Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/66

 36 Of the latter class of burghers only five per cent, can be classed as wage-earners, and even they are not wholly dependent upon their labour for their livelihood. For a period of the year they work for hire, but at other times they supplement their earnings by carrying on small trades at home.

Domestic industry is still much in vogue in Central Siberia. The weaving of flax for rough clothes, the making of felt boots and sheepskin coats and caps, wheelwright and blacksmith work are all carried on in the home on a small scale, generally without hired labour. The chief wage-earning industries on anything like an extensive scale at Krasnoyarsk are the Government vodka factory and spirit distillery, a small skin-curing factory, glass-making, and brick and timber yards, while a considerable number of hands are employed on the railway and on the wharfs.

As one would expect under conditions where labour and wage-earning are only just developed, unskilled labour is cheap, but skilled labour is very dear. Thus in the spring of 1910 in Krasnoyarsk I found that unskilled labour on the railway and wharfs was paid from 1s. 9d. to 2s. per day, whilst shop-assistants with small clerical knowledge, mechanics and carpenters were much in demand and could get from £4, 10s. per month with food and lodging all found.

Krasnoyarsk reflects the economic and social life of the Yenisei Government of Central Siberia. This vast territory, of which Krasnoyarsk is the centre, is populated at the average density of eight per square mile. Five-eighths of this population are peasants, one per cent, are wage-earners and only two per cent, can