is wife and family leads to very undesirable results, well known
to all who are familiar with the details of peasant life in the northern
provinces. And whatever its advantages and defects may be, it cannot be
permanently retained. At the present time native industry is still in
its infancy. Protected by the tariff from foreign competition, and too
few in number to produce a strong competition among themselves, the
existing factories can give to their owners a large revenue without any
strenuous exertion. Manufacturers can therefore allow themselves many
little liberties, which would be quite inadmissible if the price of
manufactured goods were lowered by brisk competition. Ask a Lancashire
manufacturer if he could allow a large portion of his workers to go
yearly to Cornwall or Caithness to mow a field of hay or reap a few
acres of wheat or oats! And if Russia is to make great industrial
progress, the manufacturers of Moscow, Lodz, Ivanovo, and Shui will
some day be as hard pressed as are those of Bradford and Manchester. The
invariable tendency of modern industry, and the secret of its progress,
is the ever-increasing division of labour; and how can this principle be
applied if the artisans insist on remaining agriculturists?

The interests of agriculture, too, are opposed to the old system.
Agriculture cannot be expected to make progress, or even to be tolerably
productive, if it is left in great measure to women and children. At
present it is not desirable that the link which binds the factory-worker
or artisan with the village should be at once severed, for in
the neighbourhood of the large factories there is often no proper
accommodation for the families of the workers, and agriculture, as at
present practised, can be carried on successfully though the Head of
the Household happens to be absent. But the system must be regarded as
simply temporary, and the disruption of large families--a phenomenon
of which I have already spoken--renders its application more and more
difficult.

CHAPTER X

FINNISH AND TARTAR VILLAGES

A Finnish Tribe--Finnish Villages--Various Stages of
Russification--Finnish Women--Finnish Religions--Method of "Laying"
Ghosts--Curious Mixture of Christianity and Paganism--Conversion of
the Finns--A Tartar Village--A Russian Peasant's Conception of
Mahometanism--A Mahometan's View of Christianity--Propaganda--The
Russian Colonist--Migrations of Peoples During the Dark Ages.

When talk