XIV INTRODUCTION. 



population, and depeuds in hardly any degree upon tlie decline ot prices. The con- 

 sumption of other goods on the contrary, for example, manufactured and mineral, 

 grows incomparably faster. Thus the production of coal upon the whole of the 

 eai'th's surface in 1850 was not more than 90 million tons ; in 1890 it was more 

 than 400 millions, i. e., in the course of 40 years the consumption of such articles 

 increases with the fall in price. The production of grain required by industrial 

 countries with the development of universal peace and trade relations, especially by 

 sea, becomes most advantageous in subtropical countries, inhabited by peoples pos- 

 sessed of little energy and requiring to be supplied with the products of manufac- 

 ture. Hence it follows that in the not distant future, countries like the United States 

 and Eussia, where the population is rapidly growing and industry developing, will 

 cease the now existing export of grain and will direct their energies to the export 

 of agricultural products only in the manufactured state. 



The fall in the prices of grain products referred to above is due to two causes. 

 In the tirst place, the number of countries supplying the western European markets, 

 as England, Germany, France, Italy, Holland, and Belgium with grain, has lately 

 increased, not only by the great rise in the imports from the United States but by 

 supplies also from Austria, Roumania, India, Australia, South America and Africa. 

 Such a result was due to the prevailing peace and to the cheapening of transport by 

 sea. The increase of the supply of grain from countries not exhausted by agriculture, 

 and especially from subtropical countries where labour is frequently recompensed by 

 insignificant wages, brought about the result that the consumers producing manufac- 

 tured articles lowered the prices on the grain they bought and were thus enabled 

 to lower also the prices of the manufactures they supplied in return. The second 

 cause of the lowering of the prices of corn upon the western European markets was . 

 the introduction by many countries, such as Germany, France, Italy and Greece, of 

 customs duties upon foreign grain, with a view to protect the earnings of the home 

 farmers. The Eussian farmers, namely, the great bulk of the population, lost heavily 

 from the fall in grain prices referred to. The cheapening of freights and a certain 

 regulation of the conditions of the immense home and foreign grain trade of Eussia 

 mitigated the burden proceeding from the reduction in the prices of grain, but at the 

 same time various symptoms began to show themselves of the impossibility of re- 

 lying upon agriculture alone for the further development of the economical life of 

 the country. Thus, for example, the improvement in the exchange of the paper 

 rouble, so useful for all government and economical relations of Eussia abroad, is 

 obviously impeded by the circumstance that upon every improvement of the exchange, 

 Eussian farmers, that is, almost half Eussia for the other half has to buy grain 

 (Table 5) who are paid in paper roubles, have to bear losses dependent on the fall 

 of the price of their production, already cheapened of late. For the solution of the 

 problem confronting Eussia, namely, how to improve the exchange and at the sauxe 

 time increase the wages and wealth of the whole population, there are two methods 

 and their combinations suggested. These are first, to increase the price of the grain 

 exported from Eussia, and second, to enlarge the other earnings of its inhabitants. 

 But the first method is not within the power of the people and does not satisfy all 

 interests, because part of Eussia are buyers and not sellers of grain (Table 5). At the 

 same time the rise of prices of grain over the whole world must come of itself. In 



