Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/64

 34 life, and in many ways the class distinctions are even less in Siberia than in old Russia. Thus there are very few nobles and no landlords, for the State owns all the land. Indeed, society in Siberia compares with that of European Russia in much the same way as society in England compares with that in Canada. Those social castes that do exist are useful for taxation and administrative purposes, but up till now the autocracy has prevented them from obtaining political power, and so from becoming socially divided.

Racial castes also, based on religion, theoretically exist, but are not recognized for purposes of administration, except in the case of the Jews. Poles, Finns, Letts, Armenians, Georgians and Tartars are classified in Siberia, for administrative purposes, along with Russians, according to their social castes and not according to their race and religion. A separate list of Tartars and Armenians in some districts of Siberia is often published by the Statistical Department of the Government, but they are not treated as a political entity.

Modern European economic influences are also making themselves felt in Siberia, and in the growth of the industrial proletariat, which, in company with higher commercial organization, is having the effect of so submerging the old social castes, such as peasants, burghers and traders, that it will soon become impossible to separate them out even for administrative purposes. It is not improbable that in time everyone will come to be registered according to income, and be assessed for taxation on the same principle as in Western Europe, and that the old system of Trade Guilds and Guild Taxes will disappear. Indeed, one would also be tempted to