are agitating for a progressive policy, and resent the old world stagnation which they think dominates the policy of the St Petersburg Government. The political exiles and their descendants have been not so much a disturbing as an educational element in the Siberian social life, for they have been the means of introducing progressive ideas into Siberia from the seats of culture in the West. Amongst other things there is an agitation among the urban Siberians for greater representation in the Duma, increased Government grants for Siberian education, universities, and public development schemes, while resentment is frequently expressed when Siberian taxes are utilized for constructing military railways, or for similar schemes in other parts of the empire.
Indeed the germ of Siberian national consciousness is developing at the expense of Russian national consciousness, and the traveller in Siberia is forcibly reminded of a similar development in the British self-governing colonies.
I will conclude this chapter by giving a brief review of the principal groups of Siberian natives, and of their past and present relationships with the Russian colonists of Siberia. Although the percentage of Siberian natives to the total population is very small at the present day, still there are large tracts of Siberia which are uninhabited except by them, and, since their economic value as fishers and hunters is of considerable importance to the Russians, it is not out of place to examine the social status of these natives in modern Siberian society. The early Russian colonists who settled in the northern forest
