RUSSIAN RESOURCES.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2573, 6 April 1877, Page 2

RUSSIAN RESOURCES.

The external debt of Russia now amounts to the respectable sum of £260,000,000, whilst her floating debt is nearly £40,000,000. It has not been without great difficulty that she has been able to meet her engagements punctually during the last ten years, and since 1862 the ' annual deficit of the Empire has fluctuated between £1,000,000 and £3,000,000. Had it not' been for fresh .loans eagerly subscribed by unthinking dupes, the credit of 'Russia" must Hare succumbed' long ere this. Strange -*o say,; the; majority of those who have lent their savings to the Muscovites are totally unaware of a most important factor, in the consideration of Russian solvency. It is this-— Thirteen or. fourteen years back, when the present Czar, in falftiaent : qf his august, parent's dying behests, emancipate the 'serfs' throughoutTlh'e" length and breadth of the Empire, he found that in Imperial as in'humble and middleclass life, a whim, a luxury, an atonement, or an act df justice—call it what you will must be paid lor: When we abolished .West. Ind^an^sUjery ,>e ha^. #> pay through the nose for indulging our humanity, a.nd__ifc. cost „£» . * ome.thint^jto humour the Radicals by stoppingTpur•chafe-; ia" the-; ,arpiy. ;■? Alexander soon became painfullyTcoriscious' of the- fact -thmt: than fulfilment of his father's.moribund;Com»nand would cost him, or rather the Stnte, £140,000,000 sterling;' it was tott iatt tt> d»iw back, aud autocrats hare the facility of *ff»cting much by a stroke of thepenr i© serfdom was abolished from €rdnsradti6 rth#Cas. •pian, from' Odessa td' Ji4tfaf'TJra,l Wtfintains. The Emperor, iv the ntra«f bf State which was norm a position to pay cash, guaranteed to the noble) mercantile, and farming ex-slave owners five per cent, oh the aborefiaentfoned enormous sum. This interest Ws hitherto been paid by a pqlUtax .levied. Qn .the, ficwdmen^and liar only been ioUeetediWiii <m fttmost difficulty, especially in the northern provinces, where; *gti<julluts;ji at such ajow ebb; but if war ensues, if all the forces of the Empire are-mobilised, and if all the manhood of the country is driven rmleHsbbtou from, tho pUqg'h.tlul to^be cannon's mouth, from the desk to the camp, and-from the)lb6M/td the battle- ; field, where is this money to come from P On the outbreak-of-war the St. Peters* burg and Moscow Exchequers will not only have to t»y the interQßto*thei*abating and foreign^debts (£3OO,OCO,OO<D, but they will have to defray the extraordinary expenses of a fortoidablelwirX -iTteyriirill also have to pay the five per cent, guarantee to their v own-rsubjects. The resources of the Empire are totallyunequal to. the emergeneril to thiteihe Czar and his advisers find themselves landed in this 'awkward dWema*fi they must; cither repudiate their foreign indebtedness and incur 1 obloqfijpto that which was freely, heaped on .the - Sultan and his (Strand? Vizier 'fifteen months ago r andr rn^ke up their minds to hear a good deal of " Sussian ■trooities" from the Radical and a City Organs of a virtuous British press] or they must suspend payment of the guarantee at home, in which case a revolution is inevitable, and Alexander's reign and life will be of • very- limited duration. The choice is not a pleasant one/; it is almost the dagger and the boy 1, but no one can doubt what'lio* of action will be adopted: the foreign; bondh<^r^;«iir go to the wall, and thole stocksKfnfi»|| have now the audacity to quote .themselves at 80 will be hard bargains at 35.^Whitehall Be view.