IV INTRODUCTION. 



among: which was the increased demand of all classes of the population for manu- 

 factured articles, especially leather, glass, iron, kerosene. Next came the increase of 

 free capital, called forth by the development of banking operations, founded on the 

 issue of land-redemption certiticates, or the mortgaging of land and houses, and the 

 circulation of various shares and bonds, a practice until then very rare in Eussia. 

 Lastly, must be noticed the propagation of the manners and customs of the towns 

 over the Avhole country now intersected by railways, whose appearance gave an 

 impulse to every kind of exchange. 



The growing demand for manufactured articles in its turn helped to give life 

 to railway enterprise, but the latter did not show the energy that might have been 

 expected. This circumstance depended in the first place upon the fact Eussia's cus- 

 toms tariff, which had been in operation during the period 1857 to 1877, when the 

 internal demand had become very brisk, protected only that which had received its 

 initial development eai'lier than that period, for example manufactures, or fostered 

 onl}' the working up of raw materials, admitting without duty, sometimes with low 

 fiscal dues, raw and half-manufactured goods, such as cast iron, steel, cotton, sulphur 

 and coal. The mills and manufactories which sprang up at that time fi'equently had 

 the character of finishing works. They received all the chief raw and half-manufac- 

 tui'ed materials from abroad and completed their manufacture in Eussia, in order to 

 profit b}' the advantages presented by the protective tariff on finished goods. As an 

 example, may be taken the working up of foreign cast iron into iron and steel rails 

 and the making of cement with the aid of foreign lime and coal on the seacoast. 

 This cause of development of the mills and manufactories was the more faulty because 

 the products obtained fi'om foreign raw material had not the capacity for becoming 

 cheaper, yielded the people but little wages, hindered the development of internal 

 productive industry and, in general, contributed little to the industrial progress of 

 the country. Nevertheless these manufactories, together with the increased demand 

 arising among the people on their passage from their formal patriarchal life to one more 

 complicated, and with greater requirements in reference to manufactured goods, and 

 the construction of railways referred to above, served to throw a certain amount 

 of animation into the whole manufactui'ing enterprise of Eussia, a movement which 

 dates from the seventies. This industrial life became evident with the year 1877, 

 when on account of the needs of the treasury, and later when in the interests of 

 the development of the home industries, the customs duties began to be raised as com- 

 pared with those wMch in the sixties were thought to answer to the internal demand, 

 aided by foreign importation. In order to form a more just opinion of the importance 

 of customs duties in the interest excited in the last fifteen years in Eussia's manufac- 

 turing activity, it is necessary to become acquainted with the particulars relating to 

 the protective policy of the country, set' forth by the Vice-Director of the Depart 

 ment of Trade and Manufsictures, V. J. Timiriazev, in the Chapter upon the Customs 

 Policy of Eusssia, and in the Chapter by A. J. Stein, Chief of the Statistical Section 

 of the Department of Customs Duties, upon the Foreign Trade of Eussia. In this 

 Introduction only a few general facts, founded upon data wiiicli depict the situation of 

 Eussia in respect to the productiveness of lier mills and manufactories, her trade 

 balance and her customs, Avill be noticed. Seeing that the amount of the latter 

 is closely connected with the conditions which determine the origin of mills and 



