INTKODUCTKJN. 



XUI 



will lead not only to the lowering of their prices and the enlargement of their con- 

 sumption, but also to the increase of weal'th and prosperity, or as a consequence to the 

 increase of the demand for goods not of domestic production. Tlie oxainple of the 

 petroleum industry shows that several decades of years are required fur the attain- 

 ment of the proper growth of the Eussian home manufacturing industry. The ti'eat- 

 ment on a large scale of petroleum in Baku was begun in 18G2, while the almost 

 complete suppression of foreign imports corresponds to the year 1882. The policy of 

 a carefully thought out protection extended to various productions had scarcely begun 

 in the middle of the eighties ; the fruits, however, are already beginning to show them- 

 selves, although it is impossible to expect a complete result, especially the manifest 

 enlargement of home consumption earlier than the beginning of the next century. The 

 consequence of the prevalence of the conviction in the brilliant period of the sixties, 

 when many sides of Eussian life were being reformed, is that Eussia as an exclusively 

 agricultural country should not make any special efforts to develop its mining 

 and manufacturing industries, being in a position to advantageously obtain in ex- 

 change for its grain all kinds of manufactured goods from foreigners. A result of 

 such a view is not only the feeble development in Eussia of mining and manufac- 

 turing industry, but the small buying power of the people, clearly expressed by the 

 above tigure of 17 paper roubles for each inhabitant. The industry which has been 

 customary and from immemorial time peculiar to the Eussian people, the growing of 

 grain, has during the past twenty years suffered a great change throughout the whole 

 world. This has had as a consequence the result of lowering the prices for grain 

 produce during this period instead of advancing them. This phenomenon is gene- 

 rally known, but at the same time it may not be out of place to illustrate it object- 

 ively, making use for this purpose of the account of the Hamburg Exchange (Ham- 

 burg's Handel und Schilfahrt, 1888), where on Table 2, is shown the change in the 

 prices of more than 300 articles from 1847 to 1888. For wheat the average price 

 in marks per 100 kilos was as follows: 



Accordingly the average price for the fifties must be taken as 23 marks, for 

 the sixties 21.50, for the seventies, again about 23, while it was about 15 at the 

 end of the eighties. The fall from 23 to 15 marks shows a decline of 8 marks, 

 w^hile in reference to the prices prevailing at the end of the eighties this forms more 

 than 50 per cent. Hence is evident the cause of the fact that the countries import- 

 ing grain began in the eighties to protect their domestic production by import du- 

 ties upon all forms of grain, as of the fact also that in countries exporting grain 

 like Eussia there appeared the deficits of the grain producers, leading to the mak- 

 ing of every effort to diminish all general expenses upon grain, especially those 

 arising from trade. The essence of the business is included in the following. The 

 consumption of grain increases very slowly and proportionately to the growth of the 



