Perm scientific societies, assisted by the Zemstvo, have undertaken the preparation of an extensive handbook for the 1896 Exhibition in Nizhni-Novgorod under the general title: A Survey of Perm Territory. Enough material has been collected to fill well over three thousand pages, and the whole edition is to consist of eight volumes. As was to be expected, the work was not completed in time for the exhibition, and so far only the first volume, a sketch of the handicraft industries of the gubernia,[*] has been published. For the novelty, wealth and fulness of the material on which it is based, the Sketch is a work of outstanding interest. The material was obtained through a special handicraft census financed by the Zemstvo and taken in 1894-95. This was a house-to-house census, each householder being questioned individually. The information was collected by the Zemsky Nachalniks.[115] The programme of this house-to-house investigation was very broad, embracing the members of the families of master handicraftsmen, the wage-labour employed by them, agriculture, information on the purchase of raw materials, the technique of production, distribution of work according to the months of the year, sale of products, dates on which the establlshments were founded, and the indebtedness of handicraftsmen. As far as we are aware, this is perhaps the first time such abun-

II): those who have a farm (I) and those who have not (II); then three sub-groups of each group (Arabic numerals 1, 2 and 3): 1) those who produce for the market; 2) those who work to order for private customers, and 3) those who work to order for buyers-up. In the last two sub-groups the raw material is usually supplied by the customer or the buyer-up. Let us take a look at this method of classifying. The division of handicraftsmen into those who farm land and those who do not is, of course, a sound and necessary method. The large number of landless handicraftsmen in Perm Gubernia, frequently concentrated in industrial settlements, has led the authors to stick to this classification and to use it in the tables. We learn, for example, that 6,638 persons, or one-third of the total number of handicraftsmen (19,970 working members of families and wage-workers in 8,991 establishments) do not farm land.[*] This fact alone shows the fallacy of the common assumptions and assertions that the connection between handicraft industry and agriculture is universal; this connection is sometimes stressed as a specifically Russian feature. If we exclude the rural (and urban) artisans who have been wrongly classed as "handicraftsmen," we find that 2,268 of the remaining 5,566 families, or over two-fifths of the total number of industrialists working for the market, are landless. Unfortunately, even this basic classification is not adhered to consistently in the Sketch. Firstly, it is applied only to master craftsmen, no similar data being given for wage-workers. This omission is due to the fact that, in general, the census registered only the establishments, the owners, and ignored the wage-workers and their families. In place of these terms, the Sketch employs the very inaccurate expression "families engaged in handicraft industries." This is inaccurate because families whose members are employed by handicraftsmen as wage-workers are no less "engaged in handicraft industries" than the families which hire them. The absence of house-to-house information on the families of wage-workers (who constitute one-fourth of the total number of workers) is a grave omission in the census. This omission is

industries in which artisans, that is, producers who work for private customers (2nd sub-group in the Sketch ) are not counted as handicraftsmen. Both in the Transactions of the Commission of Inquiry into the Handicraft Industry and the Industries of Moscow Gubernia you will find artisans classed as "handicraftsmen." We consider it useless to argue about the meaning of the word "handicraft," for, as we shall see later, there is no form of industry (except perhaps machine industry) which has not been included under this traditional term, a term that is absolutely useless for scientific investigation. It is certain that a strict distinction must be made between commodity producers who work for the market (1st sub-group) and artisans who fulfil the orders of private customers (2nd sub-group), because of the complete difference in the social and economic significance of these forms of industry. The attempts made in the Sketch to obliterate this distinction (cf. pp. 13 and 177) are very unsuccessful; far more correct is the remark made in another Zemstvo statistical publication on the Perm handicraftsmen to the effect that "the artisans have very few points of contact with the sphere of handicraft industry -- fewer than the latter has with factory industry."[*] Both factory industry and the 1st sub-group of "handicraftsmen" relate to commodity production, which is non-existent in the 2nd sub-group. A no less strict distinction must be made in the case of the 3rd sub-group, the handicraftsmen who work for buyers-up (and manufacturers) and who differ essentially from those of the first two sub-groups. It would be desirable for all investigators of so-called "handicraft" industry to adhere strictly to this division and use precise political-economic terminology, instead of assigning an arbitrary meaning to colloquial terms.

    The following table shows the division of the "handicraftsmen" into groups and sub-groups:

    Before proceeding to draw conclusions from these figures,

tion of industrialists in the non-agricultural, factory, or trade and industrial settlements generally, of the centres of each branch of industry, and of the spread of the industries from these centres to the surrounding villages. If we add to this that the household statistics showing when the establishments were founded (see § III below) provided an opportunity to determine how the industries developed, that is, whether they spread from the centres to the surrounding villages or vice versa, whether they spread mostly among agriculturists or non-agriculturists, etc., then one cannot help regretting the inadequate analysis of the data. The only information we are able to obtain concerns the distribution of industries by uyezds. To acquaint the reader with these figures we shall group the uyezds as suggested in the Sketch (p. 31): 1) the five "uyezds where the proportion of handicraftsmen working for the market is largest and where, simultaneously, the development of handicraft industry is relatively high"; 2) the five "uyezds where the development of the handicraft industry is relatively weak, and where the handicraftsmen working for the market predominate"; 3) the two "uyezds where it is also at a low level, but where the majority often consists of handicraftsmen who fulfil orders for private customers." Summarising the principal data for these groups of uyezds we get the following table (see p. 364).

    This table enables us to draw the following interesting conclusions. The more highly rural industry is developed in a group of uyezds, 1) the smaller the proportion of rural artisans, i.e., artisan production is to a greater extent replaced by commodity production; 2) the larger the proportion of handicraftsmen who belong to the non-agricultural population, and 3) the more marked the development of capitalist relations and the larger the proportion of dependent handicraftsmen. In the third group of uyezds the rural artisans predominate (77.7 % of all the handicraftsmen); in this case agriculturists predominate (only 5.7% are non-agriculturists) and capitalism is poorly developed: only 7.2% are wage-workers and only 2.7% of the handicraftsmen's families work for buyers-up, i.e., a total of only 9.9% are dependent handicraftsmen. In the second group of uyezds, on, the contrary, commodity production

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predominates and is already eliminating handicraft: only 32.5% are artisans. The percentage of handicraftsmen engaged in agriculture drops from 94.3% to 66.2%, the proportion of wage-workers increases more than fourfold -- from 7.2% to 32.1%; there is an increase, although not so large, in the proportion of family workers who work for buyers-up, so that the aggregate proportion of dependent handicrafts men is 38.4%, or nearly two-fifths of the total. Lastly, in the first group of uyezds, natural artisan production is still further eliminated by commodity production and employs only one-fifth of the total number of "handicraftsmen" (21.8%), and at the same time the number of non-agricultural industrialists increases to 42.1%; the proportion of wage-workers drops somewhat (from 32.1% to 26%), but on the other hand there is an enormous increase in the proportion of family workers dependent on buyers-up, namely, from 6.3% to 27.4%, so that the aggregate number of dependent handicraftsmen is more than half the total -- 53.4%. The district with the largest (absolute and relative) number of "handicraftsmen" is the one where capitalism is most developed: the growth of commodity production forces artisan production into the background, leads to the development of capitalism and to the transfer of industries to non-agriculturists, in other words, to the separation of industry from agriculture (or, perhaps, to the concentration of industries among the non-agricultural population). The reader may doubt whether it is right to regard capitalism as being more developed in the first group of uyezds, where there are fewer wage-workers than in the second, but where more handicraftsmen work for buyers-up. Domestic industry, it may be objected, is a lower form of capitalism. But we shall see below that many of these buyers-up are manufacturers who own large capitalist establishments. Here domestic industry is an adjunct of the factory, and signifies a higher degree of concentration of production and capital (some of the buyers-up have 200, 500, even 1,000 persons and more, working for them), a higher degree of division of labour, and, consequently, a more highly developed form of capitalism. This form is to the small workshop of the owner who employs wage-workers as capitalist manufacture is to capitalist simple co-operation.

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    The figures quoted are sufficient to refute the attempt of the compilers of the Sketch to draw a fundamental contrast between "the handicraft form of production" and "capitalist production" -- an assertion which repeats the traditional prejudice of all the Russian Narodniks, headed by Messrs. V. V. and N.-on. The Perm Narodniks as sume that the "basic difference" between these two forms is that under handicraft production "labour owns both the instruments and materials of production and all the fruits of labour in the shape of the produce of production" (p. 3). We are now in a position to declare guite emphatically that this is false. Even if we include artisans among the handicraftsmen the majority of them do not fit this definition : this applies, firstly, to the wage-workers, and they represent 25.3%; secondly, to family workers who work for buyers-up, for they own neither the materials of production nor the fruits of their labour, but are merely paid wages -- and they constitute 20.8%; and, thirdly, to the family workers of the first and second sub-groups who employ wage-workers, for they own the "fruits" of other labour in addition to their own. They probably constitute about 10% (1,691 of the 6,645 establishments in the first and second sub-groups, or 25.4%, employ wage-workers; in the 1,691 establishments there are probably not less than 2,000 family workers). And so we already have 25.3% + 20.8% + 10% = 56.1% of the "handicraftsmen," or more than half, who do not fit this definition. In other words, even in a remote and economically backward gubernia like Perm, the "handicraftsmen" who either hire themselves out or hire others, who exploit or are exploited, are already preponderant today. But it would be far more correct for such a computation to exclude artisan production and to take commodity production alone. Artisan production is such an archaic form of industry that even among our native Narodniks, who have repeatedly proclaimed that backwardness is Russia's good fortune (ä la Messrs. V. V., Yuzhakov and Co.), there has not been a single one who has frankly and openly risked defending it and proclaiming it a "pledge" of his ideals. Artisan production in Perm Gubernia is still very widespread as compared with Central Russia: we need only mention the dyeing industry, for instance. This is a purely artisan indus-

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try for the dyeing of peasant homespuns, which in less out-of-the-way parts of Russia have long been superseded by factory-made prints. But even in Perm Gubernia artisan production has been pushed far into the background: even in rural industry, only 29.5%, or less than one-third, of the producers are artisans. If we exclude the artisans, then, we get 14,401 persons who work for the market; of these, 29.3% are wage-workers and 29.5% family workers who work for buyers-up, in other words, 58.8% are dependent "handicraftsmen,"'while another 7% or 8% are small masters employing wage-workers. Thus, about 66%, or nearly two-thirds, of the "handicraftsmen" have two fundamental points of similarity, and not of difference, with capitalism: firstly, they are all commodity producers, and capitalism is nothing but commodity production developed to the full; secondly, the specifically capitalist relations of the purchase and sale of labour-power apply to a large number of them. The compilers of the Sketch try hard to assure the reader that for "weighty" reasons, wage-labour in "handicraft" production has a significance all of its own. We shall examine these assurances and the examples they quote in their proper place (§ VII). Here it will be enough to mention that wherever commodity production prevails and wage-labour is not casually but systematically employed, we have all the features of capitalism. One may say that it is undeveloped, embryonic, that it possesses specific forms, but it is a distortion of the truth to assume a "basic difference" when in reality there is a basic similarity.

    Let us, incidentally, mention one other distortion. On p. 5 of the Sketch it is said that "the products of the handicraftsman . . . are made from materials that are chiefly procured locally." But the Sketch itself provides us with the data to check this point, it shows how the distribution of handicraftsmen engaged in processing livestock produce compares with the distribution of livestock and agricultural produce in the uyezds of the gubernia, how the distribution of those who process plant products compares with the distribution of forests; and how the distribution of those engaged in metal-working compares with the distribution of the pig-iron and malleable iron produced in the gubernia. This comparison shows that 68.9% of the

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handicraftsmen engaged in processing livestock products are concentrated in three uyezds, which account for only 25.1% of the livestock population, and only 29.5% of the cultivated area. In other words, we find that the very contrary of the above assertion is true, and the Sketch itself at this point declares that "the high degree of development of the industries engaged in processing livestock produce is chiefly dependent on raw materials brought from outside -- for instance, in the Kungur and Ekaterinburg uyezds on the raw hides dressed by the local leather factories and handicraft tanneries, from which the material for the boot industry, the principal handicraft in these uyezds, is obtained" (24-25). Hence, handicraft industry in these parts is based not only on the lalge turnover of the local capitalist leather merchants, but also on semi-manufactures obtained from factory owners, i.e., handicraft industry is a sequel or adjunct to developed commodity circulation and to capitalist leather establishments. "In Shadrinsk Uyezd, the raw material brought from outside is wool, which furnishes the material for the chief industry of the uyezd -- the making of felt boots." Further, 61.3% of the handicraftsmen engaged in processing plant produce are concentrated in four uyezds. Yet these four uyezds contain only 20.7% of the total forest area of the gubernia. On the other hand, in the two uyezds where 51.7% of the forest area is concentrated, there are only 2.6% of the handicraftsmen engaged in processing plant produce (p. 25). In other words, here too we find the contrary to be the case, and here too the Sketch states that the raw material is brought from outside (p. 26).* Hence, we observe the very interesting fact that a deep-rooted commodity circulation precedes the development of the handicraft industries (and is a condition for their development). This fact is very important, for it shows, firstly, that commodity economy is long established, handicraft industry being only one of its elements; it shows also how absurd it is to depict our handicraft industry as a sort of tabula rasa still "able" to take a different path. The investigators report, for example, that "handicraft industry"

    Thus we see that the "small" establishments of the handicraftsmen sometimes attain imposing dimensions: nearly one-fourth of the total number of wage-workers is concentrated in the 85 largest establishments; on an average, each such establishment employs 14.6 wage-workers. These handicraftsmen

are already employers, owners of capitalist establishments.[*] Co-operation on capitalist lines is widely employed in them: with 15 workers per establishment, division of labour is possible on a fairly extensive scale, there is a big saving on premises and tools, of which a larger quantity and greater variety can be used. Their purchase of raw material and the sale of the product are necessarily conducted on a large scale; this considerably reduces the cost of raw material and its delivery, facilitattes sales, and makes proper commercial relations possible. When we come to consider the data on incomes we shall find confirmation of this in the 1894-95 census. At the moment it will be sufficient to mention these generally-known theoretical propositions. It should, therefore, be clear that the technical and economic features of these establishments also differ radically from those of the one-man workshops, and it is really astonishing that the Perm statisticians should nevertheless have decided to combine them and compute general "averages" from them. It may be said a priori that such averages will be absolutely fictitious, and that the analysis of the household statistics, in addition to dividing the handicraftsmen into groups and sub-groups, should also have divided them into categories based upon the number of workers per establishment (both family and wage-workers). Unless such a division is made, there can be no question of obtaining accurate data on incomes, or on the conditions of purchase of raw material and sale of products, or on the technique of production, or on the relative status of the wage-worker and the owner of the one-man establishment, or on the relation between the big and small workshops -- all of which are items of the highest importance for a study of the economics of "handicraft industry." The Perm investigators endeavour, of course, to underrate the importance of the capitalist workshops. If there are establishments with five or more family workers, they argue, that means that competition between the "capitalist" and the "handicraft

with aggregate earnings amounting to 238,992 rubles. Thus, our summary embraces 98% of the wage-workers and their earnings. Here, en regard,[*] are the figures of the Sketch ** and of our summary:

    In the Sketch summary there are either mistakes or misprints. But that is by the way. The point of chief interest is the data on earnings. The earnings of the piece-workers, of whom the Sketch says that "essentially, piece-work is the nearest stage on the road to economic independence" (p. 51 -- also, no doubt, "according to our conviction"?), are considerably lower than those of the worker employed by the year. If the statement of the statisticians that the master usually finds board for the annual worker, whereas the piece-worker has to find his own, is based on fact and not merely on "conviction," the difference will be even greater. The Perm master handicraftsmen have chosen a queer way to place their workers on the "road to independence"! It consists in lowering wages. . . . The fluctuations in the working season, as we shall see, are not big enough to explain this difference. Further, it is very interesting to note that a day labourer's earnings equal 66.7% of an annual worker's. Hence, each day labourer is occupied on an average for about eight months in the year. Obviously, it would be far more correct to refer to this as a "temporary" diversion from industry (if the day labourers are really diverted

implies a growing social division of labour, the general basis of commodity economy and of capitalism.[*]

    The opinion has been expressed in Narodnik literature that the rapid development of small production in industry since the Reform is not a phenomenon of a capitalist nature. The argument is that the growth of small production proves its strength and vitality, as compared with large-scale production (Mr. V. V.). This argument is absolutely false. The growth of small production among the peasantry signifies the appearance of new industries, the conversion of new branches of raw material processing into independent spheres of industry, progress in the social division of labour, the initial process of capitalist development, while the swallowing-up of small by large establishments implies a further step forward by capitalism, leading to the triumph of its higher forms. The spread of small establishments among the peasantry extends commodity economy and prepares the ground for capitalism (by creating petty masters and wage-labourers), while the swallowing-up of small establishments by manufactories and factories implies that big capitalism is utilising ground that has been prepared. The simultaneous existence of these two, seemingly contradictory, processes in one country actually has nothing contradictory in it: it is quite natural that in a more developed part of the country, or in a more developed sphere of industry, capitalism should progress by drawing small handicraftsmen into the mechanised factory, while in more remote regions, or in backward branches of industry, the process of capitalist development is only in its initial stage and manifests itself in the appearance of new branches and new industries. Capitalist manufacture "conquers but partially the domain of national production, and always rests on the handicrafts of the town and the domestic industry of the rural districts as its ultimate basis (Hintergrund ). If it destroys these in one form, in particular branches, at certain points, it calls them up again elsewhere. . ." (Das Kapital, I2, S. 779).[116]

    We thus see that the more prosperous the handicraftsmen are as industrialists, the more prosperous they are as agriculturists. The lower they rank in production, the lower they rank in agriculture. The handicraft census data, therefore, fully confirm the opinion already expressed in literature, namely, that the differentiation of the handicraftsmen in industry goes hand in hand with their differentiation as peasants in agriculture (A. Volgin, The Substantiation of Narodism, etc., pp. 211, et. seq.). As the wage-workers employed by the handicraftsmen are on an even lower (or not higher) level than the handicraftsmen who work for buyers-up, we are entitled to conclude that the

    The absence of detailed information on the agricultural activity of the one-man producers and small and large masters is very acutely felt in the data now under examination. To fill the gap, if only partially, we must turn to the dala for the separate industries; sometimes in the Sketch we come across information on the number of agricultural labourers employed by masters,[*] but no general summary is given.

    Take the tanner agriculturists -- 131 households. They employ 124 agricultural labourers, they cultivate 16.9 dessiatines and possess 4.6 horses per household; they have 4.1 cows each (p. 71). The wage-workers (73 annual and 51 seasonal) receive 2,492 rubles in wages, or 20.1 rubles each, whereas the average wage of a worker in the tanning industry is 52 rubles. Here too, therefore, we observe the phenomenon common to all capitalist countries -- the status of the agricultural labourer is lower than that of the industrial labourer. The "handicraft" tanners obviously represent the purest type of peasant bourgeoisie, and the celebrated "combination of industry with agriculture" so highly praised by the Narodniks is nothing more than the prosperous owners of commercial and industrial establishments transferring capital from commerce and industry to agriculture, and paying their farm labourers incredibly low wages.**

milling industry, the compilers try to argue against the "capitalist doctrine" that the stratification of the peasants is capitalist evolution. This proposition, they claim, is based on the "absolutely arbitrary assertion that this stratification is a factor of most recent times and is an obvious symptom of the rapid de facto spread of the capitalist régime among the peasantry despite the existence of de jure community land tenure" (176). The compilers argue that the village community has never precluded property stratifications, but it "does not perpetuate them, does not give rise to classes"; "these transitory stratifications have not become more marked with the lapse of time, but, on the contrary, have been gradually obliterated" (177). Naturally, such an assertion, in substantiation of which the artels (of which more anon, § VII), family divisions (sic !) and land redivisions (!) are cited, can only evoke a smile. To say that the claim that differentiation of the peasantry is growing and spreading is an "arbitrary" one, means to ignore well-known facts: peasants lose their horses and abandon the land on a mass scale and this is coupled with "technical progress in peasant farming" (cf. Progressive Trends in Peasant Farming by Mr. V. V.); the increase in the letting and mortgaging of allotments is coupled with increased land renting; the increase in the number of commercial and industrial establishments is coupled with an increase in the number of migratory industrialists, i.e., vagrant wage-workers; etc. etc.

    The house-to-house census should have provided a wealth of material on the highly interesting question of how the incomes and earnings of the agriculturist handicraftsmen compare with the incomes of the non-agriculturists. All the data on this subject are to be found in the tables, but the Sketch gives no summary, and we have had to compile one from the material contained in the book. This summary was based, firstly, on those given in the Sketch for the individual industries. All we had to do in this case was to add together the data for the various industries. But such summaries are not given in tabular form for all industries. In some cases it was clear that mistakes or misprints had crept in -- which is only natural in the absence of check totals. Secondly, the summary was based on a selection of

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figures contained in the descriptions of certain industries. Thirdly, where neither of these sources was available, we had to turn directly to the tables (for example, in the case of the last industry: "mining"). It goes without saying that owing to this diversity in the character of the material contained in our summary, mistakes and inaccuracies were bound to have crept in. Nevertheless, we believe that although the grand totals of our summary do not coincide with the totals of the table, the deductions drawn from it may fully serve their purpose, for whatever corrections might be introduced, the average magnitudes and proportions (and it is these alone that we use for our deductions) would be but slightly changed. For example, according to the totals of the tables in the Sketch, the gross income per worker is 134.8 rubles, and according to our summary it is 133.3 rubles; the net income per family worker is 69.0 rubles and 68.0 rubles respectively; the earnings per wage-worker are 48.7 rubles and 48.6 rubles respectively.

    Here are the results of our summary showing gross income, net income, and the earnings of wage-workers in each group and sub-group (see table on page 392).

    The chief results of this tabulation are as follows:

    1) The non-agricultural industrial population takes an incomparably bigger part in industry (relative to their numbers) than the agricultural population. The number of non-agriculturist workers is less than half the number of agriculturist workers. But they account for nearly half the gross output: 1,276,772 rubles out of a total of 2,655,007 rubles, or 48.1%. As regards income from production, that is, the net income of the masters plus the workers' wages, the non-agriculturists even surpass the agriculturists, accounting for 647,666 rubles out of a total of 1,260,335 rubles, or 51.4%. Consequently, we find that, while they are a minority in numbers, the non-agricultural industrialists do not lag behind the agriculturists in volume of output. This fact is of great importance when we come to judge the traditional Narodnik theory that agriculture is the "main foundation" of so-called handicraft industry.

    From this, other conclusions follow naturally: 2) The gross output per non-agriculturist worker (gross income) is considerably higher than that of the agricultur-

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ist: 192.2 rubles as against 103.8 rubles, or nearly twice as much. As we shall see later, the working season of the non-agriculturists is longer than that of the agriculturists, but the difference is by no means so very great, so that the higher labour productivity of the non-agriculturists is beyond all doubt. This difference is smallest in the third sub-group -- the handicraftsmen who work for buyers-up -- which is quite natural.

    3) The net income of the non-agriculturist masters, big and small, is more than double that of the agriculturists: 113.0 rubles, as against 47.1 rubles (nearly two-and-a-half times as much). This difference is to be observed in all the sub groups, but it is the biggest in the first, among the handicraftsmen who produce for the market. It goes without saying that this difference is least of all to be explained by the difference in the length of working periods. There can be no doubt that it is due to the fact that the tie with the land lowers the incomes of the industrialists ; the market discounts the incomes derived by the handicraftsmen from agriculture, and the agriculturists have to content themselves with lower earnings. This is probably aggravated by the fact that the agriculturists suffer bigger losses on sales, spend more for materials and are more dependent on the merchants. In any case, it is a fact that the handicraftsman's tie with the land reduces his earnings. There is no need to say more about the enormous significance of this fact which throws a true light on the meaning of the "power of the soil" in modern society. We need only recall what a tremendous factor low earnings are in preserving methods of production that are primitive and entail bondage, in retarding the use of machinery, and in lowering the workers' standard of living.*

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    4) The wages of non-agriculturist wage-workers are also everywhere higher than those of agriculturists, but the difference is by no means as great as in the case of the incomes of the masters. Generally, in all three sub-groups, the wage-worker employed by the agriculturist handicraftsman earns an average of 43.0 rubles, while the wage-worker employed by the non-agriculturist earns 57.8 rubles, or one third more. This difference may to a large extent (but not entirely ) be due to the difference in the length of the working season. As to the relation between this difference and the tie with the land, we cannot form a judgement, for we have no data on agriculturist and non-agriculturist wage-workers. Apart from the length of the working season, the difference in the level of requirements, of course, also plays its part.

    5) The difference between the size of the masters' incomes and workers' wages is incomparably larger in the case of the non-agriculturists than in that of the agriculturists: taking all three sub-groups, the income of a non-agriculturist master is almost double a worker's wages (113 rubles and 57.8 rubles respectively), whereas among the agriculturists the income of the master is only slightly higher -- 4.1 rubles more (47.1 and 43.0)! If these figures are astonishing, even more so are those relating to the agriculturist artisans (I, 2), where the income of the master is less than a worker's wages! But the reason for this will become quite clear later, when we cite data showing the tremendous difference between the size of incomes in large and small establishments. By increasing productivity of labour, the large establishments make it possible to pay wages exceeding the income of the poor, individual handicraftsmen working alone, whose "independence," in view of their subjection to the market, is quite fictitious. This vast difference between the incomes of the large and the small establishments is to be observed in both groups, but much more so in the case of the agriculturists (due to the more depressed state of

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the small handicraftsmen). The negligible difference between the income of the small master and the wages of the worker clearly shows that the income of the small agriculturist handicraftsman who employs no wage-workers is not higher, and often even lower than the wages of a hired worker. As a matter of fact, the net income of the master (47.1 rubles per family worker) is the average for all establishments, large and small, for both the owners of factories and of one-man workshops. Naturally, in the case of the big masters, the difference between their net income and the wages of their workers is not 4 rubles, but anything from ten to one hundred times as much, which means that the income of the small one-man workshop is considerably be low 47 rubles; in other words, this income is not higher, but often even lower than the wages of a worker. Handicraft census data on the division of establishments according to net income (see below, § V) fully bear out this seemingly paradoxical conclusion. But these data relate to all the establishments in general, to agriculturists and non-agriculturists alike, and that is why this deduction from the above table is so important: we have learnt that it is the agriculturists whose earnings are lowest, in other words, that "the tie with the land" greatly reduces earnings.

    We have already said, when discussing the difference between the incomes of the agriculturists and the non-agriculturists, that this difference cannot be explained by the difference in the length of the working periods. Let us now examine the census data on this subject. One of the items in the census programme, as we learn from the "introduction," was the investigation of the "intensity of production through out the year, on the basis of the number of family members and wage-workers engaged in production each month" (p. 14). Since this was a house-to-house census, in other words, since each establishment was investigated separately (unfortunately, a specimen of the house-to-house census forms is not appended to the Sketch ), it must be assumed that information regarding the number of workers engaged each month, or the number of working months in the year, was gathered in the case of each establishment. In the Sketch these data are gathered in one table (pp. 57 and 58), in which the number of workers (family and wage-workers together) engaged

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in each month of the year is given for each of the sub-groups of both groups.

    The attempt of the 1894-95 handicraft census to determine with such precision how many months in the year the handicraftsmen work is highly instructive and interesting. Indeed, without such information the data on incomes and earnings would be incomplete, and the statistical calculations would be only approximate. But, unfortunately, the data on working periods have been very scantily analysed: apart from this general table, all we are given is information on the number of workers engaged each month in only a few industries, sometimes divided according to groups, sometimes not; division according to sub-groups has not been made for any industry. The separation of the large establishments from the small would have been particularly valuable in this instance, for we have every reason to expect -- both a priori and on the basis of data provided by other investigators of handicraft industry -- that the working periods of the big and the small handicraftsmen are not the same. Furthermore, the table itself on page 57 is apparently not free from mistakes or misprints (for example, in the months February, August and November; columns 2 and 3 of Group II have evidently been mixed up, for the number of workers in the third sub-group is larger than in the second). Even when these inaccuracies are corrected (and the corrections are sometimes only approximate), the table gives rise to no little misgiving, which renders the use of it risky. For instance, when we examine the data in the table by sub-groups, we find that in the third sub-group (Group I) the maximum number of workers, 2,911, are engaged in December. Yet, according to the Sketch, the total number of workers in the third sub-group is 2,551. Similarly, in the third sub-group of Group II: maximum number of workers 3,221, actual number 3,077. On the other hand, in the sub-groups the maxima engaged in one of the months are less than the actual number of workers. How is this to be explained? Is it because information on this subject was not gathered for all the establishments? That is very likely, although there is no hint of it in the Sketch. In the case of the second sub-group of Group II, not only is the maximum number of workers (February) larger than the actual number

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(1,882 and 1,163 respectively), but even the average number of workers engaged in one month (i.e., the quotient obtained by dividing the total number of workers engaged in the twelve months by 12) is higher than the actual number of workers (1,265 and 1,163 respectively)!! Which figure, one asks, did the registrars regard as actual: the average number of workers for the year, the average for some period (winter, say), or the number actually employed in some particular month? An investigation of the monthly number of workers engaged in the separate industries does not help to clear up the puzzle. In the majority of the twenty-three industries for which this information is furnished, the maximum number of workers engaged in any one month of the year is less than the actual number of workers. In the case of two industries, the maximum is higher than the actual number of workers: in the copper-working industry (239 and 233 respectively) and in the forges (Group II -- 1,811 and 1,269 respectively). The maximum is equal to the actual number of workers in the case of two industries (rope-making and oil-milling, Group II).

    This being the case, we cannot use the data showing the number of workers engaged month by month for a comparison with their earnings, with the actual number of workers employed, etc. All that remains is to treat these data regard less of others, and to compare the maximum and the minimum numbers of workers engaged in each month. This is what is done in the Sketch, but the separate months are compared. We consider it more correct to compare winter and summer; for that will enable us to determine how far agriculture diverts workers from industry. We took the average number of workers engaged in winter (October to March) as the standard, and, applying this standard to the number of workers engaged in summer, we arrived at the number of summer working months. By adding up the number of winter and summer months we got the number of working months in the year. Let us illustrate this by an example. In the first sub-group of Group I there were 18,060 workers engaged in the six winter months, which gives us an average of (18,060 : 6 =) 3,010 workers in one month. In the summer, 12,345 workers were employed; in other words, the summer working season is equal to (12,345 : 3,010) 4.1 months. Hence,

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the working period in the first sub-group of Group I amounts to 10.1 months in the year.

    This method of analysing the data seemed to us both the most correct and the most convenient. It is the most correct, because it is based on a comparison of winter and summer months, and hence, on an exact determination of the extent to which agriculture diverts workers from industry. That the winter months have been correctly taken is confirmed by the fact that in the October-March period the number of workers in both groups is higher than the average for the year. There is the greatest increase in the number of workers from September to October, and the greatest decrease from March to April. Incidentally, the choice of other months would have had little effect on the conclusions. We consider the method chosen to be the most suitable because it gives an exact figure for the working period which allows us to compare the groups and sub-groups in this respect. Here are the data obtained by this method:

    These figures lead us to conclude that the difference between the working periods for agriculturists and non-agriculturists is very small : that of the non-agriculturists is only 5% longer. The smallness of this difference gives rise to doubt as to the correctness of the figures. In order to verify them, we have made some calculations and summaries of material scattered throughout the book and have arrived at the following results:

    The Sketch furnishes data on the monthly employment of workers in 23 of the 43 industries, the data are given according to groups in the case of 12 (13)* of them but not in the case of the remaining 10 groups. We find that in three of the industries (pitch and tar, dyeing and brick-making) the number of workers is higher in summer than in winter:

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in the six winter months only 1,953 workers are engaged in all three industries as against 4,918 in the six summer months. In these industries there is a great preponderance of agriculturists over non-agriculturists, the former constituting 85.9% of the total number of workers. It was obviously quite wrong to combine these, so to speak, summer industries with the others in the grand totals for groups, as that meant combining unlike things and artificially raising the number of summer workers in all industries. There are two ways of correcting the error which results from this. The first is to deduct the figures for these three industries from the totals given in the Sketch for Groups I and II.[*] The result is a working period of 9.6 months for Group I, and of 10.4 months for Group II. Here the difference between the two groups is bigger, but still very small -- 8.3%. The second method of correcting the error is to combine the figures for the twelve industries for which the Sketch gives information on the monthly employment of workers in Group