Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/76

 century, exercised an influence on Russian industrial development.

In the industrial life of the Moscovite State foreigners in general occupied relatively speaking a very prominent position. Most of the foreigners were, however, in those days persons in the service of the Tsar, invited by him to manage his industrial undertakings. Some of them afterwards left the service of the Tsar and themselves founded private industrial establishments. Finally, we occasionally find foreigners who were allowed to enter Russia for the special purpose of carrying on some commercial or industrial venture. In this last-named group the pioneers were the English with their Moscow or Russian Company. The notable historical fact that the first private factory in Russia was founded by the English is little known in England, of indeed even in Russia. The factory in question—the rope factory established at Vologda and later transferred to Kholmogory (Colmogro)—provides one of the first recorded cases of observations being made regarding the relative productivity of the labour of workers of different nationalities, and regarding the relation between wages and labour productivity. Observations of this very kind have in recent years been generalised into an entire scientific theory. Thus Gray, the Company's agent, reports in 1558 that, according to his observations, the work of five Russians corresponds to