The position of Russia in the world is a sort of problem. Its area is
immense. More than one seventh of the land surface of the globe is
included within its compact borders. Of this vast territory the area
of European Russia alone is only a fourth; but even so it is larger
than the area of all other European states put together. The
population of Russia is over 129,000,000, of which over 106,000,000
belong to European Russia. But taking even European Russia this is a
population of only fifty-four to the square mile, the lowest
proportion in Europe, except in Sweden and Norway. And the population
is increasing. The birth rate is the highest in the world. And though
the death rate is very heavy, being fifty per cent. more than it is in
England, the increase from births is so great that the population
doubles in forty-six years. There is thus apparently a prospect that
Russia will, in the near future, play an important part in the drama
of nations, her capacities and capabilities for growth seem so
prodigious. And yet there is a reverse side to the picture. Of the
106,000,000 inhabitants of European Russia 10,000,000 belong to a
cultured, progressive class, quite the equal of any people in Europe.
But the remainder are principally a low grade of peasantry, not long
removed from slavery. The principal occupation of these peasantry is
farming. But their farms are small, not more than ten acres apiece,
and the total revenue they get from them does not average more than
$65 a year per farm. The food of these peasantry is the poorest in
Europe. In the main it consists of rye bread and mushroom soup, worth
about four cents a day. The houses are often mere huts, not more than
five feet square. Women as well as men work in the fields, and yet the
total amount of food raised is not more per head of population than
one tenth of what is raised by the peasantry of France. The value of
food raised per acre, too, is but little more than one third of the
average per acre for all Europe.
[Illustration: Russia, the British Empire, the United States
compared.]