Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin

The terrible wars between France and England, which wars are often explained by merely political causes, had a much deeper meaning--an economical meaning.

But the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the privileged classes was going on at a speed never dreamed of before.

The incredible riches which now astonish the foreigner in the private houses of England were accumulated during that period; the exceedingly expensive standard of life which makes a person considered rich on the Continent appear as only of…

Neither industrial knowledge nor enterprise could be kept for ever as a privilege of these islands.

The Great Revolution had created in France a numerous class of peasant proprietors, who enjoyed nearly half a century of a comparative well-being, or, at least, of a guaranteed labour.

Moreover, the peasant-proprietors themselves, after having enjoyed a period of undeniable prosperity, began in their turn to feel the pressure of bad times, and their children were compelled to look for employment in manufactures.

The monopoly of the first comers on the industrial field has ceased to exist.

And it will exist no more, whatever may be the spasmodic efforts made to return to a state of things already belonging to the domain of history.

New ways, new issues must be looked for: the past has lived, and it will live no more.

Capital is international and, protection or no protection, it crosses the frontiers.

And as to agricultural machinery, we know, from several British Consular reports, that Russian reapers and ploughs successfully compete with the same implements of both American and English make.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the imports of manufactured goods into Russia are so insignificant, and that since 1870--that is, nine years before the general increase of duties--the proportion of manufactured goods to the aggregate…

It would be a gross error to imagine that the decline of foreign imports is mainly due to high protective duties.

The decline of imports is much better explained by the growth of home industries.

English and German capitalists, English engineers and foremen, have planted within Russia the improved cotton manufactures of their mother countries; they are busy now in improving the woollen industries and the production of machinery…

There is now not the slightest doubt--and this opinion is shared, not only by economists, but also by several Russian manufacturers--that a free-trade policy would not check the further growth of industries in Russia.

It would only reduce the high profits of those manufacturers who do not improve their factories and chiefly rely upon cheap labour and long hours.

Moreover, as soon as Russia succeeds in obtaining more freedom, a further growth of her industries will immediately follow.

And there is no doubt that not only the German markets for textiles will be soon lost for other manufacturing countries, but that German competition will be felt stronger and stronger both in the neutral markets and those of Western Europe.

The “cheap labour” cause, so often alluded to in discussions about “German competition,” which take place in this country and in France, must be dismissed by this time, since it has been well proved by so many recent investigations that…

Cheap labour and protection simply mean the possibility for a number of employers to continue working with obsolete and bad machinery; but in highly developed staple industries, such as the cotton and the iron industries, the cheapest…

Consequently, in the best German cotton mills and ironworks the wages of the worker (we know it directly for the ironworks from the above-mentioned inquiry of the British Iron Trade Association) are not lower than they are in Great Britain.

All that can be said is, that the worker in Germany gets more for his wages than he gets in this country--the paradise of the middleman--a paradise which it will remain so long as it lives chiefly on imported food produce.

Both countries have only lately entered the industrial phase of their development, and they have entered it with all the energy of youth.

And the division and subdivision--the permanent subdivision--of functions has been pushed so far as to divide humanity into castes which are almost as firmly established as those of old India.