th
steam-power and complicated machinery, which already exist in many
provinces. Once a country has begun to move forward on the great highway
of economic progress, there is no possibility of stopping halfway.

Here again the orthodox economists find reason for congratulation,
because big factories and workshops are the cheapest and most productive
form of manufacturing industry; and again, the observant traveller
cannot shut his eyes to ugly facts which force themselves on his
attention. He notices that this cheapest and most productive form of
manufacturing industry does not seem to advance the material and moral
welfare of the population. Nowhere is there more disease, drunkenness,
demoralisation and misery than in the manufacturing districts.

The reader must not imagine that in making these statements I wish to
calumniate the spirit of modern enterprise, or to advocate a return to
primitive barbarism. All great changes produce a mixture of good and
evil, and at first the evil is pretty sure to come prominently forward.
Russia is at this moment in a state of transition, and the new condition
of things is not yet properly organised. With improved organisation many
of the existing evils will disappear. Already in recent years I have
noticed sporadic signs of improvement. When factories were first
established no proper arrangements were made for housing and feeding
the workmen, and the consequent hardships were specially felt when the
factories were founded, as is often the case, in rural districts. Now,
the richer and more enterprising manufacturers build large barracks for
the workmen and their families, and provide them with common kitchens,
wash-houses, steam-baths, schools, and similar requisites of civilised
life. At the same time the Government appoints inspectors to superintend
the sanitary arrangements and see that the health and comfort of the
workers are properly attended to.

On the whole we must assume that the activity of these inspectors tends
to improve the condition of the working-classes. Certainly in some
instances it has that effect. I remember, for example, some thirty years
ago, visiting a lucifer-match factory in which the hands employed worked
habitually in an atmosphere impregnated with the fumes of phosphorus,
which produce insidious and very painful diseases. Such a thing is
hardly possible nowadays. On the other hand, official inspection, like
Factory Acts, everywhere gives rise to a good