636 



RUSSIA. 



excise duties on spirits and sugar were raised, and 

 .some necessaries were taxed for the first time. The 

 direct taxation could yield no more, and even 

 indirect taxes seemed to have passed the limit of 

 elasticity when M. Vishnegradsky became Min- 

 ister of Finance in 1887. He refrained from taxing 

 severely the rich capitalists and large manufac- 

 turers and the landowners, and conceived the plan 

 of making the state itself a capitalist institution. 

 The annual increase of revenue from 1877 to 1887 

 was 25,000,000 rubles. During his five years of 

 ollice, M. Vishnegradsky began the nationalization 

 of railroads and developed the royalties and state 

 properties, with the result that, while the indirect 

 taxation yielded an average yearly increase of 

 12,500,000 rubles, the royalties and state properties 

 jjavc one of 18,000,000 rubles. The net increase in 

 the live years averaged 27,000,000 rubles annually. 

 .M. de Witte, who entered upon office in 1892, 

 gave a further powerful impetus to the develop- 

 ment of royalties and state property, and in that 

 way completed the change in the character of the 

 Russian financial policy. In the six years from 

 1892 to 1898 the average annual increase of rev- 

 enue was over 100,000,000 rubles. The revenue 

 from state railroads, which amounted in 1887 to 

 scarcely 1,500,000 rubles, rose to 18,000,000 rubles 

 in 1887, to 277,000,000 in 1897, and to 348,000,000 

 in 1898. The general income from royalties and 

 state property rose from 51,000,000 rubles in 1877 

 to 103,000,000 rubles in 1887, and to 592,000,000 

 rubles in 1898. The tendency to make the treas- 

 ury self-supporting and independent of taxation 

 is growing constantly stronger. The first steps 

 have been taken toward the creation of a petro- 

 leum monopoly. The state monopoly of the sale 

 of spirits in certain provinces gave the treasury 

 in 1898 an income of 102,000,000 rubles. The Rus- 

 sian peasantry, forming nearly nine tenths of the 

 population, are directly affected only by the land 

 tax and the payments for redemption of land, giv- 

 ing less than 10 per cent, of the revenues of 1898. 

 These taxes are about 10 rubles a year for each 

 family possessing 12^ acres, and yet the arrears 

 of payments for redemption of land have gone on 

 increasing in spite of coercive measures adopted 

 to enforce payments. In the five years from 1871 

 to 1875 inclusive the arrears averaged 30,000,000 

 rubles annually, and in the period from 1891 to 

 1895 they had grown to 98,000,000 rubles, in 1897 

 to 105,000,000 rubles, and in 1898 to 116,000,000 

 rubles. In 1899 M. de Witte, besides lessening the 

 duty on metals, endeavored to make direct pay- 

 ments by the peasants lighter. The exigencies of 

 the Chinese situation and other untoward circum- 

 stances compelled the Government to return to the 

 former taxation, even to increase it in some in- 

 stances, and to reduce expenditures on education 

 and public works. In 1899 the excess of ordinary 

 revenue over ordinary expenditure reached the 

 figure of 209,740,545 rubles, sufficient to balance 

 the extraordinary expenditure and leave a net 

 surplus of about 84,000,000 rubles, notwithstand- 

 ing a bad state of trade and a general financial 

 depression. 



The amount of the state debt on Jan. 1, 1899, 

 was 6,108,792,117 rubles. On Jan. 1, 1900, it was 

 fl.150,134,874 rubles, consisting of 413,785.133 ru- 

 bies of gold debt paying 3 per cent., 148,382.812 

 rubles of gold and 6,250,000 rubles of paper debt 

 paying 3J per cent, 85,247,400 rubles payable in 

 t-urrency and bearing 3.7!> per cent, interest, 684, 

 2:'. 1.149 rubles of consolidated gold 4-per-cent. debt 

 and 2,438.753,830 rubles payable in currency, 247,- 

 170,000 rubles of 4J-per-cent. currency debt, "3,- 

 2.V..SOO rubles payable in gold and' is;. 137.538 

 rubles in paper paying 5 per cent., 139,001.195 



rubles of other currency debts, 101,754,939 rubles 

 of 3-per-cent. gold bonds, 1,616,821,278 rubles of 

 4-per-cent. bonds payable in gold and 1,269,300 

 rubles payable in paper, and 6,871,500 rubles of 

 5-per-cent. gold bonds. During the ten years end- 

 ing in 1897 the state' debt payable in gold increased 

 702,921,505 rubles, while that payable in paper 

 decreased 65,500,832 rubles, and the interest paid 

 in gold increased 23,230,273 rubles, while the in- 

 terest of the paper debt decreased 15,505,113 ru- 

 bles; gold annuities also increased 350,558 rubles 

 and currency annuities decreased 16,364,404 rubles, 

 the whole movement showing a growth of 1,078,- 

 881,425 rubles of debt reckoned in paper, with an 

 increase of 19,340,296 rubles in the annual interest 

 charge, but a decline of 15,838,627 rubles in the 

 annuities payable each year. Between 1889 and 

 1897 debts bearing from 4 to 6 per cent, interest 

 were converted into the 4-per-cent. debt, 944,7!)0,858 

 rubles payable in gold and 1,654,220,600 rubles 

 payable in paper, the total sum amounting in 

 paper to 3,071,406,887 rubles, reckoning gold at the 

 legal rate of 150. The cost of conversion was 

 106,301,507 rubles in gold and 129,307,625 rubles 

 in paper, besides 265,301,277 rubles in gold and 

 31,278,167 rubles in paper, to cover paper cur- 

 rency, the total amounting to 717,989,968 ru- 

 bles. New loans concluded are a gold debt of 

 the nominal amount of 910,448,375 rubles and a 

 silver debt of 1,674,000,000 rubles, together equal 

 to 3,039,672,562 rubles, for the conversion opera- 

 tion, and there were 391,233,647 rubles in gold and 

 164,004,800 rubles in paper, together equal to 750,- 

 855,270 rubles in silver or paper, for the same pur- 

 pose. The balance in the treasury on Jan. 1, 1899, 

 was 545,640,652 rubles, from which must be de- 

 ducted disbursements already provided for, leav- 

 ing in ready cash 134,885,670 rubles. 



The debts due to the state on Jan. 1, 1898, were 

 290,108 rubles in paper of military contributions 

 from Khiva, 175,626,072 in gold o"f military con- 

 tributions from Turkey, 86,568,697 in gold an 

 123,832,570 rubles in paper from railroads, 1,531,- 

 392,928 rubles from peasants for redemption of 

 land, 91,518,196 rubles in paper from local treas- 

 uries, 83,105,961 rubles in gold from the land bank 

 for the nobility, and 6,086,346 rubles in gold and 

 129,490,458 rubles in paper from various debtors; 

 total value in paper, 2,403,644,873 rubles. The 

 famine, pension, military, philanthropic, special 

 agricultural, scientific prize funds and others in 

 the treasury amounted to 314,994,844 rubles. The 

 interest and capital payments for state and rail 

 road debts in 1900 amounted to 274,726,164 rubles, 

 of which 60,052,754 rubles were on external loans, 

 6,554.839 rubles on external bonds, 30,925,306 rubles 

 on internal loans, 102,355,601 rubles on internal 

 bonds, 20,608,1 75 rubles on obligations of state rail 

 roads, 51,686,609 rubles on obligations of private 

 railroads to be repaid by them, 2,430,000 rubles for 

 payments of interest not yet called for, and 112, 1 

 880 rubles for banking expenses, all calculated in 

 paper rubles at the rate of 11 for 1 gold ruble. 



The reform of the Russian currency bejMii in 

 1895, when the Minister of Finance announced 

 that the treasury and the railroads would pay out 

 gold at a certain ratio to be determined from time 

 to time between the paper currency and gold coin- 

 It was first fixed at the rate of 1 ruble 48 co| 

 for the gold rujble, and before the end of the year 

 at 1 ruble 50 copecks in paper or silver or 15 paper 

 rubles for the new imperial, which contains t\vo 

 thirds as much gold as the old imperial of 15 

 rubles. The ratio was confirmed in the following 

 year, and the continual and enormous fluctuation 

 in the exchange value of the paper ruble wen- 

 arrested. In 1897, instead of marking the new 





