Here I may observe that I have never seen any of the exiles in Siberia ill-treated, and even the chain which some of them are obliged to wear did not seem to me very heavy. The great prison of Alexandrofsk, near Irkutsk, is admirably managed, its rules being very mild. Nevertheless, I must confess that I only visited what the officials chose to show me. All I can say is that, according to my experience, if there are exiles who are habitually badly treated, they must be very few in number. Of course, I can say nothing in extenuation of the system of transporting a young man or even a young woman to languish in a dreary village buried in the depths of a forest or the Tundra, merely because they happen to have taken an over-prominent part in some political or students’ demonstration. One curious fact connected with this system of Russian transportation is that the wives and children of the exiles are often authorized to follow the condemned man, which they very frequently do, although in some cases the law considers the marriage bond annulled by the mere act of condemnation, the unfortunate exiles being considered civilly dead. The families of these poor people often endure such terrible privations that local committees have been founded, under the patronage of the authorities, to assist them. In 1894, in the five Governments of Tobolsk, Tomsk, Yenissei, Irkutsk, and Yakutsk, 15,000 exiles and their families arrived. In a single and not particularly favourable year, the population of Siberia was increased by about 85,000 persons, of whom about 66,495 were free immigrants. The natural increase was almost equally great, rising, according to the statistics, to 78,000, exclusive of the Littoral Province, which, if taken into account, ought to raise the population by 80,000. On a population which we may estimate at 5,300,000 at this period, there must have been about 250,000 births, that is 47·5 per 1,000, and 172,000 deaths, or 32·4 per 1,000. The birth-rate, therefore, is exceedingly high, and the death-rate, when the conditions of the country are considered, certainly not abnormal. In 1898 the immigration, owing to the opening of the railway, was greatly increased, to the extent even of 200,000 souls. It is not therefore a lack of population which is ever likely to affect the future of Siberia. The natural resources of the country can be justly compared with Canada, which it exceeds in size, and also, to a slight extent, in population; but the difference between the two countries, in point of economic development, is very great. What is wanted in Siberia is less the creation of a great number of complex industries, for which the country is not yet ripe, than the introduction, as already stated elsewhere, of up-to-date methods of exploiting the natural resources of the country, which can only be borrowed from foreign countries, and it will only be by opening wide its doors and by receiving strangers without jealousy or