Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/59

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A SIBERIAN COMMERCIAL TOWN
29
Meat (beef) 4d. per lb. in towns; 2½d. per lb. in villages.
Bacon (cured in Siberia) 5d. to 8d. per lb.
Wheat flour 1½d. per lb. (retail price).
Wheat grain 30 kopuks per pd=¼d. per lb. = 1d 6d. per bushel, autumn price.
Butter 1s. per lb. (the only article exported).
Eggs ¼d. each; ⅛d. in the villages.
Rice 6d. per lb.
Beet sugar 5½d. per lb.
Siberian brick tea 10d. per lb.
China tea 6s. 6d. per lb. (2s. Government duty).
Timber Redwood deals 3 × 11, 1¾d. per ft. cube.[1]

I believe that a man can live on the local produce of the country at a very cheap rate, and indeed subsequent experience in the surrounding villages proved that a diet of eggs, bread and tea does not cost more than one shilling per day per person. Nor is the cost of living in a Siberian town much higher than in the villages. On the other hand, everything except pure necessaries is inordinately expensive and very inferior in quality. Siberians are chafing under the monopoly of the Moscow manufacturers who, sheltered by a high protective tariff, sell inferior articles at high prices. Moreover, in the remoter districts clothing, other than the rough Siberian homespun clothes and sheepskin coats, is nearly fifty per cent, in advance of Moscow prices.

  1. Compare these figures for the average wages in Krasnoyarsk given on p. 36.