Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c. Xavier Hommaire de Hell

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CHAPTER VI.

       Table of Contents

      AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES OF SOUTHERN RUSSIA—MINERAL PRODUCTIONS—RUSSIAN WORKMEN.

      In justification of its prohibitive system, the government alleges the protection and encouragement it owes to native industry. Now it is evident that absolute exclusion cannot favour industry. The high tariff, it is true, seems to secure a certain market for Russian manufactures; but it results from it that those manufactures, being kept clear of all competition, are worse than stationary; for the manufacturers, whose number is very limited, agree among themselves to turn out exactly the same sort of workmanship, and in the same proportion. Moscow is now the centre of all the manufactures of silk, cotton, and woollen stuffs, shawls, &c.; yet, in spite of all the privileges secured to those establishments by the tariff, a great number of them have failed of late years. Their goods have become so bad that they could no longer compete in sale with smuggled articles. In 1840, or 1841, the emperor made a journey to Moscow, on purpose to preside over the meeting of manufacturers; but unfortunately ukases and proclamations are inefficient to create a body of manufacturers; the imperial desires in nowise altered the face of things.

      There are at this day, in Russia, two great branches of manufacturing industry, one of which, employing the raw materials furnished by the soil, such as iron, copper, and other metals, belongs properly to Russia, and has no need to fear foreign competition. It is true we cannot speak very highly of the Russian hardware and cutlery, but they find a sure sale, the inhabitants caring more for cheapness than quality. The most important manufactures of this sort are established at Toula, and in the government of Nijni Novgorod; the materials are furnished by Siberia.

      The Ural is one of the most remarkable mountain chains on the globe, for the extent and variety of its mineral wealth. I say nothing of its gold, silver, and platina ores; they add too little to the real prosperity of the country to call for mention here. The iron ores of Siberia are generally of superior quality; but as the processes to which they are subjected, are somewhat injudicious, the iron produced from them is seldom as good as it might be. The working of the iron mines has been a good deal neglected of late years, landowners having turned their attention chiefly to the precious metals; hence the prices of wrought and cast iron have risen considerably in Southern Russia, which employs those of Siberia exclusively. The carriage is effected for this part of the empire by land; in one direction by the Volga, the Don, and the Sea of Azov, in another by the Dniepr. The journeys are long and expensive, and often they cannot be effected at all in consequence of irregularities either in the arrivals, or in the river floods. The present price of pig-iron is from eighteen to twenty francs for the 100 kilogrammes, and of bar-iron from forty-four to forty-five francs, in Kherson and Odessa. I do not know the prices at the places where the iron is produced, but whatever they may be, these figures show how much Russia has yet to do towards facilitating the means of internal communication. Of copper, lead, &c., notwithstanding the cost of carriage, Russia exports a considerable quantity to foreign countries.

      Not content with these valuable sources of wealth, which alone would suffice for the support of a vast and truly national industry, Russia has thought it desirable to create for herself a manufacturing industry such as exists in other countries of Europe, and to arrive at this end she has devised a system of the most absolute prohibition. How far has she been successful? Of all European countries Russia is unquestionably placed in the most unfavourable circumstances for contending with foreign manufactures. Situated as she is at the extremity of Europe, she can only be reached by long, difficult, and expensive routes; and as her manufactures of stuffs, silks, &c., are all concentrated in Moscow, the expenses of carriage are enormous. Thus the cottons landed in Odessa are first carried to Moscow, and then return, after being wrought, to the governments of the Black Sea. The want of capable and intelligent workmen is also one of the most serious obstacles to the establishment of manufactures; the Russian peasant is essentially agricultural, and knows nothing of handicraft trades, except so far as they are of service to him in his daily labours; and then, by constitution and by the effects of that long slavery that has weighed and still weighs upon him, his ideas are naturally contracted and can never apply themselves to more than a single object. The sole talent he possesses in a really remarkable degree is that of imitation. The black enamelled work of the Caucasus is admirably imitated at Toula; and at Lughan, in the government of Iekaterinoslaf, they make very pretty things in Berlin iron, copied from Prussian models. This talent for imitation is no doubt valuable in the workshops where they are constantly making the same set of things, and in the same way; but it becomes completely inefficient in the manufactories for piece-goods, in which there must be incessant innovation and improvement: hence we find all the great manufactories, after being at first managed by foreign superintendents and workmen, fall gradually into decay from the moment they are transferred to native hands. The Russians are essentially destitute of imagination and the spirit of invention; and then the proneness of the workmen to laziness and drunkenness cannot but be fatal to industry. The workman is always seeking some pretext to escape from labour; he has his own calendar, in which the number of holidays is doubled; these he employs in getting drunk, and the days following them in sleeping off his liquor. The result is, that he passes half the year in doing nothing, that he strives to sell his day's work at the dearest possible rate, and that the working time being thus indefinite, it is impossible to fix punctually the time of production. This unhappy moral condition of the labouring classes is the same throughout all Russia, and may be regarded as one of the worst evils incidental to the native industry. To these obstacles, proceeding from the very nature of the people, are superadded physical difficulties no less imperious. In France, England, and Germany, when any new manufacture is established, it always rests on other branches already in existence, and about which it has no need to employ itself. In Russia, on the contrary, in order to succeed in any branch of manufactures, it is necessary at the same time to create all the accessories connected with it. Every one knows what a vast quantity of merino and other wools Southern Russia supplies, and it would seem at first sight that of all manufactures that of woollen cloths ought to offer the fairest chances of success in that country. But it is not so: I have visited two or three cloth factories on the banks of the Dniepr belonging to foreigners, and managed by them with an ability beyond all praise; yet it was with the utmost difficulty and through the personal labour of their proprietors that they were able to subsist. The government itself, some years ago, erected at Iekaterinoslaf one of the largest cloth manufactories I am acquainted with; the looms were set in motion by two steam-engines, and several hundred workmen were employed. The establishment, nevertheless, was closed after three years' existence, and I myself saw all the materials sold at a great depreciation.

      The number of manufacturing establishments of all sorts in Russia amounted in 1839 to 6855, and that of the workmen employed to 412,931, not including those engaged in the mines and in the smelting-houses, forges, &c., belonging to them. We will enumerate as the most important branches of Russian industry:—