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 entrepôt of railway traffic between Russia and the rest of Europe. Lódz (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.