INTRODUCTION. 



XI 



Remaining iii the country tliis sum goes to enlarge the national wealth. Russia now 

 consumes annually about two milliard roubles worth of goods of this kind, or reckon- 

 ing about 120 million inhabitants, not more than 17 roubles a head. This compara- 

 tively small demand for products not of domestic or agricultural origin is determined 

 not only by the predominance of the rural population striving to this day to satisfy 

 all its needs through home productions, but also by the two considerations set 

 forth below. 



When with the abolition of the obligatory labour of the serfs in the sixties, 

 the unsatisfactory character of the former patriarchal system of economy and the 

 impossibility of its continuance became evident, and at the same time the necessity 

 appeared for the development of industry, the conditions did not then exist for the 

 birth and growth of a home manufacturing and mining activity. A demand for goods 

 of this description began to be made by the country, but the satisfying of this 

 demand was effected by means of foreign producers, the customs policy of that time 

 being directed solely to the protection of existing kinds of industry and paying no 

 attention to the establishment at home of the production of goods, the demand for 

 which only became evident with the construction of railways. Thus, for example, 

 notwithstanding the immense supplies of coal existing in Russia, foreign coal was 

 admitted till 1884 duty free, while cast iron paid only an insignificant duty of 

 5 kopecks per pond at a time when the demand for it and for goods made from it, 

 as iron and steel manufactures, grew to a great extent in consequence of the con- 

 struction of railways. Thus during the twelve years only from 1809 to 1881 the 

 annual imports into Russia were on an average as seen below. 



The total value of these imports for these twelve years only exceeded 

 1,100.000,000 roubles, and the payments for them formed one of the principal causes 

 of the fall of the paper rouble. In the forties the value of the gold rouble was on 

 a par with that of the paper rouble; in the tifties, 100 gold roubles equalled 101 to 

 110 paper; in the sixties, 105 to 132; daring the period 1869—1872, from 118 to 

 130; in 1873—1876, from 119 to 151; in 1877—1880, from 154 to 159; in the 

 eighties, from 180 to 181 paper roubles ; in 1890 the ratio was, 100 gold varied 

 from 125 to 147 paper. 



At the same time the conditions always existed in Russia for the satisfaction 

 of this demand by means of developing the home production. The demonstration of 

 this fact is now to be seen in the greatly increasing production of cast iron, iron 

 and steel goods, from the time when the principles of customs protection were ap- 



