1 rouble 20 kopeks in Siberia. Russian traders have raised their prices lately to recoup themselves, but they have to meet the heavy competition of the Chinese. The Chinese cloths and cotton prints are of great interest, because many of them are simply cheap English cotton goods that have travelled all the way from Manchester to MongoUa. During 1910, the writer found in several places along the north-west plateaus Manchester cotton goods and prints which had been imported by sea to Eastern China, where they had been dyed and coloured to suit the Mongolian market and had then travelled all across the Gobi to Mongolia. These cheap cotton goods have been exported for years from England to China, but have apparently only recently found their way into the Western and North-Western parts of China, through the medium of enterprising merchants. Besides being cheaper than the same class of goods imported from Moscow, which the Russian traders sell, they are of better quality. On the testimony of the Mongols themselves, Chinese linen of English manufacture lasts twice as long as a similar piece of Moscow linen. In addition to English and Russian cotton goods, there are also linens of a somewhat inferior quality and some thin American cloth.
In 1910 I found that the cash price of Chinese (that is English) cotton prints in North-West Mongolia was 16 to 20 kopeks per archine, or 7d. to 9½d. per square yard, while that of Russian (Moscow) cotton prints was 21 to 28 kopeks per archine, or 9½d. to 1s. per square yard. Professor Soboleff speaks of Russian linen being sold in Kobdo at 18 to 20 kopeks per archine and English and American linen at 16 to 20 kopeks per archine.
