Adding to the above the various less important manufactures not included in the foregoing table, we think we may estimate the crude value of all these industries at 500 millions of roubles in round numbers, and the value which they add to the national wealth (i. e. their value under deduction of the raw material which they work up) at 325 millions of roubles. The total number of individuals-men, women, and children-employed may be slumped at 6 millions. The different trades and professions not comprehended in these industries probably occupy (on an approximative estimate founded on analogy and some partial data) at least 400,000 individuals, including masters, journeymen, and apprentices*; and reckoning the productof their labour at no more than 120 roubles per head, this alone would give an amount of 48 millions of roubles. Thus we may estimate in slump at 550 millions of roubles the crude value (including value of raw material) of our whole industry, trades, and professions, and the value annually added by these to the national wealth, at 375 millions of roubles. M. Schnitzler, in his Statistique Générale de la France published in 1845 estimated the crude product of all the industries, including trades and professions, at upwards of 3 milliards, and it may now be considered to amount to at least 3500 million francs = 875 millions of roubles. In Austria the crude value of the products of industry was estimated at the same period at 795 millions of florins 500 millions of roubles; but, considering the progress which the chief branches of industry have made in that country since then, we think their present value must be carried to 550 millions: we would thus stand in this respect precisely in a line with Austria, and in regard to France as 100 to 159. Distributed over the population, the crude value exhibits the following results: = Roub. Kop. 65 550 France - 875 mil. roub. to a population of 35 millions, gives per inhab. 24 36 15 7 65 8 38 99 The number of individuals men, women and children employed in Russia, either during the winter months alone, or during the whole year round in all these branches of industry, We do not include in this figure the trades and professions working up iron, copper, leather, and pottery, as blacksmiths, locksmiths, coppersmiths, tinsmiths, shoemakers, glovers, potters, &c., these being included in the preceding table. In Prussia the trades and professions included in our estimate, reckoned, in 1843, the number of 423,000 individuals out of an urban population of 4,246,000 inhabitants, whilst we reckon only 400,000 out of an urban population of about 5,350,000 inhabitants: and it is also to be observed that of this number of individuals employed in trades and professions there is a good proportion in Russia belonging to the rural population. trades and professions included, would, according to the preceding calculations, amount to 6,400,000. We must here refer to an observation which we have already made (antè, p. 82.), that in our calculations regarding the principal branches of our industry we have taken the linen and woollen manufactures in their largest acceptation. Now, as is well known, the preparation and spinning of flax, and the weaving of coarse household cloths are plied with us in the villages as by-works when there is nothing to do out of doors: the greater part of the coarse linens and serges which our peasantry consume is manufactured by themselves for themselves without coming into commerce at all; and though forming part of the products of industry in one sense, they cannot be considered as doing so in the more restricted signification of the term. Still in our calculations we have included these branches in their whole extent, first, because for want of sufficiently copious and accurate data we would have found it very difficult to draw a fair line of demarcation between what was and what was not technically industrial; and, secondly, because we wished to render to ourselves and to our readers an account of the total mass of values created by the national labour, and of the number of hands to which the production of those values afforded more or less constant occupation. On examining the recapitulatory table we perceive that the linen manufacture, in the value of its products, is equal to nearly a third of all the others put together, and that it occupies in its different branches nearly thrice as many hands as all the rest. Next to it comes the leather manufacture; and the two together form upwards of 43 per cent. of the total production exhibited in the table. The whole manufactures engaged in working up raw materials the growth of the country, as the linen and hempen, the woollen, the iron, copper, products of tallow, beet-root sugar, brandy, beer, yield amongst them upwards of 369 millions of roubles, or upwards of three-fourths of the manufactures we have examined in detail. If to this sum we add (from approximative calculation) upwards of 5 millions for fabrics manufactured with indigenous silk, 11 millions for tobacco the growth of the country, 6 millions for paper, and 9 millions for glass, pottery, and bricks,-in all 32 millions, we shall find that of the total value of the products of all the industries enumerated in the table, amounting to 486 millions of roubles, those which work up indigenous materials furnish upwards of 401 millions, or nearly 83 per The cotton manufacture, notwithstanding the importance which by dint of prohibitory duties it has incontestably attained, cent. does not represent 12 per cent. of the crude value of the industries embraced in the table; and deducting the value of the exotic raw material, its share in the values created by the national labour in the department of industry amounts to no more than 35,600,000 roubles, or little more than a tenth of the whole. We think we have so clearly enunciated our views regarding the cotton manufacture,- pointing out the circumstances which induced the extraordinary encouragements it has received, and the considerations which render it desirable to maintain it,— that we need not fear having the meaning of these comparisons mistaken. All we desire is that the importance of this manufacture should not be exaggerated, nor the sacrifices which it involves be forgotten;-that we should not imagine that it is upon it that our industrial prosperity mainly reposes, but remember that for the skill, labour, and capital which it now absorbs, an ample sphere of activity exists in the prosecution of other industries more immediately connected with our native soil. We have estimated at 375 millions the value of the total products of our industry, trades, and professions, under deduction of the value of the raw materials. Adding this amount to the crude value of the products of our soil, which we have approximatively estimated (see Vol. I. p. 196.) at 2044 millions of silver roubles, we obtain a total of 2419 millions of silver roubles, in which total the values created by the national labour, applied to every department that can be called industrial, in the widest signification of the term, stand in the proportion of 15 per cent. This comparison shows what a paramount importance pertains to our agriculture, notwithstanding the progressive development of our industry during the last thirty years. Another fact which we ought to remember is, that, in regard to technical improvements in processes of manufacture, it is chiefly into the cotton manufacture that these have been introduced hitherto, whilst other branches of our industry more directly connected with the soil and the interests of agriculture still remain farther in the rear. It would be very desirable that in future the intelligence and capital of the country should be directed to that vast field for improvement, upon which all progress is profit and conquest,-a profit for the national wealth, and for the development of the productive powers of the country, which we do not need to share with any foreign partner, a conquest which imposes no sacrifice upon any human being. Finally, the more we have studied the various departments of industry at home and abroad, the more thorough becomes our conviction that it will always remain matter of the utmost difficulty for native manufacturers to stand competition with their brethren of foreign countries, until private credit shall have been placed upon a firmer basis than it has hitherto occupied; for of those elements which tend to augment the prices of all the products of our manufacturing industry, the onerous conditions of sale and credit form one of the chief. CHAP. III. COMMERCE. HOME TRADE.-Estimate of its Amount and Value.-Importance of Fairs.-Fair - France Austria of the Kirghiz-Asiatic Turkey-Bokhara - Taschkend-Khiva- Khokan.Trade with the Kingdom of Poland previously to the Suppression of the immediate Custom-house Line.-Trade with Finland. PART I. Home Commerce. THE immense extent of the empire, joined to the abundance and variety of the products both of our soil and of our industry, presents a vast field for the exchanges of our home commerce; but the real value of the latter eludes, to a certain extent, even an approximative estimate. In order to form some idea of its importance, let us consider, first, the mass of articles which it sets in circulation; and secondly, the elements of which the value that it adds to these articles is composed. For the first part of this estimate the data contained in the two preceding chapters will serve as our guide. We have estimated the value of the crude products of our soil at 2044 millions of roubles. A large portion of these products is, no doubt, consumed on the spot by the producers themselves. But of the cereal harvest, after deducting the quantity consumed on the spot and required for seed, there remains a surplus of about 50 millions of tchetwerts*, of which about 4 millions are exported, leaving 46 millions for home commerce, that is to say, for the supply of the towns, of the army and navy, and of those provinces which do not produce grain enough for their own consumption. These 46 millions, valued at the moderate rate of 3 roubles per tchetwert, give a value of 138 millions of roubles. Of the potato crop, which we have valued at 15 millions of roubles, we may assume that at least a fifth, representing a value of 3 millions of roubles, comes into retail commerce for the supply of the towns. Of the vintage, which we have valued at 7,700,000, we may assume that half, or, in round numbers, to the value of 4 millions; and of garden produce, which we have estimated at 55 millions, we may assume that at least a third, or, in round numbers, 18 millions, come into home commerce. Of the crude produce of the meadows, estimated at 360 millions, we will reckon but a tenth, or 36 millions, for home commerce, - that is to say, for the supply of the towns and of the army. The flax and hemp crop must amount to at least 17 millions of poods, of which we export about 7: at least half of the remaining 10 may be reckoned as coming into home commerce; which at the very moderate price of 2 roubles per pood will amount to 10 millions of roubles. The oleaginous grains coming into home commerce have been estimated at 10 millions of roubles; and the tinctorial and medicinal plants at 21 millions. Of the tobacco crop, valued at 2,100,000 roubles, we may reckon at least 1,500,000 for the home market. The product of the forests has been approximatively estimated at 135 millions. If we reckon only a third of this for the fire-wood, building timber, and wood for the manufacture of household furniture and agricultural implements coming into commerce, this would amount to 45 millions, of which 31 millions being for exportation, there would remain 41 millions, or say, in round numbers, 40 millions for home commerce.† The annual return from large cattle we have estimated at 100 millions of roubles, * See the approximative calculation, Vol. I. p. 267-8. †This estimate is surely moderate enough. The city of St. Petersburg consumes fire-wood alone (see Journal of the Ministry of the Interior for March, 1853) to the value of 2,223,000 roubles estimated at prime cost, to which we must add at least 10 per cent. for merchants' profit: the consumption of wood for other purposes must be at least double. The government of Moscow consumes in fuel upwards of 1 million sagènes of fir, and nearly 500,000 of birch, representing a value of about 3 millions of roubles exclusive of cost of transport; and the timber consumed for other purposes is valued at double, making 9 millions for this single government without reckoning carriage or merchants' profits. |