Ch. ix. Siberia, Northern and Southern. 177 



and this is certainly a most essential one. It may 

 indeed be safely asserted that the importation of 

 industry is of infinitely more consequence to the 

 population of a country, than the importation of 

 men and women considered only with regard to 

 numbers. Were it possible at once to change the 

 habits of a whole people, and to direct its industry 

 at pleasure, no government would ever be reduced 

 to the necessity of encouraging foreign settlers. 

 But to change long-existing habits is of all enter- 

 prises the most difficult. Many years must elapse 

 under the most favourable circumstances, before 

 the Siberian boor will possess the industry and 

 activity of an English labourer. And though the 

 Russian government has been incessant in its en- 

 deavours to convert the pastoral tribes of Siberia 

 to agriculture, yet many obstinately persist in 

 bidding defiance to any attempts that can be 

 made to wean them from their injurious sloth.* 



Many other obstacles concur to prevent that 

 rapid growth of the Russian colonies, which the 

 procreative power would permit. Some of the 

 low countries of Siberia are unhealthy from the 

 number of marshes which they contain ;f and 



* Tooke's Russian Empire, vol. iii. p. 313. 



t Voy. de Pallas, torn. iii. p. 16. Though in countries where 

 the procreative power is never fully called into action, unhealthy 

 seasons and epidemics have but little effect on the average popula- 

 tion ; yet in new colonies, which are differently circumstanced in 

 this respect, they materially impede its progress. This point is not 

 sufficiently understood. If in countries which were either station- 

 ary or increasing very slowly, all the immediate checks to popula- 

 VOL. I. N 



