The Times' correspondent in St. Petersburg affirms that the design
of the great Siberian Railway, which is to connect the Baltic with the North Pacific, is being eagerly pushed forward. A few versts only will be constructed this year on the Euro- pean side, beginning from 'Miask ; but the survey is to be completed at once as far as Tomsk, and operations at the other end are to be commenced at once from Vladivo- stock. The engineers are most desirous of pushing on rapidly, but the Finance Minister dreads the expense, and does not see how to attract Russian capital to the line without imposing fresh burdens on the Treasury. It has been proposed to employ all the convicts in the Empire; 'but they would require so much guardianship, that it would be simpler to employ the soldiers themselves, who, if but slightly remunerated, would feel the task a relief from the monotony of their daily lives. The completion of the line, if the money can only be found, would alter the position of Russia in Northern Asia, enabling her to bring her immense forces to bear at any point threatened either by insurgent tribes or by the Chinese. It would, too, open up whole provinces to immigration, for which the peasants of North Russia, who find the Southern provinces too completely occupied to attract them, are already inclined. With fertile land for nothing at the other end, they will move any distance ; and they organise themselves in agricultural communes by a sort of instinct, like that of ants.
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