314,000 poods.
Cotton yarn, 535,817 519,189 560,799 ...

The depressed state of the cotton trade in 1841 in this country, with
the very low prices of yarn, from consignments pushed, in consequence,
for sale at any rates against advances, were doubtless the cause of the
increased imports of yarn, and the decrease in raw cotton, exhibited in
the returns for 1841. Otherwise, the import of raw cotton has been
comparatively much more on the increase than cotton yarn for some years
past. Thus, beginning with 1822, when the cotton industry began more
rapidly to develope itself, but omitting the years just given, the
imports stood thus:--

1822. 1830. 1838.
Raw cotton, 55,838 116,314 326,707 poods
Cotton-yarn, 156,541 429,736 606,667 ib.

Now, it will not be denied that the cotton manufacture in this country
has enjoyed supereminent advantages over that of any other in the world,
whether we look at the protective scale of duties maintained for half a
century in its favour against foreign competition, or regard those
glorious inventions and improvements in machinery, of which rigorous
prohibitive laws against export, during the same period in force, long
secured it a strict, and, even to a more recent period, a _quasi_
monopoly, and gave it a start in the race, which seemed to leave all
chance of foreign concurrence, or equal ratio of progression, out of the
question altogether. Neither for spinning nor weaving could Russia, in
particular, possess any other than machinery of the rudest kind, with
hand labour, until perhaps subsequently to 1820. Her tariffs, even by
special treaty of commerce, in 1797, were entirely favourable to the
entrance and consumption of British fabrics. The prohibitory, or
Continental system of Bonaparte, was indeed substituted after the treaty
of Tilsit; but in 1816 a new tariff was promulgated, modifying the
"prohibiting system of our trade," as the Emperor Alexander, in his
ukase on the occasion, expressed it. By this tariff, cotton fabrics of
all kinds were taxed twenty-five per cent in value only; cotton yarn,
seven and a half copecs per cent; fine woollens, 1 ruble 25 copecs per
arschine; kerseymeres and blankets, twenty-five per cent on value;
flannels, camlets, druggets, cords, &c., fifteen per cent. How, then,
has Russia, subject to all these disadvantages and drawbacks, and so
late in the field, fared in comparison with th