I'LAX, HE.Ml' AND JUTE GOODS. 23 



The im])ortci.'>ce of this branch of manufacture and the necessity for its furtiier devel- 

 opment in Russia is also shown by the universal demand for enormous quantities of 

 Eussian raw material, instead of which it would naturally be much mort' jireferable 

 to export manufactured goods. 



The manufacture of flax and hempen goods, as a branch of industry, is deserving 

 of particular attention partly because it is a part of that primitive kind of Eussian 

 trade which is still to a great extent carried on by separate households in the cottages. 

 The peasants of those provinces where flax and hemp are cultivated retain part of 

 their crop for tlieir own special requirements; they spin the yarn themselves, weave 

 the cloth upon looms of the simplest construction, and make durable linen. In 

 some districts they find it possible to do without almost any cotton stuffs and only 

 use them in small quantities on account of their attractive colours and finish. This 

 industry may, therefore, be rightly termed a popular one. 



Historical Sketch of the Flax and Hemp Industuies. 



The manufacture of flax and hemp goods has for a long time occupied a very 

 prominent place among the native industries. The ancient chronicles referring to the 

 tenth and eleventh centuries already mention that cloth of various kinds was made from 

 flax and hemp. These textile fabrics were not only sold in the country, but were also 

 sent abroad, forming an important item in the export trade of Novgorod and Pskov. 

 In the treaty charters between the inhabitants of Novgorod and the princes in tlie 

 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the flax trade is particularly mentioned, and a 

 special duty was levied on each bale of hemp. 



When the trade route through the White Sea was discovered by the English in the 

 sixteenth century they founded the first flax spinning works at Ivholmogory and also two 

 factories for rope-making, one at Kholmogory and the other at Vologda, as this trade 

 had up to that time been but little developed. At the end of the seventeenth ceutui'v 

 the direction of the export trade was again changed, and Eiga, Eeval and Dorpat be- 

 came the chief points, and Germany the principal consumer. Although Eussian 

 cloth and linen, as well as carded flax, stripped hemp and ropes, found a ready sale 

 abroad, still these textile fabrics were of a coarser kind and the Eussian gentry of 

 that period used to order their linen abroad. 



The Government had endeavoured at a still earlier period to take the flax trade 

 under its exclusive jurisdiction, but it was only during the reign of Peter the Great 

 that it met with the energetic intervention of the authorities, who regulated the in- 

 dustry itself and introduced measures for its improvement and development. Among 

 other things an order was issued to manufacture only wide linen and to use special 

 contrivances for making it. Furthermore, in order to facilitate the extension of linen 

 factories Peter the Great granted all possible privileges and exemptions to the first 

 manufacturers, such as free grants of land and buildings, special privileges in law 

 and service, and also forbid the import of foreign linen. The first linen factories were 

 established in the district of Moscow and the province of Yaroslav, where spinning 

 had for a long time been the staple trade of the inhabitants. 



