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102
PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
enlarged by the conquest of the German Colonies, the
declaration of the British Protectorate over Egypt, and the
acquisition of Cyprus, Palestine, and Mesopotamia by Great
Britain during the present war. Russia has, however, two
great advantages over the British Empire in its geographical
continuity and ethnographical homogeneity. The Empire
presents one uninterrupted great stretch of land, and its
population—for the greater part—belongs to the white race.
The British and the Russian Empires, put together,
account for approximately 40 per cent, of the world’s
population and 40 per cent, of the terra firma of the globe.
This gives an idea of the political and economical weight of
the co-ordination of the two greatest State organisms which
have ever existed, a co-ordination which seems to be ordained
by the natural conditions of their very existence ; politically
because their ideals and aims in assuring national
independence to smaller friendly States are the same ; from the
point of view of world-power because they are complements
to each other, the one being the chief continental Power,
the other the chief naval Power ; economically, because
they can mutually provide each other with that of which
they stand most in need, and which they can produce in
greater abundance and in better quality than any other
country.
Climate.—The climate of Russia is polar in the north,
temperate in the middle zone, and reaches sub-tropical
heat in its southern regions. The agricultural products of
the soil are, in consequence, of a most varied nature. In
the forests are grown pine, fir, cedar, larch, birch, oak,
maple, elm, beech. In the fields wheat, rye, oats, hemp,
flax, barley, jute, beetroot, mangold, rape, cotton, maize,
rice ; in gardens and plantations tobacco, tea, grapes, all
sorts of fruits—apples, pears, oranges, mandarines,
tangerines, cherries, plums, figs, apricots, peaches—and vegetables
of every imaginable kind, all in great abundance.
Timber.—The North of Russia is covered with the largest
stretches of forest land in existence, of which much has not
yet been properly surveyed, but which are rightly considered
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