42 THE DECENTRALISATION 



Moreover, as soon as Russia succeeds in 

 obtaining more freedom, a further growth of her 

 industries will immediately follow. Technical 

 education which, strange to say, was for a long 

 time systematically suppressed by the Govern- 

 ment would rapidly grow and spread ; and hi 

 a few years, with her natural resources and her 

 laborious youth, which even now tries to com- 

 bine workmanship with science, Russia would 

 see her industrial powers increase tenfold. 

 She fard da se in the industrial field. She will 

 manufacture all ' she needs ; and yet she will 

 remain an agricultural nation. 



At the present time only a little more than 

 1,500,000 men and women, out of the 112,000,000 

 strong population of European Russia, work in 

 manufactures, and 7,500,000 combine agricul- 

 ture with manufacturing. This figure may 

 treble without Russia ceasing to be an agricul- 

 tural nation ; but if it be trebled, there will 

 be no room for imported manufactured goods, 

 because an agricultural country can produce 

 them cheaper than those countries which live 

 on imported food. Let us not forget that in the 

 United Kingdom 1,087,200 persons, all taken, are 

 employed in all the textile industries of England, 

 Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and that only 

 300,000 out of them are males above eighteen 

 years of age (311,000 in 1907) ; that these work- 



