RUSSIA. 



589 



of the annual grant to the Roumanian schools in 

 Macedonia from 400,000 lei to 215,000 lei, the 

 Cantacuzene ministry having in 1899 reduced it 

 to the former figure from 500,000 lei, to which 

 it had grown from the original modest subsidy of 

 10,000 lei. Apart from motives of economy, the re- 

 laxation of the Roumanian propaganda in Mace- 

 donia and Epirus emphasized the good under- 

 standing that had been established with Greece, 

 in sign of which King Carol had a meeting at 

 Abbazia in Austria with the King of the Hellenes 

 in May. The Vlachs in Turkey were as thorough- 

 ly Hellenized as any of the Christian races before 

 an active propaganda was begun to reattach them 

 in thought and language to their nationality in 

 Roumania. The entente with (J?reece was con- 

 firmed by a visit of Roumanian students to 

 Athens. Negotiations for a new commercial 

 treaty with Turkey were begun in April. The 

 crops in 1901 were disappointing, being below 

 the average, but maize turned out to be a good 

 crop, and a profitable one on account of the short 

 crop in the United States. The financial year 

 closed with a deficit of about 30,000,000 lei. Of 

 the loan of 175,000,000 lei contracted by the Can- 

 tacuzene ministry, realizing 156,000,000 lei, 137J- 

 000,000 lei only had been expended, leaving 19,- 

 000,000 lei to cover the expense of the public 

 works in progress, which was a sufficient sum. 



BUSSIA, an empire in northern Europe and 

 Asia. The throne is hereditary in the dynasty 

 of Romanoff-Holstein-Gottorp. The legislative, 

 executive, and judicial powers are vested in the 

 Emperor, called the Czar, who is assisted by a 

 Cabinet of Ministers, each of whom has charge 

 of an executive department; by a Council of 

 State, which examines and passes upon projects 

 of legislation submitted by the ministers; by a 

 Ruling Senate, which watches over the judicial 

 administration; and by a Holy Synod, which di- 

 rects ecclesiastical affairs. 



The reigning Emperor is Nicholas II, born May 

 18, 1868, who succeeded his father, Alexander III, 

 on Nov. 1, 1894. The heir presumptive is the 

 Grand-Duke Michael, brother of the Czar, born 

 Dec. 4, 1878. The members of the Committee of 

 Ministers at the beginning of 1901 were as fol- 

 low: Minister of the Imperial H0use and Im- 

 perial Domains, Gen. W. Freedericksz ; Minister of 

 Foreign Affairs, Count Lamsdorf, appointed in 

 1900; Minister of War, Gen. Kuropatkin; Minis- 

 ter of the Navy, Vice- Admiral P. P. Tyrtoff; 

 Minister of the Interior, M. Sipyaghin, appointed 

 in 1899; Minister of Public Instruction, M. Bo- 

 golepoff; Minister of Finance, S. J. Witte; Min- 

 ister of Justice, N. V. Muravieff; Minister of 

 Agriculture and State Domains, A. S. Yermoloff ; 

 Minister of Ways and Communications, Prince M. 

 J. Khilkoff; Comptroller-General of the Empire, 

 Lieut.-Gen. Lobko; State Secretary for Finland, 

 W. K. de Plehwe ; Procurator-General of the Holy 

 Synod, K. P. Pobedonostseff ; President of the 

 Committee of Ministers, J. N. Durnovo. The 

 Grand-Dukes Vladimir Alexandrovich, Alexis Al- 

 cxandrovich, and Michael Nicolaievich are mem- 

 bers of the Committee of Ministers, as are also 

 M. Frisch, president of the Department of Legisla- 

 tion; M. Solsky, resident of the Department of 

 State Economy; and M. Selifontoff, president of 

 the Department of Civil and Ecclesiastical Affairs 

 in the Council of State; and Privy-Councilor T. 

 J. Philippoff. Peter Vannovsky succeeded M. 

 Bogolepoff as Minister of Public Instruction on 

 April 7, 1901. 



Area and Population. The area of the Rus- 

 sian Empire is 8,447,234 square miles, exclusive of 

 293,018 square miles of internal waters. Accord- 



ing to the census of 1897 the total population in 

 that year was 128,932,173, of whom 100,154,607 

 were in European Russia, including Finland and 

 Poland, and 22,097,465) in the Asiatic dominions. 

 There were 46,447,963 males and 47,707,452 fe- 

 males in European Russia, 4,764,007 males and 

 4,691,936 females in Poland, 4,891,054 males and 

 4,357,641 females in the Caucasus, 2,954,55'.) males 

 and 2,772,531 females in Siberia, arid 4,15S,!)SO 

 males and 3,562,704 females in Central Asia. A 

 partial enumeration of the Jews of the western 

 and southwestern provinces indicates that they 

 constitute over 11 per cent, of the town popula- 

 tion, in Odessa as much as 35, per cent., and about 

 11 per cent, of all the population of Poland, their 

 total number exceeding 4,000,000. The number 

 of marriages in European Russia in 1896 was 

 809,847; of births, 4,634,809; of deaths, 3,063,047; 

 excess of births, 1,571,762. The birth-rate shown 

 in that year was 47.2 per mille in European Rus- 

 sia and Poland, 46.5 in Siberia, 37 in the Cauca- 

 sus, and 33.3 in Finland; death-rate, 32.5 in 

 Siberia, 31.8 in European Russia and Poland, 21.2 

 in the Caucasus, and 19.5 in Finland. The net 

 emigration of Russians from 1856 to 1888 was 

 1,146,052, and during that period there was a 

 net immigration of foreigners into Russia of 

 2,304,717. In recent years the Russian emigrants, 

 including Jews, exceed the foreign immigrants. 

 The immigration of Russians into the United 

 States from 1873 to 1897 was 722,472. In 1898 

 the number of passengers and emigrants who en- 

 tered Russia was 4,051,684, and the number who 

 departed was 4,066,757. The cities with over 75,000 

 population were: St. Petersburg, 1,267,023 ; Mos- 

 cow, 988,614; Warsaw, 638,209; Odessa, 405,041; 

 Lodz, 315,209; Riga, 256,197; Kiev, 247,432 j 

 Kharkov, 174,846; Vilna, 159,568; Saratov, 137,- 

 109; Kazan, 131,508; Ekaterinslav, 121,216; Ros- 

 tov, 119,889; Astrachan, 113,001; Tula, 111,048; 

 Kishinev, 108,796 ; Nizhni Novgorod, 95,124; Niko- 

 laiev, 92,060; Samara, 91,672; Minsk, 91,494; Vo- 

 ronesh, 84,146. 



Finances. The ordinary revenue for 1899 was 

 1,673,313,062 rubles, and expenditure 1,468,221,000 

 rubles, leaving a surplus of 205,090,062 rubles. 

 The extraordinary revenue was 179,202,000 rubles, 

 and the extraordinary expenditure 318,730,000 

 rubles. Since 1894 only money raised by loans and 

 deposits in the imperial bank are classed as ex- 

 traordinary receipts, military contributions from 

 Turkey and Khiva having been transferred to the 

 ordinary revenue; and expenditure on state rail- 

 roads, except the building of new lines, and on 

 harbors, and for the rearmament of the army and 

 the accumulation of reserves of food, are now 

 classed as ordinary expenditures. The revenue 

 has increased 76 per cent, in ten years, the in- 

 crease being due largely to receipts from the 

 railroads acquired by the Government, which re- 

 ceipts were 347,529,144 rubles in 1899, against 

 49,318,360 rubles in 1890, the revenue of the Gov- 

 ernment from private railroads having on the 

 other hand declined in this time from 38,747,012 

 rubles to 10,641,104 rubles. The Government mo- 

 nopoly of the sale of spirits is another new source 

 of revenue, yielding 10,837,937 rubles in 1895, 

 when it was first introduced, and 110,755,669 ru- 

 bles in 1899. The import duties have been ad- 

 justed so as to produce a third larger accession 

 of revenue, realizing 219,276,055 rubles in 1899, 

 against 142,160,527 rubles in 1890. The receipts 

 from excise, domains, monopolies, and taxation, 

 both direct and indirect, have all increased. The 

 yield of direct taxes in 1899 was 43,543,000 rubles 

 from land and forests, 61,073,000 rubles from 

 trade licenses, and 16,730,000 from the tax of 5 



