782 



RUSSIA. 



roads. The Rothschilds, who for generations 

 have held the prescriptive right to act as the 

 chief financial agents of the Russian as well as 

 of other governments which apply for loans in 

 the great money centers of Europe, agreed in 

 May to take the whole loan at 81f and issue it 

 at 84, but stipulated that they should use their 

 discretion as to the time and manner of placing 

 it on the market. The Paris branch of the 

 Rothschilds acted alone in the transaction. The 

 Russian minister would not agree to the terms, 

 because he feared that they might keep the bonds 

 in their possession to use for their own purposes 

 at some future juncture as a means of depressing 

 Russian credit. The English agitation regard- 

 ing the Russian persecution of the Jews was re- 

 newed at this juncture, and at the request of 

 Baron Rothschild, of London, the French firm 

 announced that it would have no financial deal- 

 ings with the Russian Government until it ceased 

 deporting Jews from the interior to the western 

 pale. In France the effervescence of political 

 feeling caused by the renewal of the Triple Al- 

 liance and the Franco-Russian rapprochement, 

 that was afterward signalized by the visit of the 

 French squadron in Cronstadt, created a situa- 

 tion in which the refusal of French bankers to 

 assist Russia seemed an act of subservience to 

 Germany and treason against France. Encour- 

 aged by the newspapers, some of the financiers 

 of Paris proposed to place the loan by open sub- 

 scription in defiance of the money power of the 

 Rotnschilds. After the Cronstadt meeting the 

 French public clamored for the loan, and the 

 Russian Government had immediate need of 

 money to draw on abroad in order to aid traders 

 who were unable to meet their foreign engage- 

 ments owing to the failure of the crops. An ar- 

 rangement was therefore made with the Credit 

 Foncier, the Credit Lyonnais, and other finan- 

 cial institutions in France, and with the Hopes 

 of Amsterdam, the Bank of Copenhagen, and a 

 firm in London to take the loan at 80, and to 

 open the books on Oct. 2 for public subscriptions 

 at 79|-, which yields on 3| per cent, per annum. 

 English' subscriptions were desired merely for 

 the purpose of obtaining quotations on the Lon- 

 don Stock Exchange. When the Berlin houses 

 of Mendelssohn and Robert Warschauer agreed 

 to enter the syndicate the German press raised 

 an outcry, and called on the Government to for- 

 bid them to invite subscriptions to a loan that 

 would probably be used to arm an enemy. The 

 Government declined to interfere officially, but 

 nevertheless no bonds were offered in Berlin. 

 The price was very little better than the German 

 3-per-cents., which were quoted at 84. In France, 

 however, the Russian loan afforded a considerable 

 profit as compared with French rentes, which 

 were selling at 96. The French Government de- 

 clined to allow the provincial agencies of the 

 Credit Foncier to advertise the loan, for that 

 would give it an official character and give rise 

 to much criticism abroad. The application of 

 the loan was announced to be the repayment of 

 advances for recent construction and the making 

 of lines from Moscow to Kazan and from Kov- 

 risk to Voronge and the Petrozavodsk line. Ad- 

 vertised in France as the loan of the Russo- 

 French alliance, it was subscribed for seven 

 times over in that country alone. In Holland, 



Denmark, and England and in Russia the tak- 

 ings were small. Soon after the allotments were 

 made German bankers sent orders to sell Rus- 

 sian securities in Paris, and as they begun and 

 continued to fall and Spanish and Italian stock 

 also dropped, until a panic was feared, it was be- 

 lieved in Paris that the Rothschilds were bear- 

 ing the market. 



The Russiflcation of Finland. When the 

 Finnish Diet was opened on Jan. 28, 1891, the 

 President of the Upper House declared that the 

 people were agitated by the fear of impending 

 trouble and danger, and in the Lower House the 

 Speaker, who represents the peasantry, said that 

 a feeling of gloom and depression pervaded the 

 land, but that the Finnish people nevertheless 

 did not despair of preserving their legal and 

 constitutional rights. These outspoken and 

 significant expressions called forth a rescript 

 from the Czar, in which he said that a false in- 

 terpretation of the principles on which rest the 

 relations of the grand duchy to the supreme 

 authority had caused measures that he had pro- 

 posed for obtaining a closer union of the grand 

 duchy with the other parts of the empire to 

 give rise to an excited state of feeling. The 

 rights, privileges, special ecclesiastical order, and 

 distinct laws of Finland have been maintained 

 and in many particulars further developed since 

 the country became an imperial Russian pos- 

 session. Nevertheless the disagreement of cer- 

 tain statutes of Finland with the general laws of 

 the state had given cause for a perverted con- 

 ception of the significance of measures under- 

 taken for objects common to all parts of the 

 Russian state. Therefore he authorized the 

 Governor-General to assure the people of Finland 

 that he would preserve unimpaired the rights 

 and privileges granted by Russian monarch?, 

 and had no intention of changing the principles 

 of the existing internal administration of the 

 country. The contemplated measures aim at 

 nothing more than fortifying the state relations 

 between Finland and Russia. One of the insti- 

 tutions distinguishing the semi-independent ad- 

 ministration of the grand duchy was the 

 Committee for Finnish Affairs attached to the de- 

 partment of the Secretary of State for Finland 

 in St. Petersburg. To the expressed regret of 

 the Finnish press this consultative body, com- 

 posed of two members delegated by the Finnish 

 Senate and one nominated by the Emperor, was 

 abolished from Oct. 1, 1891. To reassure his 

 Finnish subjects the Czar visited Helsingfors in 

 July, but was disappointed in not receiving an 

 enthusiastic reception. In order to put a check 

 upon the opposition of the Finnish press to the 

 Government reforms, new and stringent regula- 

 tions were issued whereby newspapers can be 

 warned or suppressed without warning by the 

 Governor-General, and stricter guarantees are 

 required before permission to establish new 

 papers or periodicals is granted. In October an 

 imperial ukase was published putting in force 

 various reforms designed to assimilate Finland 

 to Russia. They provide that the Secretary of 

 State for Finland shall submit to the Russian 

 ministers for consideration all Finnish legisla- 

 tive proposals which affect the interests of 

 Russia. Further, in future all imperial decisions 

 and projects of law relating to Finland and all 



