1814.] Population of Russia. 263 



12i millions,* and since 1804 it has been reckoned 15 or 16 

 millions. t Thus it has gained 4 millions in 36 years, and 3 or 4 

 millions during tlie last 10 years. If these data are correct, there 

 must, during the first period, have been an annual surplus of 

 111,000 inhabitants, and during the last a surplus of 300,000; 

 and the population would have almost doubled in half a century, % 

 This progress is astonishing ; but the progress of the industry of 

 England is equally so, especially since the time of William III. 

 under whom the rights of the people were better understood and 

 irrecoverably fixed. However, the progress of population in Eng- 

 land is not without a parallel ; for Smith acknowledges that in the 

 British North American colonies, the United States, the population 

 doubles in 20 or 25 years. Here labour is so productive that a 

 numerous family, instead of being an expense, is a source of opu- 

 lence to the parents. The labour of each child before he quits his 

 father's house is estimated as 100/. sterling. Here the demand for 

 workmen, and the funds for supporting them, increases more ra- 

 pidly than their number. Thus there are different scales for the 

 progress of population, all independent of the extent of land 

 capable of cultivation, and of the excess of births above deaths ; 

 but all directly proportional to the increase of national wealth, 

 which in some countries has been more slow, in others more rapid. 

 According to these principles, founded on experience, what 

 ought we to predict respecting the future progress of Russia ? Her 

 agriculture has increased prodigiously during the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, so much so that in the well cultivated governments round 

 Moscow it can extend no further without the ruin of the forests and 

 meadows which remain. It may still gain a great deal by improve- 

 ments of the soil ; but the requisite capital can only accumulate 

 slowly by means of commerce, as is shown by the examples of 

 England, Flanders, and Lombardy. Hence we cannot expect a 

 rapid improvement in the agriculture of Russia during the nine- 

 teenth century. Here manufactures, still inferior to those of Eng- 

 land, Germany, and France, are, notwithstanding, sufficient for 

 the markets which they find at present in the interior and in Asia. 

 Here the productions must be regulated by the demand. As to the 

 manufactures for the foreign market, they depend upon foreign 

 commerce ; and this commerce has been carried on abroad by 

 foreigners, and at home by means of capital furnished by foreigners. 

 The increase of Russian commerce depends upon peace, and upon 

 tlie augmentation of knowledge. On these accounts we cannot 

 expect so rapid an increase of national riches, and consequently of 



* SluarCg Researches on the Principles of Political Ecouomy, vol. i. ch, xr, 

 p. 178. 



+ Mfusrl, Slatistiquf, tcrond edition, of 1791, n. 216. 



t Thr reader will be aware Ihut the data are incorrect. The real rate of 

 iacrra.ie during the lust ecniury ia exhibiled in tlie table published by the HoubC of 

 Camuuiui, and inserted iu the lirit Number of Ihc Jnnals of JPJiitofVfy.^^T. 



