RUSSIA. 



609 



bounties in Russia, England would be bound to 

 impose retaliatory duties on Russian sugar, and 

 such a step would be in accordance with the Rus- 

 so-British commercial treaty of 1859. The Russian 

 reply, sent in September, described its sugar reg- 

 ulations as internal measures for the furtherance 

 of Russian industry, which the favored-nation 

 clause in the treaty allows to both countries, and 

 asserted therefore that countervailing duties upon 

 Russian sugar would constitute a breach of 

 treaty, as the British Government had itself de- 

 clared after 1897. The exportation of Russian 

 sugar to the signatory countries was unimpor- 

 tant, yet to decide the principle, Russia proposed 

 arbitration by The Hague tribunal, and would 

 not object to have the question tried as to all 

 kinds of goods. 



Navigation. The number of vessels entered at 

 Baltic ports during 1900 was 5,986, of 3,774,000 

 tons; at Black Sea ports and in the Sea of Azof, 

 3,876, of 4,404,000 tons; at White Sea ports, 711, 

 of 401,000 tons; total number entered, 10,573, of 

 8,549,000 tons. The number cleared was 700 in the 

 White Sea, 5,070 in the Baltic, and 3,332 in the 

 Black Sea and Sea of Azof; total, 9,102. Of 5,518 

 vessels engaged in foreign trade entered at 

 ports of European Russia, of 4,097,000 tons, 1,191, 

 of 732,000 tons, were Russian and 4,337, of 3,365,- 

 000 tons, foreign; of 9,102 cleared, of 7,171,000 tons, 

 1,391, of 721,000 tons, were Russian and 7,711, of 

 6,450,000 tons, foreign. The number of vessels 

 that visited Russian ports on the Caspian during 

 1899 was 943. The number of vessels entered at 

 the ports of Vladivostok and Nikolayevsk in the 

 Pacific during 1898 was 384. The number of 

 coasting vessels that visited the Baltic, White Sea, 

 and Black Sea ports in 1899 was 48,420, and the 

 number that visited ports on the Caspian was 

 19,112. 



The Russian merchant navy on Jan. 1, 1900, 

 comprised 2,242 sailing vessels, of 266,418 tons, 

 and 709 steamers, of 334,875 tons. There were 

 650 sailing vessels, of 86,754 tons, belonging in the 

 Baltic in 1899, and 114 steamers, of 39,917 tons; 

 in the White Sea, 416 sailing vessels, of 23,892 

 tons, and 39 steamers, of 6,542 tons; in the Black 

 Sea and Sea of Azof, 659 sailing vessels, of 43,937 

 tons, and 297 steamers, of 165,804 tons; in the 

 Caspian, 517 sailing vessels, of 111,835 tons, 

 and 259 steamers, of 122,612 tons. The Govern- 

 ment made a definite arrangement with the Black 

 Sea volunteer fleet in 1902 to enable it to trade 

 with ports of Persia and the far East. The treas- 

 ury gives a subvention of 600,000 rubles a year 

 for ten years, and the fleet will be increased to 

 10 steamers. To encourage Russian ship-building 

 the Government has offered to lend half the cost 

 on each vessel, and to take two-thirds of the in- 

 surance at 2 per cent, per annum and to give a 

 navigation bounty of half the cost of the fuel, if 

 Russian fuel is used. All material and fittings 

 in Russian-built ships must henceforth be Russian. 



Railroads. The Russian railroad system at 

 the end of 1901 had a total length of 36,526 miles, 

 exclusive of 1,755 miles in Finland. The Ministry 

 of Ways and Communications had control of 

 34,771 miles, of which 23.340 miles were Govern- 

 ment railroads, 10,363 miles belonged to compa- 

 nies, and 1.068 miles were short local lines. Of 

 29 connected lines of railroad the Government 

 owned and operated 20, embracing 60 per cent, of 

 the mileage. There were besides 6 isolated lines. 

 The annual losses which the railroads formerly 

 entailed upon the Government, amounting to 

 30,000,000 rubles in 1889, disappeared in 1895, and 

 the net profits have increased with the transfer of 

 railroads from private to Government ownership 

 VOL. XLII. 39 A 



and management. In 1899 the gross earnings 

 from 27,485 miles were 540,167,000 rubles. In 



1898 they were 495,963,233 rubles from 26,689 

 miles, and the operating expenses were 305,761,649 

 rubles, leaving 190,201,584 rubles as net receipts; 

 number of passengers transported, 92,442,045 ; tons 

 of freight, 130,775,000. The capital cost of the 

 Government railroads was 1,217,755,042 rubles in 

 gold and 1,043,656,189 rubles in paper, equal to 

 2,870,288,752 paper rubles in all. The net reve- 

 nue of the Government from the state lines in 

 1899, after paying 111,935,208 rubles of interest on 

 capital borrowed for their purchase, was 18,134,- 

 080 rubles. The capital cost of private railroads 

 was 534,421,985 rubles in gold and 653,840,332 ru- 

 bles in paper, equal to 1,755,473,310 rubles in all, 

 on which an annual interest of 44,055,116 rubles 

 is paid. The gross earnings of private lines in 



1899 were 160,675,883 rubles, and in 1900 they 

 were 163,148,544 rubles; expenses in 1899 were 

 100,543,547 rubles, leaving 60,132,286 rubles of net 

 earnings. 



The Siberian Railroad in 1900 carried 700,000 

 tons. The first section of this line, from Chelya- 

 binsk to Omsk, 493 miles, was completed in 1895, 

 and the section from Omsk to the Ob river, 388 

 miles, in 1896, and in the same year the branch 

 from Chelyabinsk to Ekaterinburg, 150 miles, con- 

 necting with the Russian network through the 

 Ural Railroad from Perm to Tyumen. The Pacific 

 section, from Vladivostok to Khabarovsk, 475 

 miles, was ready in the middle of 1897, and the 

 middle sections from the Ob to Krasnoyarsk and 

 Taiga to Tomsk, 528 miles; from Krasnoyarsk to 

 Irkutsk, 668 miles, from Irkutsk to Lake Baikal, 

 42 miles, from the Lake Baikal station of Myso- 

 vaya through Sryetensk to Pokrovskoye on the 

 Amur, 925 miles, were built successively. In 1897 

 the Manchurian Railroad was begun, which con- 

 nects the Siberian trunk line with Vladivostok 

 through Chinese territory, and also with Port Ar- 

 thur and Dalny. From Kaidalovo, in Transbai- 

 kalia, this line, which avoids the enormous engi- 

 neering difficulties presented by the route through 

 Russian territory from Pokrovskoye to Vladivos- 

 tok, crosses the frontier at the village of Nagadan 

 and runs through Harbin and Gradekovo to 

 Vladivostok, while the line to Port Arthur and 

 Talienwan branches off at Harbin. The Manchu- 

 rian lines have a length of 1,885 miles, of which 

 285 miles are in Russian and 1,600 miles in Chi- 

 nese territory. The Siberian trunk line was to 

 have been built at a cost of 350,000,000 rubles ac- 

 cording to the original estimates. The actual 

 cost has been over 1,000,000,000 rubles. The 

 length of the Transsiberian trunk line in 1899 was 

 2,089, and that of the Ussuri section 481 miles. 

 The Transcaspian Railroad had a length of 1,374 

 miles, making the total length of the railroads of 

 Asiatic Russia 3,944 miles in 1899, the gross re- 

 ceipts of which for the year from 1,862,304 passen- 

 gers and 3.005,800 tons of freight were 24,528,397 

 rubles, while the operating expenses were 26,122,- 

 195 rubles. In 1898 on 3,065 miles in Asia 1,530,- 

 283 passengers and 2,721,400 tons of freight were 

 conveyed, paying 20,043,179 rubles, while opera- 

 ting expenses were 20,984,260 rubles. 



The White Sea port of Archangel is in com- 

 munication with the main network through a 

 line built in 1897 to Vologda, and another line 

 to Kotlas will connect with the Siberian Trunk 

 Railroad through Perm. Important lines are pro- 

 jected to run from Poltava to Kieff, from Nishni 

 Novgorod to Romanovo, from St. Petersburg to 

 Kieff, through Vitebsk and Mohileff, from St. Pe- 

 tersburg to Vyatka, from Bologoye to Siedlce, and 

 from Orenburg to Tashkeud, which is already in 



