Manufacturing Council

(from 1872, Council of Trade and Manufacturing), a consultative body under the Department of Manufacturing and Domestic Trade of the Ministry of Finance in Russia.

Established on the initiative of bourgeois circles, the Manufac-turing Council was set up by the government in 1828. It included factory owners from the dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry) and merchant class, with at least six persons from each social class, two professors (chemistry and engineering), and one technologist appointed by the Ministry of Finance. It was located in St. Petersburg and had divisions in Moscow, province committees in the capitals of the industrial provinces, and manufacturing correspondents in district capitals. It exercised control over the development of industry, communicated information on new inventions in Russia and abroad through the Zhurnal manufaktur i torgovli (Journal of Manufacturing and Trade), considered proposals for the organizing of industrial corporations and manufacturing expositions, discussed the dispensation of privileges, and resolved conflicts between factory owners and workers. In 1872 it was merged with the Commerce Council and turned into the Council of Trade and Manufacturing.

The main task of the Council of Trade and Manufacturing was promoting the development of industry and trade. Problems of siting factories and plants, assigning enterprises to one or another production group (category), and settling issues of sanitary inspection, patents, and the like fell within the competence of the council. By the law of June 5, 1900, the assistant (deputy) minister of finance was appointed chairman of the Council of Trade and Manufacturing. Committees of trade and manufacturing, which performed the same functions at the local level, were formed in a number of cities, including Arkhangelsk (1873), Odessa (1875), Rostov-on-Don (1875), Tver’ (1875), Ivanovo-Voznesensk (1879), and Belostok (1893).