THE RUSSIAN YEAR 1300K, 1912.
The Russian Year Book, 1912. Compiled and Editectby Howard P. Kennard, M.D., assisted by Notta Peacock. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 103. 6d. net.)—It is scarcely necessary to say that this volume, with its 822 pages, contains a vast amount of interest- ing and valuable information. Here aro some averages of wages. Cotton workers number 620,347 and earn on an average about 8s. 4a. per week. Workers in metal are the best off, earning as! much as 14s. 7d. ; petroleum miners come very near with ld. The jute makers at Dundee are not very well paid, but they get more than Cs. 6d., which is the average wage in Russia. Agricultural wages are not given ; doubtless the proportion of men working for themselves is very large. We End, however, that the produce of wheat per acre is fairly good. Spring and winter wheat taken together give 22.5 bushels per acre; to bring this up to the average figure we should read 25, for the 1911 crop was poor. The oats return is very bad, only 18 bushels, the average here being over 40. The highest price for wheat in the year was 39s., the lowest 22s. 6d. The total export of wheat in 1910 was in value £40,000,000, of which rather more than a fourth came to England. Of the im- ports in the decade 1890-1900, 22 per cant. came from the United Kingdom and 31.5 per cont. from Germany. In 1827-39, when returns were first available, the proportions were 32.1 and 17.9. In the decade following the Crimean War there was a great change, and Germany took the lead. The table of customs duties are interesting. It is always well to see what a "scientific tariff" rally means. It occupies sixty pages ; here we are unscientific enough to be content with one. The duty on a motor car varies from £23 4s. 5d., and a first-class railway carriage is charged
£ 72 14s. 6d. The duty on tea varies from is. 10d. per lb. to about 8d. ; that on tobacco varies from 2s. to 63. 10d. per lb., cigars being charged Ws. Old. The total of the population is put at 165,778,800,
o f which about 16 per cent. live in towns. Lastly, they enjoy forty. two public holidays in the year.
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