Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/14

viii policies, not infrequently definitely opposed to those of European Russia. The day may be one of "small beginnings," but it is not to be despised by either the political thinker or the economist. To the former is presented the spectacle of a people essentially primitive, but having all the material resources of civilization at its disposal. Will it follow one of the old paths? Or will it strike out a new one for itself? One feature is of peculiar interest. The inherited communal land system, which in European Russia is fast breaking down, is in Siberia still maintained in a modified form, and is utilized as a means of protection against the squatter and the undesirable immigrant. The causes of this modification, and the general tendencies of Siberian society, I have endeavoured briefly to set forth. I have endeavoured, too, to give an impression of the Siberian peasant as I know him; and after for some months talking with him, eating with him, sleeping with him, living with him, I got to know him fairly intimately. The better I knew him the more I loved him. Stupid and slow, perhaps, he may be, like all peasants throughout the world; but hardy, contented, tolerant and very friendly, he unites the Oriental sense of brotherhood with the greater directness and openness of the Occidental. In him, I believe, Siberia has as good material for the rank and file of her society as can be found. It is the leaders who are wanting.

To the economist Siberia appears as a land of limitless possibilities. No country in the world is so fertile as the black earth zone which runs in a belt across this vast area, with a population of not more than eight to the square mile. Here is a granary almost untouched that might supply all Europe,