Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/216

 incomparably more universal, it threatens all Russia; it is misfortune the degree of which may and should, not only be foreseen, but may and should be foreseen and prevented.

"Ah! that will do! For Russia there will be sufficient, and more than sufficient, of every kind of grain for all," is said and written by certain people, and others who like freedom from bother are inclined to believe this. But it is impossible to believe what is said at haphazard, or by conjecture, regarding an object of such awful importance.

If it is said that in regard to the doubtful solidity of a bath in which people go once a week on a Saturday, the beams still stand, and there is no need of replacing them, one may believe them and risk leaving the bath without repairs; but if it concerns the dubious ceiling of a theater in which thousands are sitting every evening, the unanimous decision will be, that though the probabilities are it will not fall this evening, still one cannot feel confidence and be at ease. The threatened danger is too great.

Now the danger threatening Russia is that the grain necessary for the sustenance of the people is not to be had at any price, and this danger is so awful that the imagination refuses to depict what would happen if this was so; and therefore to content ourselves with the unsupported assurances of those that declare that in Russia we have enough grain, not only would not follow, but would be senseless and criminal.

But does such a danger exist? Is there any likelihood that there will not be enough bread?

The following observations may serve as an answer to this question:—

In the first place, it is a fact that a whole third of Russia is attacked by famine, and that third is the very one which has always supported a large part of the other two-thirds. Kaluga, Tver, Moscow, all the "black earth " and northern governments, even the "black earth" districts of these governments, where there was no failure in the crops, have never lived on