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the Amur region and on the Pacific compared with thegrowth of Siberia proper, west of Lake Baikal. Southof the Amur Russian settlers did not penetrate intoManchuria. On the contrary, in the eighteen-nineties,at the very time when Russian imperialism was thrustingsouthwards here, Manchuria, largely a vacant land, wasbeginning to fill up with wave upon wave of Chinesepeasants at a rate more rapid than the Russian outflowto Siberia and the Far East.The Trans-Siberian railway was at last begun in 1891,when a much-advertised visit to Vladivostok of the heir-:apparent, soon to become the emperor Nicholas II,boomed the 'manifest destiny' of Russia on the Pacific.The railway was due to a combination of economic andstrategic interests, both of which came increasingly tothe fore in the eighties, when Great Britain and Franceseemed to be heading towards a virtual conquest of China.Russia must not sit idly by. The military were united indemanding the railway. The construction and heavyindustries stood to gain largely by a big railway programme,and various commercial and industrial interestswere urging the necessity of securing in time markets inthe Far East and of building up a solid base for Russianpower on the Pacific. Almost all shades of vocal opinionin Russia joined in backing expansion in the Far East.After the turn of the century economic conditions andprospects changed abruptly for the worse and thegovernment no longer had such backing; revolutionaryunrest was admittedly swelling, and the Manchurianadventure which caused the war with Japan in 1904 hadby then lost any real basis of popularity.The ablest and most powerful representative of theeconomic interests which in the nineties were transformingRussia at home and giving a new cast to Russianimperialism abroad was Witte (cf. pp. 120-121), who in1892 entered upon his ten-year tenure of the ministries ofcommunications and finance. In Witte's eyes the Trans-Siberian would open "a new route and new horizons notonly for Russia but for world trade . . . resulting infundamental alterations in the existing economic relationsbetween states"; it also would open "the possibility of301