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—

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 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.

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—

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.

The revenue from customs in 1841 amounted to 27,387,494 silver rubles, or upwards of two-fifths in excess of the receipts of 1830.

In order to exemplify the nature of the trade betwixt Great Britain and Russia, and exhibit it in its most disadvantageous aspect, we shall add here, from statements verified as authentic by competent authorities on the spot, the returns of British trade and shipping with certain Russian ports for 1842, which we have recently received direct. They will assist us to a conception of the relative importance of each place in respect of its commercial connexion with this country.

The commerce of the port of Archangel, omitting from the table Onega, Kola, Kemi, and Soumsk, the other ports in the White Sea, their traffic being inconsiderable, is thus represented.

1842.—Total shipping outward, 212, of which, British, 153, tonnage, 31,704

The commerce with Riga exhibits a somewhat more favourable proportion between imports and exports, and we are induced, therefore, to give the return of imports for 1842 in same detail as received.

Nature and value of merchandise imported into Riga from Great Britain during the year 1842:—

The commerce of Odessa represents a closer approximation still between imports and exports; and they would perhaps nearly balance, but for the large shipments of wheat to this country, which contribute to swell the exports.

In 1842, 174 British ships entered, tonnage 44,428, sailed 176 tonnage, 44929

The remainder by 64 British vessels entering from Leghorn, Turkey, Algiers, Amsterdam, mostly in ballast.

The remainder to the countries above named.

The commerce of St Petersburg is stated, for 1812, imports and exports together, at the value of 97,795,415 silver rubles. And of 1147 foreign vessels which left that port and Cronstadt with cargoes, more or less, 515 were British, of 117,793 tonnage—being a rather considerably less number than in either 1840 or 1841.

The present is the proper occasion to remark upon and explain the system of official valuation pursued in Russia, by which it will be observed how the real value, both of imports and exports, is swelled, probably with a view to the vain display of a greater commerce than is really carried on. As the system is nearly the same for both imports and exports, it cannot, of course, materially interfere with, or impeach the accuracy of the general balance-sheet. It is desirable, however, that the facts should be fairly represented, for the guidance of those who may be in the habit of consulting and comparing the official documents of different countries; and they will serve moreover to explain, in some degree, the extraordinary discrepancies which have been found betwixt the declared values of British products and manufactures exported to Russia, as published in the Board of Trade tables, and the same exports as exhibited in Russian customhouse returns.

In calculating the annual value of importations, it is the rule in the Russian customhouses to add the duties paid on the entry of goods to their original value. This practice in Russia, where the duties are so high, swells the value of imports far beyond their true amount, and gives a false and exaggerated view of them.

The difficulty, such as it is, might be obviated, were the masters of British merchantmen compelled by law to submit their ship's papers, on arrival and departure, to the British consuls at each port, who would then be placed on the same footing with the consuls of other countries, and be enabled to communicate much important statistical information to their Government, of the opportunity for acquiring and transmitting which they are now deprived.

Our review of Russian commerce and industry would be more incomplete than it is, if we were to omit all notice of the vast mining wealth of that empire. But our limits, already nearly reached, do not admit of more than a passing reference. Suffice it, that in coal, both bituminous and anthracite, in iron and other metals, and salt, constituting the raw materials, Russia is rich enough for all her wants, and indeed supplies the great bulk of those wants within herself, with to spare in some of these products for her neighbours and other countries. Her mines are annually increasing in productiveness and number, as enterprise is extended and capital invested in them, and as domestic manufactures and improving agriculture increasingly absorb their produce. The treasure-yielding progress of her gold mines is one of the extraordinary events of the age. The existence of gold in Siberia was scarcely suspected till 1829. The first researches of adventuring individuals were attended with no success. Feodot Popoff, one of the earliest, succeeded at length in that year, when all others had abandoned the undertaking as hopeless, in discovering traces, and procuring some inconsiderable specimens, of gold—not in quantity, however, to repay the working; and the doubts before existing seemed confirmed as to the fruitlessness of further perseverance in the search. Major-General Kovalevsky, of the engineers of mines, having been appointed governor of Tomsk, renewed the attempt in 1830; and, at the close of that year, his indefatigable labours, and more methodical plan of operations, were rewarded with the discovery of a first considerable stratum of auriferous sands, which was designated Yégorievsky, (St George.) Adventurers flocked into the district forthwith, and in numbers, upon the widespreading news; and excellently did renewed labours recompense the zeal of the more fortunate; numerous were the discoveries of layers of golden sands. In one of these, last year, a massive piece of native gold, weighing 24½ pounds Russian, (the Russian pound is about 1½ oz. less than the English,) was discovered embedded in a fragment of quartz, and is now deposited in the museum of the School of Mines at St Petersburg. The yield of the Siberian mines has since been at the following rate of progression—omitting the intermediate years for brevity, although in every year there was an increase of quantity upon the preceding:—

On a rough estimation, the produce of all the gold, platina, and silver from the silver mines, could not have amounted to less, perhaps, for the year 1842, than three millions sterling.

According to the learned academician Köppen, of St Petersburg, in a lengthened memoir upon the subject, the total population of Russia, inclusive of Poland, Finland, and Trans-Caucasian provinces, ascended in 1839 to 65,000,000. Or of Russia Proper alone, 55,500,000.

With an empire so gigantic, a population so large, however disproportioned as compared with territory, and with resources so incalculable, it must appear extraordinary that foreign commercial relations are so limited. The total of exports and imports together for 1841, represents only, in round numbers, a commercial movement to the value of 165,811,000 silver rubles, or in sterling, about L.25,907,300. The matter which most concerns this country, is the very disproportionate interest which results to its share in the export and import trade of Russia. Taking the latest British returns of the value of Russian products imported into England, for the Board of Trade tables give quantities only, as we find them stated by Mr McGregor, the indefatigable secretary of that board, for 1838, at L.6,977,396, or say,

But bad as the case may be, it is not quite so bad as these figures would represent. It must not be forgotten in this sort of calculation, that shipping, freights, insurances, and commissions, represent property quite as substantially in the commercial sense, as even Mr Cobden's printed calicos, or friend Bright's flannel pieces. Now, we think it might admit of proof, that as much as nine-tenths of all the produce brought to this country from Russia, is so brought in British bottoms, and so also of the exports to Russia; although in 1840, the last of the Board of Trade tables containing such particulars, no more than 1629 British vessels, of 340,567 tonnage, against 296 foreign, of 79,152 tonnage, entered British ports from Russia—the proportions being much the same outwards; but whether the foreign were all Russian vessels may be doubted. Let us assume, however, that no more than three-fourths of both imports and exports were so carried, and leaving three-fourths British freights outwards to balance Russian one-fourth freights inwards and outwards, let us in fairness estimate the worth of that freightage in reduction of the enormous balance against us. As for Spain, in our last Number, we took twenty per cent to cover all the freightage charges, before indicated, on her commodities of less bulk though more value in proportion, twenty-five per cent on the average will not be too much, certainly, to cover those charges on the more bulky products of Russia, more especially when the long, costly, and intricate navigation of the Baltic, and the White and Black Seas, are taken into account. The calculation will then stand thus:—