Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 80, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1910 — RUSSIA’S CREDIT. [ARTICLE]

RUSSIA’S CREDIT.

Not Once Has That Natloa Failed to Sleet Obligation*. In no period of Russia’s history has her credit suffered prolonged impairment, and not once has she failed to meet her obligations to the full satisfaction of her creditors. As a consequence of so honorable a record, and by reason of the untold resources of the empire In forests, minerals and agricultural produce, Russian securities command a ready market to-day at good prices in France, Holland, Belgium, Germany and England. Even the diplomatic defeat which the Imperial government suffered in the recent Balkan settlement had no adverse effect upon the market estimate of the empire’s credit. Such confidence would unquestionably be misplaced but for one fundamental consideration, namely, that, despite the lingering economic backwardness of the Russian state and people, the resources of the nation as a whole—not alone in the gross output of agriculture, Industry and trade, but In the taxpaying abilities of the people—are steadily Increasing.

A thing that, most of us do not realize is that the population of Russia is actually growing s at a rate (1% per cent a year) not equaled in any important country on the globe.' Another thing is that not even in France does so large a population belong to the landowning class, providing a necessary condition for the agricultural prosperity of the coming generations. Since 1877 the amount of-ara-ble land held by the nobility has diminished by a third; yet the price of land has risen in every part of the empire. In 1888 the total of savings banks deposits was 60,000,000 rubles; at the beginning of 1908 it was 1,000,000,000. In fifteen years the consumption of tea, tobacco, brandy, petroleum and cottons has increased by froan 20 to 30 per cent and the per capita consumption of sugar has been exactly doubled. These are a few casual considerations. which tend to relieve the blackness of the picture presented by Russia’s financial condition to-day,, because they indicate that, slowly, painfully, the great Russian people is coming to its own. With increased ability to pay taxes, and with ultimate control over the public purse these same Russian people may yet be aible to solve the vexing problem of the balance sheet with which the bureaucrats have so vainly wrestled.—F. A. Ogg, in Review of Reviews. ,