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Show I mm ' ' UlYKillSL, fy-j Larxdcf Promise $u W . UKRAINE, the part of Russia w hich has set up an Independent Indepen-dent government and made a separate peace with the central cen-tral powers, Is a country rich in natural natur-al resources that need only systematic development. Ukraine covers 850,000 square kilometers, kilo-meters, an area greater than that of France and only a little less than that of Italy, Spain and Portugal together, George Raffalovich, a Ukrainian by birth and an authoritative historian, writes In the New York Sun. Taking the figures usually given by European writers of repute, there are today 29,000,000 Ukrainians In the southwestern provinces of Russia, between be-tween 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 in Siberia, Si-beria, where they have, especially in the Amur region, extensive settlements; settle-ments; 3,500,000 In Eastern Galleia, 40,000 In northern Bukowina, and perhaps per-haps 500,000 in northern Hungary on the southern slopes of the Carpathian mountains. The bulk of the Ukrainians consists, therefore, of those in Ukrainian Russia, Rus-sia, in Galicia and in Bukowina, for they Inhabit the compact territory which is only artificially or shall we say politically? divided between Russia, Rus-sia, Austria and Hungary. Leaving out the Rusniaks, or Ukrainians of Hungary, Hun-gary, who express no desire to work politically with the other members of their nation, and who insist, even in America, upon societies of their own, we have a population of over 33,000,000 stretched between the Caucasus, the Black sea, the Carpathian mountains and the San river. The Ukrainian Governments. The purely Ukrainian governments of Russia are : 1. Ukraine of the right bank (of the Dnieper), Podolia, Volhynia, Kief and Kholin. 2. Ukraine of the left bank (of the Dnieper), Tchernihov, Poltava, Khar- Iqlliif -JfS) Views of Kharkov and Ekaterinolav. kov, southwest Khursk, Voronezh and the region of the Don Cossacks to the Sea of Azov. 3. On both sides of the Dnieper lies the Steppe Ukraine, comprising Ekate-rinoslav, Ekate-rinoslav, Kherson and the eastern parts of Bessarabia and Tauris. 4. North Caucasus, adjacent to the region of the Don Cossacks, comprising compris-ing Kuban and the eastern parts of the Stavropolskol and Therska governments. govern-ments. In all these districts the Ukrainians form from 70 to 09 per cent of the total population, the rest being Jews, Poles and, lastly, Russians. The Rurlk dynnsty founded Ukraine. When it disappeared, as all monarchies must, the next organization that kept the Ukraine lands together was the republic re-public of the Cossacks, whose domain overlapped Lithuania and Poland, who occupied much of the Ukraine soil. The Cossacks were organized something some-thing on the lines of the chivnlry of western Europe. The!) precepts were obedience, piety, chastity and equality. equal-ity. The assembly was the only authority they recognized. The hvrtman (headman) (head-man) was elected by and was responsible respon-sible to the assembly for his actions. If he offended he was incontinently deprived de-prived of his office. The assembly, called rada, was periodical pe-riodical and comprised representatives of all classes of tbe community, who often criticized freely the policy of the hetman. In the Interval between radas the hetman ruled the country by a series se-ries of decrees. When any section of the Ukrainian community was dissatisfied dissatis-fied with the person or the policy of the hetman it was entitled to call together to-gether a rada, which in such cases was called a black rada. If the black rada happened to be representative enough, and the complaint met with the approval ap-proval of the majority, the hetman might he compelled to resign. While the Muscovites lived under an absolute monarchy, while the Poles were ruled by a haughty and exclusive aristocracy, in Ukraine all were free under un-der the Lithuanian kings, and republican repub-lican Institutions were gradually taking tak-ing root. Many people would leave the surrounding country and go to settle set-tle in Ukraine. Such names preserved In the Ukraine as O'Brien and O'Rourke tend to prove that people came from much farther to settle In the happy land. Great Cereal Country. The famous black soil of Ukraine covers three-quarters of the country. To the north as well as In the Carpathian Carpa-thian mountains are some 110,000 square kilometers of forest. The agricultural agri-cultural soil covers 53 per cent of the aggregate territory of Ukraine and 32 per cent, If we take In the whole of European Russia, which is, however, six times greater than Ukraine itself. The annual production of cereals in Ukraine is two-thirds of the whole production pro-duction In the recent Russian empire. It Is greater than that of Germany or France. The exportation of grains from Ukraine amounts to 27 per cent of the production, and of all the wheat exported from Russia nine-tenths comes from Ukrainian lands. As a matter of fact, the trade of Ukraine Is more developed than that of any part of all Russia. Ukraine ranks highest among all the countries that compose the vast Russian Rus-sian empire as to the annual agricultural agricul-tural production. Wheat, barley and rye are the staple crops of Russian agriculture, ag-riculture, and the annual production In Ukraine of these grains amounts to one-third of Russia's output. As to other farm products, Ukraine's position Is also conspicuous. Beet root, for Instance, is especially cultivated In the Ukrainian provinces of Podolia, Volhynia, Kleff and Kherson Kher-son ; those provinces together yield five-sixths of the sugar beet production produc-tion of all Russia. Ukraine produces almost all the tobacco of the old empire, em-pire, and she has the largest and finest orchards and vineyards of Russia. The Immense nntural resources of Ukraine furnish splendid opportunity for the development of manufacturing industries. As a matter of fact, 62 per cent of Russia's annual production of pig iron and 58 per cent of Russln's production of steel come from Ukraine. |