OF AGRICULTURE. 141 



for instance, the costs of growing wheat in this 

 country and in Russia, we are told that in the 

 United Kingdom the hundredweight of wheat 

 cannot be grown at less than 8s. 7d. ; while in 

 Russia the costs of production of the same hun- 

 dredweight are estimated at from 3s. 6d. to 

 4s. 9d.* The difference is enormous, and it 

 would still remain very great even if we admit 

 that there is some exaggeration in the former 

 figure. But why this difference ? Are the Rus- 

 sian labourers paid so much less for their work ? 

 Their money wages surely are much lower, but 

 the difference is equalised as soon as we reckon 

 their wages in produce. The twelve shillings a 

 week of tn*e British agricultural labourer repre- 

 sents the same amount of wheat in Britain as 

 the six shillings a week of the Russian labourer 

 represents in Russia. As to the supposed pro- 

 digious fertility of the soil in the Russian prairies, 



* The data for the calculation of the cost of production of 

 wheat in this country are those given by the Mark Lane Express ; 

 they will be found in a digestible form in an article on wheat- 

 growing in the Quarterly Review for April, 1887, and in W. E. 

 Bear's book, The British Farmer and his Competitors, London 

 (Cassell), 1888. Although they are a little above the average, 

 the crop taken for the calculations is also above the average. 

 A similar inquiry has been made on a large scale by the Russian 

 Provincial Assemblies, and the whole was summed up in an 

 elaborate paper, in the Vyestnik Promyshlennosti, No. 49, 1887. 

 To compare the paper kopecks with pence I took the rouble at 

 T Yff of its nominal value : such was its average quotation during 

 the year 1886. I took 475 English Ib. in the quarter of wheat. 



