FOREIGN TRADE. 



209 



extent, articles of luxury. China canles on a large trade with Siberia in tea;, the import- 

 ation of other goods takes place on a small scale bearing a more or less casual character. 



The chief articles of Siberian export through the Pacific ports are the produce of the 

 whale and morse industries, furs, sea cabbage and fish. The remaining articles, namely timber, coal 

 from Saghalin, trepang or sea slugs and ginseng, have as yet hardly any industrial importance. 



Foreign goods enter Eastern Siberia mainly through Vladivostok, Nikolaevsk on the 

 Amour, Blagoveschensk and Ayan in the Yakutsk territory. By not one of these four routes 

 can duty free goods penetrate into Western Siberia while avoiding the Irkutsk Customs- 

 house. Merchandise from Nikolaevsk proceeds to Sretensk almost 3,000 versts by the Amour 

 only from May to September; in winter about four months this route is still by the Amour 

 over ice, while in the remaining spring and autumn seasons of the year Nikolaevsk is quite 

 cut off from the country, with which accordingly all relations for the time cease. Other route 

 than the Amour there is none. Goods from Sretensk inevitably take the direction of the 

 Lake Baikal where are situated customshouse posts. From Vladivostok goods go by sea and 

 land. In the first case, they are forwarded to the ports of the Sea of Okhotsk, to Kamchatka, 

 the Island of Saghalin, the harbours of Possiet and St. Olga, De Castri bay and others. In the 

 second, the goods go to China, Korea, Khabarovka and various settlements along the Ussuri and 

 again fall into the basin of the Amour. As for the route through Ayan, on account of the 

 entire absence of population in this locality, the importation of foreign goods through the territory 

 of Yakutsk for a long time to come will be unable to assume any appreciable dimensions. 



The subjection of articles paying excise to a customs tariff has not so much a fiscal 

 character as the object of regulating the relations of importation of foreign and home productions. 



The imports of foreign goods paying duty into the Littoral territory in 1891 were 

 expressed by the figures, 8,000 pouds, valued at J 17,689 roubles, the articles being as in the 

 following table. 



