The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

COMMEKCE. 46775,680,000 gallons of alcohol, and upwards of 154,000,000 gallons of brandy. In1878 there were nearly 300 beet-root sugar-mills, of which half were in Kiev, the restin Poland and the " black lands," and the produce rosefrom 122,700 tons in 1SG8to about 320,000 in 1878. The production of machinery has also made fairprogress, and in 1808 as many as 212 of the 1,150 Russian locomotives had beenmade in the country.In the same year the total value of the large industries wasestimated 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 1865 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 therural districts during the winter months only, when field operations are suspended.Some Russian economists have thought that thisso-called kustarnaya, or "plantation" 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 Shuyadistrict the artisans employed at home were fivefold those working in the factoriesin 1842, but in 1862 the proportion was reduced to double, and in 1872 thenumbers of both classes were equal.Trade and Shipping.The Russian foreign trade has varied from £110,000,000 to £142,000,000 betweenthe years 1872—78. In the overland movement Germany naturally takes the lead,as England does in the sea traffic, France ranking third, and Austria- Hungaryfourth in the gross amount of their exchanges with the empire. The exports consistalmost exclusively of agricultural produce and raw materials, the imports mainlyof 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. perhead, or five or six times less than those of France.Most of the sea traffic is naturally absorbed by the Baltic, on which aresituated the capital and the westernmost outports of the most densely peopledregion in the empire. The trade of the Euxine and Sea of Azov is far inferior,while that ofthe Caspian and White Sea combined scarcely equals the movementof a third-rate seaport.The carrying trade is chiefly in the hands of foreign shippers, and many of theBlack Sea vessels flying the Russian flag really belong to Greeks. Excludingthe Finnish merchant navy, often wrongly included in that of Russia, this stateranks ninth only amongst European countries for its tonnage, being in thisrespect outstripped even by Spain, Holland, and Sweden. The proportion ofsteamers to sailing vessels in the Russian commercial marine is still only as 1 to12, with less than one-fourth of the gross tonnage.The river navigation, even since the expansion of the railway system, stillmaintains its importance. Over 53,600 river craft of all kinds were built betweenthe years 1865 and 1869. Some on the Volga have a carrying capacity of over