Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1279

 FINANCE 923

lock-ups in Poland, 6,348; hard labour ^prisons, 3,000; correction houses, 5,423 ; depots, 3,240. The highest figure attained on a given day in all prisons was 117,530 inmates, exclusive of the childrcu. For exile to Siberia, 17,013 persons reached the prison of Tinmen (whence they are distributed over Siberia), and 7,971 were sent further east. Of the 16,077 prisoners brought to Tinmen iu 1888, 2,000 were harddal)our convicts, the remainder being — runaways, 1,913 ; condemned to exile l)y courts, 3,119 ; exiled by order of Administration, 3,205 common law and 636 political exiles ; women and children following exiles, 5,184. In 1893, the percentage of exiles condemned by law courts was 51 p.c, and exiled by single order of the Administration, 49 p.c. In 1896, 1,699 convicts and persons sent into exile by order of the Administration were conveyed to the island of Sakhalin, on board steamers (36 children), as well as 186 women convicts and exiles and 294 women and children following their husbands and parents, and 150 con- victs for the Usuri railwa5\ The average population of the hard-labour convict prisons was 14,613. Besides, about 1,000 children were kept in 21 reformatories. In the convict island of Sakhalin on January 1, 1896, there were 6,703 hard-labour convicts, and 8,433 released convicts and exiles ; to these must be added 1,323 women who followed their husbands, with about 4,768 children ; and the free settlers, who numbered 2,838. There were nearly 19,060 acres under culture (12,479 persons). Total Russian popu- lation, 29,004 ; indigenes, 6,150. The actual expenditure for prisons reached in 1897 the sum of 13,414,578 roubles, of which only 876,000 roubles were obtained through the work of prisoners and convicts.

By the law of December 25, 1895, the prison administration has been transferred from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Justice, and it has been ordered to enter upon a thorough reform of the system of imprisonment and exile. The criminal code is also under revision.

Finance.

I. State Finance.

The annual financial budget is usually published on January 13, and since 1866 accounts of the actual revenue and expenditure are published by the Control Administration, after a minute revision of each item. It consisted until 1892, both for revenue and expenditure, of three separate parts : the ordinary revenue and expenditure; the 'recettes d'ordre ' and 'depenses d'ordre,' being transferences of sums among different branches of Administra- ion ; and the extraordinary revenue (loans, war indemnity, &c.) and expendi- ture (railways, military, public works). The second heading has been abolished since 1892.

In accordance with a law of June 4, 1894, all expenditure for the re-arma- ment of the army, special reserves of food, the building of new ports, as also upon the State's railways, is to be henceforward included in the ordinary ex- penditure, leaving expenditure for new railway lines only under the heading of extraordinary expenditure ; while the military contributions (Turkey, Khiva) have been transferred to the ordinary revenue, leaving under the heading of extraordinary revenue only the money realised from loans, and the perpetual deposits at the Impeiial Bank.

A new income tax (by classes) upon all trade establishments, factories, shareholders and co-operative societies, and incomes from industry and trade was introduced by the law of June 8, 1898.