the Russian official account of the gold reserve fund said
to exist in the SL Petersburg Treasury to the amount , of 980,000,000 roubles. These doubts so disturb the loan market that M. Kokovtsoff, Minister of Finance, has tele- graphed to the editor an invitation to visit St. Petersburg, accompanied by specialists, and there examine the gold reserve for himself. The Times, of course, declines the offer, as outside the duties of a newspaper; and it is evident that a report on the reserve could be of no value. The gold may be there, as it no doubt is, and yet value- less for the purpons of the war, because pledged to the holders of Russian bonds. A man is not the richer for a box full of gold if he is bound to pay it away next week. We do not ourselves believe in the proximate in- solvency of Russia, because her people will take inconvertible paper for a time, as our own people and the Italian people did ; but if bondholders can only be paid their interest out of fresh loans, and the loans stop, a suspension of payments cannot be indefinitely remote. Great nations can hardly be ruined by temporary extravagance, but their creditors may be by long delays in cash payments. The Russian Treasury is already asking for loans from the municipal bodies of the Empire, and may by and by want to secure a loan on the vast property of the Church. Thee, if the war continues, we shall see a sudden and startling change in clerical opinion as to its expediency.
