The correspondent of the Times in Berlin reports for the
second time the official opinion in Germany that the famine has not been due to an accidental drought, but is the outcome of a steady decay of agricultural prosperity in Russia, which will compel the governing classes in that country to attend to internal affairs, and abandon , aggressive foreign politics. There is no doubt, we believe, of the existence of this opinion in Germany and among some of the Russian cultivated class; but those who wish to make it prevail should furnish more facts. What change is it that they think has occurred in the rural districts of Russia ? Agriculture can be destroyed by
over-taxation, as in France in the later years of Louis XV.; by decreasing fertility, said to be felt in the deserted dis- tricts of New England ; by a decay in the habit of industry, unknown without social disorder ; or by disease among the plants produced, such -as nearly killed the vine-culture of France. To which of these causes do the pessimists attribute a decay which, if it has occurred, is of the last importance to the Empire and to all Europe ? The destruction of an agri- culture, without the departure of a population or other clearly assignable cause, would, so far as we know, be a novel phe- nomenon in history.
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