Water energy as a factor of industrialization in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century (based on the materials of industrial censuses)

Shilnikova Irina PhD in History Associate Professor, Department of Social and Economic History of Russia, Institute for Social Sciences, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration 82 Vernadsky Avenue, Moscow, 119571, Russia, Moscow region shilnikova.i@gmail.com Other publications by this author

The evolution of the energy base of industrial production in Russia at the stage of pre-revolutionary industrialization is given great attention in various studies devoted to the socio–economic development of the empire in the late XIX - early XX centuries. This applies to publications characterizing the economic development of individual regions ^[1] and industries ^{[2, 3]}, the history of individual companies and enterprises of that time ^[4], analyzing the processes of transfer of foreign ^[5] and the emergence of domestic technologies ^[6]. Despite the fact that the authors focus on steam engines, as well as internal combustion and electric engines, at the turn of the century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, the share of water engines could be very significant in the industry of individual provinces and regions. In addition, industries where the specifics of production still determined the traction of factories and factories to water sources could also use more traditional and cheaper types of engines, and above all, water wheels and turbines.

The use of water resources as an energy source will be given priority in this article. The research tasks were formulated as follows: 1) to characterize the use of water resources as an energy source based on data on the use of water engines in the Russian industry as a whole, as well as at the sectoral and provincial level; 2) to identify the relationship between the specific indicators of the use of water engines in the overall structure of the energy capacity of enterprises and the main production indicators. The basis of the research source base was the published materials of two Russian industrial censuses conducted in 1900 and 1908 ^{[7, 8]}.

The attention paid in this article to water engines is quite justified. The use of water energy due to the large number of large and small rivers began in Russia in ancient times. It was water mills (along with windmills) that provided the energy needs of various industries at that time, and first of all, this applies to the processing of grain crops. In sources dating back to the XIII century, one can find references to watermills that appeared in a number of ancient Russian principalities. Also in the documents of the XIV-XVI centuries, the authors regularly mention these structures in various contexts. If at first mills using the power of water were built mainly for the purpose of processing agricultural products, then later their use began to extend to other industries. Since the 30s of the XVII century. in the Urals, near Tula, near Moscow, metallurgical plants were built and put into operation, using water wheels as motive power. And the number of such enterprises has been growing for a century. In the XVIII century. water engines were already used in a large number of operations at enterprises of various industries, including textile production, metallurgy and metalworking, mining industry, etc.

It is obvious that for the normal functioning of enterprises where water engines were used, it was necessary to build a whole complex of hydraulic structures, which were improved over time, their design changed. The main structure in such a complex was a dam. With its help, it was possible to arrange a pond where the water used in the future was stored. Although many cases are known when there was no dam, the rotation of the mill wheel was provided by a moving river flow, and by creating a semi-dam it was possible to achieve a higher river flow rate. In case of shortage of water reserves in reservoirs created at dams, whole cascades of reservoirs were designed and built. This practice has been actively used in the Urals since the time of Peter the Great. In the XVIII century. on the territory of Russia "about 200 dams large enough for those times were built" ^{[9, p. 68]}. As a result of these circumstances, the location of a new enterprise was often determined depending on the possibility of installing a dam there, necessary for the operation of water wheels. When choosing a place for the construction of the dam, in turn, the terrain was taken into account, the possibility of building "a reservoir with as large a mirror as possible, so that it would be easy for the dam and the working water supply would be larger." In this order, "measurements were made beforehand in order to establish the height of the backwater, the size of the reservoir" ^{[10, p. 298]}.

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The materials of the industrial censuses of 1900 ^[7] and 1908 ^[8] contain information characterizing the engines operating at industrial enterprises at the time of collecting the questionnaires. All engines are divided into four groups: 1) steam ("stationary machines", locomobiles and steam turbines); 2) internal combustion engines (oil, kerosene, gasoline and gas); 3) water (turbines and wheels); 4) electric motors, horse-drawn drives, wind engines. For each group, information is given about the number of engines and their horsepower (hp). This makes it possible to compare the power of engines used in the Russian industry on the two specified chronological sections for different production groups. In addition, the census materials make it possible to calculate what proportion (by the number of hp) were water engines, firstly, in various branches of industrial production, and secondly, in various provinces of the Russian Empire.

            Despite the fact that the first two Russian industrial censuses of 1900 and 1908 were conducted according to a similar program, there are several differences between them. Firstly, it concerns the territorial coverage of the surveys conducted. If the Polish and Baltic provinces were included in the census of 1900, then the regions of Siberia, the Far East, Central Asia and part of the provinces and regions of Transcaucasia remained outside the scope of the survey. During the industrial census of 1908, industrial enterprises located in these regions were already taken into account. Therefore, the materials for 1900 contain information on 68 provinces and regions, and for 1908 – on 91. Secondly, during the turn-of-the-century census, the survey covered only production that was not subject to excise duty and was within the scope of supervision of the factory inspection. In the second census, these restrictions were overcome, therefore, its materials contain information about excise-taxed industries, as well as those that still remained outside the supervisory functions of factory inspectors. And another important change concerned the inclusion in the second census of information about state-owned enterprises that were under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Court and a number of leading ministries (finance, railways, military and maritime), as well as factories that were under the jurisdiction of the Mining Department.

Therefore, in order to solve the task – comparing the equipment of industrial enterprises with engines on the two specified sections of 1900 and 1908 – it was necessary to exclude from the analysis those provinces that were outside the scope of the survey in 1900. Therefore, tables 1 and 2 provide information only on those 68 provinces and only those groups of enterprises that were surveyed in during the first industrial census.

Table 1. Engine power at industrial enterprises of the Russian Empire by production groups. 1900

Note: Gr. I – cotton processing, gr. II – wool processing, gr. III – silk processing, gr. IV – flax processing, gr. V – mixed production, gr. VI – paper and printing, gr. VII – woodworking, gr. VIII – metallurgy and metalworking, gr. IX – processing of mineral substances, gr. X – processing of animal products, gr. XI – food, gr. XII – chemical, gr. XIII – power plants.

Source:Statistical data on factories and plants for production not subject to excise duty for 1900. St. Petersburg, 1903. Specific indicators are calculated by us on the basis of data from the source.

Table 2. Engine power at industrial enterprises of the Russian Empire by production groups. 1908 (as part of provinces and groups of industries similar to those recorded in the first industrial census of 1900)

Note: Gr. I – cotton processing, gr. II – wool processing, gr. III – silk processing, gr. IV – flax processing, gr. V – mixed production, gr. VI – paper and printing, gr. VII – woodworking, gr. VIII – metallurgy and metalworking, gr. IX – processing of mineral substances, gr. X – processing of animal products, gr. XI – food, gr. XII – chemical, gr. XIII – power plants.

Source: Statistical data on the manufacturing factory industry of the Russian Empire for 1908. St. Petersburg, 1912. Specific indicators are calculated by us on the basis of data from the source.

First, let us turn to the consideration of the general characteristics of providing different industrial sectors with motive power, comparing the number and power of engines in 1900 and 1908. According to the data presented in Tables 1 and 2, the number of engines (regardless of their type) in twelve industry groups in 1908 increased by 64.33% compared to 1900, and their power by 86.66%. At the same time, the number of water engines (including wheels and turbines) in 1908 increased by 167% in comparison with the results of the survey in 1900, and their power – by 157%. If in 1900 they accounted for 5.52% of the total number of engines in the surveyed factories and plants, and their share in the power structure (in hp) is 4.41%, then in 1908 these figures increased to 8.98% and 6.08%, respectively. Thus, the results obtained on the basis of comparing the data of two industrial censuses give reason to conclude that the number and power of water engines grew faster than similar indicators for all types of engines used in Russian factories and plants. This casts doubt on the prevailing idea that the importance of engines using the power of water in the industry of Russia in the late XIX – early XX centuries. it was decreasing.

Continuing the analysis of the data in Tables 1 and 2, we will turn not only to the all-Russian indicators (as mentioned above, in this case it involves the coverage of 68 provinces and regions), but also to the sectoral ones. Attention is drawn to the increase in natural and specific indicators of the use of water engines (moreover, both in terms of the number of engines and their total power) in two groups of industries: metallurgy and metalworking, as well as food processing. Thus, in the metal industry, the share of water engines in their total number increased from 3.61% to 10.05%, and the share in the total capacity from 1.14% to 6.10%. For the group of industries related to the processing of nutrients, the growth of these indicators was expressed in the following values: in terms of the number of engines from 3.73% to 29.94%, and in terms of power – from 0.26% to 14.29%. In this case, we are talking about two industries that traditionally tend to be located near water sources and the use of its energy.

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            Since the end of the XIX century, the owner of the enterprise, which in principle used water energy, could already choose what to use – a water wheel or a turbine. In 1902, an interesting publication was published under the authorship of S. Nosovich under the title "Companion of the miller-mechanic" ^[11], which was a guide for millers, builders and mill owners. In addition to other recommendations, the author also gives advice to those who have decided for themselves what to use as motive power in a new mill – a water wheel or a turbine. His conclusions boiled down to the following points. Where the water pressure was not too strong, and the forest reserves are substantial, it is preferable to use a water wheel, despite the fact that the turbines were characterized by higher productivity and were more convenient in the process of servicing them. In the case of a large water pressure, the turbine looked preferable.

A.V. Volshanik, referring to the materials of the VII All-Russian Electrotechnical Congress, mentions that according to the questionnaire of the Russian Technical Society conducted in 1912, 45449 hydraulic power plants with a total capacity of 686,856 hp were registered in Russia, of which 470,962 hp (or 68.6%) were produced by water wheels ^{[9, p. 64]}.

Table 3 gives an idea of the ratio of water wheels and turbines in the overall structure of engines using water energy, based on the materials of the industrial census of 1908. The data presented in it clearly demonstrate how much higher the power of water turbines was compared to water wheels per engine. Moreover, there are a number of industries that at the beginning of the twentieth century, continuing to use the power of water as an energy source, switched to their more productive type – turbines.

Table 3. Water engines in various groups of industries in the industry of the Russian Empire. 1908

Note: Gr. I – cotton processing, gr. II – wool processing, gr. III – silk processing, gr. IV – flax processing, gr. V – mixed production, gr. VI – paper and printing, gr. VII – woodworking, gr. VIII – metallurgy and metalworking, gr. IX – processing of mineral substances, gr. X – processing of animal products, gr. XI – food, gr. XII – chemical, gr. XIII – power plants.

Source: Statistical data on the manufacturing factory industry of the Russian Empire for 1908. St. Petersburg, 1912. Specific indicators are calculated by us on the basis of data from the source.

The specific values of the use of water engines in the structure of the energy capacity of various industries can be compared by two indicators: the number of engines and engine power (in hp). Moreover, the "ratings" of industries based on these indicators will not coincide. So, in terms of the number of water engines (here we take into account both wheels and turbines), wool processing is in the lead (17.21%), the food industry is in second place (10.96%), followed by metallurgy and metalworking (10.60%). If we take the power indicator as a criterion, then another group of industries - paper and printing (19.61%) – will be in the first place again by a large margin. This suggests that the enterprises of this industry switched to more productive types of water engines, in particular, instead of wheels, they began to use turbines, much more productive. The data available in Table 3 on the number and capacity of water wheels and turbines recorded in this industry during the census confirm the assumption made: in quantitative terms, turbines accounted for 85.88% of the total number of water engines in the industry, and in terms of capacity – 95.23%, which indicates a noticeable restructuring of the energy base of this industry in comparison with the previous period.

In general, the picture shown in Table 3 seems quite logical, since the largest share of water engines is observed in those industries that, according to various sources, were more tied to water resources than others, using their capabilities both directly in the production process and as energy sources. In general, the share of water engines at the level of industry as a whole cannot be called high, which is, of course, due to the development of technologies, the emergence and increasingly active introduction of other types of engines into production, which made it possible to link the location of industrial enterprises to natural water sources to a lesser extent.

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Let us now turn to the provincial data (see Table 4). In the table, the provinces are not arranged alphabetically, but in order of decreasing the share of water engines in industry. It can be noted that not all provinces are represented here, since it was decided not to include in the table those of them where the 1908 census did not record water engines working at industrial enterprises at all: Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Donskoy Army Region, Akmola, Baku, Dagestan, Kutaisi, Primorsky, Ural, Black Sea, Yakutsk.

Table 4. The share of water engines (%) in the total power of the motive power of industrial enterprises in the provinces and regions of the Russian Empire in 1908

Calculated by: Statistical data on the manufacturing factory industry of the Russian Empire for 1908. St. Petersburg, 1912.

Based on the data presented in Table 4, it can be concluded that five provinces made up the upper group, where the share of water engines in the total structure of motive power was above 50%. This is followed by a group of 11 provinces, where the indicator we are interested in is in the range from 25 to 50%, the third group consisting of 14 provinces was characterized by a specific indicator of water engines from 5 to 10%. The fourth group includes 16 provinces, where all values are in the range of 5-10%, the fifth group – 21 provinces, the range of values of the key indicator from 1 to 5%, and the sixth group – 11 provinces, where water engines were used at individual enterprises, but their specific gravity did not exceed 1% of the total engine power all types. Interestingly, the bottom line is occupied by the Yekaterinoslav province, whose presence among the "laggards" in this indicator is not surprising, since in it the main role in the sectoral structure of industry was played by large metallurgical and metalworking production based on modern, including European, technologies and energy sources.

Among the five provinces in which the share of water engines was the highest, there is none of the number traditionally attributed to European Russia. Two regions of Central Asia are included in this top 5 - Semirechenskaya (leading the rating with an indicator of the share of water engines of more than 88%) and Syr-Darya (fourth place, more than 63%), as well as three provinces/regions representing the Caucasus and Transcaucasia - Kars (second place in the rating with an indicator of slightly less than 88%), Batumi (70.4%) and Erivan (slightly less than 53%). It is noteworthy that on the map these five provinces are grouped into two geographically unified entities, in each of which the provinces border each other.

It can be noted that the provinces and regions included in the top 5 for the use of water engines in industry differ significantly in area, natural and geographical characteristics, density of the river network, traditions of industrial production and a number of other characteristics. However, the provinces forming a geographically unified region have common features in the sectoral structure of industry. Thus, the Erivan province and the Kars region are united by a relatively narrow industrial spectrum of industrial productions represented on their territory. In particular, in the Erivan province, the second industrial census of 1908 recorded enterprises belonging only to three industry groups: processing of silk, metals and foodstuffs. Moreover, the latter gives more than 85% in terms of the cost of annual production, but in principle it is extremely poorly equipped with motive power, regardless of the type of engine, therefore it does not have a serious impact on the performance of the power of engines used in the industry of this province. On the other hand, a group of metallurgical and metalworking industries here occupies a not too noticeable share in the total cost of industrial output, but water engines here account for more than 75% of their total capacity in all industries, which gives a high national indicator. In the Kars region, the census of 1908 recorded only four groups of industries: food processing, which gives more than 60% of the cost of products produced in the region, as well as the processing of metals, minerals, animals and foodstuffs. Here, the situation in the food industry affects the total share of water engines in the region, since 94.8% of the engine power was provided by water wheels and turbines. A similar situation can be observed in the Batumi province, where, according to the census materials, enterprises of four industry groups worked: metal processing, which occupies 78% of the industry structure, as well as processing of animal products, food substances and chemical. And since in the dominant industry (metal), the specific gravity of water engines reached 75%, this determined the all-Provincial high indicator.

In two Central Asian provinces, which are included in the first group in terms of the specific indicator of water engines in industry, despite the higher level of diversification of production, one or two main industries are also distinguished. In the Semirechensk region, a group of food processing plants provides 59.7% of the total annual cost of manufactured products, and 86% of the engine power in it falls on water. In the Syrdarya region, two leading industries are identified: food, which accounts for almost 47% of the total cost of manufactured products, and cotton processing, in which the same indicator is slightly lower (41%). At the same time, the share of water engines in the food industry reaches 75%, and in the cotton industry – 43%.

            Now let's move to the second group of provinces, where the share of water wheels and turbines accounted for from 25 to 50% of the total power of motive power in industry. It includes 11 provinces representing different economic regions: the Baltic States (Estland province), the Caucasus and Transcaucasia (Elizavetpol, Tersk), the Urals (Ufa, Vyatka, Perm), the North and the Lake Region (Olonets and Novgorod), Poland (Suwalka, Lomzhinskaya), Central Asia (Samarkand). Despite the presence of several groups of provinces that unite two or three administrative units into a common space, in general they are "scattered" across various regions of the empire. Therefore, let's look at these examples in more detail.

The first thing that will be found is the lack of correlation of the proportion of water engines with the length and specific indicators of waterways. This is not surprising, since the river network was mostly used as part of the transport infrastructure (which also includes railways and highways and paved roads) and could not play any role as a source of motive power. A definite confirmation of this is just the example of the Estonian province, which has a relatively high share of water engines in industry (38.32%). The density of the river network here is relatively small, but 2/3 of the length of the province's borders was the sea line, and a significant part of the area was occupied by lakes.

In the province of Estonia, water engines prevailed in the processing of cotton, accounting for 78.07% of the total motive power of this industry. Taking into account the fact that cotton production gave 50.26% of the total value of the products produced here, it becomes clear what is behind such a high proportion of water engines in this Baltic province. In addition, water engines were quite actively used here and in other industries – wool processing, paper and printing, woodworking and mineral processing. As we can see, some of these industries (first of all, the first two groups of these) gave one of the highest indicators for the use of water engines on a nationwide scale (see Table 4).

The first ten provinces according to the indicator under consideration are closed by the Olonets province, which also does not have a high density of the river shipping network, but at the same time a significant part of the area of which is occupied by lakes. It is no coincidence that this province is traditionally included in the four that make up the so-called Lake District. Water engines prevailed here in paper and printing production, chemical and food industries, and were also used in metallurgy and metalworking and woodworking. At the same time, the last two groups of industries totaled more than 70% in the sectoral structure of the industry of this province.

            A geographically monolithic group of three Ural provinces is of interest, where the active use of water engines seems quite logical. Let's start with the Vyatka province, where the share of water engines was 39.24% of the total power of the motive power of the industrial enterprises operating here. Thus, Vyatka province is the leader in this indicator in the second group and is closest to the top five, although it lags far behind Erivan, which closes the top 5. The group of metallurgical and metalworking industries was the main one here, and in it water engines provided more than half (63.56%) of the motive power of this industry. They were also actively used in the paper and printing industry (32%), mineral processing (18%).

Let's move down a few lines in Table 4, where the Ufa province is located with an indicator of the share of water engines in industry at 34.14%. The border of the province in the north was the Kama River and its tributary Bui, in the west – sections of the Kichuya and Ika rivers flowing into the Kama, in the south – a section of the Belaya River. Water engines definitely prevailed here in the group of paper and printing industries, as well as in the processing of minerals, occupied a prominent place in metallurgy and metalworking, were used in the processing of wool and wood. Thus, here again we see those industries where, in general, the share of water engines at the all-Russian level was relatively noticeable.

In the Perm province, the share of metallurgy and metalworking in the industrial structure of the industry was 55.43%, and this industry in this region traditionally gravitated to sources of water resources, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, the share of water engines here reached 27%. About a third of the total motive power was provided by water engines in the food processing production group, which accounted for 28.82% of the total industrial structure of this province connecting Europe and Asia. For industrial enterprises of the Perm province, the main importance is not even the Kama River, which is in demand primarily as a commercial artery, but smaller rivers flowing through this territory. So, not far from Perm, near the Danilikha River, in 1869, the Tupitsin brothers phosphorus plant was built, whose products were exported to Europe at the end of the XIX century, in particular, they found demand in London, Hamburg and Stockholm ^{[12, p. 366]}. At the confluence of the Danilikha with the Kama River in 1855, a machine-shipbuilding and foundry plant was established on the basis of English capital, which in 1876 passed to Lyubimov. This enterprise produced marine screw schooners with steam engines (including oil tankers), equipment for mining and other enterprises, hydraulic presses, etc. ^{[12, pp. 367-368]} The Perm Cannon Factory appeared at the confluence of the Motovilikha River into the Kama. Since the 1730s, a state-owned copper smelter was built here on the river bank, which gave rise to the famous Motovilikha. The Chusovaya River also flows into the Kama.

The group of Ural provinces deserves closer attention as a region of heavy industry, which was formed in the first quarter of the XVIII century, when water wheels formed the basis of the motive power of industrial enterprises. As we can see, after two centuries, the share of engines based on the use of water power was still high here. This is especially noticeable in contrast with the newly formed Southern Industrial District, since the provinces that were part of the latter almost did not use water engines: they provided less than 1% of the total engine power in the production of the Yekaterinoslav, Kharkov, and Tauride provinces, only slightly higher than this figure in the Kherson province (1.88%).

The publications devoted to the industrial development of the Ural region during the period of pre-revolutionary industrialization emphasize the growth of the energy availability of labor at enterprises, primarily in the metallurgical and metalworking industries as the leading one for the provinces that were part of it. However, this did not mean abandoning the use of water energy: with a reduction in the share of water wheels in the total engine power, the share of water turbines increased simultaneously (approximately in the same ratio). Thus, in the Urals, the process of increasing the energy capacity of production facilities to a lesser extent than in other industrial areas was conditioned by a change in the type of engines. The main reason for this is due to the fact that wood was still used as fuel here, and not coal, as in the Southern Industrial District. At the same time, wood was necessary for operations directly during metallurgical production, for which they tried to preserve it. Therefore, steam engines, which by the beginning of the twentieth century had become the main type of motive power in Russian industry, in these three Ural provinces up to the 1890s had rather auxiliary significance, were used, for example, during periods of low water, when water turbines and wheels had to be stopped, which means that the main production processes also stopped. G.N. Shumkin, analyzing the indicators of the power–to-weight ratio of workers in the ferrous metallurgy of the Urals in the late XIX - early XX centuries, noted that until the 1880s, water wheels played the main role in the structure of motive power here, but their total power was reduced, and gradually they were replaced by water turbines and, to a lesser extent, steam engines. According to the calculations carried out by the author for the period 1882-1891 . "the total power of water wheels decreased by 10.3 thousand hp, the power of turbines increased by 9.3 thousand hp, steam engines – by 3.5 thousand hp" ^{[13, p. 518]}. At the same time, if in the early 1880s. "water wheels accounted for more than 50% of the total power of all engines of the Ural ferrous metallurgy plants, then in 1891 - 30%" ^{[13, p. 518]}. At the same time, if we take into account both water wheels and water turbines, then at that time they gave more than two-thirds of the total power of the engines used at the Ural enterprises in the ferrous metallurgy.

            Let us turn to the third group of provinces, which can be determined on the basis of Table 4. This group of provinces consists of 14 provinces, where the specific power of water engines in industry ranges from 10 to 25%. Unlike the previous group, in this case we see the presence of provinces forming a geographically unified region, which, when transferred to the map, has a bizarre shape: it begins in the European part of Russia in the Penza province and then moves east through the Simbirsk, Samara and Orenburg provinces (thus skirting the Ural, Turgai and Akmola regions) and ends with a large by area, the space formed by the Semipalatinsk region, Tobolsk and Tomsk provinces. Also, the Trans-Baikal and Amur regions bordering each other are united into a group of two administrative divisions. The rest of the provinces included in this group are "scattered" singly in different regions of the empire (European Russia, Central Asia, the Kuban region).

            The lower part of the list formed in Table 4 is also of interest. Above, during the analysis of the situation with the energy capacity of Ural metallurgical enterprises, it was mentioned that the provinces of the Southern Industrial District practically did not use either water wheels or water turbines, since this region was formed mainly on the basis of the use of foreign capital and advanced technologies for that time, which, naturally, also applied to the type of engines. But in addition to the southern provinces, three more regions can be identified where preference was given to other types of engines (steam, internal combustion and electric motors). The first of them includes the provinces of the Central Industrial District (Vladimir, Kostroma and Tver), the second – the Polish provinces (Warsaw, Petrokov, Plock).

Summing up the interim results, it should be noted that the share of water engines in various provinces was determined, firstly, by a natural and geographical factor (first of all, by the availability of water resources that could be used as energy sources, and, in this case, we are not necessarily talking about navigable rivers), secondly, the branch structure of industry, which, on the one hand, was connected with the tradition of economic development of a particular area, and on the other, was influenced by new trends, technologies, market challenges. At the same time, we can definitely say that water resources as a source of motive power have not lost their significance, making up a significant share in certain industries and regions.

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            Special attention should be paid to the issue of the influence of the characteristics of the energy capacity of enterprises on significant industrial indicators. Since, as mentioned above, industry differences are very significant, it is quite difficult to identify significant relationships based on averaged data for the industry as a whole. Therefore, we turn again to the analysis of data on individual groups of productions according to the classification of the factory inspection. As significant indicators of the activity of industrial establishments, we will consider the net profit per enterprise, the total power of engines of different types per enterprise and per worker, the share of wages and fuel in the cost structure, as well as the number of workers per enterprise.

Let's start with the net profit indicator per worker. It should be noted that in this case, the net profit indicator was calculated as follows: the annual cost of manufactured products minus the costs of raw materials, fuel, wages and rental of premises. Thus, this is an indicator of net profit before taxes and other mandatory payments. But there is a plus in this, because in this format this indicator can be used as a proxy variable for evaluating labor productivity, which in the context of the tasks of our study is a more preferable option. Two main branches of the Russian industry were selected for analysis – textile (in this case, cotton processing) and metal. In the first case, the correlation coefficient of the share of water engines in the total power of engines of all types with the net profit indicator was expressed in the value r = 0.71, in the second – r = 0.60. In both cases, the coefficients obtained are quite high, positive and statistically significant.

Let's see how the share of water engines is related to the overall indicators of the energy capacity of industry per enterprise. We will continue the analysis based on data from the same two industries – cotton processing and metallurgy and metalworking. The correlation coefficient for the specified textile industry was r = 0.53, for the metal industry it is half as much – r = 0.24. At the same time, both coefficients are again positive, have statistical significance, which makes us pay attention to them, even though the value of the correlation coefficient in the metal industry cannot be called high. The analysis of energy capacity per worker is also of interest, and this can be done by expanding the list of industries. For example, the relationship between the proportion of water engines and the power of all engines (in hp) per worker in flax processing is expressed as r = 0.51, in the group of woodworking industries r = 0.43, in the paper and printing industry r = 0.55. As in the previous case, the correlation coefficients are positive, statistically significant and relatively high in their values. It should be noted that two of the three industry groups mentioned here are among the top three in terms of the specific use of water wheels and turbines in production (see Table 3).

The type of engine could also influence such characteristics of production facilities as the number of workers, and, consequently, the number of workers per enterprise. After all, the higher the energy capacity of production, the smaller the staff of workers, and above all, auxiliary workers, the owners of factories and factories needed to keep. Consequently, at enterprises and in industries that have retained a significant proportion of water engines in their energy base, the level of concentration of workers should be higher, since their productivity in comparison with steam, internal combustion engines and electric ones was, as a rule, lower. Let's see if our assumption is correct, based on data on the metal industry and the group of cotton processing industries. The correlation coefficient of the two indicators under consideration (the share of water engines and the number of workers per enterprise) in the first case is not too high: r = 0.23, in the second case it is about twice as high as r = 0.48. But both coefficients are positive and statistically significant. Accordingly, the higher the specific power index of water wheels and turbines, the higher the number of workers was, due to the fact that the staff of auxiliary workers had to perform work that could be carried out with the help of mechanisms at least partially with a better power capacity and a more modern structure of motive power.

Often, one of the reasons for the continued preservation of engines using water energy in a large volume was the saving of wood necessary to ensure other production processes. The example of Ural metallurgy, illustrating a similar situation, was considered above. Therefore, it seems important to find out whether there is a relationship between the share of water wheels and turbines in the structure of energy capacity and expenditure items, in particular, the share of fuel costs. Let's continue the analysis based on data on the same two industries – cotton processing and metal processing. In both cases, a negative correlation was revealed between the share of water engines and the share of amounts spent on fuel payments in the overall structure of enterprises' expenses: for the metal industry, the correlation coefficient r = - 0.33, for cotton processing, a fairly close value r = - 0.39 was obtained. These data are quite consistent with the results of the correlation analysis, demonstrating the presence and degree of relationship between the share of water engines, on the one hand, and the share of labor costs, on the other. Since, as it turned out above, the use of water power as an energy source could reduce the necessary fuel costs, but at the same time the result was an increase in the number of workers, it was logical to assume that this would lead to an increase in the share of wages in the cost structure. Let's test the formulated hypothesis on the data of three industries: paper and printing, woodworking and chemical. As a result of the correlation analysis, the following coefficient indicators were obtained: r = 0.35 (paper and printing), r = 0.39 (chemical), r = 0.54 (woodworking). All coefficients are positive, as we can see, and statistically significant, which confirms the hypothesis formulated above.

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Thus, the structure of the motive power could directly affect various production indicators and characteristics. Moreover, we are talking not only about the cost of production (in gross and specific indicators), labor productivity, energy capacity of enterprises, but also on the number of workers per enterprise, on the structure of expenditures of industrial institutions. And despite the fact that the analysis of the indicators of the energy capacity of the industry of the Russian Empire at the sectoral and provincial level was carried out in our study with an emphasis on water types of engines, it allowed us to generally identify the specifics of the characteristics (quantitative and qualitative) of energy capacity in various groups of provinces, and not always geographically located close to each other and having common borders. It seems that the continued study of this problem on the basis of data on all types of engines will allow to identify regional models of industrialization (in terms of power supply of enterprises) on the territory of the Russian Empire in the late XIX – early XX centuries and to characterize their specifics.