Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/190

164 The annual yield per head is—

In Russia, when the need for food becomes acute, conditions prevail which were familiar enough in Europe during the middle ages and in the days of classical antiquity, but which are now known only m such countries as India. In western Europe, acute famine has long been a thing of the past. And yet hungry Russia has to export grain!

The great famines of 1891 and 1892 are of recent memory; in the latter year cholera was epidemic.

During the sixties the state disbursed 797,000 roubles per annum for the support of the poverty-stricken population. Between 1870 and 1880 the average annual payments on this account were 1,780,000 roubles. Between 1881 and 1890 the figure was lower, for the harvests were good, and the area under cultivation was comparatively large; during this period the disbursements averaged about 1,000,000 roubles per annum. But from 1891 to 1900 the annual cost increased to 19,100,000 roubles. During the years 1901 to 1905, owing to the failure of the crops the total disbursements were 118,057,090 roubles; whilst in the single year 1906 the expenditure under this head amounted to 150,000,000 roubles.

During the sixties, governmental help was requisite in eight administrative districts; during the seventies in fifteen; during the eighties in twenty-five; during the nineties in twenty-nine; and during the years following 1900 in thirty-one.

These data are all the more alarming seeing that the yield of the soil has permanently increased since 1861, although Russian agriculture lags far behind that of European countries.

During the years of famine, Alexander III's government was able to display all the strength of its compassion. The autocrat's uneasy conscience actually led him to look askance at and to interfere with the philanthropic projects of the cultured and well-to-do classes. The movement "towards the people" was never regarded with favour!.