Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/16

x pany with Messrs Carruthers and Miller, following the Chinese side of the frontier for over a thousand miles south-westwards to Eastern Turkestan. The economic and political relationship of Mongolia to Siberia is, in my opinion, sufficiently important to warrant this inclusion, and the present political situation in Outer China has made this relationship all the more pronounced. I have tried to analyse certain aspects of the Mongolian question, which Russia opened to the world in January 1912, and to indicate how British policy in the Far East is affected by this question.

My readers will realize that any description of territories so vast must be necessarily imperfect. But although it cannot lay claim to comprehensive treatment, I hope that it may succeed in showing that it is only by living among the people, as far removed as possible from officialdom, and by learning from their own lips the simple story of their lives, that the foreigner can ever hope to appreciate the true character of the Russian people, and to understand the real forces that are at work in the social structure of the Russian Empire—forces which will some day mould its policy and action. Grand tours, and receptions of English politicians and financiers by Russian officials, indicate only the state of feeling between the official classes of both countries. In neither country, and certainly not in Russia, is popular feeling represented by the official caste. The heart of the people must be sought. In Siberia, with its immense territory and its greater freedom from officialdom, the heart of the people can be found. I hope I have also shown what enormous latent power lies dormant in Eastern Russia, a force