Consular Reports as a Source of Information for Periodicals of the Ministry of Finance of Russia at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century

Kostrikov Stanislav Sergeevich ORCID: 0000-0001-6627-6868 PhD in History Senior Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, State University of Management 109542, Russia, Moscow, Ryazan Avenue, 99 ss_kostrikov@guu.ru Other publications by this author

Kostrikov Sergei Petrovich ORCID: 0000-0002-3999-0940 Doctor of History Professor, Department of Sociology, Psychology of Management and History, State University of Management 109542, Russia, Moscow, Ryazan Avenue, 99 s.kostrikov@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The problem of the information policy of the state, obtaining and distributing important political and commercial information, their prompt communication to various public circles, etc. by the beginning of the twentieth century is becoming particularly acute both for the whole world in general and for the Russian Empire in particular. The struggle in the global information field, newspaper "wars" - all this began much earlier than it seems to our contemporaries ^[1].

The rapid economic and political changes in the world, its transition to a new stage of historical development, the aggravation of contradictions between the leading countries, the emergence of military-political blocs, the beginning of wars for the redistribution of already divided territories were reflected in the emerging global information space. Print media, which, with the advent of new technologies in this area, have become more sophisticated, illustrated, multi-circulation and more accessible, have become an important channel of influence on public opinion. And the spread of such communication innovations as the telephone and telegraph made it possible to transmit messages about various events in the world and in the country almost instantly and publish them literally on the same day.

The leading powers of that time realized these changes in information policy quite early. After the invention of telegraphic communication, by the end of the XIX century, telegraphic news agencies appeared, which had their correspondents all over the world: in England - Reuters, in France - Havas, in Germany - Wolf, in Austria-Hungary – Correspondent Bureau, etc. There is a competitive struggle between them, which leads to an information "division" of the world. So, Russia fell into the sphere of influence of the German Wolf agency. And this meant that the selection and interpretation of any information went in the right direction for the German government. To be fair, we should say that by this time private telegraph agencies had appeared in Russia, organized by the most influential Russian newspapers. But these agencies still drew information from foreign sources, i.e. the same world telegraph leaders.

Naturally, such a situation could not suit the most far-sighted figures of the tsarist government. In this sense, the Ministry of Finance of Russia has shown the greatest activity. It had tried to produce information publications for Russian entrepreneurs earlier, back in the first half of the XIX century. But this process did not find a proper response from the intended consumers, because the class consciousness of Russian entrepreneurs for various reasons (first of all, the presence of serfdom) was slow ^[2]. Only in post-reform Russia did all socio-political and economic processes go faster, including the process of developing periodicals of various forms and directions.

By the 90s of the XIX century. The Ministry of Finance already had significant developments and experience in publishing periodicals for domestic entrepreneurs, who by that time had already become active consumers of commercial and political information. And the Ministry of Finance played a very important role in this process ^[3].

The main periodicals of this department by the beginning of the twentieth century were the weekly "Bulletin of Finance, Industry and Trade" (hereinafter – the "Bulletin") and the daily "Trade and Industrial Newspaper" (hereinafter - TPG). For specialists in the field of economics, the Editorial Board of the Ministry's time-based publications published a monthly magazine, Russian Economic Review, where prominent domestic and foreign scientists were published ^[4].

It is quite understandable that for periodicals that were published weekly, and even more so daily, operational information received from the most important commercial and industrial centers of Russia and the world was needed. For this purpose, the Ministry of Finance organized its own wide correspondent network, which transmitted the obtained information by telegraph to the Editorial Office for publication in the "Bulletin" and TPG. Important were the reports of the agents of the Ministry of Finance, who stayed in large financial and economic centers, as a rule - in the capitals of states. This is evidenced by the "Most Comprehensive report" of the Minister of Finance S.Y. Witte, approved by the State Council of the Russian Empire on August 3, 1893, "On the establishment of the posts of agents of the Ministry of Finance on all major routes of international trade" ^[5].

One of the most important sources of commercial and political information was the reports of the Russian consular services. By agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with the leaders of which S.Y. Witte was in good business and friendly relations ^[6], these reports were transmitted to the Editorial Office of the time-based publications of the Ministry of Finance for publication in Vestnik and TPG.

The issues of correspondence between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Trade Department of the Ministry of Finance and the Editorial Office regarding the publication of consular reports on commercial issues were practically not considered by researchers ^[7]. Meanwhile, these are very interesting documents that allow us to identify the content, versatility, quality, usefulness of information that has been published on the pages of leading periodicals of the Ministry of Finance of Russia.

The main part of the consular reports concerned foreign trade issues of various countries, primarily the great Powers, i.e. England, France, Germany, the North American United States, Austria–Hungary, Japan. For example, in the cover letter to the Editorial Office of the time-based publications of the Ministry of Finance, it was said: "By order of Mr. Manager of the Trade Department of the Ministry of Finance ... the 2nd Department has the honor to transmit with this ... a review of the foreign trade of Austria-Hungary for April of this year" (1904) ^{[8, l. 31]}.

A lot of attention was paid to specific economic and, as they would say now, logistics centers. As important information, it was reported about the movement of certain goods, about the competition of these goods in the markets, prices, freight, shipping, etc., so that the domestic producer-exporter had a clear picture and could navigate in the prevailing conditions. Thus, the Trade Department sends to the Editorial Office for publication a report from the Russian Consulate in Trieste dated February 16 and 22, 1905 "on the import of Russian kerosene to the named city and, in general, on the trade in kerosene in this city" ^{[8, L. 64]}. And in the report of the manager of the Russian consulate in Jeddah dated September 7, 1905, it is reported about "the appearance of American kerosene on the local market instead of Russian" ^{[8, l. 107]}. The growth of competition from American oil monopolies is also mentioned in the report of the Russian consul in Leipzig "on the monopolization of the German market by American kerosene" ^{[8, l. 35]}.

The report of the freelance Russian consul from Nuremberg from January 1905, which was forwarded to the Editorial Office, is very interesting. The author of the letter writes: "To this end, I consider it my duty that the contents of the Consul's report in Nuremberg were reported by the Trade Department together with this to the Br Oil Production Partnership. Russian Russian Nobel Prize and the Council of the Congress of Baku Oil Producers, indicating that details about the supply of Russian kerosene to southern Germany, as well as "extracts" from Professor Rebok's brochure "on the comparative calculation of freight for the delivery of Russian kerosene by rail, sea and river routes" will be printed in one of the next issues of the "Bulletin of Finance". ^{[8, L. 75]}.

Important items of Russian exports were agricultural products. The Russian consulates reported on all the developments in this market: the Trade Department "transmits" the report of the consul in Trieste dated March 17, 1905 "on the export of Austrian sugar to the East Indies" ^{[8, l. 70]}; The Trade Department appeals on May 19, 1905 to the Editorial Office with a request to print information about the import in the next issue of the TPG potatoes to Great Britain ^{[8, L.84]}, etc.

Serious attention was paid to changes in the tariff policy of different countries. For example, the Trade Department sends a report to the Editorial Office of the Russian Consulate General in Norway on the issue of changes in import customs duties in Sweden and Norway. The letter was received by the editorial office on April 27 (according to Art. style), 1905, and already on May 8 it was placed in the "Bulletin" ^{[8, l. 98]}. In July 1906, the Russian consular service sent a copy of the translation of the announcement of the English consul in Khorasan (a region in Eastern Iran) "on reducing the tariff for the import and export of goods from India" to the editorial office of the TPG ^{[8, l. 131]}. Naturally, such information was important for domestic exporters and importers.

News of a political nature also found a place on the pages of printed publications of the Ministry of Finance. The Trade Department sends to the editorial office a report from the Consulate General in Berlin dated September 19 and 21 , 1905 . "regarding the strike of workers at several electrical plants" ^{[8, l. 103]}. That is, we are talking about the actual shutdown of a number of enterprises that manufactured electrical products, which at that time was quite comparable to modern electronics. Russia actively traded with Germany, receiving from it the necessary electrical products – electric motors, transformers, electrical cables, parts and accessories, etc. In Russia itself, there were several similar factories owned by German entrepreneurs. Thus, the strikes in Germany had an impact on our economy in one way or another.

The Russian consuls considered it their duty not only to bring commercial information of interest to entrepreneurs, but also offered to pay attention to the expansion of trade relations in Russia, especially in those places where there is a predisposition to this. The Trade Department appeals to the editorial office of the TPG with a request to pay special attention to the reports of the Russian Vice-consul in Djibouti (a port in the Horn of Africa) from May 1906 that "the import of Russian goods to Abyssinia is very insignificant, while in the export of timber, kerosene and sugar, Russia could take the first place. Russian industrialists and traders can use the direct shipping service between Odessa and Djibouti, since the vessels of the Russian Shipping and Trade Society regularly enter the latter port during their voyages to the Persian Gulf. The Vice-Consul, for his part, offers his services to inform interested persons of all necessary certificates and explanations. Reporting the above, the Trade Department has the honor to humbly ask the editorial office of the "Trade and Industrial Newspaper" to publish the said notice. Department Manager V. Prilezhaev". ^{[8, L. 126]}.

These documents represent, in our opinion, a rather voluminous picture of the commercial information received and published in the leading publications of the Ministry of Finance of Imperial Russia. It was the Ministry of Finance that was one of the first among the main government departments of the country to undertake this most important task for the beginning of the twentieth century – to create the necessary information conditions not only for the business class, but also for the government and public services, for the domestic periodical press, for the entire audience interested in politics and economics. On the basis of our extensive agency and correspondent network, which supplied the Ministry and its periodicals with important messages received from all over the world by telegraph, to Minister S.Y. Witte, senior officials of the Ministry of Finance M.M. Fedorov and P.I. Miller, who led the Editorial Staff of time–based publications, we owe the emergence, formation and development of the domestic telegraph agency - S.The St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency (SPA), which played an important role in the development of Russia's information policy, in its competition in the international information field. It is from the SPA that our modern main information services have grown.