784 



RUSSIA. 



the orthodox faith. The flourishing German 

 manufacturers and agriculturists in southern 

 Russia, German only by descent, were harassed 

 until they were financially ruined by the officials. 

 Polish engineers who had built and managed 

 the Trans-Caspian Railroad were suddenly dis- 

 missed, and all Poles, Germans, Jews, and 

 foreigners of all kinds who had settled in that 

 part of the empire were incontinently driven 

 out. Even the Mohammedan Tartars were op- 

 pressed in various ways and were not allowed to 

 read the Koran, except in an expurgated trans- 

 lation. Among the new regulations affecting the 

 German Lutherans of the Baltic provinces was 

 one forbidding any but Russians from practicing 

 law. The persecution of schismatics was re- 

 doubled in severity. The Stundists and Baptists 

 of Kieff and other places were hunted out and 

 banished to trans-Caucasia. 



Famine. The wheat and rye crops failed in 

 1891 in the provinces of Tula, Tamboff, Voro- 

 nesh, Nijni Novgorod, Riazan, Simbirsk, Kursk, 

 Orenburg, Penza, Samara, Saratoff, Kazan, and 

 Viatka. and partly failed in Moscow, Kaluga, Orel, 

 Ufa, Astrakhan, Kostroma, Kherson, Perm, Khar- 

 koff, Tobolsk in western Siberia, and in others. 

 It was estimated in the summer that the wheat 

 crop was 25 per cent., or 50,000,000 bushels, short 

 of the average, leaving 50,000,000 bushels, in- 

 stead of the average of 100,000,000 bushels, for ex- 

 port, if the home consumption remained the same 

 as in ordinary years. The rye crop was 80 per 

 cent., or 180,000,000 bushels,' less than the aver- 

 age crop of 600,000,000 bushels. An average of 

 60,000,000 bushels has been exported in past years 

 to Germany, Austria, and other countries, and 

 therefore if no rye was exported at all the peo- 

 ple would have only about three quarters of the 

 quantity usually consumed to sustain them till 

 the summer of 1892, for the stocks left over were 

 very small. With no crops to supply their staple 

 food or barter for other necessities or pay their 

 debts, the peasantry of the afflicted provinces 

 were soon reduced to bankruptcy and want, and 

 their position was made more desperate by rains, 

 which caused the potatoes to rot and the ravages 

 of the cattle disease. On Aug. 11 the Czar 

 issued a ukase prohibiting the export of rye. rye- 

 wheat with more than 8 per cent, of rye, or bran 

 by way of the Black Sea or Baltic ports or the 

 western land frontiers. The transport rates for 

 wheat and potatoes to the necessitous provinces 

 were compulsorily lowered on all the railroads. 

 The prohibition of rye exports was felt severely 

 in Germany, which in ordinary years imports rye 

 largely from Russia and in this year had a very 

 short crop. During the days that were left the 

 Jewish merchants exported rye to Germany up 

 to the full capacity of the railroads, and after 

 the ukase went into force they sent it abroad in 

 the form of bread until the practice was interdict- 

 ed. By a second manifesto exports from Finland 

 were forbidden. The spirit bounties were re- 

 moved with the object of lessening the consump- 

 tion of grain, potatoes, and Indian corn for dis- 

 tillation, and measures were taken to prevent rye 

 in particular from being made into spirits. Al- 

 ready in August great numbers of people were 

 without their usual food, and some died from 

 starvation. They tried to nourish themselves 

 with wild fruits and the seeds of weeds, or with 



grass and leaves. In Simbirsk and Kazan they 

 ate a bread made from ground straw and pig- 

 weed. At Libau, Vilna, and Smorgoni peasants 

 and poor Jews carried out the Czar's edict be- 

 fore the time by stopping rye that was being 

 carted to the railroad and unloading it at the 

 town hall. Similar grain riots took place at Orel, 

 at Vitebsk, at Diinaburg, and other stations on 

 the line leading to the frontier. The Govern- 

 ment and the Zemstvos spent large sums in sup- 

 plying seed for the next crop and food to keep 

 the people through the winter. The industrious 

 peasants of the valley of the Volga were reduced 

 to the last stages of destitution before succor 

 was brought to them, and whole villages perished 

 before food, which was hurried forward before 

 the freezing of the river, could be distributed. 

 The extent of the famine-stricken area, embrac- 

 ing the central and southeastern provinces, was 

 about 30,000 square miles, containing a popula- 

 tion of 25,000,000 souls. The sum of 184,000,000 

 rubles was estimated to be what was required to 

 keep this population from starving and to sup- 

 ply seed grain. This region comprises the great- 

 er part of the plain of Great Russia up to the 

 Volga and the low plain east of that river. In 

 the northern and middle section rye is the prin- 

 cipal crop, and in the southern provinces wheat 

 is grown and is eaten by the people. The greater 

 part of the black soil is found in these provinces, 

 which constitute the most fertile and one of the 

 most thickly populated regions in the empire. 

 The continental character of the climate, the 

 scanty rain-fall, the prevalence of dry winds, and 

 the absence of forests and mountains to check 

 the wind and retain moisture make the effects of 

 an inclement season widely felt. The winter of 

 1890-'91 was unusually cold ; frosts occurred late 

 in the spring when the ground was denuded of 

 snow, and they were followed by a long drought 

 with easterly winds. The cereal crops for the 

 whole of European Russia and Poland aggre- 

 gated 517,000,000 against an average of 645.000.- 

 000 hectolitres, leaving a deficit of 128,000,000 

 hectolitres, or nearly 20 per cent. The effect of 

 the rye ukase was to prevent the export of about 

 50,000,000 hectolitres that would otherwise have 

 gone abroad, but at the same time would have 

 put 200,000,000 rubles in the pockets of the 

 peasantry. The Government gave 24,000,000 ru- 

 bles and afterward 55,000,000 more to the Zemst- 

 vos for relief purposes. The price of rye doubled. 

 The prohibition of exports was extended to other 

 cereals until Nov. 8, when the decrees were re- 

 voked. Merchants and all classes of the no- 

 bility made voluntary sacrifices, and the Zemskie 

 Natchalniki, the heads of the local governing 

 bodies, acted as agents of the Red Cross Society 

 to distribute food, all the members of the 

 Zemstvos and the country gentry aiding in the 

 work. The entire population of the thirteen 

 stricken provinces was under the inspection of 

 these volunteer charity commissioners, who only 

 gave relief, as far as they could discriminate, to 

 those who were actually starving. Nearly every- 

 where the live stock had disappeared and barns 

 were torn down for fuel. In the winter hunger 

 typhus broke out. 



The Question of the Dardanelles. In the 

 convention of London in 1841 the right of Tur- 

 key to close the Dardanelles to the war-ships and 



