Emigration, it must be borne in mind, is but a small item in the natural causes of the increase of the Russian population. The annual excess of births over deaths rises to about 1,500,000 in the whole of the Empire, and is from 1,100,000 to 1,200,000 in European Russia (Poland and Finland always excepted). The emigration towards Asia has up to 1895 scarcely exceeded a tenth of this figure, and does not even now reach more than a fifth or a sixth. According to an official work published at the end of 1896, the ‘Statesman’s Handbook to Russia,’ we find that during 1887–95, 94,000 families, forming an aggregate total of 467,000 persons, established themselves in Siberia. The average therefore would be about 52,000 souls per annum, but the last few years have witnessed a visible increase. The above figures do not apparently include emigrants who are destined for Central Asia (general Government of the Steppes and Turkestan), to which the total rarely exceeds 10,000 per annum. According to information received direct from Siberia, about 63,000 emigrants arrived in 1894 over the Ural from European Russia. On the other hand, 3,495 entered Siberia by sea, landing in the great Littoral Province on the Pacific. Lately the emigration movement has become much more active, and we should not be far out of our reckoning if we estimated the number of emigrants into Siberia for the years 1897 and 1898 as about 200,000 for each year. The number of persons who seek permission to leave Russia for Siberia is becoming greater every year. Many, however, are discouraged and even refused the necessary papers, so as to avoid burdening the newly-settled country with a superfluity of people who generally arrive without a penny in their pockets. It is natural in a country where the peasantry are still so primitive and ignorant as in Russia that the Government should closely watch the movements of emigrants, who might, on finding exaggerated promises and illusions dispelled, become troublesome and even dangerous. The following is the manner in which these matters are generally organized in European Russia. When several families belonging to a _volost_ express a wish to emigrate they are requested to determine in what part of Siberia they desire to establish themselves. If the applicants are deemed suitable, two of their number, selected as delegates, visit the parcel of land which has been allotted to them, and on returning they are able to inform their friends as to the exact nature of the place to which they are destined. Formerly, the emigrants were allowed to choose their own land, which, as they were almost invariably very inexperienced, was usually quite unsuited to their requirements, and they either went further afield or, disgusted, returned home. In order, therefore, to prevent a recurrence of this unsatisfactory state of affairs, the sensible system of sending on two delegates or pioneers has been established.