Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/217

 their own products, but have always bought it of those that now must live on foreign grain.

Therefore, if it is reckoned, let us suppose, that each person must have ten puds—well, let us say there are only twenty millions—though they are reckoned as high as forty millions—of inhabitants in these famine-stricken districts, then two hundred million puds of grain will be needed, and this is far from representing the whole amount of grain necessary for the sustenance of all Russia. To this figure must be added all that is needed besides for those that have subsisted in former years on the grain of the famine-stricken localities, and this very probably will constitute as much again.

The failure of the harvest in the most fertile places accomplishes something like what happens when you shorten the arm of a lever: you not only diminish the power of the shorter end, but you increase as many times the power of the larger end. A third of Russia is attacked by famine, the most fertile part, which has fed the other two-thirds, and therefore it is very probable that there will not be enough grain for all. This is one consideration.

The second consideration is that the countries bordering on Russia will suffer in the same way from failure of harvest, and that therefore a great amount of grain has been exported, and now in the form of wheat continues to be exported abroad.

The third consideration is that in absolute contrariety to what happened during the famine year, 1840, this year there is, and can be, no stores of grain.

In Russia something has happened like what happened according to the Bible tale in Egypt; only with this difference, that in Russia there was no Joseph to foretell, and there have been no provident and orderly men like Joseph; but there have been mills, railways, banks, and both the authorities and private persons have suffered from great lack of money. In all the years preceding, more than seven, there has been much grain, prices have been low; but the lack of money has grown and grown as it regularly increased amongst us, and the