Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/265

Rh, a bad linguist, and servilely attached to ancient usages. He is scarcely a match for the foreigner. In recent years British and Belgian traders as well as Jews and Armenians have shared in the enormous trade of the Russian Empire, but the Germans have secured the lion's share.

And what is true of Russian trade is equally true of Russian industry. The liberal economic policy of Witte has created in one generation powerful industrial centres in Central Russia, and especially in Poland. Here again the Germans have benefited more than all their competitors together. Lodz, the "Manchester of Russian Poland," has ceased to be either Polish or Russian, and has become a German manufacturing town. Caprivi, Bismarck's successor, negotiated with the Russian Government a treaty of commerce which gave enormous advantages to German industry and if the German Government had continued to show the wisdom of Bismarck and Caprivi, Germany would certainly have profited more than any other country by the commercial expansion of the Russian Empire.