expelled from the market the plain silks formerly imported from France. In Orenburg and on the Black Sea, the petty trades’ fabrication of agricultural machinery, which has grown up lately, is another instance in point.
The capacities of the Russian domestic industrial workers for co-operative organisation would be worthy of more than a passing mention. As to the cheapness of the produce manufactured in the villages, which is really astonishing, it cannot be explained in full by the exceedingly long hours of labour and the starvation earnings, because overwork and very low wages are characteristic of the Russian factories as well. It depends also upon the circumstance that the peasant who grows his own food, but suffers from a constant want of money, sells the produce of his industrial labour at any price. Therefore, all manufactured goods used by the Russian peasantry, save the printed cottons, are the production of the rural manufacturers. But many articles of luxury, too, are made in the villages, especially around Moscow, by peasants who continue to cultivate their allotments. The silk hats which are sold in the best Moscow shops, and bear the stamp of Nonveautés Parisiennes, are made by the Moscow peasants; so also the “Vienna” furniture of the best “Vienna” shops, even if it goes to supply the palaces. And what is most to be wondered at is not the skill of the peasants — agricultural work is no obstacle to acquiring industrial skill — but the rapidity with which the fabrication of fine goods has spread in such villages as formerly manufactured only goods of the roughest description. 182
Much more ought to be said with regard to the rural industries of Russia, especially to “how how easily the peasants associate for buying new machinery, or for avoiding the middle man in their purchases of raw produce — as soon as misery is no obstacle to the association” 183. Belgium, and especially Switzerland, could also be quoted for similar illustrations, but the above will be enough to give a general idea of the importance, the vital powers, and the perfectibility