XLII 



INTUODUCTIOX. 



(lata ou exportation, during several years, of spirit, sugar and petroleum products. 

 In the last colamn is cited by way of example the export of the production of the 

 peasauti'y which has found a regularly increasing sale upon the markets of Western 

 Europe, namely hen eggs. These illustrations show, that apart from breadstuffs Eus- 

 sia's export is capable of rapid growth and is assuming large economical proportions. 



The foreign export of Russian products of the manufacturing industry, as of agri- 

 cultui'al, only in a still higher degree, depends upon the cheapness of the means of 

 delivering these products at the frontiers of the Empire; and in this respect, in 

 the last 20 years with the construction of railways, many goods have found an outlet, 

 as shown in the Eeview published by the Ministry of Ways of Communication. This 

 side of the business has only lately begun to develop, and that slowly. Furthermore, 

 the Government protective tariff was brought to a completion only in the middle of 

 1891. when it already began to excite an increase in the manufacturing activity of 

 Eussia. Moreover, mau}^ deposits of natural wealth have now first become known and 

 worked, such as the coal measures of the Donets, Transcaspian sulphui', Caucasian 

 formations of natural Glatiber's salt (the source of the cheapest production of soda 

 and glass), the pyrites of the Ural, ores of nickel, mercury and manganese. Add to 

 all this the fact that the price of laboui" in Eussia is cheaper than in the majority 

 of countries of the West, and it will appear that the manufacturing activity of Eussia 

 has before it an indisputable quickening and growth which will give the world's 

 trade a mass of goods in whose increased production the national labour and capital 

 will find a new source for heightening the prosperity of the country, not yielding 

 to that furnished by its agricultural activity. 



The low price of labour in Eussia, referred to above, is an economical factor 

 of so much importance as to deserve something more than a bare mention. The chief 

 causes of the comparative cheapness of time and piece wages paid to workmen in the 

 production of many manufactured articles in Eussia are: 1. the great supply, the 

 number of persons who must seek earnings outside of agriculture, that occupation 

 being already very great as appears from the following calculation taken by way of 

 example. For all the different kinds of labour expended in the production per pond of 

 grain together with the collateral cultivations, as well as the associated labour in-- 



