Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/661

Rh lent changes and convulsions. Mr. Wallace has drawn as pleasing a picture as he can of the country and the people amongst whom he has spent some agreeable years. His book has been so generally read that it would be superfluous to load our own pages by quoting the scenes he describes with so much spirit and, we have no doubt, truth. But there is another side to the question, and by way of showing what it is, we shall cite a part of a letter from a Russian country gentleman, published in 1865 by the Moscow Gazette, which was then, and is still, one of the most jealous champions of the national party and of reform.

To this it must be added that the migratory habits of the male population, leaving the women at home, are the cause of great abuses, and that the worst forms of disease, the result of debauchery, appear by some recent reports to have infected whole provinces of the empire. Efficient medical advice and remedies are, for the most part, quite unattainable.

Those who vaunt the Russian system on the ground that it excludes competition and presents the most complete picture of protected labor, should remember that no country can withdraw itself from competition in the markets of the world, and that Russia herself is competing and must compete in her chief products with countries, younger but more advanced than herself, which have the advantage of a far better climate, a richer soil, and above all of free property in land and the full results of free labor. At this moment, the corn of southern Russia is undersold by the farmers of the United States, and she has to compete at a great disadvantage with California and the valley of the Mississippi. The trade of Russia with England in linseed, which was an export of immense consequence, has been annihilated by the increasing production of oleaginous grains in India and Egypt. The textile fibres of India, especially jute, have also seriously impaired the trade in Russian hemp and flax. The Russian trade in hides and tallow has powerful rivals in the boundless cattle ranges of South America and Australia. And in these countries she is opposed by the ardor and enterprise of the freest and most energetic races of the world. Can Russia support an increasing foreign debt, with decreasing profits of foreign trade? Can she even in peace maintain her credit in Europe, let alone the cost of mobilized armies, and wars carried on against wild or empoverished nations, from whom no milliards can be extracted by victory? Mr. Wallace should have