Author, U: Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, Vol. 177

Excerpt from The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, Vol. 177: For January, 1893-April, 1893

Now what we propose to show is that this horrible calamity was not, as the Russian and the French press has maintained, the repetition of former famines on an unprece dented scale, owing to an unusually bad harvest, but that the misery which broke upon a third part of European Russia was simply the result of a general economic decline and a progressive impoverishment during the last twenty years although we agree with Mr. Law that generalisation on Russian questions is, as a rule, to be avoided on account of the immense extent of the Empire and the variety of conditions it includes: The mere fact that the rural population of European Russia alone exceeds eighty millions proves that the Empire is eminently an agricultural one. Although the attention of the Government seems to have been concentrated of late years on fostering manufacturing industries, these are of comparatively small importance. Mr. Law calculates that of the total population only about are employed in various works and factories, and in mining and other metallurgical industries. The situation of the agricul tural classes, forming 8772 per cent. Of the total population of European Russia, therefore, is decisive. But the natural conditions of the country are not favourable to good hus bandry. By far the larger part of the Empire is subject to such a climate that, where there is no other occupation than the tillage of the soil, six months are passed in enforced idleness; and, as Mr. Law justly observes, 'there is nothing more certain than that constantly recurring periods of idle ness create a general disinclination to work,' such distaste being further fostered by the numerous religious holidays (about ninety-five, and even more), which are all strictly oh served, although many of them fall in the busiest agricultural season. These circumstances have always existed; yet it is generally admitted that the condition of the peasantry has been constantly deteriorating since 1860. On this point writers of the most different opinions - Katkow, Koschelew, Engelhart, Mackenzie Wallace, leroy-beaulieu, Eckardt, Thun, &c. - all agree. What, then, are the reasons of this decline in the age of railways, which renders impossible what formerly was frequently the case, that corn rotted green, because there were no hands to house it The reasons are manifold and must be considered separately.

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