XLVUI INTKODUCTION 



In Biissia, again more often than in any other country, agricultural activity 

 is able to be combined with the industrial and the commercial, which is based upon 

 the fact that the peasants all have their lots of land and are able to devote a small 

 portion of their time, especially the so-called strada or season of mowing hay and 

 reaping grain when farming demands many hands, to agriculture; the greater part, 

 and in particular the whole of the winter, they can give to manufactories and mills, 

 or to the small houselutld or domestic industries called hustarny. This very desirable 

 combination of agricultural with industrial activity is realised in that form, called 

 kustarny which is specially considered in Volume I of this work, prepared for 

 the World's Columbian Exposition, There is no doubt but that these occupations 

 form a large branch of the manufacturing industries of Russia, but it is impossible 

 to have sufticiently exact information upon them as they are entirely free, not sub- 

 ject to any Government taxes and so escape registration. Some idea, however, of 

 their extent may be at times obtained, an example of which is the leather industry, 

 set forth in Chapter VI. Here according to the data extant collected by Professor 

 Vylezhinsky it is reckoned that the production of the registered works being equal 

 to 42,000,000 roubles a year, that of the Imstars is about 58,000,000. It is further 

 known that the household industry in the working up of various materiels into hardware, 

 especially knives, locks, door appliances, nails et cetera, into woodworks, especially in 

 the making of casks, wheels, carts, yokes, boxes and shovels, in the manufacture of 

 articles from horn, as combs and buttons, in the preparation of pasteboard and many 

 other manufactures, occupies a number of hands, and has every chance of competing 

 with large manufacturing enterprises, especially with the help which is extended 

 the kiistars from the Government and Zemstvos. 



By way of an example in support of the above view, may be cited the care 

 of the cardboard industry in the Moscow government, which supplies apothecary 

 shops and kindred houses. This trade is gradually passing from the manufactories 

 into the hands of the kustars, thanks to the fact that the Zemstvos have taken the 

 household industry of the Government under their special protection and have begun 

 to supply the kustars themselves with the raw material used in their work. The 

 conflict between the capitalist and the smaller enterprises may with such assistance 

 take a different turn than ordinarily. It is known that the small undertakings of an 

 industrial nature often perish when confronted with the competition of the great 

 concerns. The cause of such ruin of the petty industries, general in all countries, 

 must first of all be sought from an economical point of vi^w in the importance of 

 the capital lying at the disposition of the large undertakings, and from a technical 

 point of view, in the adoption of large machines and appliances, for instance, blast 

 furnaces, large motors and continuously acting furnaces. But the economical impor- 

 tance of capital can be weakened by the principal of the arid, or cooperation, the 

 assistance of organs of local government, such as the Zemstvos, the influence of 

 State enactments and the fall in the value of capital, expressed in a diminished rate 

 of interest. All these factors are to-day, to a more or less extent, for one reason 

 or another, taking place before our very eyes and constitute one of the forms of econom- 

 ical progress in which Russia is taking a manifest part. The technical influence of 

 large machines and appliances, on the other hand, may be diminished in proportion 

 as methods for the profitable subdivision of mechanical forces into small parts arfe 



