Читать книгу The Awakening of the East: Siberia—Japan—China - Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu - Страница 12

Table of Contents

Causes of Russian emigration to Siberia—Its increasing importance—Absolute necessity for State intervention in the colonization of Asiatic Russia—Roads followed by the emigrants—Land concessions—Provinces towards which they direct themselves—Colonization of the Province of the Amur and the Littoral—Vladivostok—Chinese, Koreans and Japanese—Exiles and convicts—Conditions for the development of Siberia—Favourable and unfavourable elements—Necessity of employing foreign capital.

The immigrants who arrive in Siberia are almost without exception peasants. According to the census taken last January, there were in Russian Europe, exclusive of Finland and Poland, whose inhabitants rarely, if ever, emigrate, only 94,000,000 inhabitants scattered over a surface of 1,875,000 square miles, that is to say, fifty inhabitants per square mile. One would imagine, therefore, that there was ample space for all the subjects of the Tsar in his European territories; but the great northern Governments of Arkhangelsk, Vologda, and Olonetz, which occupy over a quarter of this area, and in which agriculture is almost impossible, do not contain more than 2,000,000 inhabitants in 540,560 square miles. Then, again, a great number of the Governments situated to the north of Moscow consist of only very inferior marshlands, and are but poorly populated, and, what is more, seem unlikely ever to improve. The majority of the inhabitants of the empire are therefore concentrated in the south, where the population is relatively dense, especially in the Governments of Kursk, Penza, Tambof, Orel, Voronej, and notably so in Little Russia, which is all the more remarkable when we consider that these regions are exclusively agricultural, and that the methods of farming are still very primitive. Notwithstanding, however, the rapid development of industry in Russia, many years will pass before these regions will be capable of supporting a population equal to that of Central or Western Europe, where the natural conditions are more or less identical. It is not therefore very surprising that a fraction of the population of Russia should go in search of better climes, and direct itself towards Southern Siberia, a more attractive and fertile country than Northern Russia.

Emigration, it must be borne in mind, is but a small item in the natural causes of the increase of the Russian population. The annual excess of births over deaths rises to about 1,500,000 in the whole of the Empire, and is from 1,100,000 to 1,200,000 in European Russia (Poland and Finland always excepted). The emigration towards Asia has up to 1895 scarcely exceeded a tenth of this figure, and does not even now reach more than a fifth or a sixth. According to an official work published at the end of 1896, the ‘Statesman’s Handbook to Russia,’ we find that during 1887–95, 94,000 families, forming an aggregate total of 467,000 persons, established themselves in Siberia. The average therefore would be about 52,000 souls per annum, but the last few years have witnessed a visible increase. The above figures do not apparently include emigrants who are destined for Central Asia (general Government of the Steppes and Turkestan), to which the total rarely exceeds 10,000 per annum. According to information received direct from Siberia, about 63,000 emigrants arrived in 1894 over the Ural from European Russia. On the other hand, 3,495 entered Siberia by sea, landing in the great Littoral Province on the Pacific. Lately the emigration movement has become much more active, and we should not be far out of our reckoning if we estimated the number of emigrants into Siberia for the years 1897 and 1898 as about 200,000 for each year. The number of persons who seek permission to leave Russia for Siberia is becoming greater every year. Many, however, are discouraged and even refused the necessary papers, so as to avoid burdening the newly-settled country with a superfluity of people who generally arrive without a penny in their pockets. It is natural in a country where the peasantry are still so primitive and ignorant as in Russia that the Government should closely watch the movements of emigrants, who might, on finding exaggerated promises and illusions dispelled, become troublesome and even dangerous. The following is the manner in which these matters are generally organized in European Russia. When several families belonging to a volost express a wish to emigrate they are requested to determine in what part of Siberia they desire to establish themselves. If the applicants are deemed suitable, two of their number, selected as delegates, visit the parcel of land which has been allotted to them, and on returning they are able to inform their friends as to the exact nature of the place to which they are destined. Formerly, the emigrants were allowed to choose their own land, which, as they were almost invariably very inexperienced, was usually quite unsuited to their requirements, and they either went further afield or, disgusted, returned home. In order, therefore, to prevent a recurrence of this unsatisfactory state of affairs, the sensible system of sending on two delegates or pioneers has been established.

The method selected by emigrants entering Siberia was, until quite recently, to ascend the Kama, and take the Ural Railway at Perm for Tiumen; thence, at this terminus, they embarked either on the Tobol, the Irtysh, or the Obi for Tobolsk, which used to be a great rendezvous for the emigrants. In 1893 the Siberian Railway had not reached Omsk, and out of 63,000 emigrants, 56,500 had entered Asia by the Tiumen, and 6,500 only had taken the Trans-Siberian Railway to Kurgan. Among the first, 36,500 followed the waterway which I have just described, and 20,000 performed the journey in carts. To-day the greater number are transported by the railway to the station nearest to the town selected for their future residence, or to the extreme limit of the line, if they are going farther east. There they are obliged to take the telega, a sort of Russian cart, shaped like a trough, on four wheels. I have often met on the highroads in Siberia long lines of these carts, each containing several persons, men, women and children, with their labouring tools and household belongings. The scene is very picturesque, especially towards evening, when the worthy folk encamp on the highroad: the men unsaddling the horses, the women going to the well for water, and the children playing about, whilst some old man, seated on the wayside, reads the Bible out aloud to a group of eager listeners. Sometimes the journey exhausts the resources of the family, and I have seen in Trans-Baikalia a caravan of Little Russians come to a full-stop for want of money, and the good people, encamped on the highway, quietly awaiting the arrival of the district Immigration Agent, to obtain from him the supplies necessary to enable them to continue the journey. Emigrants who travel by telega from their old home in Europe to the new one in Asia often consume as much as a whole year in the journey from Little Russia to the Amur, albeit the travellers frequently spend as many as three months at a time working on the railway, in order to add a little to their scanty supply of cash.

The majority of the emigrants arrive in spring. In the principal towns on the route refuges have been organized for their shelter. A number of these are to be found at Cheliabinsk at the foot of the Ural. I visited that at Kansk, the centre of a much-frequented region in the Government of Yenissei. Twenty iourdis, or enormous huts, built on the model of those used by the Kirghiz and from ten to twelve feet in diameter and nine feet in height, with an extinguisher shaped roof covered with camel’s hide, were here erected for destitute emigrants. A spacious hospital, kitchens and a Russian bath were at the time nearly completed. A winter habitation with an immense stove had also been erected, but there are not many emigrants travelling during the worst months of the year. All these buildings are of wood, after the fashion of most Russian houses, and seemed fairly comfortable. Three young women from the town acted as voluntary nurses attached to the hospital.

Emigrants who come from the same district in European Russia are as a rule grouped together in the same village, and, as far as possible, everything is done to prevent the crowding together of people who come from divergent provinces, which might give rise to trouble. Thus, the officials always endeavour to avoid mixing the ‘Little Russians’ with the ‘Great Russians,’ and never to introduce new-comers into villages already inhabited by old Siberians, who do not look upon emigration in a very favourable light, for the simple reason that formerly they could occupy as much land as they liked and redeem as much of it as they chose, whenever their own fields became exhausted, and they could, moreover, even tramp off in another direction in quest of better land if the spirit moved them so to do. The arrival of a great number of new people has naturally put an end to these irresponsible movements, and consequently given rise to a great deal of discontent.

The following are a few rules which have been adopted recently for the formation of fresh settlements, on the mir system of Russian collective communal proprietorship, which the Government has decided to introduce into Siberia. Fifteen dessiatines (37 acres) are given gratuitously to each man, and a sum of 30 roubles (about £3 1s. 8d.) can, if necessary, be advanced to each family immediately. Formerly it was necessary to await authorization from the Government at St. Petersburg, even for this small amount, before it could be paid, but, now, happily, it has been decided to leave the matter in the hands of the functionary who is placed at the head of the Immigration Bureau of the district, whereby a great deal of trouble and misery is avoided. Other sums of money can be advanced from time to time up to £9 10s. if the applicant is deemed worthy. Theoretically this money ought to be repaid at the end of ten years, which, needless to say, it rarely, if ever, is.

Of the 63,000 persons who arrived in Siberia from over the Ural in 1894, the majority, 38,000, settled in the Government of Tomsk, 17,000 proceeded to the Amur, 3,800 to the Steppes, 2,100 to the eastern Governments of Yenissei and Irkutsk, and 2,100 to the Government of Tobolsk. These figures do not include the 3,495 who entered the Littoral Province by sea. The region which appears to attract the most emigrants is that of the Upper Obi and its affluents, including the regions of Barnaoul, Biisk, and Kuznetsk in the Government of Tomsk. In these sheltered valleys, which descend from the Altai range, the climate is relatively mild and the land excellent. After this comes the region of the Amur, where the emigrants are almost exclusively Little Russians, who generally established themselves in the region extending along the Lower Zeya to the east of Blagovyeshchensk and the Bureya. The climate, however, is much colder than in the Government of Tomsk, and although the richest part of the Amur has been selected for the principal centre of colonization, the damp is excessive on account of its proximity to the great water and to the very thick forests which cover almost the whole country. The valleys, even on the borders of the Amur and its affluents, are often inundated, and always marshy, and have, moreover, up to the present resisted all attempts at cultivation. The plateaux to the north of the Stanovoi Mountains possess a better kind of soil, and form a more favourable zone, although even here cereals have a tendency to produce, much to their detriment, a superabundance of weeds. The Government, which, for political reasons easily understood, has hitherto assisted colonization in the basin of the Amur, has refused until quite lately to extend the movement to the region of the Yenissei, being possibly under the impression that an excessive scattering of the new population ought as much as possible to be avoided. Now that a considerable part of the richer lands of Tomsk is occupied, it has been deemed advisable to make an advance towards the east; therefore, in 1896 19,000 colonists were settled in the Government of the Yenissei, notably in the districts of Minusinsk, on the upper river, which enjoys nearly the same advantages as the Upper Obi, and Kansk more to the east, which is now the most active centre of settlement. The Government of Irkutsk, which apparently contains a lesser supply of likely land, will doubtless attract official attention later on.

Settlers who have been for some considerable time in Siberia appear generally satisfied with their lot, and although they may not endorse the optimistic affirmations of the official world, the majority of their villages appear more prosperous than those they abandoned in Russian Europe. It could hardly be otherwise if they worked hard, since they are allotted abundance of good land and a small pecuniary advance to assist them with preliminary expenses. Nevertheless, a number of them return to Europe every year. In 1894 as many as 4,500 went back, and, I fancy, if the truth were known, a great many more. I once asked an official in charge of the emigrants at Kansk, a very amiable, well-informed man, who takes a great interest in his duties, why so many of these good people wanted to go home again. He replied that not a few peasants emigrated into Siberia under the illusion that they would be much better off, and not have to work so hard, but when they found that they had to labour as hard as ever, they soon got tired, packed up their traps, and returned home. Others complain of the climate, not so much, as we might imagine, of the winter as of the summer, when the mosquitoes are a perfect plague. Some suffer from home-sickness, especially the women, who regret their former surroundings, and who by incessant complaints and lamentations end by worrying their husbands to return. This, however, is not peculiar to Siberia or to the Russians, for it has even been noticed in the United States, where young colonists are often obliged to give up their farms because their wives find an isolated country life insupportable.

In the greater part of Siberia the population, as we have already observed, is exclusively Russian. The native element may almost be described as non-existent. From the ethnological point of view, the region from the Obi to the Yenissei is already, and tends to become more and more so, a prolongation of European Russia. In the government of the Amur it is, however, otherwise, for the Russians have to face a native population, and the colonists who have come from the European dominions of the Tsar find themselves obliged to compete with a rather formidable Asiatic contingent. On this side the centre of Russian influence is at Vladivostok, a town which was only founded about forty years ago, but which the Trans-Siberian line will eventually lift to extreme importance. The only shadow in the picture is that during three or four winter months the harbour is covered with ice. The noble bay, which the English formerly named after Queen Victoria, and which the Russians have now placed under the patronage of Peter the Great, is one of the most magnificent in the world, in which the whole Russian fleet could easily find shelter; but, unfortunately, although it is in the same latitude as Toulon, it freezes very easily.^[10] For this reason Vladivostok may suffer considerably from the greater attractions of Port Arthur, which is even better placed at the head of the line of communication towards the Celestial Empire, and is, moreover, free from ice the whole year round. Nevertheless, the town will remain the seat of many important military establishments, which are already in existence, and which it would be exceedingly expensive, and by no means easy, to remove elsewhere.

Splendidly situated at the head of a peninsula about twelve miles long, separating two deep bays, whose shores, however, are absolutely sterile, Vladivostok faces the principal and the more eastern of the two ports, which happens, also, to be the safest. The town contains a number of stone houses several stories high, built on the rather steep sides of the hills, and presents quite an imposing appearance, especially after the little wooden-housed towns in the interior of Siberia. Although it lacks the extraordinary animation of its contemporaries, Vancouver, Tacoma, and Seattle, for instance, on the other side of the Pacific, its streets are the liveliest I have seen between Moscow and Nagasaki. It soon becomes evident that one is in the Far East here. The streets are crowded with pigtailed Chinese in blue, with Koreans in white, and Japanese in their national costumes. Among these Asiatics move soldiers and sailors, so that the European civilian costume is scarcely represented at all, and the majority of those who do wear it are Japanese. The day after my arrival happened to be the feast of St. Alexander Nevsky, one of the great Russian holidays, which coincided with a Chinese festival, so that the whole place was a blaze of Celestial bunting, gold-edged yellow triangular shaped flags, emblazoned with heraldic dragons, far out-numbering those of the Russians. Figures confirm the impressions of experience, and the following show the manner in which the population of Vladivostok was subdivided in 1895:

	Men.	Women.	Total.
Nobles	290	228	518
Priests and their families	19	18	37
Russian civil population	1,691	1,089	2,780
Soldiers and families	9,232	855	10,087
Exiles and families	117	72	189
Other Europeans	46	26	72
Japanese	676	556	1,232
Chinese	5,580	58	5,638
Koreans	642	177	819
Total	18,293	3,079	21,372

In 1895 the population had considerably increased, mainly in consequence of the barracks and of the increase of Russian and Asiatic emigration. It has been observed that since the Chino-Japanese War the Koreans have developed a distinct tendency to establish themselves on Russian soil.

As in California and Australia, the Chinese who arrive in Vladivostok do so without bringing their wives. They are mainly engaged as workmen, domestic servants, boatmen, etc. When they have amassed a small fortune they return home. Many of them, indeed, pass the winter in Shan-tung, in the neighbourhood of Chi-fu, of which latter place they are nearly all natives. The Japanese are, likewise, engaged in petty trade, and a considerable number of them are hairdressers. It is also whispered abroad, and pretty freely, too, that not a few of them are spies. A high code of morals would condemn the manner in which the majority of the Japanese here gain their livelihood. As to the Koreans, being very strong, they are better adapted for hard work, and have supplied a number of hands on the railway. They are more numerous in the environs of Vladivostok than in the town itself—and they are highly appreciated by their employers, the administration affording them small allotments on account of their industrious and peaceful habits.

It is not only at Vladivostok that the influence of the Far East appears, but throughout the entire government of the Amur. From the moment one enters Trans-Baikalia one is brought into immediate contact with the Mongol tribe of the Buriats. As already stated elsewhere, the Yellow Race predominates in this region, and throughout Trans-Baikalia the followers of Buddhism form about a third of the population—in 1895, 190,003 out of 610,604. Advancing towards the East, and leaving aside the older Russian possessions in order to enter the provinces annexed in 1857, we find that the territory of the Amur contains 21,000 Manchu Buddhists out of a population of 112,000 according to the census of 1897. These Manchus were about the only occupants of the country at the time of its annexation, and not a few have remained subjects of the Chinese Empire. Opposite to Blagovyeshchensk there is a large Chinese village, whence almost every morning a number of people bring fruit and vegetables to the Russian town.

In the territory of the Littoral, in that broad zone which extends from 42° to 70° north, it was estimated in 1895 that the Russians exceeded 110,000 in a population of 152,000, the rest being composed of 23,000 natives, 18,000 Chinese, Koreans and Japanese, and about 1,000 Jews. According to the census taken in 1897, the population has very considerably increased. It records 214,940 inhabitants, but these have not been subdivided into classes, and, moreover, the European immigration has not been very considerable in the last two years. A curious observation has been made as to the preponderance of the male sex over the female, there being 147,669 men as against 67,261 women. The reason for this is not far to seek, and is mainly due to the fact that the Russian immigrants generally arrive with their families, whereas the military element, exceeding 40,000 in the Littoral Province, and the Chinese are not encumbered with women-folk. Khabarofsk, essentially a garrison town, and the capital of the government, has out of a population of 14,932 only 3,259 women. Its appearance is, therefore, quite martial, and its picturesqueness is considerably improved by the presence of a number of Chinese junks in the harbour, that, as is the case at Blagovyeshchensk, Sydney and Melbourne, bring excellent vegetables from the fertile kingdom of the Son of Heaven. Apart from the troops, the Koreans, the Chinese and the Japanese form at least a quarter of the population of the Littoral, and, combined with the natives, reach a total which is only slightly overtopped by the Russians. There are not wanting those who disapprove of this high proportion of the Yellow Race in the three territories forming the Government of the Amur, but without any justifiable reason. The Buriats, for instance, are by no means a decreasing element in the population, and the Russians are distinctly prolific, whereas the Chinese immigration, if it ever takes place on any considerable scale, will have to cross the Desert of Gobi, an obstacle which will delay it for a long time to come. In the other two territories, the indigenous population, mostly fishermen and hunters of a very primitive sort, is undoubtedly visibly diminishing, excepting in the ice-bound regions of the Okhotsk and Behring Straits, whither, too, Manchus, Chinese and Koreans are flocking in considerable numbers. All these Asiatics are hard-working, live upon less than the Russians, and are much more industrious and often hire from the European immigrants strips of land which they cultivate with much better results. The small trade of the towns is almost entirely in the hands of the Yellow Race. Although the Chinese immigration is more or less of an ephemeral nature, it is very likely to become exceedingly numerous, especially in the towns and their suburbs, and might in the course of time render the competition of the Whites extremely difficult, and necessitate interference on the part of the Russian Government to limit the sphere of Chinese labour. In any case, it is quite certain that if Manchuria, as a consequence of the introduction of the railway, ever comes under the dominion of the Tsar, it is highly improbable that its so doing will increase the immigration of the Russians, mainly on account of the surprising activity of the Chinese in colonizing this part of their empire. At the present time the Government is more preoccupied with the European than with the Asiatic immigration, and, whereas it never refuses a grant of land to the Koreans, it very frequently does so to the Europeans, excepting by special and exceptional favour. I am obliged to admit that the Government has, as a rule, been very indulgent towards the French, several of whom have obtained grants at Blagovyeshchensk, although a refusal was given to a Frenchman to buy land notwithstanding that he had lived in the country for over thirty years. As to the gold mines, their exploitation is only granted to Russian subjects. The whole country east of Baikalia, that is to say, the Government of the Amur, is at present freed from paying Customs duties, excepting on spirits, tobacco, sugar and other articles which in Russia pay excise duty. This part of Siberia is never likely to become attractive to Europeans of other nationality than the Russians. On the other hand, undoubtedly, in the course of time, European capital will be much employed in this part, and some enterprising merchants and engineers may even eventually establish themselves in the country, which will surely prove to its interest, and not to its detriment.

Independently of voluntary immigrants, Siberia used to receive annually a great number of political and other exiles and convicts. By a ukaz, issued in 1899, Tsar Nicholas II. put a stop to the old and cruel system of exiling suspects and convicts into Siberia,^[11] which ought undoubtedly to result in much good; for when a country begins to be thickly peopled with free immigrants it is unwise to continue to use it as a penal settlement. These exiles may be divided into two principal groups: firstly, political, often very honest and amiable people, such as students who have taken part in a manifestation hostile to the Government; Poles, compromised in recent insurrections; Catholics and Protestants who have displayed too much zeal in the affirmation of their religious opinions; and Raskolniks, whose peculiar theological opinions have already been described. The second category includes less estimable people: youths of good family of by no means irreproachable character, who have been sent to meditate on their shortcomings for a certain number of years, and repent of their follies at their leisure on the pleasant banks of the Obi or the Yenissei; and certain functionaries of good family who have been guilty of appropriating money officially entrusted to them. Of these unfortunate people, those who have been guilty of minor offences are sent to Western Siberia, where they often obtain employment as servants and coachmen. On the other hand, those who have committed graver offences, and who have been condemned to hard labour, undergo their punishment in Eastern Siberia, in Irkutsk, Yenissei, or in Trans-Baikalia, and must remain there. Inveterate criminals, murderers, and escaped galley-slaves, are sent to the island of Sakhalin, opposite the mouth of the Amur, where, even at the expiration of their terms, they are obliged to end their lives. Those political exiles who are not punished for grave offences are also relegated to the west, where the climate is fairly temperate. The graver the charge and the heavier the sentence, the farther are they sent eastward, even to the icy territories of Yakutsk, Verkhoyansk, Nijne Kolymsk, and Ust-Yansk. To these regions are also relegated the members of the strange sect of Eunuchs. The majority of these people, unless indeed they are very gravely compromised, after being obliged to reside three, or even ten, years in a village, are allowed to settle in a town, to go freely all over Siberia, and even at the expiration of a certain number of years to return to Russia. They not infrequently make themselves extremely useful. Many Poles become innkeepers, and I know of one at least who is a Doctor of Law, and who speaks excellent French. At Irkutsk one can get good beer, a beverage elsewhere execrable, a boon entirely due to the enterprise of an exile from the Baltic provinces. In the extreme north not a few exiles employ their time with scientific and meteorological studies. Here I may observe that I have never seen any of the exiles in Siberia ill-treated, and even the chain which some of them are obliged to wear did not seem to me very heavy. The great prison of Alexandrofsk, near Irkutsk, is admirably managed, its rules being very mild. Nevertheless, I must confess that I only visited what the officials chose to show me. All I can say is that, according to my experience, if there are exiles who are habitually badly treated, they must be very few in number. Of course, I can say nothing in extenuation of the system of transporting a young man or even a young woman to languish in a dreary village buried in the depths of a forest or the Tundra, merely because they happen to have taken an over-prominent part in some political or students’ demonstration.

One curious fact connected with this system of Russian transportation is that the wives and children of the exiles are often authorized to follow the condemned man, which they very frequently do, although in some cases the law considers the marriage bond annulled by the mere act of condemnation, the unfortunate exiles being considered civilly dead. The families of these poor people often endure such terrible privations that local committees have been founded, under the patronage of the authorities, to assist them. In 1894, in the five Governments of Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yenissei, Irkutsk, and Yakutsk, 15,000 exiles and their families arrived.

In a single and not particularly favourable year, the population of Siberia was increased by about 85,000 persons, of whom about 66,495 were free immigrants. The natural increase was almost equally great, rising, according to the statistics, to 78,000, exclusive of the Littoral Province, which, if taken into account, ought to raise the population by 80,000. On a population which we may estimate at 5,300,000 at this period, there must have been about 250,000 births, that is 47·5 per 1,000, and 172,000 deaths, or 32·4 per 1,000. The birth-rate, therefore, is exceedingly high, and the death-rate, when the conditions of the country are considered, certainly not abnormal. In 1898 the immigration, owing to the opening of the railway, was greatly increased, to the extent even of 200,000 souls. It is not therefore a lack of population which is ever likely to affect the future of Siberia. The natural resources of the country can be justly compared with Canada, which it exceeds in size, and also, to a slight extent, in population; but the difference between the two countries, in point of economic development, is very great. What is wanted in Siberia is less the creation of a great number of complex industries, for which the country is not yet ripe, than the introduction, as already stated elsewhere, of up-to-date methods of exploiting the natural resources of the country, which can only be borrowed from foreign countries, and it will only be by opening wide its doors and by receiving strangers without jealousy or unwarranted suspicion that Russia will ever be able to obtain from her gigantic enterprise in Trans-Siberia a return worthy of the great wealth of a country which must eventually be placed on the same footing as any other in point of civilization and progress.