to be reckoned with. Average sable at Irbit now fetch from 30 to 60 roubles (£3 to £6) each; squirrels 1s. to 2s. each; red fox 8 to 9 roubles (£1) each.
Mining
Next to the fur trade mining is the oldest industry in Western Siberia. Although the amount of labour employed is comparatively small, the value of the annual output is greater than that of any other industry in the country. Mining has undergone great fluctuations in fortune and changes in method since the early days. The industry began in the early part of the nineteenth century, when it was utilized and exploited by means of convict labour, which played such a prominent part in Siberian economic history during that time. All mineral rights were then monopolized by the Government, who found in the convicts a useful medium for working the mines. Many peasants also, who were tied to the Crown Estates, were forced to work in the mines, and in this way the mining industry was built up on the unsound economic principle of forced labour. After the emancipation of the serfs and the decrease in the transportation of convicts to Siberia, the labour market was freed from the blighting hand of the Government, and the first result of this economic emancipation was temporarily to ruin the mining industry of Western Siberia, which had lived upon forced labour for so long. The condition of mining labour is at the present time normal and satisfactory, and is, moreover, carefully regulated by the Government. Private mining enterprise has overtaken State enterprise within the last fifty
