great deal of fraud. I have been assured that a reform in this sense may soon be expected. The enforced obligation of selling to the State becomes, in the long-run, exceedingly irksome to concessionaires, because it forces them to send their gold to a great distance, to the laboratories at Tomsk and Irkutsk, where the official agents analyze it to determine its value, whereas, of course, it would be much simpler to send it direct to Europe, and there sell it to speculators who would promptly pay the price demanded. Another drawback in the present system is that the miners have often to wait a long time for ready cash, which is absolutely necessary to them in their business. Sometimes the Government keeps them waiting until their gold has reached St. Petersburg, and they are ultimately obliged to discount it according to the very high tariff rates prevailing in Siberia. The transport of the metal to Europe by the State is as expensive as it is troublesome, since it has to be conveyed to Moscow and St. Petersburg in charge of a military escort. I have on several occasions seen between the Yenissei and Lake Baikal carts bringing gold from the mines, escorted by three or four soldiers ready to fire on the least signs of possible attack. Another drawback to the Siberian mining industries are the primitive implements used in abstracting the ore from the soil, which, as M. Levat, a distinguished engineer, very truly observed to me, were of a sort that apparently dated from the days of Homer. Under these circumstances, it is the custom in Siberia to work the surface of the mine only, and after enough ore has been extracted from it, to abandon the place entirely.

Owing to the geological formation of the country, the more important Siberian mines will not be found, as in California, on the mountain slopes, but at depths covered by marshlands. Their exploitation, therefore, is much more costly, as it is necessary before commencing operations to cart away an immense quantity of the upper surface of the earth. Hence it happens that if a mine is disturbed at the surface, and then abandoned by the miners, it is, so to speak, spoilt, as any attempt to work it again in all probability will result in disappointment. For this reason, many excellent mines in the basin of the Obi and of the Yenissei have been already exhausted, and the centre of the mining industry in these regions has been transferred to the banks of the Amur and the Lena, and this notwithstanding the many difficulties the miners have to face, as the soil hereabouts is invariably frozen for about twenty yards in depth, and work can only be pursued for about 120 consecutive days in the year. The miners’ salaries, too, are exceedingly high. In the diggings at Olekma, an affluent of the Lena, wages are 3s. 4d. per diem, that is to say, double what they are on the Yenissei, and eight times as much as in the neighbourhood of Semipalatinsk, where the Kirghiz workmen receive only fivepence. Notable progress, however, has been made in these regions during the last few years, as the mines are gradually leaving the hands of adventurers and small associations, to be concentrated in those of important companies, financed by the richer Siberian merchants, and even by large Russian firms. The great mining company of Olekma extracted in 1880 £1,000,000 worth of gold, and maintained its reputation at £680,000 in 1896, proving this mine to be one of the richest in the world. With the introduction of proper means of transport, and, above all, a liberal reform in the legislation, doubtless the Siberian mines would become infinitely more valuable than they are at present.

Already European capitalists are paying attention to Asiatic Russia, and one or two important groups of French mining engineers during the past three years have been inspecting those parts of the country which are said to be richest in ore. I was never more surprised than to find on board a boat on the Amur two English engineers, whose acquaintance I had made in December, 1895, in the far-away goldfields of the Transvaal. All that the mines of Siberia need to become of enormous value are sufficient capital and up-to-date methods of working them. The silver mines of Nertchinsk, which in old times had an unenviable reputation as the site of the most terrible Siberian penal settlement, are now of little value. On the other hand, copper, iron, and coal-beds are distributed in great abundance in various parts of the country, and seem to constitute its principal and most permanent source of wealth. The copper mines have not been exploited at all, but are known to exist in the Upper Yenissei, in the districts of the Minusinsk, celebrated throughout Siberia for its agricultural prosperity; others may be discovered more to the west, on the Irtysh. Iron is found in great quantity in the western regions, in the Altai Mountains, on the borders of the Yenissei, and in the valley of the Angara, and to the east in Trans-Baikalia, where its iron mines have been fairly well exploited, but hitherto not on any considerable scale. Coal will certainly be found in considerable abundance in the western plains, and in the last few years a vast coal area has been found, beginning about 150 miles south of the Trans-Siberian line near the town of Kuznetsk, and extending to the Upper Obi. In 1887 a new and still larger field was discovered at about 80 miles east of Tomsk, and, moreover, close to the railway line. At the extremity of Siberia, near Vladivostok, and, consequently, close to the sea, other coal-beds have been opened of late.

Siberian industries are at present very limited, and consist of a few unimportant distilleries, breweries, brick-kilns, match manufactories, etc. It is therefore evident that for some long time to come the inhabitants will be compelled to devote their attention and energies to the development of the natural products of the soil. All new countries are forced to do this in the first stages of their civilization, and since the United States, New Zealand, and Australia failed in manufactures in their earlier days, Siberia may surely content herself by following in their wake.