The use of veterinary police measures in the Russo-German Customs War (1892-1914): deliberate restriction of exports or forced necessity?

The article is devoted to the use of veterinary and police measures during the Russo-German customs war (1892–1914). The trade agreement of 1894 significantly limited ability to arbitrarily increase customs duties, and therefore it became possible to influence export volumes only through the introduction of non-tariff restrictions. Such restrictions included veterinary measures. The German Empire, which was an epidemiologically more prosperous country than Russia, repeatedly resorted to their use, citing the risk of epizootics. At the same time, veterinary restrictions met the interests of the Junkers and could be used to extract economic benefits and limit competition from Russian agricultural products. The Tsarist government introduced veterinary and police measures only as a symmetrical response to unfriendly actions. The methodology this study is based on historicism. The historical and genetic method was used to assess the expansion of the practice of applying veterinary restrictions during the customs war. The systematic approach allowed us to comprehensively consider the problem of the application of veterinary measures and identify possible motives for their introduction. The method of source analysis was used to assess the value and significance of archival documents. The application of veterinary and police measures in the context of the customs war is non-studied topics in historiography, primarily due to its interdisciplinary nature. The author attempts to find out what caused the widespread use of veterinary measures by the German authorities: the desire to prevent the spread of epizootics or the desire to limit Russian exports and competition. The article pays considerable attention to the problems of organizing veterinary affairs in the Russian Empire in XIX-XX centuries; the issue of introducing veterinary restrictions on livestock, poultry and grain. In addition, the author presents excerpts from previously unpublished archival documents housed in the National Historical Archive of Belarus in Grodno.

customs war, veterinary and police measures, non-tariff restrictions, veterinary supervision, veterinary restrictions, customs duty, epizootics, export and import, tariff war, trade agreement