543. Great size and small commerce of the Russian Empire.—The attention and imagination of men have long been impressed by the size of the Russian empire, which included an area greater than that presented by the moon at the full. Combining the characteristics both of Europe and of Asia, Russia was almost a world in herself, and, indeed, was called by one of her rulers “a sixth part of the world,” worthy to rank as a continent. Yet this great state took a place in modern commerce below petty countries like the Netherlands and Belgium. A country of such vast size might, of course, secure by internal trade many of the advantages which smaller countries must seek in international exchange. The United States presents an example of a territory so large and so richly endowed that it can afford, in considerable degree, to renounce commerce with the rest of the world, and can still maintain from its own resources a high industrial civilization. Russia has not enjoyed a similar success. It had a comparatively sluggish internal trade; and it lacked industrial civilization. We must seek in the history of commerce an explanation of these facts.

544. Historical reasons for backward development.—The few paragraphs devoted to Russia in a previous chapter suggested the main reason for the country’s backwardness. During many centuries, while the peoples of the West were advancing in civilization, the people of Russia were facing away from Europe, occupied in defending themselves against Asiatic princes. Russia shared in none of the great movements of early European history: feudalism, chivalry, crusades, rise of towns, Reformation, Renaissance. It was devoted entirely to the struggle for self-preservation. When it became part of the European world, therefore, about 1700, it brought with it into modern times many characteristics of an unformed, half-developed organization; and since that date it has been trying, and it is now still trying, to catch up with the rest of Europe.

545. Russian commerce about 1800.—The movement toward progress, initiated by Peter the Great about 1700, continued, with various fluctuations, during the century. In so far as it found expression in commerce we can regard the last fifty years before 1800 as a time of rapid advance; commerce grew to nine fold the volume which it showed in 1750. So slight, however, had been the beginnings of Russian trade, that it amounted in 1802 only to about fifty million dollars.

Russia was still practically in the position which it had occupied in the time of the Hansa, dependent on the West for all its finer manufactures, and supplying raw materials in exchange. Hemp and flax, crops which rapidly exhaust the soil, and for the cultivation of which the great tracts of fresh land in Russia offered an advantage, were the chief exports. Among others on the list were wood, grain, tallow, hides, furs, feathers, etc. The Russian nobles exported a certain amount of linen, which they forced their serfs to make for them that they might have the means of purchasing foreign luxuries, and manufactured also iron for sale abroad. The appearance among the exports of this metal, which we are used to associate with advanced industrial countries, is explained by the fact that charcoal was still an important source of fuel for the iron manufacture, and of this the boundless Russian forests offered an abundant supply.

546. Means of transportation.—Almost nothing had been done as yet to unite by means of transportation the vast stretches of territory in Russia. Roads were practically non-existent, and goods were transported by land only in winter, when they could be sledged over the rough ground on the snow. The waterways, with which the country is so abundantly provided, had been connected by a few important canals, and were the chief means of transportation. Goods were brought to them on sledges in winter, to await the high water of the spring freshets. They were laden on flat-boats, holding sometimes several hundred tons, but built to draw only two or three feet of water, and were floated down with the current when the ice melted. The boats were rudely constructed, and were broken up for timber or fire-wood at the end of the trip. The inconvenience and uncertainty of such a system of transportation are obvious, but it was, nevertheless, remarkably cheap; rates on some water routes were only one or two cents per ton-mile.

547. Chief ports.—The conditions of transportation confined almost all the foreign trade of Russia to the sea, and the commerce across the western frontier was insignificant. Archangel, situated on the river Dwina, a few miles from the coast of the White Sea, and the leading port of Russia before the time of Peter the Great, still retained a respectable share of commerce, and was visited every year by ships from England and the Netherlands. In relative importance, however, it had declined greatly after the foundation of St. Petersburg, which soon became the most important outlet for the country’s trade. A rival was at this time, however, growing up in the South, where Russia had only recently secured the territory on the shore of the Black Sea. Odessa, which was founded in 1793, rose rapidly in commercial importance, especially during the Napoleonic wars, when the Baltic trade suffered a severe check.

548. Development up to the Crimean War (1854-1856).—During the first half of the nineteenth century Russian commerce grew steadily but slowly; the rate of increase was much behind that of the preceding fifty years. A partial explanation of this check to progress can be found in the adoption, in 1822, of a prohibitive tariff; the importation of many foreign manufactures (clocks, textiles, porcelain, glassware, etc.), was absolutely forbidden. Shortly after the middle of the century, however, came a turning-point. The Crimean War, in which England and other states were engaged with Russia, is generally admitted to have yielded to neither of the chief combatants advantages proportional to the costs which it involved. It was in one way, however, of immense benefit to Russia. It awakened the country to a realization of its backwardness. It raised a demand for reform of antiquated conditions in economic and political life, which the Czar himself was the first to heed.

549. Reforms; growth of the railroad system.—The reform movement bore fruit in many lines to which we can pay but scant attention. It led to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, by which a considerable part of the Russian people were liberated from a condition resembling medieval bondage, and became free land-holders. It secured at least a partial improvement in the system of government. It was, finally, to name the result of the greatest influence on commerce, the occasion for the introduction of the modern railroad system in Russia. The government had found itself so hampered in carrying on the war by the lack of transportation facilities, that it now bent every energy to remedying the defects. The railroads of Russia measured at the outbreak of the war only about 600 miles. In the ten years following the railroad system grew to over 2,000 miles, and in the next decade to about 10,000. Though the first lines were built mainly to serve military purposes, those constructed later were designed to develop the economic resources of the country; and it is hard to overestimate the importance of this development of the means of modern transportation, to a country which stood in such sore need of it as Russia.

550. Development of commerce.—The results of the reforms can be followed in the growth of Russian commerce after the middle of the century. In the decade 1860-1870 the foreign commerce of the country increased to more than double what it had been, and was growing at this time faster than the commerce of any other country in Europe, except that of a neighboring state, Austria-Hungary. Some significant changes, moreover, appeared in the direction and character of Russian trade. The great gains of the period were made by southern Russia, where the wheat fields of the rich “black-earth” district were brought within reach of a market. It was about this time that wheat won the first place among the exports away from flax and its products. Commerce by way of the Black Sea increased very rapidly, while the Baltic did not keep its proportional share in the commerce of the country, and the proportion of trade finding its outlet by the Arctic Ocean had sunk to insignificance. Commerce with the west of Europe across the land frontier, which formerly had been restricted by the difficulty of transportation, grew even faster than the Black Sea commerce, and gave an entirely new importance to trade relations with neighboring states. England had enjoyed the largest share of Russia’s commerce during the first part of the century, but could not hold her own henceforth in competition with Germany. This last-named country, then in course of rapid industrial development, was enabled by the railroads to win her way rapidly in Russian commerce, and soon was the largest sharer in it.

551. Character of industries and commerce.—Russia, like many other of the European states, enjoyed the greatest freedom of trade in the period following closely after the middle of the century. The customs duties levied in Russia at this time would have been considered high in western Europe, but they were much lower than the rates ruling in the first half of the century, and much lower than the rates in force at the century’s close.

Russia at this time was still almost exclusively agricultural. The serfs had learned to supply their simple needs for clothing and implements by domestic industries, but nothing like the western factory organization, with its extensive use of power machinery, had as yet appeared. Attempts to stimulate such an organization, by privileges and protection, had resulted in failure. The Russians are not a people with a gift for mechanism. It has been said of them that their only invention is the samovar, their apparatus for making tea. The world exposition of 1867 displayed samples of Russian industry, but most of these were the products of village craftsmen, and the few samples of modern manufacture came from factories owned for the most part by Germans. The exports of the country were still almost entirely raw products, and the manufactured wares which the country contributed to the commerce of the world were of the most simple description: yarn of flax and hemp, cordage, string, and sacking.

552. Recent history of the tariff.—In spite of these conditions the government pursued since about 1870 a policy of protection, which grew constantly more strict with the passage of time, and which furnished at the end of the century the most extreme example of protection to be found among civilized states. Comparing the tariff of 1868, which was comparatively liberal, with the tariff of 1891, we find that duties on some important manufactures rose in the following measure: on cotton goods and glassware, to double; on rails and locomotives to quadruple or more. Even more striking and more serious was the increase on partly manufactured wares. Duties rose on leather and yarns to twofold or more; on petroleum and wrought iron to threefold; on sulphuric acid to four or seven fold; on cast iron to tenfold. This is the period in which Germany was seeking commercial advantage by bargaining in tariff rates with other countries, and in which occurred the tariff war with Germany that has been noted above. At this time and again later Germany was able to bring her eastern neighbor to terms by financial pressure; Russia was a great borrower and needed the support of the Berlin money market. Russia raised still more, however, the rates of the tariff in a revision in 1903, and even after these had been reduced by treaty bargains they left the general level higher than before.

553. Development and cost of manufactures.—The protectionist policy in Russia gained its object, an increase in the manufacturing industry of the country. The product of home manufactures rose greatly in value, and the importation of foreign manufactures declined in proportion. This object, however, was attained at a great cost. Russia was even less suited to the modern system of manufactures than Italy or other states which we have considered. It lacked capital, technical knowledge, leaders, laborers of steadiness and intelligence—practically everything except raw materials, which were present in abundance. Manufactures, therefore, were conducted at an expense far above that common in other countries, and could be maintained only by forcing the people to pay far higher prices for their wares. A person could not get so much as a sewing needle without contributing an extra sum to the support of the home manufactures. The policy was the more questionable, as the profits of these manufactures went in large part to foreign stock holders, who utilized an opportunity for which the native Russians were still unprepared. Even from the political standpoint the policy of protection in Russia was attended with danger; many events indicated that the factory laborers would be the first to turn against the autocracy which had brought them into being.

554. Effect of the tariff on agriculture.—The most serious aspect, however, of the Russian tariff was its effect upon agriculture. The great plains of the country were peculiarly adapted to the use of modern cultivating and harvesting machinery, such as contributed so much to the progress of agriculture in America. The tariff made such machinery so costly, whether it were imported or manufactured in Russia, that it was introduced to only a slight extent. A Russian estimated that the farmers of the United States found it profitable to spend nearly twenty times as much for agricultural implements and machinery as the Russians. The peasants could not afford even plows, harrows, or scythes of a modern type, and still used antiquated makeshifts. The mass of the people, at best, were ignorant and bound by custom, showing still the bad effects of the servile condition from which they had so recently emerged; and needed every encouragement to be induced to advance to better methods of cultivation. Even artificial fertilizers, however (superphosphates, etc.), were burdened with a duty, because there seemed a chance to manufacture them in the country; the result, naturally, was an increase in price, and a restriction in the use of this important aid to production.

555. Effect on railroads.—We must note further the effect of the tariff on the railroad system. Russia has never gone through the period of transportation by highroads. It passed from conditions described above as existing during the first part of the century, to the use of the railroad, without the transition such as was marked by the use of turnpikes in England. Even in 1914 the highroads of the country were of the crudest character, and internal trade depended mainly upon the waterways and railroads, contributing nearly the same tonnage to each. The railroads, therefore, had peculiarly important functions to perform in Russia. They served agriculture, moreover, to an unusual degree; the cereals supplied in 1897 more tonnage than any other ware carried on Russian railroads. Yet if we measure the development of railroads by comparing their length with the area or population of the country, we find that even at the close of the century the Russians had made but a beginning, and took the lowest rank among all important peoples. Taking merely Russia in Europe, and contrasting it with the United States, a country which also has a vast area and great vacant spaces, the Russian railway system in 1913 had not reached one ninth the development of the American in comparison with population, not one tenth in comparison with area. An important reason for this backwardness was the increased expense of the construction, equipment, and operation of railroads due to the high tariff on railroad supplies. Iron may be said, roughly, to cost double or more of what it cost in other countries. The government has not always been blind to these facts, and has made concessions from time to time, but the general tendency of its policy has been made only more glaring by these occasional exceptions.

556. Commercial reasons for Russia’s eastern movement.—Preceding sections have sketched some of the historical influences which prevented Russia from taking a part in world commerce commensurate with the space she covered on the map. This great state, which in the sixties took only sixth place in commerce among European countries, rose above Belgium and the Netherlands in the early part of the seventies, and secured fourth place, only to be passed again by these little states and for a time even by Austria-Hungary. In 1912 Russia still ranked sixth among European countries, eighth among all countries of the world, in the value of foreign trade.

This decline in commercial importance was due largely to the conscious and voluntary action of the government, which restricted commerce between its people and the people of the West. No government, however, regards all commerce as injurious, and the Russian government endeavored to atone for losses in the West by expansion in the East. In that direction Russia met people who were her industrial inferiors. By trade with them she hoped to secure imports which would not compete with her own products, and sought to win a market for her newly founded factories. The manufactured products which were too high in price to compete in European markets could be sold in the East so long as the cheaper wares of western Europe did not reach the field. As commerce extended, however, in the last decades of the century, Russia saw that her eastern markets were threatened unless she could apply to them the same policy of protection which she had established in the West; and the government was forced into the policy of military and political expansion, designed to close the doors of eastern markets to other powers, which received its check in the the war with Japan.

557. Course of the Asiatic trade.—In no period of the nineteenth century has Russian commerce across her Asiatic frontier formed any important fraction of her total foreign trade. At the beginning and end of the century it was about one tenth of the total; in the intervening time it was rather less. The difficulty of transportation over the great stretches of almost trackless territory confined the trade with the Far East to objects comprising great value in small bulk (tea, cloth, etc.), and directed Russian commerce rather to the Asiatic countries on her southeastern frontier (Persia, etc.). In the second half of the century, for reasons noted above, the government showed an increased interest in this branch of trade, and lent liberal aid in furthering Russian interests in the East. The most striking evidence of the determination of the Russian government to extend its influence toward the Pacific Ocean was the construction of the Siberian Railway (1891). This was rather a political than an economic undertaking; it was enormously expensive, and failed to develop sufficient traffic to pay its way as a commercial enterprise. Its failure also in the field of international politics was signalized by the victory of Japan in the war with Russia in 1905, which checked definitely Russia’s ambitions to play a dominant part in the Far East and put in her place an Asiatic power.

558. States of the Balkan Peninsula.—If the reader will examine a map of Europe about 1800 he will find that at that date the state of Turkey occupied the whole of the Balkan Peninsula, and included considerable territories even to the north of the Danube. The nineteenth century has witnessed the liberation of most of this land from Turkish rule; and some half dozen independent states have emerged and taken their place in the European system. These states, however, have neither in their political nor in their economic organization reached maturity. Like the Russians, the peoples of southeastern Europe belonged for centuries to Asia rather than to Europe, and the period of Turkish misrule, lasting down into very recent times, has effectually checked their development. Their states were still in the making, constantly disturbed by racial, religious, and dynastic quarrels. Their economic organization was still, in large part, medieval. Roads were scarce, and good roads were almost unknown. The implements and methods of agriculture were of the most primitive description. Some cultivators still used for a plow a crooked piece of wood with a single handle, and threshed their grain on the open ground by driving horses over it. Manufactures were still in the stage of the handicrafts, and were, in some cases, exercised by gilds like those of the Middle Ages.

559. Commerce of the Balkan States.—Conditions have been rapidly changing, as railroads and steamers have reached the peoples of the Balkans, and have brought them in touch with the advanced civilization of the West. The commerce of the Balkans, however, has been as yet important rather by its promise than by its performance. The total commerce between the contiguous states Servia and Bulgaria amounted in 1882 to less than a million dollars. The aggregate commerce of the four Balkan countries, Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia and Greece, in 1910-11, amounted to considerably less than one per cent of the total trade of the world, and was exceeded by the commerce of Sweden or Spain or even of the little country Denmark. The foreign commerce of the kingdom of Greece depended almost entirely on one product, the so-called Zante currant, a seedless raisin which got the name of currant from Corinth, whence it was carried to the island of Zante. The pig took in Servia a position almost equal in importance to that of the currant in Greece; great herds of swine were kept in the oak forests, and contributed largely to the chief export, that of animal products. On the plains of Roumania wheat was grown for export by a wretched population of tenants and laborers, who were still serfs until 1864. The governments of some of the states have endeavored by protective tariffs and various privileges to stimulate the growth of a mining and manufacturing industry; but the countries of the Balkan Peninsula will find in agriculture their chief resource for a long time to come, and will develop their commerce most rapidly by exchanging their surplus of raw products for the manufactures of central and western Europe.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TOPICS FOR REVIEW