28 "
" 1796 " " " 36 "
" 1812 " " " 41 "
" 1815 " " " 45 "
" 1835 " " " 60 "
" 1851 " " " 68 "
" 1858 " " " 44 "
" 1897 " " " 129 "

So much for the past. To sum up, we may say that, if we have read
Russian history aright, the chief motives of expansion have been
spontaneous colonisation, self-defence against nomadic tribes, and high
political aims, such as the desire to reach the sea-coast; and that the
process has been greatly facilitated by peculiar geographical conditions
and the autocratic form of government. Before passing to the future,
I must mention another cause of expansion which has recently come into
play, and which has already acquired very great importance.

Russia is rapidly becoming, as I have explained in a previous chapter,
a great industrial and commercial nation, and is anxious to acquire new
markets for her manufactured goods. Though her industries cannot yet
supply her own wants, she likes to peg out claims for the future, so as
not to be forestalled by more advanced nations. I am not sure that she
ever makes a conquest exclusively for this purpose, but whenever it
happens that she has other reasons for widening her borders, the idea of
acquiring commercial advantages acts as a subsidiary incentive, and
as soon as the territory is annexed she raises round it a line of
commercial fortifications in the shape of custom-houses, through which
foreign goods have great difficulty in forcing their way.

This policy is quite intelligible from the patriotic point of view, but
Russians like to justify it, and condemn English competition, on higher
ground. England, they say, is like a successful manufacturer who has
oustripped his rivals and who seeks to prevent any new competitors from
coming into the field. By her mercantile policy she has become the great
blood-sucker of other nations. Having no cause to fear competition, she
advocates the insidious principles of Free Trade, and deluges foreign
countries with her manufactures to such an extent that unprotected
native industries are inevitably ruined. Thus all nations have long
paid tribute to England, but the era of emancipation had dawned. The
fallacies of Free Trade have been detected and exposed, and Russia, like
ot