her predecessors.  Like them, she maintained high tariffs, accorded large subsidies, and even prevented the export of raw material, in the hope that it might be worked up at home; and when the prices in the woollen market rose very high, she compelled the manufacturers to supply the army with cloth at a price fixed by the authorities.  In short, the old system remained practically unimpaired, and notwithstanding the steady progress made during the reign of Nicholas I. (1825-55), when the number of factory hands rose from 210,000 to 380,000, the manufacturing industry as a whole continued to be, until the serfs were emancipated in 1861, a hothouse plant which could flourish only in an officially heated atmosphere.

There was one branch of it, however, to which this remark does not apply.  The art of cotton-spinning and cotton-weaving struck deep root in Russian soil.  After remaining for generations in the condition of a cottage industry—­the yarn being distributed among the peasants and worked up by them in their own homes—­it began, about 1825, to be modernised.  Though it still required to be protected against foreign competition, it rapidly outgrew the necessity for direct official support.  Big factories driven by steam-power were constructed, the number of hands employed rose to 110,000, and the foundations of great fortunes were laid.  Strange to say, many of the future millionaires were uneducated serfs.  Sava Morozof, for example, who was to become one of the industrial magnates of Moscow, was a serf belonging to a proprietor called Ryumin; most of the others were serfs of Count Sheremetyef—­the owner of a large estate on which the industrial town of Ivanovo had sprung up—­who was proud of having millionaires among his serfs, and who never abused his authority over them.  The great movement, however, was not effected without the assistance of foreigners.  Foreign foremen were largely employed, and in the work of organisation a leading part was played by a German called Ludwig Knoop.  Beginning life as a commercial traveller for an English firm, he soon became a large cotton importer, and when in 1840 a feverish activity was produced in the Russian manufacturing world by the Government’s permission to import English machines, his firm supplied these machines to the factories on condition of obtaining a share in the business.  It has been calculated that it obtained in this way a share in no less than 122 factories, and hence arose among the peasantry a popular saying: 

     “Where there is a church, there you find a pope,
     And where there is a factory, there you find a Knoop."*

The biggest creation of the firm was a factory built at Narva in 1856, with nearly half a million spindles driven by water-power.

     * Gdye tserkov—­tam pop;
     A gdye fabrika—­tam Knop.