INTRODUCTION. XXXV 



tinction among- these two classes between the commercial and industrial under- 

 taking-s which are registered during the collection of the assessed taxes and rates. 

 This is done in Table 6 annexed, where the amount of the annual output and 

 profits arising from them is given in millions of roubles. As in Finland and in the 

 Central Asiatic Region the taxes under consideration are not collected, and there 

 exists no corresponding information, these districts have been omitted from the table, 

 which, judging from what has been said above, neither gives complete information 

 upon the Northern nor the Siberia regions. For the remaining regions the data 

 given must be regarded as the most complete of all as yet collected. At the same 

 time it must be observed that the total amount of the assessed taxes received hj the 

 treasury from commercial and industrial undertakings in 1889, reached 5,078,068 

 roubles, upon a calculated total revenue from the undertakings taxed of 280 million 

 roubles, this tax thus forming but 1.8 per cent of the revenue. There is, therefore, 

 no reason to suppose that in the calculation of the operations and revenues of 

 undertakings any great error has crept in, the more so as they were determined by 

 the local offices for tax collection assisted by selected tax payers. The supposition is, 

 however, more likely that the reality exceeds the estimate. 



The relative significance of the statistics for various district must be assumed to 

 be worthy of credence, and therefore should form a concrete measure of the trading and 

 industrial development and importance of the separate districts of Eussia. As far, how- 

 ever, as concerns the data upon the three per cent tax payable from the revenues of 

 share undertakings, they are drawn straight from actual reports and are not subject to 

 question on the score of their accuracy, although the extent of the annual operations 

 is not given, but merely the amount of profits. But as on the calculation of the 

 assessed rates from guild or large private non-share trading concerns (Table 6, 

 columns 6 and 7) it is proved that they have an annual turnover of forty roubles 

 for every rouble of profits; in the same way, in the case of commercial share under- 

 takings it has been assumed that one rouble of profits corresponds to fifty roubles of 

 annual turnover, as share operations do not yield as great profits as private con- 

 cerns. In like manner, from the fact that in industrial guild undertakings there are 

 about 15 roubles of turnover to one rouble of profits (Columns 9 and 10), one must 

 conclude that in the case of industrial share undertakings about 20 roubles worth of 

 business corresponds annually to each rouble of profits, (Column 4). From these hypoth- 

 eses it is clear that an arbitrary element in the calculations creeps in, and there- 

 fore the data taken direct from the official report exhibited in the first sixteen 

 columns should be sharply separated from the conditional deductions drawn by tlie 

 writer of this Introduction and placed in the last columns. In this way the annexed 

 table J\2 6, has the following contents: first, from the data upou the rates, that is, 

 upon share undertakings; 1. the number of commercial undertakings; 2. their 

 profits; 3. the number of industrial or manufacturing undertakings; 4. their pro- 

 fits; second, from data upon guild, non-share imdertakings ; 5. the number of 

 commercial undertakings; 6. their annual turnover; 7. their annual profit; 8. the 

 number of industrial undertakings; 9. their annual turnover; 10. their profit; 

 third, from the data upon non-guild or smaller, but not the smallest, private 

 undertakings not liable to assessment; 11. the number of commercial undertakings 

 paying tax; 12. their turnover; 13. their profit; 14. the number of industrial 



