THE "PARAMOUNT DESTINY."
A HIINDEED years ago it was thought "probable that, as formerly, we should look upon Russia as the officina gentinm." Nearer our own time, we have heard that civilization was threatened by bar- barism, which it undoubtedly was ; and there have not been want- ing those who have more than hinted comparisons between the rela- tion of the Russians to Europe and that of the Goths to the Roman Empire. Nay, we have among us a certain class of literary poli- ticians who believe that Europe is "used up " ; and who, finding that the ascendancy of the Sclaves is needed to complete the his- toric series, forthwith believe in the certainty of &lave ascen- dancy. Mr. Gladstone himself let fall the significant phrase "the paramount destinies of Russia." We suppose the entry of the Russian troops into Paris, in 1814, was the initiation of the grand Sclavonian epos ! Seriously, this idea of the paramount destinies of Russia is worth a little consideration. How are they to be accomplished ? Not, certainly, after the old fashion of the Goths and the children of Attila; not by the migration of vast hordes, like the Mongols and Tartars under Zinghis or Timour. In these days, undisciplined multitudes, without communications and a commissariat, would inevitably "come to grief." The nomade Tartars who swept from Central Asia alike to the Indian Ocean, the. Pacific, the Frozen Sea, and the frontiers of Germany, carried everything with them everywhere. Their camp was the state ; they made the war pay for the war ; they passed like desolation incarnate over the land, and left little but deserts behind. Such achievements are no longer practicable by similar means ; and if they were, Russia is not the country that could furnish the men to perform them. In fact, Russia, although one-seventh of the globe, is by no means so much an officina gentium as England and Germany. She does not send forth hordes of men to colonize new countries, like the Anglo-Saxon race. The Russian empire does not possess that limitlessness of population as well as territory which was the ter- ror-inspiring characteristic of the countries beyond the pale of civilization in the old time. Her territories have been mapped, her tribes named, her people numbered. Far from being an inex- haustible hotbed of men, you shall read in the pages of Tengo- borski, her distinguished economist, lamentations that her people are too few; that inexorable limits are placed to their growth in the laws of production ; that, except in specially favoured districts, the relative 'density of her population to her productive soil "can never attain the same figure which it reaches in the most popu- lous countries of Europe." Other states may augment population beyond the scope of the natural productive forces of their territory ; "but in so vast an empire as that of Russia, and with such a geo- graphical position, the progress of population must essentially de- pend on the abundance of the products of the soil." The sixty millions of men in European Russia and the five millions in Asiatic Russia are barely enough for the purposes of vigorous national life. Take these facts : in sixteen governments there is not one town to a hundred square miles of surface, and in two of the six- teen there is not one town in a thousand square miles of surface. "In the government of Astrakan, there is but one town in 715 square miles; in that of Wologda, one to 536; in that of Olonetz, one to 398; in that of Stavropol, one to 373; in that of Penn, one to 370. The govern- ments in which the relative number of towns is greatest, that is where we reckon one town to less than 60 square miles, are seven in number, name- ly, the kingdom of Poland, the governments of Moscow, Grodno, Koursk, Toula, Kalouga, and Courland." Russia is inhabited by an average population of 647 to the square mile ; in :England and France, whose united population is a little above that of Russia, there is an average of upwards of 4500 - to the square mile. In Russia there are 10,000 square miles of unpenetrated forests, and out of 95,710 square miles of territory only 29,757 are under cultivation. It is estimated that there are only 2082 persons to every square mile of productive soil,—that is, three times as much productive soil for each inhabitant as in France.* These facts show what room there is for the expansion of Russia in ,Russia; so that if she doubled her population in sixty-six years, as M. Tengoborski calculates, there would still be one-third more of productive land to each inhabitant than there is now in France. But this increase, as M. Tengoborski never fails to repeat, " must always depend more or less on the progress of cultivation, and on the successive development of the productive. forces of the ()pantry." If allowed, there seems no reason to doubt that the Russians would increase. "If," says Mr. Denby. Seymour, "the military organization of Russia could be once broken up, the people would turn to their natural pursuits, which are decidedly commercial and agricultural The most sin- gular thing is, that the people among whom this military organiza- tion of the whole nation prevails [one man in fifteen a soldier] is, without exception, the most pacific people on the face of the earth." We may add to this the fact, that the Russians are not a migratory but a home-keeping people. There are, therefore,. Iwo tendencies in operation,—one directed to the cultivation of the soil and the development of the resources of the country ; the other stretching away towards the realization of those vast de- signs which are to constitute, we suppose, the "paramount desti- ny. The former is the popular, the latter the political tendency. There is ever going on an inarticulate struggle between the two; and it is because the latter has got the upper hand that there is war between Russia and the West. Hence, production is checked, and population is diminished, nearly a half per cent of the annual estimated increase. These are some of the causes that are likely to adjourn the "paramount destinies."
Russia is far more dangerous, under her present rule, in peace than in war. She never fights with a strong power until she is_ forced to fight; but she is ever ready to fight with a weak power, if her ends cannot be compassed less expensively and ostenta- tiously. If she subjugate Europe, it will be by plots and wiles. Her aim, while assiduously cultivating her resources, has been, partly by force, but chiefly by guile, to obtain controlling posi- tions—such as Sebastopol was, as Poland and Transcaucasia are, as Constantinople and Finmark would be. She could not afford, even if she desired, to send out undisciplined multitudes to conquer and regenerate Europe, Goth and Tartar fashion ; nor would she
wil-
lingly have risked disciplined multitudes ; but she could send out legions of spies, yards of riband, scores of orders, and other bribes, and, hovering on the selvage of civilization, crib a bit here and a bit there, and now and then, when nobody seemed to be looking, snatch at some larger piece either of influence or territory. Thus- the "paramount destinies" were promoted every day until they were far on the road to fulfilment ; when degenerate Europe showed a little public spirit, and threw herself between Russia and the destined prey.
• AL Tengoborski's calculations for other countries, as well as Russia, are in all cases based on the " geographical mile of four minutes of the Equator, or fifteens to a degree."
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