12 FIELDS, FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS. 



begin with, let me take the example of Russia. Not 

 because I know it better, but because Russia is the 

 latest comer on the industrial field. Forty years ago 

 she was considered as the ideal of an agricultural nation, 

 doomed by nature itself to supply other nations with 

 food, and to draw her manufactured goods from the 

 west. So it was, indeed, forty years ago but it is so 

 no more. 



In 1 86 1 the year of the emancipation of the serfs 

 Russia and Poland had only 14,060 manufactories, 

 which produced every year the value of 296,000,000 

 roubles (about 36,000,000). Twenty years later 

 the number of establishments rose to 35,160, and their 

 yearly production became nearly four times the above, 

 i.e., 1,305,000,000 roubles (about 131,000,000); and 

 in 1894, although the census left the smaller manufac- 

 tures and all the industries which pay excise duties 

 (sugar, spirits, matches) out of account, the aggregate 

 production in the Empire reached already 1,759,000,000 

 roubles, i.e., 180,000,000. The most noteworthy 

 feature of Russian industry is, that while the number 

 of workmen employed in the manufactures has not 

 even doubled since 1861 (it attained 1,555,000 in 1894), 

 the production per workman has more than doubled : 

 in has trebled in the leading industries. The average 

 was less than 70 per annum in 1861 ; it reaches now 

 163. The increase of production is thus chiefly due 

 to the improvement of machinery. 



If we take, however, separate branches, and especially 

 the textile industries and the machinery works, the 

 progress appears still more striking. Thus, if we con- 

 sider the eighteen years which preceded 1 879 (when the 

 import duties were increased by nearly 30 per cent, and 

 a protective policy was definitely adopted), we find that 

 even without protective duties the bulk of production 

 in cottons increased three times, while the number of 

 workers employed in that industry rose by only 25 per 



