A fair measure, perhaps, of the economic condition of a country is the
earning capacity of its inhabitants, and, tried by this test, Russia
stands far below the other civilized states of the world. According to
a report made by S. N. Prokopovich to the Free Economic Society of St.
Petersburg on May 2, 1907, the average annual income of the population
per capita, in the United States and in various parts of Europe, is as
follows:[35]
Country Average income
per capita
United States $173.00
England 136.50
France 116.50
Germany 92.00
Servia and Bulgaria 50.50
Russia 31.50
It thus appears that the average American family earns nearly six
times as much as the average Russian family, and that even in such
comparatively backward and undeveloped parts of Europe as Servia and
Bulgaria the average income of the population per capita is nearly
twice that of Russia.
Another test of the economic condition of a country is its rate of
mortality, taken in connection with the provision that it makes for
the medical care and relief of its people. The death-rate of
Russia--37.3 per thousand--is higher than that of any other civilized
state, and, according to a report made by Dr. A. Shingaref to the
Piragof Medical Congress in Moscow in May, 1907, the health of the
population is more neglected than in any other country in Europe. The
figures by which he proved this are as follows:[36]
Great Britain has one doctor to every 1,100 persons
France " " " " " 1,800 "
Belgium " " " " " 1,850 "
Norway " " " " " 1,900 "
Prussia " " " " " 2,000 "
Austria " " " " " 2,400 "
Italy " " " " " 2,500 "
Hungary " " " " " 3,400 "
Russia " " " " " 7,930 "
In connection with this report it may be noted that while Russia has
only one physician to eight thousand people, there is one policeman to
every nine hundred and one soldier to every one hundred and twelve.
This lack of physicians in Russia is mainly due to the extreme poverty
of the mass of the people and their absolute inability to pay for
medical attendance and care. With an earning capacity of only $31.50
per capita, or $189.00 per annum for a family of six, and with taxes
that cut deeply into even this small revenue, the Russians cannot
afford doctors. Shelter, food, and clothing they must have; but
medical attendance is a luxury that may be dispensed with.
One of the principal causes of the impoverishment of the agricultural
peasants in Russia is the insufficiency of their farm allotments. When
the serfs were emancipated about forty-five years ago, they were not
given land enough to make them completely independent of the landed
proprietors, for the reason that the latter had to have laborers to
cultivate their estates, and it was only in the emancipated class that
such laborers could be found. Since that time the peasant population
has nearly doubled, and an allotment that was originally too small
adequately to support one family now has to support two. This
increasing pressure of the growing population upon the land might have
been met, perhaps, as it has been met in Japan, by intensive
cultivation; but such cultivation presupposes education, intelligence,
and adoption of improved agricultural methods; and the Russian
government never has been willing to give its peasant class even the
elementary instruction that would enable it to read and thus to
acquire modern agricultural knowledge. In 1897, more than thirty years
after the emancipation, the Russian percentage of illiteracy was still
seventy-nine, and on January 1, 1905, only forty-two per cent. of the
children of school age were attending school, as compared with
ninety-five per cent, in Japan.[37] Intensive cultivation, moreover,
involves high fertilization and the use of modern agricultural
implements. The Russian peasants do not own live stock enough to
supply them with the quantity of manure that intensive cultivation
would require,--millions of them have no farm-animals at all,--and,
with their earning capacity of only $31.50 a year per capita, they
cannot afford to buy modern plows and improved agricultural machinery.
If there were diversified industries in Russia, the agricultural
peasants who are unable to maintain themselves on their insufficient
allotments might find work to do in mills or factories; but Russia is
not a manufacturing country, and her industrial establishments furnish
only two per cent. of her population with employment.
[Illustration: P. A. STOLYPIN