loss, and many now flourishing establishments would be crushed. The agricultural products of Hungary would in a measure have to find a new market, and the industrial interests of the two countries would probably suffer.

TRIESTE, June 23, 1898.

FREDK. W. HOSSFELD,

Consul.

POTATO FLOUR IN AUSTRIA.

This article is a novelty to the average American. It is used as an ingredient in many lines of bakery and confectionery work where we employ wheat flour; and as cornstarch is unknown here, potato flour serves in cases where the former would be used in the United States.

Potato flour makes a beautifully white and light cake, and is better than cornstarch in lines where this would be used, because of the absence of the peculiar taste.

Potato flour is cheaper than wheat flour. It sells in the market here at 18 to 20 florins per 100 kilograms (about $3.50 per 100 pounds), while the price of wheat flour is 28 florins per 100 kilograms (about $5 per 100 pounds). It is also cheaper than cornstarch would be if sold in this market, as the duty would make the price of the latter materially greater than it is in the United States, to say nothing of the added expense of freight.

I presume there is no material difference between the ordinary process of extracting the starch from vegetable substances and that used in this country in making potato flour. The potatoes, after being washed, are placed on rapidly rotating machines set with teeth, and are then crushed in such manner that the starch is separated from the cells which contain it. Water is freely used in this process, sweeping away the extracted starch and carrying it into. vessels, to the bottom of which it settles. The starch is then put through a refining process, to remove all foreign particles and to thoroughly cleanse it. The final step is to dry the starch, usually

in a special drying machine.

The analysis of potato flour furnished to me is as follows, excluding water, which, of course, is a considerable element:

What is left of the potatoes after the starch is extracted is fed to cattle and swine, and is said to be available also for sundry uses in distilleries, breweries, and sugar factories.

REICHENBERG, June 21, 1898.

FRANK W. MAHIN,

Consul.

DUTIES ON SODIUM ACETATE AND CALCIUM ACETATE IN THE NETHERLANDS.

By royal order of June 20, 1898, appearing in a recent edition of the Netherlands Gazette, sodium acetate and calcium acetate destined for dyeing purposes and printing of materials is, under certain restrictions, exempted from import dues in the Netherlands. I send translation of the royal order setting forth the provisions made with regard to this matter.

THE HAGUE, July 9, 1898.

STANFORD NEWEL,

Minister.

[Translation.]

ROYAL ORDER OF JUNE 20, 1898, CONTAINING PROVISIONS WITH REGARD TO THE

EXEMPTION FROM CUSTOMS OF SODIUM ACETATE AND CALCIUM ACETATE.

ARTICLE 1. The royal order of May 12, 1889 (Official Gazette No. 64), being withdrawn, exemption from customs is accorded to sodium acetate and calcium acetate required in operations in dyeing establishments and in the printing of stuffs, provided those acetates, by mixture with one or more other materials, are rendered incapable of affording vinegar for domestic purposes, and further under the following conditions:

ART. 2. Anyone desiring exemption from customs shall address himself to the Minister of Finance, state the community in which the factory is situated, the surveyor's plan and number thereof, the sort of acetate to be imported, and the quantity which it is thought will be consumed annually. The minister shall determine the quantity that shall be annually imported free of duty, the minimum quantity to be imported in each case, as also the materials with which, and the proportion in which, the acetate shall be mixed.

ART. 3. When acetate for which exemption from duty is requested is imported, mention shall be made of the request in the declaration referred to in article 120 of the general law of August 26, 1822 (Official Gazette No. 38). After this declaration has been made and security for the customs duty deposited, a license shall be given, in which also mention is made of the request. The removal of the acetate to the factory shall be effected under seal.

ART. 4. Admission to the factory shall take place under the supervision of the customs officials, in whose presence the acetate shall immediately be mixed in a proper manner with the materials prescribed by the Minister of Finance. The officials shall enter a statement upon the license with regard to the quantity admitted and the mixing. The materials required for the mixing shall be supplied by the

collector in whose district the factory is situated, at the expense of the person enjoying the exemption, unless some other manner is determined upon by the minister.

ART. 5. The mixture shall not be removed from the factory, and, except with the special consent of the minister, shall not be subjected to distillation.

ART. 6. The collector in whose district the factory is situated shall keep, with the persons enjoying exemption, an account of the acetate admitted under exemption from customs duty. Whenever more is laid in than the quantity for which exemption is granted during the current year, the license shall not be renewed and the duty demanded of the person who has furnished security.

ART. 7. The person enjoying exemption shall tender a written and signed statement at the collector's office at the end of the year of the quantity of acetate imported free of duty which remains unused at the end of that period. This quantity shall be regarded as the first entry in the succeeding year, and shall be entered as such in the account mentioned in article 6. Until this statem. nt has been made, no additional entries shall be allowed.

ART. 8. The officials are authorized by the collector, within eight days after the end of the year, to certify to the quantity of acetate in stock, no matter whether the statement mentioned in the preceding article has been made or not.

ART. 9. The officials are authorized to take from the acetate declared to be for importation under exemption from duty the samples they shall deem necessary for an investigation. The person interested shall supply the necessary bottles.

ART. 10. The Minister of Finance, in case of evident abuse of the provisions of this order, or attempt thereof, or of nonobservance of the same, may refuse the person interested permission to import acetate under exemption from customs.

ART. II. This order shall go into effect on the second day after the date of the Official Gazette and the Official Journal in which it is inserted.

The Minister of Finance is charged with the execution of this order, which shall be simultaneously inserted in the Official Gazette and Official Journal and a copy thereof sent to the Council of State.

INCREASE IN POPULATION OF RUSSIA.

The Journal de Debats publishes an article of which the following translation may be of interest:

At the epoch

The peopling of Russia has been a long, slow, and difficult work. when southern Europe already had flourishing civilization, scattered bands of savages were still wandering over the Russian plain. It required long centuries for them to agglomerate, to become farmers, and finally to found cities, which an invasion of Asiatic nomads never failed to overturn at the end of a dozen years. How many inhabitants Russia possessed at that time can not be told. The first census presenting any guaranties of exactitude, in 1724, shows 16,000,000 Russians. In 1762, there were 20,000,000. In 1796, chiefly owing to the Polish conquests of Catherine II, the population jumped to 37,000,000. Conquests in Finland and Poland account for the gain of 9,000,000 indicated by the census of 1809. The prodigious increase in the Russian population, due simply to the excess of births over deaths, commenced after this date. Without any important change in the frontiers, the inhabitants in 1857 numbered 67,000,000; in 1858, 74,000,000; in 1885, 108,000,000; the census of January 18, 1897, counted 129,000,000 Russians; and at

present there are fully 130,000,000. The Russian people has more than sextupled since the day when Chappe prophesied its approaching end.

Will this progress continue? There is no reason to believe that it is destined to slacken. Russia is far from the influences which have caused the decline in the birth rate of other European countries. If, indeed, the crudeness of agricultural methods renders the crops of the peasant precarious; if the increase in births diminishes proportionally the shares which the mir, the grand Russian village community, places at the disposal of its members, does not the moujik know where to find new fields? The nineteenth century has seen the colonization of southern Russia; the twentieth century will see that of central Asia and Siberia. It is estimated that the zone-about 63 miles wide—along which the Trans-Siberian Railway runs has the area of central Europe, and that it can feed at least 100,000,000 human beings. When they will exist can be calculated with precision. In 1910 the Russian people will have reached 150,000,000; between 1930 and 1940, 200,000,000; at the end of the twentieth century there will be in all probability 300,000,000 Russians. To enumerate the consequences of this enormous growth would be to imitate Chappe. There is one result, however, which can be surely foreseen; it is the economic and social transformation of Russia.

During centuries, this land has only been an immense collection of villages. An urban life could not develop in a country where the consumers were so scattered, so distant from the centers of production that it was necessary to manufacture on the spot, almost in every village, the necessaries of existence. The principal characteristics of Russian life on which historians and philologists have so much dilated are almost entirely due to this infinite dispersion.

This condition is now about to disappear; the difference in density between the populations of western Europe and of Russia is decreasing every day. It is true that the last census gives to Russia in Europe only 51 inhabitants per square mile, while in France there are 183; in Germany, 235; in England, 316; in Belgium, 518. But it must not be forgotten that to find this average, there have been included immense regions to the north and to the south which still are and will remain deserts. In the habitable districts, a much higher average is attained: 90 to 114 in Muscovy, 181 to 194 in Poland, 194 to 207 in the greater portion of the basin of the Dnieper. The urban population will increase even faster. St. Petersburg has already 1,267,000 souls; Moscow, 988,000; Warsaw, 614,000. After these three capitals appear this year two cities which have developed with almost American rapidity: Odessa with 404,000 inhabitants and Lodz with 314,000. After Lodz comes Riga with 282,000, Kief with 230,000, and twelve other cities with over 100,000 inhabitants; that is, six more than in France. In twenty years the urban population has doubled. Certain cities, like Ekaterinoslav, for example, have doubled in much less time. We exclaim involuntarily at the growth of Berlin; look at the progress of the Russian capitals. St. Petersburg, lost in a desert tract on the northern frontier of the Empire, will perhaps have difficulty to reach 2,000,000. It must soon be surpassed by Moscow, with the advantages of a central situation and an immense railway system.

Along with these economic consequences, will there not be others of another kind?

Certain writers are pleased to dream of the time when Muscovy, Poland, Lithuania, and the Cossack region, liberated from the bonds of St. Petersburg centralism, will form a federation similar to the United States of the Danube, which may some day spring from the present Empire of Austria-Hungary. To these reveries historians and geographers have always replied that the conditions were not the same; that Russia possessed a compact kernel-Muscovy-and the Russian race was sufficiently strong to always maintain authority over the outer countries with their divers people.

Now, the census of 1897 shows that the kernel of the Empire-the great Russian Mesopotamia-is rapidly losing its relative importance. The population there is increasing in a way which would be considered marvelous for a French province, but which is mediocre for Russia. Leaving aside the district of Moscow, which is governed by special conditions; the districts in the neighborhood, Vologda, Kostroma, Orel, and others have each gained in eleven years only from 40,000 to 100,000; that of Kaluga shows a total increase of 5,000 inhabitants.

On the other hand, the provinces of the former Kingdom of Poland have gained 1,500,000 inhabitants.

An almost equal gain is noticeable in the Cossack regions of the Don. Farther south, the districts of the Caucasus have advanced from 7,284,000 to 9,723,000; those of the steppe, between the southern Ural and the Oltai, from 2,567,000 to 3,415,000; and Turkestan and the trans-Caspian region, from 2,759,000 to 4,175,000.

Siberia gained less than might be believed, barely 1,400,000 inhabitants (from 4,313,000 to 5,731,000), of which more than half were for the single district of Tomsk. The real colonization of Siberia has, however, only begun, as may be judged by the fact that 196,000 immigrants arrived in the first ten months of 1896.

In general, while the population of the districts of central Russia is growing 20 per cent, the outer regions are increasing 40 to 60 per cent. All this does not mean that the great Russian race is in decay. Historic Russia is simply experiencing the results of its good fortune. For two centuries past it has been conquering and pacifying immense regions. Its population is gradually moving thither, as in the United States so many have emigrated from New England to the Mississippi basin. The Oukrainy or conquered regions, formerly immaterial factors, are more and more affecting the destiny of Russia. The center of gravity of the Empire is moving toward the south and the east. It is neither sure nor probable that a general dislocation will result. In any event, the Government of the entire Empire by St. Petersburg becomes every year more and more paradoxical. Willingly or unwillingly, if contact with the enormous new Russia of the south be maintained, the Government must return to Moscow; and, later, when Siberia in its turn shall be colonized, it may be necessary to remove the capital to the east, towards the legendary centers of Tamerlane and Ghengis-Khan, whose heritage Russia is now reaping. HENRY C. MORRIS,

GHENT, May 9, 1898.

Consul.

THE RUSSIAN FAMINE.

The following article on the famine in Russia has been translated from the Novoe Vremia:

The frequent failure of the cereal crop in the same localities in Russia can not be accounted for on any other theory than that the soil is being impoverished. The famine of 1891, as well as the present one, was caused by impoverishment. How can it be otherwise in a region which is over head and ears in debt, and has no means for encouraging rural industry? As is already known, in the central Chernoziom region all the forests have been cut down. This has had unfavorable consequences for the farmers. Then, the changes in the tariff on grain and the low price of cereals, owing to the conditions of the international market, have destroyed the agriculture of that region.

Of course, a poor harvest has always sad results; but if a farmer has reserve supplies, a famine may not ensue. But when such a harvest occurs in a region where the farmer has not enough to eat and is persecuted by all sorts of payments,