It follows that as Germany manufactures as well at home, she diminishes her imports from France and England year by year. She has not only become their rival in manufactured goods in Asia and in Africa, but also in London and in Paris. Shortsighted people may cry out against the Frankfort Treaty, they may explain German competition by little differences in railway tariffs; they may linger on the petty side of questions and neglect great historical facts. But it is none the less certain that the main industries, formerly in the hands of England and France, have progressed eastward, and in Germany they found a country, young, full of energy, possessing an intelligent middle class, and eager in its turn to enrich itself by foreign trade.
While Germany freed itself from subjection to France and England, manufactured her own cotton-cloth, constructed her own machines—in fact, manufactured all commodities—the main industries took also root in Russia, where the development of manufacture is the more surprising as it sprang up but yesterday.
At the time of the abolition of serfdom in 1861, Russia hardly had any factories. Everything they needed—machines, rails, railway-engines, rich materials—came from the West. Twenty years later she possessed already 85,000 factories, and the goods from these factories had increased fourfold in value.
The old machinery was superseded, and now
