Now Siberia, instead of being shut off from the rest of the world, will be traversed by one of the most frequented routes in the universe, and its southern zone will become one of the richest possessions of the white race. The Russian peasants have a natural tendency to emigrate, and since the abolition of serfdom have been invading Siberia in great numbers, and rapidly settling there. More than 200,000 emigrants arrive there every year, and the births greatly outnumber the deaths, so that the population of the Asiatic domains of the Tsar is annually increased by more than 300,000. Russian colonization doubtless has its drawbacks, the most serious among which are lack of capital and absence of education and enterprise among the labouring classes. In spite of this, one fact remains: thanks to the Trans-Siberian Railway, a numerous white population is already occupying the whole North of Asia, from the Urals to the Pacific, and thus Russia can meanwhile make the full weight of her power felt in the Far East, which will certainly prove of incalculable benefit to the advance of modern civilization throughout Asia. While Siberia was being colonized, and the Trans-Siberian Railway was assuming definite shape, Japan was accomplishing her extraordinary transformation. In 1854 the Powers, under threat of bombardment, forced open the gates of this feudal State, whose customs differed from ours more than those of any other Asiatic country, and the entrance to which was forbidden to foreigners under pain of death, and which for ten years was the scene of numerous outrages against them. Forty-five years later new Japan deals on a footing of equality with the European Powers; its admission to the number of civilized States is signalized by the suppression of the extra-territorial privileges of the Europeans, and it has become a centre of great industry, whose cotton stuffs compete in China with those of India, America, and Great Britain. European steamers supply themselves from her coaling-stations; her foreign commerce amounts annually to £44,000,000 sterling; her soil is intersected by 3,125 miles of railway; a crowd of little steamers, often native built, ply along her coasts, whilst regular lines of steamers fly her flag in the ports of Europe, America, and Australia; her fleet is the most powerful in the Pacific; her army, which crushed China five years ago, formed the bulk of the international troops that recently marched to the relief of the foreign Legations threatened by the Chinese. Before these realities the scepticism of those who have so long jeered at these Asiatics playing at being Europeans must perforce turn to admiration.