228 MANUFACTURES OF RUSSIA. 



duction, and demand for chemical products required by other industries, while the 

 iiome cliemical works could not satisfy this increased demand owing to their pre- 

 vious feeble development, due to the fact tliat the duties upon chemical products in 

 general were less protective than those on other goods. 



4. The fall in the general value of the demands for chemical and colouring 

 goods during the eighties was not due to a decrease in the demand, which on the 

 contrary increased, but to the fall in price of many of the products and especially 

 of aniline and artificial dyes. 



It is evident from the data of the preceding table that the Russian chemical 

 industry has from distant ages far from satisfied the demand, and although the home 

 production of chemical products and dyes has increased, still it does not now 

 exceed one-third of the demand. This is just the reverse from other manufactures, for 

 example that of leather and paper, the home production of which greatly exceeds the 

 import, from long ago. The cause of this must be looked for in the fact that chem- 

 ical products, as auxiliary to other classes of industry, have long been subject to 

 only very inconsiderable customs dues *, and that therefore their import was only 

 natural. While manufactured goods vrere subject to not under 50 per cent customs 

 dues, chemical products paid scarcely 6 per cent. Under these circumstances the only 

 chemical works possible were those producing acids, especially sulphuric and nitric, 

 and a few other products which either offered some difficulty in transport and stor- 

 age, or, as with green vitriol, alum, et cetera, were so cheap that the cost of 

 transport into the interior formed a great impediment. But, when the customs duties 

 on chemical products were raised in the eighties, it became possible for the young 

 Eussian chemical industry to compete with the already established foreign export 

 trade ; the already existing Eussian chemical works enlarged their operations and 

 new and more perfected enterprises were started. Among the latter may be mentioned 

 the Tentelevsk Chemical Works near St. Petersburg, which for instance treated box- 

 ite and platinum ores, and carried on the manufacture of ultramarine and soda. 



The fact that the raising of the customs duties during the eighties produced 

 a marked although slow improvement in the home chemical industry, and also that 

 many of the most important raw materials necessary for the full development of 

 this industry, such as pyrites, sulphur salt, phosphorite, bone, et cetera, were known 

 to exist in Eussia, was taken into consideration in the revising of the customs 

 tariff in 1891. The duties on foreign chemical goods, without being essentially revo- 

 lutionized, were systematized, while in some few cases, for example, acetate of lime 

 and caustic soda, the duty was raised. The fruits of such a procedure, which was 

 only enforced in 1891, have already shown themselves in the increased produc- 



* For example, in 1873, the import of sulphur amounted to 310,000 ponds; that 

 of saltpetre from Chili, 304,000 ponds: of barium precipitate, .121,000 pouds ; of salts of 

 ammonium, 29,000 pouds; of sulphur-aluminous salt and alum, 111,000 pouds; of all kinds 

 of soda, 1,168,000 pouds ; of white lime, azotic and muriatic acids, 298,000 pouds ; of acet- 

 ic, oxalic and other acids, 18,000; the total araouting to 11,500,000 of roubles paper; 

 the duties on these wares amounted to 68,000 roubles paper, or about 6 per cent of the 

 value. In 1888 to 1890 the customs duties formed about 25 per cent of the value of the 

 chemical imports, and hee increase of the duties corresponded to the increase of the pro- 

 duction of the Empire, 



