IMPENDING CRISIS IN RUSSIA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2262, 8 January 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

IMPENDING CRISIS IN RUSSIA.

It is a bad omen for the Russian Exchequer that the volume of foreign trade, which in ussia depends directly upon the state of agriculture, is decreasing fron: year to year. The values of exports ami imports amounted in 1833 to £114,600,000; in-1884. to £104.600,000; in 1885, t<. £59.000,000. The value of cereals. In 188." the average annual price of Russian wheat at St. Petersburg and Odessa was. 4s 6.W per bushel ; in 1884, 3s B.V' ; in 1885, 3s 7d. It is well known thai business men, as well as agriculturists, in Russia regard it as the duty of the Government to assist them in case of trouble. When in 1885 the Russian Government was informed by the exchanges of Warsaw and Kiel that there was a crisis in the sugar industry owing to over-production, the Government granted a premium of £d per pound on all sugar exported abroad, relieving it at the same time of internal duty. The result has been that, within a year the Russian Exchequer finds itself short of over £l,00i),000. £600,000 having been paid in premiums, while £40,000 represents the loss of duty on sugar. Yet over-production goes on merrily, having risen from 700.000,0001b in 1882 3 to au estimated production 1,096,000,0001b. in 1885-6. The surplus for export in tincDiiiiiiir season will probably reach 300,000,000. What to do with it is an engima, for London, the principal market for Russian sugar, being over-supplied last year will buy little thie year. The Russian Government, seeing the uselessness of its assistance, has stopped the premium on exportiug sugar since July ], and nothing will prevent a crisis in the Russian sugar trade. Next to the sugar manufacturers, the producers of iron appealed to the Government for help. The irou manufacturers asked the latter to advauce them money on their stocks at '2 per cent. With the uselessness of a premium on sugar before his eyes, the Russian Government will think twice before acceding to the request of iron men ; but it has lately increased the import duty on iron 25 par cent. Yet English merchants, after pay freight and import duties, are able to sell their pig-iron in Russia cheaper than the Russian merchants. The cotton industry in Russia cries for Government assistance. Tho annual value of cotton fabrics manufactured in the country is about £30,000,000. It is a matter of fact that the administration of the railway entails an anuual loss on the Government of £5,000,000 ; that its mining department is in a deplorable condition, and its bunking operations are a decided failure. It is a matter of reeoid well-known in London that the Russian rouble has fallen I. 1 ,- per cent, since January, and this in time ot peace. The Russian Government pays about £3,600,000 per annum ou account of the deeliue of the paper rouble, and the above fall in its value has cost it 565.750 roubles (£5.j,313) in six months. Y> a t, in spite of this loss, the Government is very slow in redeeming its paper rouble, notwithstanding that in 1881 it decided to redeem paper .roubles as fast as they came to the Treasury, up to tho present tiiiie(ii) five years) it has redeemed only 87.000.000 roubles, while it keeps locked in the Bauk of the Empire 130,000,000 more. The above rate of redemption, however, amounts practically to nothing when we see that Russia annually borrows over 200,000,000 rouhles, and that at 5, 6, and 7 per cent. The writor in "Bradatrcct" arrives at the wuchisiou

that the facts lie citos point to an economic crisis in Russia which nothing can prevent from being of an overwhelming nature, not even the Russian Government. Even Russian journals admit that it will plunge the country into poverty for a long time to come. —London Times.