COMMERCE. 467 



75,680,000 gallons of alcohol, and upwards of 154,000,000 gallons of brandy. In 

 1878 there were nearly 300 beet-root sugar-mills, of which half were in Kiev, the rest 

 in Poland and the " black lands," and the produce rose from 122,700 tons in 1868 

 to about 320,000 in 1878. The production of machinery has also made fair 

 l^rogress, and in 1868 as many as 212 of the 1,150 Russian locomotives had been 

 made in the country. In the same year the total value of the large industries was 

 estimated at over £40,000,000, or about one-fifth of the agricultural produce. 

 Yet nearly all the industrial progress dates from the epoch of the emancipation, 

 and especially since 1805 the productiveness has increased, on an average, fivefold. 

 It is difficult to estimate the value of the smaller industries, which may exceed 

 £8,000,000, employing about 6,500,000 hands, of whom 6,000,000 reside in the 

 rural districts during the winter months only, when field operations are suspended. 

 Some Russian economists have thought that this so-called kustarnaija, or "planta- 

 tion " industry, would save the nation from the proletariate, but the hope is vain, 

 for even here the tendency to centralization is manifest. Thus in the Shuya 

 district the artisans employed at home were fivefold those working in the factories 

 in 1842, but in 1862 the proportion was reduced to double, and in 1872 the 

 numbers of both classes were equal. 



Trade and Shipping. 

 The Russian foreign trade has varied from £110,000,000 to £142,000,000 between 

 the years 1872 — 78. In the overland movement Germany naturally takes the lead, 

 as England does in the sea traffic, France ranking third, and Austria-Hungary 

 fourth in the gross amount of their exchanges with the empire. The exports consist 

 almost exclusively of agricultural produce and raw materials, the imports mainly 

 of manufactured goods, tea, and cotton : between 1872 and 1876 the latter averaged 

 £76,000,000, the former scarcely £61,000,000, showing a difference of about 

 £15,000,000 in favour of the imports. The total exchanges are about 40s. per 

 head, or five or six times less than those of France. 



Most of the sea traffic is naturally absorbed by the Baltic, on which are 

 situated the capital and the westernmost outports of the most densely peopled 

 region in the empire. The trade of the Euxine and Sea of Azov is far inferior, 

 while that of the Caspian and White Sea combined scarcely equals the movement 

 of a third-rate seaport. 



The carrying trade is chiefly in the hands of foreign shippers, and many of the 

 Black Sea vessels flying the Russian flag really belong to Greeks. Excluding 

 the Finnish merchant nav}^, often wrongly included in that of Ptussia, this state 

 ranks ninth only amongst European countries for its tonnage, being in this 

 respect outstripped even by Spain, Holland, and Sweden. The proportion of 

 steamers to sailing vessels in the Russian commercial marine is still only as 1 to 

 12, with less than one-fourth of the gross tonnage. 



The river navigation, even since the expansion of the railway system, still 

 maintains its importance. Over 53,600 river craft of all kinds were built between 

 the years 1865 and 1869. Some on the Volga have a carrying capacity of over 



