Up To Date Business Part 8

RUSSIA PRINc.i.p.aLLY AN AGRICULTURAL COUNTRY

Russia's princ.i.p.al business is AGRICULTURE. More than one half her whole internal trade is agricultural. Her agricultural products are one and one half times greater than the products of her manufactures and ten times greater than her mining products or her imports. And though her production of grain per acre is the lowest in all Europe except Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and her total production of all food products per acre by far the lowest in Europe (not more than one third that of Spain, which is next lowest), yet she manages to export a larger quant.i.ty of GRAIN than any other country in Europe, France only sometimes excepted. Russia's export of grain for some years past has averaged 266,000,000 bushels a year. Her export of WHEAT alone has averaged 94,000,000 bushels a year, or considerably more than a fifth of the total wheat export of the world. The explanation of this enormous export of wheat from so poor a country is that three fourths of the people live on rye. Among the peasants wheat bread is practically unknown, and nothing could be more pathetic than the hard rye lumps which pa.s.sed as bread during the last famine. Other agricultural exports (besides grain) are flax, hemp, oil-seed cake, linseed and gra.s.s seed, b.u.t.ter, eggs, wool, hides, and hogs' bristles.

Wood, lumber, and timber are also extensively exported. England is Russia's best customer. The amount of England's annual importation of the above products (including grain) exceeds $112,000,000.

RUSSIA'S MINERAL WEALTH

In MINERALS Russia is enormously wealthy, but the mining lands are not diffused throughout the empire but confined to definite areas. Nor can they be said to be energetically worked. The great gold-fields of the Ural mountains would not pay expenses as worked at present were they not supplied with convict labour. Owing to the heavy import duty which is imposed on pig-iron nearly all the iron now needed for the IRON manufactures of the empire is obtained at home, but this amounts to only 46 pounds per inhabitant, as against 810 pounds per inhabitant used in Britain. COAL is very abundant, especially in the valley of the Donetz, but fire-wood is so plentiful for domestic purposes, and water power so plentiful for heavy manufactures, that the amount of coal mined in all Russia is only one twelfth that mined in Germany, and only one twenty-fourth that mined in Britain. Over 2,250,000 tons of coal are imported despite very heavy protective duties. There is one mineral product, however, in which Russia excels all other European countries. This is PETROLEUM. The oil-springs on the Caspian Sea produce an annual yield of crude petroleum of an average value of $15,000,000. The value of the petroleum and petroleum products exported in 1896 was over $22,000,000.

RUSSIA'S TRADE AND MANUFACTURES

Despite Russia's resources in farm products and in minerals, yet, owing to the ignorance and degradation of her people, she is a poor country, and her exports are always more than her imports. Her total wealth per inhabitant is only $305, as against $780 per inhabitant for Germany, $1260 for France, and $1510 for Great Britain and Ireland. Her total foreign trade is only $5 per inhabitant, whereas the foreign trade of her neighbour, Germany, is $35 per inhabitant.

Her total internal trade is only $50 per inhabitant, whereas even in Greece the internal trade is $65 per inhabitant, while in Germany it is $130 per inhabitant, and in the United States $215 per inhabitant.

The reason of all this is the lack of energy and industry in the people. Their earnings per inhabitant average only 12 cents a day.

Another reason is the lack of modern labour-saving devices. Comparing inhabitant with inhabitant, Russia has only one sixth of the steam power which Germany has. One half of all the manufactures of the country are produced domestically--that is, without motive power or machinery. No industry in Russia is fully up to the needs of the people when judged by the standards of other countries. For example, notwithstanding the severity of the climate, only two pounds of raw wool per inhabitant are consumed in Russia's woollen manufactures, as against seven pounds consumed in Germany, and the total annual value of all manufactures is only $20 per inhabitant, as against $56 in Germany, and $88 in Britain. Notwithstanding these unfavourable comparisons, the factory industries of Russia are making progress. In seventy years the textile factories have increased fivefold and in thirty years twofold. In sixty years the cotton-manufacturing industry has increased sevenfold, and in fifteen years twofold. Until recently Russia exported wool. Now she imports more wool than she exports.

Ninety years ago in Russia iron was dearer than bread, and the peasants used wooden plough-shares and left their horses unshod. Now the consumption of hardware, though still per inhabitant the smallest in Europe, is yet in the aggregate the fourth in Europe, although even so it is only two ninths what it is in Britain. Beet-root sugar-making is also a new industry, and 500,000 tons are made annually, the number of sugar works being 235. The beet-root crop of the country amounts to nearly 6,000,000 tons annually. But the consumption of sugar per inhabitant is only seven pounds annually, as against eighteen pounds per inhabitant in Germany. A universal industry throughout Russia is TANNING, and Russia leather, with its fragrant birch-oil odour, is a highly prized commodity the world over.

But the amount manufactured is only 114,000 tons yearly, and the quant.i.ty exported is inconsiderable.

RUSSIA'S RAILWAYS AND NAVIGABLE RIVERS

The most characteristic physical feature of European Russia is its _flatness_. In consequence its rivers are almost all navigable, and, as the most important of them are interconnected by ca.n.a.ls, the facilities for transportation which they afford are very considerable.

Altogether the length of inland navigation thus afforded amounts to nearly 47,000 miles. This abundance of navigation facilities has r.e.t.a.r.ded the growth of railways, but there are already 25,756 miles of finished railway in European Russia alone. The total length of railway in all Russia built and in building is 34,849 miles. The most important railway enterprise in the empire is the Trans-Siberian Railway, which will afford through communication from the Baltic to the Pacific. The shortest possible distance between these two bodies of water is 4500 miles. The length of the railway will be 4950 miles, and its cost, it is supposed, will be $120,000,000. It is to be completed by 1905.

RUSSIA'S CITIES AND TOWNS

[Ill.u.s.tration: Moscow.]

ST. PETERSBURG (with suburbs 1,267,000), the capital of Russia, is, like most European capitals, an important trade centre as well as the seat of government. Its manufactures are general and numerous, but the chief ones are those concerned in making munitions of war. Until 1885 St. Petersburg was not a seaport, but in that year a ca.n.a.l was built which now permits vessels drawing twenty-two feet of water to enter its docks. Its harbour, however, is closed with ice from November to May. Near St. Petersburg is REVAL, the chief cotton port of Russia.

The raw cotton importation of Russia averages about $60,000,000 annually, most of which comes direct from the United States. MOSCOW (988,000), the ancient capital of Russia, is also a great manufacturing city, but its princ.i.p.al importance is derived from the fact that it is the great centre of the internal trade of Russia.

WARSAW (615,000), the capital of Polish Russia, is a great railway centre, and the princ.i.p.al entrepot of railway traffic between Russia and the rest of Europe. LoDZ (315,000), also in Polish Russia, is the great cotton-manufacturing centre of the empire. ODESSA (405,000) is the chief seaport of Russia. It has an immense export trade in grain, tallow, iron, linseed, wood, hides, cordage, sailcloth, tar, and beef. RIGA (283,000), the chief port of Russia on the Baltic, has a large export trade with England in characteristic Russian produce.

KIEFF (249,000) is the centre of the Russian sugar-refining industry.

ASTRAKHAN (113,000), on the Volga delta, is noted for its sturgeon fisheries, and its export of caviare, amounting, it is said, to $1,500,000 yearly. TULA (111,000) is the Sheffield of Russia. Even in 1828 there were 600 cutlery establishments in Tula, but the manufacture was then princ.i.p.ally domestic. It is now a city of factories, for it stands on a large coal and iron field.

NIJNI-NOVGOROD (99,000) is noted for its fair, an Asiatic inst.i.tution which modern civilisation will no doubt soon disestablish. Once a year merchants to the number of 200,000 come to Nijni-Novgorod from all over Russia, and even from India and China, to exchange their wares.

The value of the exchange sometimes amounts to $100,000,000. ORENBURG (73,000), on the Ural, is the terminal depot of the caravan trade of Asiatic Russia. ARCHANGEL (25,000), on the White Sea, is the chief emporium of trade in the north, with exports of characteristic northern produce. BAKU, on the Caspian Sea, is the chief seat of the petroleum industry of Russia. All the towns and cities above named have grown enormously during the last twenty years.

VI. THE TRADE FEATURES OF INDIA

INDIA'S PAST AND PRESENT COMPARED

To the student of civilisation India is one of the most interesting countries in the world. It has always been one of the most fertile and populous regions of the globe. For centuries it was thought to be one of the richest. In consequence it has, time and time again, been the scene of invasion, conquest, and spoliation. But its riches never consisted so much in natural treasure as in the savings of an industrious and frugal people. Since the year 1600 European nations have had much to do with India, especially England, France, Portugal, and Holland. During the last 140 years, however, England has been the dominant power there. Whatever may be said as to the motive of England's interference in India's affairs in the first place, it can only be said that the present influence of England in India is immensely beneficial to the country. India's prosperity on the whole is now comparable with that of any civilised nation on the globe. And a people that once, because of repeated conquest and spoliation, had lost all sense of honour and self-respect, are now, under the benign influence of peace, law, order, and security, rapidly becoming honourable, self-reliant, and enterprising, and ambitious to possess all the rights and privileges of modern civilisation.

INDIA'S SIZE AND POPULATION

India is a much larger and more populous country than most people think it to be. In shape it is somewhat like a huge kite, each of whose diameters is over 2000 miles long, or more than the distance across the Atlantic from Ireland to Newfoundland. Its TERRITORY is about 1,700,000 square miles. Of this area, over 1,000,000 square miles, a territory considerably greater than the territory of all the states of Europe (including the British Isles) except Russia, is directly under British control. The remainder is indirectly under British control. The POPULATION is 308,000,000, of which 236,000,000 are directly under British control and 72,000,000 indirectly so. This population is made up of people who speak seventy-eight different languages, of which twenty languages are spoken by not less than 1,000,000 persons each.

INDIA'S GREAT FERTILITY

India owes much of its fertility to the fact that its soil is constantly being replenished by alluvium brought down from its high mountains by its immense rivers. The valleys of the Indus (1800 miles long), the Ganges (1600 miles long), and the Brahmapootra (1500 miles long) include an area of 1,125,000 square miles, a part of which, the Indus-Ganges plain, consists of a great stretch of alluvial soil whose fertility is as rich as that of any portion of the globe. One hundred and eighty millions of people live in this plain. So finely pulverised is its soil that for a distance of almost 2000 miles not even a pebble can be found in it. And so fertile is it that there are some agricultural districts in the plain where the population exceeds 900 to the square mile. In that part of the plain which the Ganges waters, 60,000,000 of people find support on the soil by agriculture, at a density of over 700 persons to the square mile, which is 140 persons more to the square mile than the density of Belgium, the most thickly populated country in Europe.

INDIA'S IRRIGATION Ca.n.a.lS AND RIVER EMBANKMENTS

But, fertile as is the soil of India, and propitious to agricultural industry as is its climate generally, its climate is not always favourable. It suffers periodically from excess of drought. As a consequence artificial irrigation has to be resorted to, or much of this fertile country would oftentimes be a desert. In British India alone 28,000 miles of irrigation ca.n.a.ls are under the control of the government, 14,000 of which have been constructed by the present (British) government--works of vast dimensions and the highest engineering skill. Altogether 28,000,000 acres in British India are dependent for their necessary supply of moisture upon general irrigation, and 8,000,000 upon irrigation ca.n.a.ls. Were it not for these irrigation ca.n.a.ls, 2,000,000 acres in Scinde (northwestern India) would be a perpetual desert, for Scinde is almost wholly rainless. On the other hand, in a great part of India the rainfall is excessive. Some districts indeed are the wettest on the globe. In a.s.sam, for example (which is also one of the hottest places in India), the rainfall is 600 inches yearly, and it has been 650. As a consequence rivers in India often overflow their banks. Therefore to protect the country on the lower river reaches from floods the British government has built over 1500 miles of embankments.

INDIA'S MINERAL RESOURCES

At one time India was famed for its wealth in precious minerals and precious stones. Poets often celebrated its golden resources. But its wealth in this respect was always fabulous rather than real. India is in reality poor in minerals. It has a good deal of iron--iron of the choicest quality. It has also a good deal of coal, but its coal is poor, owing to its superabundance of ash. It has also a little copper and tin. It has gold-mines that are worked. Diamonds, too, are found in southern India, and numerously so. The celebrated Koh-i-nur (280 carats) was an Indian product. But neither diamond-hunting nor gold-mining is any longer a profitable industry in India. The princ.i.p.al mineral industry of India is salt-mining, pursued in the Punjaub, where there are solid cliffs of pure salt. Owing to the fact that the people of India are mostly vegetarians (250,000,000 of Hindoos would rather die than eat flesh), salt is a necessary article of diet and a universal commodity. Its production, therefore, is controlled by the government as a means of raising revenue.

INDIA'S WONDERFUL AGRICULTURAL RESOURCES

[Ill.u.s.tration: Comparative sizes of India and the United States.]

The real wealth of India lies in the luxuriance and economic value of its VEGETATION. As a consequence the princ.i.p.al industry is AGRICULTURE. Only one tenth of the people live in towns. Two thirds of the adult males in the country are engaged wholly in tilling the soil.

Every sort of agricultural product known to commerce is raised in India; for from the high levels on the mountain sides to the low levels on the coasts the vegetation of the whole world is produced within its borders. Even in WHEAT India competes in the world's markets with countries like Russia and Argentina. In 1896 British India had 19,000,000 acres of wheat under cultivation, and (though a dearth year) an exportation of $4,000,000. In 1892 the exportation was $25,000,000. The district known as the Central Provinces of India has become one of the most important wheat areas in the world. But the princ.i.p.al agricultural product of India is RICE. British India alone has 70,000,000 acres of rice under cultivation, and an annual exportation of $60,000,000. In all the coast regions rice is grown universally, and also in the lower parts of the river plains, especially in the Ganges valley. It is the staple food of the people everywhere except on the higher levels. On the higher levels millet and maize (corn) are the staple foods. The next important agricultural product of India is COTTON, of which $47,000,000 worth in the raw state is exported annually, besides what is used at home. The American civil war was the great cause of the starting of the cotton-growing industry in India. The next important agricultural product is JUTE, of which the export in the raw state is about $35,000,000. No country in the world can compete with India in the production of this fibre, for jute is very exhaustive of the soil, and in the Ganges valley, where it is princ.i.p.ally raised, the soil is annually replenished by alluvium. A fifth great agricultural product is TEA, in which India now leads the world. England uses twice as much India tea as China tea, the reason being that India teas are produced with all the economic care of a high-cla.s.s English or American manufactured product. The value of the tea export of India is about $27,000,000.

Other chief agricultural products are OPIUM (which is a government monopoly), oil seeds, hides, and skins, INDIGO (in which India excels the world, the value of the export being $14,000,000), COFFEE (the best grown anywhere--except perhaps that of Arabia and Java--though the bean is sometimes injured in transit), raw wool, lac (for dyeing), cinchona or Peruvian bark (which since it has been raised in India, has greatly reduced the price of quinine), raw silk, raw sugar, tobacco, and spices. Spices are produced abundantly in India, but their quality is not equal to East Indian spices. Also the cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco of India, though produced plentifully, are inferior in quality to those of the United States. Nor are the wheat and corn of India so good as the wheat and corn of the United States and Canada. Improved cultivation will, however, in time improve the quality of all these products. Of exports of natural products not agricultural the princ.i.p.al are WOOD (chiefly TEAK, the most valuable timber known for s.h.i.+p-building, and sal, a most valuable wood for carpentry) and saltpetre.

INDIA'S GROWING MANUFACTURES

Though India is now chiefly an agricultural country her people from time immemorial have been adepts in manufacturing. The domestic textile manufactures and the domestic metal manufactures of India were for ages among the most beautiful and ingenious in the world. These DOMESTIC MANUFACTURES are princ.i.p.ally pursued in small villages, of which there are over half a million in India. But under the influences of modern civilisation introduced by British rule, the domestic industries of the country are now giving way to FACTORY INDUSTRIES.

These have already become well established, and are rapidly increasing in number and importance. The stability of India as a nation is now so well a.s.sured that capital can be had there as cheaply as in England or the United States. Besides, co-operative or joint-stock enterprises are becoming common. The Indian people, with their natural apt.i.tude for weaving, make the best of textile operatives, and India bids fair soon to become a formidable rival of Western nations in TEXTILE MANUFACTURES. In twenty years the cotton spindles have increased sixfold. In ten years the COTTON OUTPUT has increased twofold. Bombay has become one of the greatest cotton centres in the world, a sort of Liverpool and Manchester combined. It has practically shut the doors of India to English manufactured cottons of the cheaper grades. Bombay manufactured cotton is even sent to England in immense quant.i.ties, but the princ.i.p.al export is to China. The total export of Indian manufactured cotton is $23,000,000. Another important modern manufacture is that of JUTE. The jute factories of Bengal are now competing with those of Scotland, and the total export is $17,500,000.

A similar development is expected in iron manufactures, for already iron-smelting has begun. But, notwithstanding these developments, India still remains a tremendous market for the manufactured goods of England, especially in cottons and hardware and machinery. The value of the annual cotton importation from England is $100,000,000, equal to the total of England's exportation of goods of every sort to the United States. The value of the annual hardware and machinery importation from England is $35,000,000.

INDIA'S EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL TRADE

The total yearly value of the EXPORTS of India amounts to the enormous sum of $350,000,000, more than a third of the total exportation of the United States for the banner year 1897.[2] Of this England receives about one half. The total yearly value of the IMPORTS of India (exclusive of bullion) amounts to $255,000,000, which is considerably more than a third of the total importation of the United States. Of this England sends out about two thirds. (India is therefore England's best customer, although from the United States England purchases vastly more.) Of the internal trade of India no statistics are available, but with the rapid advances in modern conveniences for doing business which the country is adopting, the internal trade is also enormously increasing. Already 20,290 miles of railway are built and opened, and 13,000 miles of ca.n.a.ls and ca.n.a.lised river navigation. Railways are rapidly being constructed in every part of the country. Over 31,000 miles of metalled roads for highways and 106,000 of unmetalled roads are now maintained by the government as public works. There are 38,000 miles of telegraph routes. The government highways and ca.n.a.ls as well as the railways are all splendidly engineered and solidly built works. The greatness of India is only just beginning.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] The total exports of the United States for the years 1898 and 1899 have exceeded $1,200,000,000, each year. In the year 1897 they were about $1,050,000,000.

INDIA'S CITIES AND TOWNS

CALCUTTA (862,000) is the capital of the empire of India and the second city in the British Empire. Although situated on an arm of the delta of the Ganges, eighty miles inland, Calcutta is an immense seaport, but its sea-going privileges can be maintained only by great engineering works, because of the silt which the Ganges is constantly bringing down and depositing in its seaward channels. Calcutta enjoys almost a monopoly of the whole trade of the Ganges and Brahmapootra valleys, and until the building of the Suez Ca.n.a.l it had almost a monopoly of the outward trade of the whole Hindustan peninsula. Its total trade is even yet very large, aggregating for outward and inward business together about $700,000,000 per annum, a sum which can be appreciated from the fact that it is about equal to the total import trade of the whole of the United States. BOMBAY (822,000), the second city of the Indian Empire, owes its eminence to three things: (1) the opening of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, which has made it the port of India nearest England; (2) the starting of the cotton-growing industry in India, owing to the American civil war (the cotton-growing district of India is adjacent to Bombay); and (3) the development of the railway system of India, which is making Bombay rather than Calcutta the natural ocean outlet for the trade of the country. MADRAS (453,000), the third city of India, is also the third seaport. But it has no natural harbour, and its sh.o.r.e is surf-beaten and for months together exposed to the full fury of the northeast monsoons. An artificial harbour, however, has recently been built. Besides the cities above mentioned there is one (HYDERABAD) with a population of over 400,000; there are two (LUCKNOW and BENARES) with a population of over 150,000 each, and eleven more with a population of over 100,000 each. There are besides forty-seven towns with a population more than 50,000 each, and over a thousand towns with a population of about 10,000 each.

VII. THE TRADE FEATURES OF CHINA

THE VASTNESS OF CHINA'S AREA AND POPULATION

China, to the student of commerce, is the most interesting country on the globe. The reason for this is that its area is so large, its population so vast, and its chances for development so magnificent.

The total area of the empire, according to late estimates, is 4,218,401 square miles. Other estimates make it 4,468,470 square miles. The greatness of this area may be understood from a few comparisons. It is about one twelfth of the total land surface of the globe. It is two and one fourth times the size of European Russia. It is almost one and one half times the total area of the United States, exclusive of Alaska. But all of this territory is not of equal commercial interest. The Chinese Empire consists of six parts: China Proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, Jungaria, and Eastern Turkestan.

Because of recent treaties, which give to Russia the right to build and "control" railways in Manchuria--ostensibly for the purpose of securing for the great Russian Trans-Siberian Railway a shorter route to Vladivostok, its Pacific terminus--MANCHURIA becomes practically a RUSSIAN POSSESSION. Turkestan, Jungaria, Tibet, and Mongolia are thinly inhabited countries, scarcely semi-civilised. But the part which remains when these "dependencies" are left out of consideration--CHINA PROPER--is at once one of the largest, most thickly populated, and most fertile countries on the face of the globe, and one also of the most richly endowed in mineral products.

Its area is 1,336,841 square miles. Its population is 386,000,000. Its population per square mile is not far short of 300. That is to say, its area is more than eleven times that of Great Britain and Ireland, and almost one half that of the United States, exclusive of Alaska; its population is ten times that of Great Britain and Ireland, and more than six times that of the United States; while its population per square mile is greater than that of any European or American country except Great Britain (which, however, it nearly equals), Holland, and Belgium. In fact, more than one fourth of the total population of the globe is concentrated within the boundaries of China Proper.

CHINA A COUNTRY OF GREAT TRADE POSSIBILITIES

The great commercial nations of the world are now all trying to get shares of the trade of this VAST AND POPULOUS COUNTRY. For not only is China (Proper) large and populous, but it is also wealthy, for its inhabitants are both industrious and frugal, and, besides, as compared with the people of European countries they have been greatly spared the disastrous commerce-destroying effects of war, both foreign and internecine. Centuries ago the Chinese had made great progress toward civilisation. Their skill in the manufacturing arts, and in agriculture and horticulture, was for ages superior to that of Western nations. But, unfortunately for their advancement, they are conservative, self-conceited, and averse to improvement, especially if they have to learn improvement of others. As yet they have almost wholly ignored the ideas and methods of modern Western civilisation.

They have scarcely any railways, but few steams.h.i.+ps, almost no steam-power manufactories, and no telephones. The only modern improvement which they have made much use of is the telegraph. Some years ago (in 1876) a European company secured the privilege of building a short railway from Shanghai, but it was scarcely built before the government got fearful of its influence and bought it up and stopped its running. But the Chinese people are not averse to foreign trade; on the contrary, they are rather fond of it. If only the thing could happen in China that happened in j.a.pan--that is to say, if only the government could fall into the hands of rulers who were open-minded to improvement and inclined to be progressive--the rush that China would make toward civilisation and the adoption of modern trade methods and modern processes of manufacture would be startling.

CHINA'S FOREIGN TRADE