• The annual Report of the Russian Minister of Finance
to his master is not a favourable one. M. de Witte complains that ordinary expenses have increased in ten years by 86 per cent., while the revenue, apart from railway receipts, scarcely increases at all. Much of the growth of expenditure is due, he states, to the improvement of the railways and the open- ing of new ones ; but still he has to face- a deficit of 143,487,000 roubles, or, taking the present rouble at 3s., of more than twenty millions sterling. M. de 'Witte con- gratulates himself on the fact that this deficit, together with that of the present year, is provided for by "the Reserve " ; but the Reserve is made . up from unexpended loans, which are additions to the National Debt. He admits that this Debt is increasing, but then so is the national prosperity,—which is a little like the usual statement of unprosperous bu. ang societies. Look at our assets, they say. The till is empty, but think of the houses we have built. Yes, but who values them P We utterly dis- believe in the pessimist view of Russian finance, holding that in so vast an Empire possibilities of taxation must still exist, but that at present the Russian Treasury is hardly pressed cannot, we think, be denied. That is the explanation of a good many pauses in the onward Russian march.
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