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[Illustration: Spain compared in size with California.]

ITALY'S LAMENTABLE CONDITION

Italy's condition is in some respects better than that of Spain, but
in others worse. Its population is 30,500,000, being three times more
to the square mile than that of Spain, and fifty per cent. more to the
square mile than that of France. Since 1830 the population has
increased forty-five per cent., and this notwithstanding the fact that
the loss by emigration is equal to one half of the natural increase
from the surplus of births over deaths. Two million people of Italian
birth are to-day residing in foreign countries. Again, the Italians,
except those in the southern parts (the Italians of Naples and
vicinity, for example), are the MOST INDUSTRIOUS PEOPLE in Europe,
with a special aptitude for gardening and tillage. In fifty years they
have reclaimed 20,000,000 acres from forest, and increased the area of
land under cultivation by one hundred per cent. In fifty years, too,
they have trebled the amount of capital invested in agriculture. Since
1860 they have increased the amount of material which they use in
their textile manufactures (cotton, wool, silk, and linen) nearly
fivefold. Since 1850 they have increased their external commerce two
and one half times. Finally, since 1830, they have increased their
internal trade two and one quarter times. But all these signs of
prosperity in Italy are negatived by the constantly increasing
magnitude of her NATIONAL DEBT. This now amounts to more than
$2,500,000,000, or more than two and one half times the total net
national debt of the United States, and about one fourth more than the
total national, state, county, municipal, and school-district debts of
the United States. And this vast debt for a people of 30,500,000 is
exclusive of the provincial and communal debts, which amount to
$275,000,000 additional. Italy since her reorganisation as a kingdom
in 1870 has set out to be a first-class military and naval power, and
the cost is more than she can stand. She has a permanent army of
nearly 800,000 men, 250,000 of whom she keeps under arms constantly.
She has a fleet of seventeen battleships, two coast-defence ships,
eighteen cruisers, and 272 torpedo craft, most of these being of
modern type and first-class rating. She spends on her army nearly
$50,000,000 annually, and on her navy nearly $20,000,000 annually.
This, with an annual interest payment of $115,000,000, all
unproductive expenditure, makes a demand upon her revenue that is
draining her people of their life's blood. EVERY SORT OF TAXATION is
resorted to--direct and indirect; land, house, and income; succession
duties, registration charges, and stamps for commercial papers;
customs, excise and octroi; besides government monopolies; and all
this exclusive of communal taxation. And yet since 1891 there has been
an annual deficit of national revenue under national expenditure
averaging $2,250,000. As a consequence of these taxes, and of the
repressive effect they have upon industrial enterprise, the net
earnings of the country per inhabitant are lower in Italy than in any
other European state except Turkey, Russia, and Greece--lower, even,
than in the Danubian states and Portugal and Spain.

ITALY'S TRADE AND SPECIAL TRADE CENTRES

The most distinctive natural product of Italy is SILK, and the amount
of raw and thrown silk exported is about $57,500,000 annually. Silk
culture is carried on all over the kingdom, though the industry
flourishes most extensively in Piedmont and Lombardy, in the north.
Over 550,000 people are engaged in rearing silkworms, and the annual
cocoon harvest approximates 100,000,000 pounds. Silk-"throwing,"
or-spinning, is the principal manufacturing industry, and the amount
of silk spun and exported is about 45,000 tons, most of which goes to
France. After silk the products of the country that constitute the
principal exports are OLIVE OIL, FRUIT (oranges, lemons, grapes,
almonds, figs, dates, and pistachio nuts), and WINE (in casks). The
olive-oil export and the fruit export are each about a fifth of the
export of silk, and the wine export about a sixth. Other important and
characteristic exports are raw hemp and flax, sulphur, eggs,
manufactured coral, woods and roots used for dyeing and tanning, rice,
marble, and straw-plaiting. The principal import is WHEAT, for
agriculture, though generally pursued, is still in a backward state
of efficiency, and the average grain crop is only one third what it is
in Great Britain. One eighth the total amount of wheat needed to
support the people has to be imported. In fact, the total amount of
food-stuffs raised in the kingdom is much less than the amount
required, being, for example, per inhabitant, not more than one half
of what is raised in France. In particular, there is a deficiency of
meat, and the amount of meat raised per inhabitant is the lowest in
Europe. As a consequence the Italians are poorly fed, and it is
estimated that four per cent. of the annual death loss is occasioned
by impoverishment of blood due to insufficiency of wholesome food.
After wheat and raw cotton, the next principal import is COAL, for
Italy has no workable coal-fields. As far as possible water power is
used as a motive power instead of coal, especially in the iron
industries. An important import also is FISH, for, owing to the great
number of fast days which the Italian people observe, and to the
dearness and scarcity of meat, fish is a very general article of
consumption. Six million dollars' worth is imported annually, and
perhaps an equal amount is obtained from local fisheries, for there
are over 22,000 vessels and boats and over 70,000 men engaged in this
industry. After silk-throwing, the most characteristic Italian
manufacturing industries are those which are of an artistic or
semi-artistic nature, such as the making of fine earthenware,
porcelain, glassware, mosaics, and lace. VENICE (154,000) and GENOA
(225,000) are still the principal seaports and trade centres of Italy,
but in commercial importance these famous cities are only the mere
shadows of what they once were. NAPLES (529,000), the largest city, is
a place of little enterprise, for its imports, principally cereals,
are three or four times the value of its exports, which are mainly
cheap country produce. MILAN (457,000) and TURIN (348,000) are the
great trade centres of the north interior, and the most prosperous
places in the kingdom, being the chief seats of the silk-throwing
industry. Milan is also the chief seat of the Italian cutlery
manufacture. PALERMO (284,000) and MESSINA (150,000), in Sicily, are
the chief ports for the export of Italian fruits, and also of Italian
fish (anchovies, tunnies, etc.). ROME (474,000) and FLORENCE (207,000)
owe their chief importance to their art interest and to their historic
associations, but Florence has an important manufacture of fine
earthenware and mosaics. Rome is the chief seat of government. CATANIA
(127,000), in Sicily, is the chief seat of the Italian sulphur export
trade. LEGHORN (104,000), the port of Florence, is the chief seat of
the export straw-plaiting trade. It should be noted that
notwithstanding Italy's extent of coast-line a large part of her
foreign commerce is transacted northward by means of the railways that
tunnel the Alps.

[Illustration: Italy and its chief commercial centres.]

V. THE TRADE FEATURES OF RUSSIA

RUSSIA, A COUNTRY WHOSE FUTURE IS A PROBLEM

The position of Russia in the world is a sort of problem. Its area is
immense. More than one seventh of the land surface of the globe is
included within its compact borders. Of this vast territory the area
of European Russia alone is only a fourth; but even so it is larger
than the area of all other European states put together. The
population of Russia is over 129,000,000, of which over 106,000,000
belong to European Russia. But taking even European Russia this is a
population of only fifty-four to the square mile, the lowest
proportion in Europe, except in Sweden and Norway. And the population
is increasing. The birth rate is the highest in the world. And though
the death rate is very heavy, being fifty per cent. more than it is in
England, the increase from births is so great that the population
doubles in forty-six years. There is thus apparently a prospect that
Russia will, in the near future, play an important part in the drama
of nations, her capacities and capabilities for growth seem so
prodigious. And yet there is a reverse side to the picture. Of the
106,000,000 inhabitants of European Russia 10,000,000 belong to a
cultured, progressive class, quite the equal of any people in Europe.
But the remainder are principally a low grade of peasantry, not long
removed from slavery. The principal occupation of these peasantry is
farming. But their farms are small, not more than ten acres apiece,
and the total revenue they get from them does not average more than
$65 a year per farm. The food of these peasantry is the poorest in
Europe. In the main it consists of rye bread and mushroom soup, worth
about four cents a day. The houses are often mere huts, not more than
five feet square. Women as well as men work in the fields, and yet the
total amount of food raised is not more per head of population than
one tenth of what is raised by the peasantry of France. The value of
food raised per acre, too, is but little more than one third of the
average per acre for all Europe.

[Illustration: Russia, the British Empire, the United States
compared.]

RUSSIA A COUNTRY OF SOCIAL EXTREMES

The degradation of the peasantry of Russia is not simply material. It
is also moral. In the language of a recent traveller, "they are the
drunkenest people in Europe." The principal intoxicant is a sort of
whisky called "vodka." With drunkenness exist also dirtiness,
idleness, dishonesty, and untruthfulness. And as yet little has been
done to ameliorate this degradation. Ignorance prevails everywhere.
Even of the young people of the peasant class more than eighty per
cent. can neither read nor write. There is no middle class. The gulf
between the upper class and the lower is so wide as to be absolutely
impassable. And for the most part the upper class is quite content to
have this state of affairs continue.

THE "ARTELS" OF THE RUSSIAN PEASANTS

There is, however, some hope for the lower classes of Russia. This is
because of the prevalence among them, especially in villages, towns,
and cities, of a communal custom in which self-restraint and
self-government are necessary conditions of existence. In every branch
of common industry "artels" are found; that is, communistic
organisations, where all labour for a common purse in accordance with
rules and regulations determined by the members of the organisations.
These "artels" have done much toward increasing the industry, the
honesty, the truthfulness, the thrift, and also the sobriety of their
members. They exist throughout all Russia, but in some parts more
prevalently than in others. As yet, however, they scarcely affect the
character and condition of the rural peasantry, and it is these who
are most in need of elevation. It should be said, too, that the
government is doing something to lessen the evil of drunkenness.

RUSSIA PRINCIPALLY AN AGRICULTURAL COUNTRY

Russia's principal 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 quantity 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 passed as bread during the last famine. Other
agricultural exports (besides grain) are flax, hemp, oil-seed cake,
linseed and grass seed, butter, 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
quantity 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 canals, 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
retarded 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

[Illustration: 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 canal 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 principal 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 principal 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 principally 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 institution
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 CANALS 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 canals 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 canals. Were it not for
these irrigation canals, 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
Assam, 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.

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