INTRODUCTION. XV 



the natural course of commerce ; it is only necessary to wait. Therefore, there re- 

 mains the second way, that is, the development in Russia of the industrial treatment 

 of its other natural resources, under the conviction that it will lead not only 

 to the increase of the national earning's, but to the export from Russia of various 

 productions of its mining and manufacturing industry. With its cheap grain, with 

 the existing preparation and the variety of the natural resources of the country this 

 is possible for Russia more than for many other countries. This explains the in- 

 creased protection during the present reign and the transitory economical condition 

 from purely agricultural to industrial agricultural, in wliich the country now is. 



The felling of many forests, the lack of moisture and the consequent repeated 

 cases of crop failures are forcing the adoption of more thorough and rational meth- 

 ods of agriculture. But the absence of the development of manufacturing industry 

 precisely in those governments of Russia which are the preeminent furnishers of 

 grain, places a limit to efforts of this kind, as the cultivation of artificial grasses, 

 roots and plants having a commercial importance cannot be widely developed unless 

 the neighbourhood of industrial enterprises consumes them. Such kinds of agricul- 

 tural products form the foundation of intensive systems of cultivation, already be- 

 come necessary, in the majority of the localities of European Russia. Hence although 

 the production of breadstuff's, mainly grain, in Russia has largely increased since the 

 sixties, this has not led to an increase of the wealth in the agricultural districts of 

 the Empire. Thus is explained the above indicated small demand for goods not of do- 

 mestic production, and the feeble growth of the demand for such goods in late 

 years. 



Besides the transmigration to fresh lands, Siberia, the Caucasus or Russia's 

 Central Asiatic possessions, now regulated and partly encouraged by Government 

 measures, a happy issue from the situation is principally to be seen in the universal 

 development of the mining and manufacturing industries throughout the whole of 

 the Empire. Thus it will be made possible to extend the intensive system of agri- 

 culture and to increase its profitablenesss and thereby open new sources of wages 

 to the people. The government has had recourse, therefore, to such a rational form 

 of protection as should help to enhance the development of the working of the nat- 

 ural wealth of the country and of the treatment in manufactories and mills of 

 every kind of raw material produced outside the country. 



The turn taken by Russian economical life in this direction, coincides with 

 the beginning of the eighties, that is, to the time of the beginning of the reign of 

 the present Emperor, Alexander Alexandrovich, but receives the most evident expres- 

 sion in the new tariff of 1891. This began at first in very moderate dimensions to 

 protect the raising of all kinds of minerals, for example, sulphui' and pyrites, all 

 sorts of ores, stones and coal. At the same time this tariff' proceeded to encoiu'age 

 more highly than had the former the existing forms of industry employed in working- 

 up home raw materials, and to call new methods into being. This was particularly 

 the case with the chemical manufacturing and metal industries and such rural occu- 

 pations, as wine making, the making of all kinds of preserves, the preparation of 

 artificial fertilizers, starch, products obtained from wood, such as turpentine, resin, 

 cellulose, and of every kind of agricultural manufactured product. The fruits of this 

 policy are already clearly apparent, and first of all in the direction taken by agri- 



