f nutrition,
and the third that of ores and metals. The total production, if we may
believe certain statistical authorities, places Russia now among the
industrial nations of the world in the fifth place, immediately after
the United States, England, Germany, and France, and a little before
Austria.

The man who has in recent times carried out most energetically the
policy of protecting and fostering native industries is M. Witte, a name
now familiar to Western Europe. An avowed disciple of the great German
economist, Friedrich List, about whose works he published a brochure in
1888, he held firmly, from his youth upwards, the doctrine that
"each nation should above all things develop harmoniously its natural
resources to the highest possible degree of independence, protecting
its own industries and preferring the national aim to the pecuniary
advantage of individuals." As a corollary to this principle he declared
that purely agricultural countries are economically backward and
intellectually stagnant, being condemned to pay tribute to the nations
who have learned to work up their raw products into more valuable
commodities. The good old English doctrine that certain countries were
intended by Providence to be eternally agricultural, and that their
function in the economy of the universe is to supply raw material
for the industrial nations, was always in his eyes an abomination--an
ingenious, nefarious invention of the Manchester school, astutely
invented for the purpose of keeping the younger nations permanently in
a state of economic bondage for the benefit of English manufacturers. To
emancipate Russia from this thraldom by enabling her to create a great
native industry, sufficient to supply all her own wants, was the aim of
his policy and the constant object of his untiring efforts. Those who
have had the good fortune to know him personally must have often
heard him discourse eloquently on this theme, supporting his views by
quotations from the economists of his own school, and by illustrations
drawn from the history of his own and other countries.

A necessary condition of realising this aim was that there should be
high tariffs. These already existed, and they might be raised
still higher, but in themselves they were not enough. For the rapid
development of the native industry an enormous capital was required, and
the first problem to be solved was how this capital could be obtained.
At one moment the energetic