The foreign goods that entered the interior of the empire in 1839, by way of Odessa, amounted in value to 9,130,148 paper rubles, which, curiously enough, was not even half the total importation of that port. From this we may judge of the consumption of Odessa, and at the same time of the extent of the contraband trade.
From these tables we see that there is no equilibrium in the trade of Odessa. Southern Russia absorbs every year more than 15,000,000 of foreign specie, and its exports are treble its imports. It is evident that such a trade rests on no solid basis; that its prosperity is due only to accidental circumstances, and that ships will gradually abandon the Black Sea, and seek some other destination, wherever agriculture flourishes, and is accompanied by a less exclusive system of customs. In the present state of things, the cultivation of corn in Egypt would be enough to ruin immediately all the ports of Southern Russia. With such contingencies before it, the government of Russia ought to ponder well before obstinately persevering in its present system. Mariners do not like the northern parts of the Black Sea, and once they shall have left them, they will return to them no more.
The year 1839 was most memorable in the commercial history of Odessa. The exports, consisting almost entirely of corn, amounted to 48,000,000 paper rubles. The harvests in the country had been very abundant, and as those of the rest of Europe were very unpromising, the demand was at first so encouraging that the merchants launched out into the boldest speculations. These were successful for a while, but disasters soon followed, and the houses which were supposed to have realised profits to the amount of millions, failed a year or eighteen months afterwards. Since that time trade has always been in a perilous state. In 1840, under the still subsisting influence of the movement of the preceding year, there was a diminution of 7,184,021 rubles; and in 1841 the first quarter alone presented a decrease of 6,891,332 rubles in comparison with the corresponding quarter in 1840.
On examining a general table of the exportation of Odessa, we see that during Napoleon's wars its commerce, completely stationary, did not exceed five or six millions of rubles. After the events of 1815, during the horrible dearth that afflicted all western Europe, the exports rose in 1817 to more than 38,000,000. In 1818 they fell without any transition to 20,000,000. During the war of 1828–29 they sank to 1,673,000. After the treaty of Adrianople, Southern Russia, being encumbered with an excess of produce, the exports again rose to 27,000,000. After this they varied from twenty to thirty, until 1839 when they reached the highest point they ever attained, namely, 48,000,000. We have already explained the causes of this factitious augmentation. From these data we see that the activity of the trade of Odessa has always arisen out of fortuitous circumstances, which are becoming more and more rare, and that it is by no means the result of the progressive development of agricultural resources: the country is, therefore, completely stationary.
It is also easy to convince ourselves, by simple comparison, that the commerce of Southern Russia is far from prosperous. In 1839, the most productive year, the custom-houses yield but 8,215,426 rubles; and ten seaports distributed over more than 400 leagues of coast, together with three land custom-houses, show on an average but from forty-five to fifty-five millions of exports, and hardly a third of that amount of imports;