dox, Roman Catholic—with every degree of civilization, from the nomadic semi-savage tribes of the Steppes to the progressive Finns, with their Parliament of women and their universal popular education.
II
The first and most important fact to remember about the Russians is that they are, with the Chinese, the most prolific people of the earth. Add the aggregate population of Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Holland, Sweden, and Norway, and you will not reach the hundred and seventy-five teeming millions of the Russian Empire. And that population, notwithstanding an awful death-rate, notwithstanding plague and famine, increases automatically by three millions a year. Every year three-quarters of the entire population of Scotland are being added to Russia. In twenty-five years Russia will number two hundred and fifty millions! When we consider that those two hundred and fifty millions will by that time be fully equipped with every instrument of modern civilization, we realize that Russia will be one of the most formidable world-forces, for good or evil, before the first
