Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine – Volume 53, No. 332, June, 1843

In the course of the discussions which terminated in the treaty of commerce and navigation with Russia, laid before parliament on the opening of the session—the stipulations of which, however, chiefly bore upon the extension of certain reciprocal rights of navigation—the Emperor Nicholas, in answer to representations pressed upon him from this country, for a liberal extension of the same principle to the general commerce of Russia, to foreign imports as well as shipping and exports—to let in a glimmer of the free-trade principle, in fact—replied, as we observed in a former article, that "the system, such as it was, he had received from his predecessors, and it was found to work well for the interests of his empire." The Autocrat, despot as he may be, was not singular in the opinion; for even our esteemed friend Count Valerian Krasinski, distinguished no less for the solidity of his literary attainments than for the liberality of opinion and the patriotism which condemns him to the penalty of exile in a "dear country's cause," who therefore will not be suspected of undue bias in favour of Russian systems, had written and published in an able article on Russia, treating inter alia of the rise and progress of her manufactures and commerce, to the following effect:—"The manufacturers of Russia commenced, as in other countries, with the beginning of its political importance, but have been chiefly indebted for their encouragement and progress to the efforts of the Government … The (protective) system has been steadily adhered to with constantly increasing energy, and the most brilliant success, up to the present time." This was published in 1842. We shall proceed to test the merits of the case by reference to documents of official origin, Russian and British—both to the latest dates to which made up in a sufficiently complete shape for the object in view, and the former in some instances later than any yet published in this country, and, as believed, exclusively in our possession. We shall have to deal with masses of figures; but to the general reader in search of truth, they can hardly fail to be more acceptable than whole pages of allegations and assumptions unsupported by proof, however eloquently worked out to plausible conclusions.

We commence with laying the foundation for a comprehension of the industrial progression of Russia, by a comparative statement of the average imports of a few of the chief articles of consumption, raw materials of manufacture, and manufactures, for two series, of three years each; the first series being the earliest for which official records can be cited, or were perhaps kept. Accidental circumstances, and the special influences which, favourably or unfavourably, may act upon particular years, producing at one time a feverish excess of commercial movement, and at another, a reacting depression as unnatural, are best corrected and balanced by taking averages of years. Thus, the mean term of imports for 1793, 1794, and 1795, may be thus contrasted with that for 1837, 1838, and 1839, of the following commodities:—

During the first triennial period, a large proportion of the sugars imported was in the refined state, the number of sugar refineries being then very limited; in the second period, the imports consisted exclusively of raw sugar for the numerous existing refining establishments, which consumed besides 125,000 poods of beet-root sugar, the produce of the beet-root works established in Southern Russia. Woollen manufactories have so rapidly and extensively increased, that, whereas, comparatively a few years past only, the manufacture of woollens was confined almost exclusively to the coarser sorts for army use, whilst the better qualities for the consumption of the more easy classes, and for export to Asia, were imported from abroad, chiefly from Great Britain; for the fifteen years preceding 1840 the case has been completely altered. The import of foreign woollens has almost altogether ceased for internal consumption in Russia, whilst no woollens but of Russian make are now exported to Asia, and especially China. The export of these home-made woollens figures far above two millions of rubles yearly in the tables of Russian commerce with eastern countries. It will be seen that while the imports of cotton yarn, in the space of forty-two years, had increased in the proportion from 1 to 12 only, that of raw cotton had advanced in the proportion from 1 to 32. The facts are significant of the growing extension both of spinning factories and the cotton manufactories. It is difficult to understand or credit the increased imported values of cotton fabrics here represented, knowing, as we do, the decreased export to Russia in our own tables of values and quantities. But we shall have occasion hereafter, perhaps, to notice some peculiarities in the Russian official system of valuations, which may probably serve to clear up the ambiguity. But although importing foreign cottons for internal consumption, Russia is moreover an exporter of domestic fabrics, to the value of about one million of silver rubles, on the side of Asia. In order to avoid as far as possible the multiplication of figures by the accompanying reduction of the moneys and weights of Russia into English quantities, it may be convenient to state, that the silver ruble is equal to 37½. sterling, and, in commercial reckoning, the pood answers to 36 lbs. avoirdupois.

Limiting our views for the present to the trade in cottons, as the manufacture of cottons is of much more recent growth in Russia than woollen and other manufactures, we find that the exact imports, quantities, or values, of cotton and yarn, are thus quoted in Russian official returns for the three last years to which made up seriatim.

The depressed state of the cotton trade in 1841 in this country, with the very low prices of yarn, from consignments pushed, in consequence, for sale at any rates against advances, were doubtless the cause of the increased imports of yarn, and the decrease in raw cotton, exhibited in the returns for 1841. Otherwise, the import of raw cotton has been comparatively much more on the increase than cotton yarn for some years past. Thus, beginning with 1822, when the cotton industry began more rapidly to develope itself, but omitting the years just given, the imports stood thus:—

Now, it will not be denied that the cotton manufacture in this country has enjoyed supereminent advantages over that of any other in the world, whether we look at the protective scale of duties maintained for half a century in its favour against foreign competition, or regard those glorious inventions and improvements in machinery, of which rigorous prohibitive laws against export, during the same period in force, long secured it a strict, and, even to a more recent period, a quasi monopoly, and gave it a start in the race, which seemed to leave all chance of foreign concurrence, or equal ratio of progression, out of the question altogether. Neither for spinning nor weaving could Russia, in particular, possess any other than machinery of the rudest kind, with hand labour, until perhaps subsequently to 1820. Her tariffs, even by special treaty of commerce, in 1797, were entirely favourable to the entrance and consumption of British fabrics. The prohibitory, or Continental system of Bonaparte, was indeed substituted after the treaty of Tilsit; but in 1816 a new tariff was promulgated, modifying the "prohibiting system of our trade," as the Emperor Alexander, in his ukase on the occasion, expressed it. By this tariff, cotton fabrics of all kinds were taxed twenty-five per cent in value only; cotton yarn, seven and a half copecs per cent; fine woollens, 1 ruble 25 copecs per arschine; kerseymeres and blankets, twenty-five per cent on value; flannels, camlets, druggets, cords, &c., fifteen per cent. How, then, has Russia, subject to all these disadvantages and drawbacks, and so late in the field, fared in comparison with this country, so long and so far before her? Let us take the Russian data first given for the two triennial periods, and ascertain the issue.

The mean annual imports of cotton taken for consumption into Great Britain, deducting exports, may be thus stated in round numbers for the two terms, 1793–4–5 and 1837–8–9.

The ratio of progress of the manufacture, therefore, from one term to the other, of the forty-four years, was not far from eighteenfold.

Reducing the quantities of cotton-yarn imported into Russia into the state of raw cotton, by an allowance of about three ounces in the pound, or nearly seven pounds per pood, for waste in the operations of spinning, we have the following approximate results:—

The ratio of increase from term to term being thus the greater part of fifteenfold.

But as the cotton manufacture, from circumstances referred to of favourable tariffs for importation—comparatively free-trade tariffs—did not begin fairly to shoot forth until 1822, it will be only right to try the question of comparative increase by another list, namely, as between the returns of the consumption of cotton respectively in the two countries for that year, and one of the later years, 1839, 1840, or 1841; but say rather an average of the three. We are unable, however, to strike a corresponding average three years forward from, but inclusive of 1822, for want of the corresponding Russian official returns for two of the years. On the other hand, to take the one year of 1839, when the quantity of cotton taken for consumption in this country was at a low ebb, would be like straining for an effect, which the impartial seeker after truth can have no object in doing, whilst the return for 1840 would be as much in excess the other way. Thus the total quantities of raw cotton taken for consumption in Great Britain were—

The ratio of progression in Great Britain, for the term of eighteen years, was somewhat more than threefold.

The imports of raw cotton, and of cotton-yarn, rendered into cotton by an allowance in addition, at the rate of about three ounces per lb. for waste, or nearly seven pounds per pood, stand thus for Russia in round numbers:—

The ratio of increase in the cotton manufacture of Russia, for the same term of eighteen years, was therefore considerably more than fourfold. And this steady but extraordinary superiority of Russian progression took place in the face of all those prosperity years, when, from 1833 to 1838, the British cotton manufacture was stimulated, and bloated to excess, with the high prices resulting from the flash bank-paper and loan system of the United States, and the mad joint-stock banking freaks of Lancashire.

The average import and consumption of raw cotton in Russia, and of yarn calculated into cotton, was at the rate, on the average of the three years cited, of about, 35,963,000 lbs. per annum;

Which approximates the position of the Russian with that of the cotton manufacture of France as existing in the year 1818, when the consumption of raw cotton is officially stated at, 16,974,159 kilogrammes;

And with that of the cotton manufacture of the United States in 1828, when the quantity consumed at home was stated at about, 35,359,000 lbs.

It will still be insisted, doubtless, as all along it has never failed to be the cuckoo-note of unreflecting theorists, that the manufactures of Russia have flourished, and are flourishing, in spite of protection; that the only effect of protection is to repress their growth and mar their perfection. The assertion stands ready-made, and ever the stock on hand; it is a rash and blindfold speculation upon chance and futurity, at the best; a building without a corner stone; a chateau-d'Espagne nowhere to be found. Where, except in the glowing fictions of Scheherezade, may the personification of such a phantom be detected? History, whether ancient or modern, may be ransacked in vain for one footprint of the realised existence and miraculous economical prodigies worked upon the absolute free-trade principle, in the spontaneous creation, the progress unrivalled, the prosperity Pactolean, of ingenious manufactures. The El-Dorado region has yet to be discovered; will Cobden, like another Columbus in search of new worlds, adventure upon the desperate enterprise, and furnish the writer of romance with apt materials for the frights and freaks of another "phantom ship" on the wide ocean? If so inclined, indeed, we may commend him to an undertaking now, at this present writing, in actual progress, as we learn from assured sources and high quarters, in Paris. A goodly ship of substantial proportions is now preparing in a French port, richly freighted for an interesting voyage with the products of French industry, with destination for the great sea-river of the Amazons, for navigating its thousands of miles of unploughed course, and exploring those realms untold of, those interminable wastes recorded, and those numberless nations as yet unknown, if existing, which coast the vast expanse of its waters to the utmost limits of Brazil, and the very confines of Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia. The King of the French is himself the patron and promoter of this great enterprise. Hasten, then, friend Cobden, erratic and chivalrous as Quixote of old, to "swell the breezes and partake the gale" of an expedition so glorious; for know, that on the banks of the noble Amazons itself, the magnificent queen-river, most worthy in the world of such distinction, have poets, romancers, and chroniclers, undoubting, from all time, sung of and planted the resplendent empire of the El-Dorado itself.

Our design being to demonstrate, by the force of example and contrast, the sophistical absurdity of absolute theories, that, however naturally and harmoniously their parts may be made to correspond in thesis and system as a whole, according to which the same consequences, upon a given principle, should inevitably flow from certain causes, yet that, practically, it is found the same causes do not produce the same effects, even when circumstances are most analogous; that, for instance, the protective, or restrictive system of industry, under the rule of which Spain languishes, notwithstanding the abundant possession of the first materials for the promotion of manufacturing, and the prosperity of agricultural interests, proves, at the other extremity of Europe, the spring of successful progress and industrial accumulation, and renders Russia prosperous, though proportionally not more largely gifted with those natural elements of wealth and production which consist in fertility of soil, in mines of the precious metals, of coal, iron, &c. We shall pursue our task to its completion before we proceed to draw and sum up those conclusions which must follow from the premises established, before we enter in order upon the analysis and dissection of the one absolute principle or theory, by which, in the conceit of certain sage travellers on the royal railroad to wisdom, eager for the end and impatient of the toil of thinking, the economical destinies of all nations should be cut, carved, and adjusted secundum artem, with mathematical precision and uniformity, according to the rule invariable of robber Procrustes, the ancient founder of the sect, who constructed a bed—that is, a system of certain proportions of size—that is, upon a certain principle—upon which he laid his victims; those found too short to fit the dimensions of the pallet, he stretched and tortured into the length required; those too long he fitted by decapitating the superabundance of head and shoulders, or by squaring off the legs and feet; just as economists would sever nations with their invariable system; just as, with their selfish and one-sided, sordid idea, the junta of Leaguers, rule and plummet in hand, would deal with the British empire, with its vast possessions in every clime, on which the sun never sets, peopled by races numerous and diverse of origin as of interests, multifarious, complicated, often conflicting. "L'etât," said Louis le Grand, "c'est moi." "The British empire"—bellows Syntax Cobden—"'tis me and printed calicoes." "The British government and legislature"—exclaims Friend Bright—"'tis I and Rochdale flannel."

It is a strange, and, with our qualified and not exclusive opinions, not less a discouraging complication of affairs with which we have to deal, that, look among the great nations where we will, we find, to a great extent, that the protective system of commerce, where in force, or where it has superseded a quasi free-trade system before in force, has conduced, in no small degree, to the advancement of material interests. The Germanic Customs' Union, that peculiar handicraft creation of Lord Palmerston, is there to confirm the fact, no less than Russia, than France, than Belgium, and other lands. The League themselves ostentatiously proclaim it, whilst pretending to impugn the retention of the very shadow of a shade of the same principle, for the country, above all others, which has grown to greatness under it—the very breath of whose nostrils it has been, during the struggles of infancy and progress to that full-blown maturity, when assuredly it seeks, (and need seek only,) willingly proffers, and readily accepts, equality of condition—reciprocity of interchange, with all the world. "The Manchester manufacturer"—the false nom-de-guerre of a calico printer, who was not a manufacturer at all, and could scarcely distinguish a calico from a cambric at the time of writing, who erst was, is yet, perchance, the trumpeter of Russian policy, Russian principles, and Russian progress in the East and elsewhere—must be grateful for the information we have already afforded on the full careering ascendency of Russian material interests also. His gratitude will expand as he accompanies these pages.

Peter the Great laid the foundations of Russian manufactures, as of the Russian empire itself. He founded manufactories in all the larger cities. But with his death they fell into decay until the reign of Elizabeth. With that epoch began their revival, and the more rigorous revival also of the prohibitory system. Their present imposing appearance and magnitude date, however, from the peace of 1815, the great parent and promoter of all continental manufactures. In 1812 no more than 2,332 manufacturing establishments in the whole empire were in existence, employing 119,000 work-people; in 1835 the number of the former had reached to 6,015, and of the latter to 279,673, the half of the free labourers. At the beginning of 1839, says the report of the department of manufactures and internal commerce—the last which, hitherto, has been made up or come to our hands—the number of factories and manufactories had risen to 6,855, an increase over the year preceding of 405, whilst the number of workmen employed in them was 412,931, an increase over the year before of 35,111. Thus, in the space of three years, from 1835 to the end of 1838, 810 new establishments had been organized, and the number of workmen augmented by one-half. These industrial establishments were non-inclusive of mining works, iron works, &c., and the people employed in them. They were classed as follows:—

The seat of Russian manufactures is principally in the central portion of the empire, in its ancient capital Moscow, and the surrounding provinces. The progress of Moscow itself may be thus briefly sketched, after remarking that in the beginning of 1839 there existed in the government, of which it was the capital city, 1058 manufactories, employing 83,054 work-people. In the 315 manufactories of the neighbouring province of Vladimir, 83,655 work-people were employed; in the equally adjacent province of Kalouga, 164 manufactories gave work to 20,401 workmen. The population of Moscow, the Manchester of Russia, amounted in 1825 to 241,514; in 1827 it had risen to 257,694; in 1830 to 305,631; in 1833 to 333,260; in 1840 to 347,224. The principal manufactories were thus classed for the latter year.

In thirteen of the chief factories there were 263 spinning machines; three cotton factories alone contained 138. Besides these larger establishments, 3122 workshops, not considerable enough to be ranked as manufactories, employed alone 19,638 work-people; and 142 industrial establishments, such as founderies, breweries, distilleries, tallow and soap works, &c., gave bread to thousands more.

The consumption of the principal raw materials of manufacture is thus stated as an average of that and recent preceding years.

The machinery for the manufactories is made for the most part in the founderies and machine-works of Vladimir, Tamboff, Kalouga, and Riazan, but, above all, in the city of Tula and the village of Parlovo. In McCulloch's Statistical Dictionary, the number of steam-engines in the government of Moscow is stated, for 1830, at about 100—in 1820, two only being in existence. On what authority the statement is given does not appear; our own documents, to 1841 inclusive, are silent on that head. For Moscow, with its immediate environs, the total number and the produce of the cotton looms are thus given:—

The arschine is about twenty-eight English inches. The silk manufacture, of recent establishment only in Moscow, presented the following results, for that city and the surrounding districts:—

The woollen manufactories of Moscow, inclusive of the environs, employed apart smaller loom shops:—

The values not given. The imports of merchandise from Moscow by water, of which alone exact and detailed particulars are stated, amounted in—

Three and a half rubles assignation, are equal to one silver ruble. Moscow enjoys the advantage of being an internal bonded port, or port of intrepôt, a privilege now seeking by Manchester, so that importers of foreign merchandise are not called upon for the payment of duties until the moment when, withdrawing their imports, or any other portion of them as occasion requires, the payment becomes necessary. Formerly the duties had to be paid in the frontier ports, and often in bulk. The customhouse revenue resulting, amounted in—

These returns are proof indisputable of industrial and social progress. It is unnecessary further to remark upon the great and growing importance of other branches of industry in Moscow, or to extend the limits of this notice so far as to comprise a review of the iron and hardware manufactories, and the numerous tanneries of Tula and Perm. The active movement of internal commerce, may, however, be inferred from the returns of products exhibited and sold at twelve fairs held annually, with one thrice, and another twice, in the year, the total value of which exposed for sale in 1840, was stated at 101,551,000 silver rubles, and of the quantity actually sold at 64,326,700 rubles. Of which alone at—

The great fair of Nijny Novgorod may rival with Leipzig in the magnitude of its transactions. In 1841, the general movement of values at this fair is thus returned:—

By decree of the government, within the last three years, the public accounts, before kept in rubles assignation, that is government paper money, were ordered to be reckoned in silver rubles. For purposes of comparison with former years, we state them in both. Of the mass of commodities thus in motion at the fair, there were of Russian manufactures and indigenous products, to the total value of 37,132,693 silver rubles exposed for sale, and for 29,762,473 sold; some other chief articles ranging thus;—

Tea, for 7,107,500 rubles assignation, and other products of China, were brought to the fair; raw cotton, cotton-yarn, shawls, silks, skins, &c. from Persia and Asia, to the value of 29,796,819 roubles assignation, and chiefly sold. Of the products of Western Europe, which make but a miserable exhibit, the following are the chief:—

The growing magnitude of this fair will be appreciated by the following returns of former years:—

The convenience of these fairs for the purposes of interchange, both between different industries and the populations of different provinces of the same empire, and with contiguous countries from which so great an affluence of merchants with their merchandise for exchange was attracted, has induced the government to decree the establishment of eleven new fairs in different towns, and fifty-nine others in as many large villages, which, in growing size, may be already compared with towns.

The internal commercial communications of Russia are chiefly carried on by means of those innumerable rivers and canals, that network of natural and artificial canals, by which she is intersected through all her extent, and which, taking their rise in various central parts of the empire, pursue their course singly, or falling into each other, and so constituting mighty streams, to the White sea and the Baltic, or fall into the Black sea and the Caspian. The total movement of this internal navigation in all the rivers, presented the following results:—

The various and many basins of river and water communication, scientifically arranged, and showing how all parts of that vast empire are connected with each other through all and nearly every portion of its territorial extent, as in the report before us, is a document worthy of study and more minute analysis, but our limits forbid.

The foreign commerce of Russia presents the following results for 1841:—

The Russian official tables include, under the head of foreign commerce, the exports and imports with Finland and Poland; but as they fall within the range, in reality, of internal commerce, the accounts are better simplified by their exclusion. The system of separate returns results, doubtless, from the political arrangements and conventions by which Russia acquired the possession of those two countries.

The progress of exports and imports may be thus indicated:—

The remarkable excess of exports in 1839 resulted from the large demand for, and shipments of, corn in that year—the official value of which is stated at 25,217,027 silver rubles; the smallest export, so far as value, being that of 1841, valued at 10,382,509 silver rubles only. Exclusive of corn, the exports would stand thus:—

Gold and silver, in bars or specie, are not comprised in these returns.

It is necessary, however, to travel more backwards in order to a right appreciation of the progress of the foreign trade of Russia. This comparison is here instituted with earlier years, premising that the exports to Poland and Finland, amounting to some ten or twelve millions of rubles assignation, and imports from, amounting to about three millions, are included, and therefore swell the amount of the imports and exports of the following years. However, to facilitate the comparison, the silver ruble values of 1841 are multiplied into corresponding ruble assignation values:

Add 11,808,743 rubles assignation for exports to, and 4,792,346 imports from, Poland and Finland in 1841, and the real comparison would be, for 1841, exports 314,146,349, imports 282,795,561; balance in favour of 1841, 31,350,688 rubles assignation.

The bulk of Russian exportations consists of raw or first materials, such as flax, hemp, flax-seed, oil, tallow, leather, woad, metals, and of which to the aggregate value in 1841, of 59,773,354 silver rubles was exported; an amount nearly stationary as compared with the three previous years. But the export of Russian manufactures, viz. woollens, cottons, linens, candles, cordage, and cloths for China, had improved in aggregate amount from,—

It was the trade with China by Kiachta, and latterly also by the line of Siberia, which, however, had perhaps taken the most remarkable extension, and was held to be most promising of future progress and profit. The imports, and therefore the consumption, of tea in Russia, are growing annually larger; and the exports of Russian products and manufactures to China, equally in proportion. For by mutual convention, as dictated by China, for regulating the commercial intercourse between the two countries strictly limited to that frontier river port, although now indirectly countenanced by Siberia, the trade is exclusively one of barter; tea and silks for leather, furs, cottons, woollens, and linens. A condition, be it observed, which serves to place beyond all doubt the fact, that it was not the introduction and consumption, with the deterioration to the health of the population resulting, physically and morally, from the use of opium, which had so much effect with the celestial Emperor in provoking the late war with Great Britain, as the abstraction by export in payment, and the drain so constant, of Sycee silver. The imports of tea in—

Besides which, the imports of an inferior tea, called brick tea, amounted to the value of 359,223 silver rubles in 1841. In three years, the general trade, China silks inclusive, had therefore more than trebled so far as value; for it is remarkable, that though larger quantities of tea are imported, yet prices, so far from declining, had actually considerably advanced; which proves that the commodity was becoming a favourite beverage, and gaining into more general consumption, in Russia. The values of the Russian merchandise, such as stated, which passed in barter, are said to have been equally sustained. It may be noted, indeed, as an extraordinary fact, that whilst, as the official report of the department of commerce observes, the prices and values of almost all foreign raw products and manufactured wares imported into Russia, during the three or four years preceding 1841, and including 1841, entered constantly, and some at considerably depreciated rates, in the reverse the products of Russia, exported to Europe and elsewhere during the same period, quantity for quantity, generally improved in prices and ascended in value.

The foreign commerce of Russia by sea was carried on, during the year 1841, by

In the coasting trade in the Northern seas, the number of vessels dispatched from port to port was 2007, in the Black Sea, 5,275.