The decline must be largely due to the decreased demand for military and railway supplies, for it is seen that the falling-off has been most conspicuous in iron and steel wares and machinery.[65] At the same time there was little or no import trade from the Russian possessions in the East into Russia, for the native products sent out from the former never passed beyond Eastern Siberia. It would be interesting if we could find out how much of these Russian exports went to Manchuria. The figures for the Pacific ports are given as follows:[66]— 1900 51,157,000 rubles 1901 49,827,000 1902 37,704,000 If these figures are reliable, the difference between them and those given above, namely:— 1900 less than 5,000,000 rubles 1901 more than 1,000,000 1902 less than 300,000 might be considered an approximate amount of the export trade from Russia to Manchuria (and Mongolia, which imports very little from Russia), for, of the Pacific ports, no other port but Vladivostok reëxports Russian goods into Manchuria, which reëxportation seems to be slight enough to be ignored. The approximate correctness of the figures is further seen from the fact that of the total 8,193,000 rubles of the Manchurian trade at Blagovestchensk, Habarofsk, and the South Ussuri region—the three main points of transit trade with Manchuria—only one half showed exports to Manchuria, and again, of this one half, only a portion consisted of reëxported Russian goods. The South Ussuri district, for instance, sent only 130,800 and 206,000 rubles’ worth of Russian and foreign goods to Manchuria, out of the total export trade of 799,500 and 2,221,300 rubles, respectively, in 1898 and 1899.[67] On the other hand, before the opening of the Manchurian Railway (which took place in February, 1903), the _direct_ trade between Russia and the interior of Manchuria must have been so slight as not to materially affect the sum-total of the Russian-Manchurian trade. This remarkably unfavorable trade between Manchuria and Russia was probably due to a decreased demand for military supplies since 1900 (for Russia has little to export from Manchuria, and Chinese teas have largely gone through Kiakhta or by the Amur, rather than by the Manchurian Railway), and also to the difficulty of further reducing the freight rates on the railway,[68] and of competing successfully with the American and Japanese traders in certain articles for importation.[69] In spite of all the effort made by the late Finance Minister, M. Witte, Russia is not yet primarily a manufacturing country, her exportation of manufactured goods forming in fact only 2.5 per cent. of her entire export trade, and at best remaining stationary during the three years 1900–2, as will be seen below:—