Roubles rose."
"A Dutch correspondent, who has just beat his way out of
Russia, reports that nothing will induce him to go back.
Roubles fell."
"Mr. Arthur Balfour, speaking in the House of Commons
last night, paid a glowing tribute to the memory of Peter
the Great. Roubles rose."
"The local Bolsheviki of New York City at the Pan-Russian
Congress held in Murphy's Rooms, Fourth Avenue, voted
unanimously in favor of a Free Russia. Roubles never
budged."
With these examples in view, anybody, I think, could
grasp the central principles of Russian finance. All that
one needed to know was what M. Touchusoff and such people
were going to say, and who would be thrown into the Neva,
and the rise and fall of the rouble could be foreseen to
a kopeck. In speculation by shrewd people with proper
judgment as to when to buy and when to sell the rouble,
large fortunes could be made, or even lost, in a day.
But after all the Russian finance was simple. That of
our German enemies was much more complicated and yet
infinitely more successful. That at least I gathered from
the little news items in regard to German finance that
used to reach us in cables that were headed Via Timbuctoo
and ran thus:--
"The fourth Imperial War Loan of four billion marks, to
be known as the Kaiser's War Loan, was oversubscribed
to-day in five minutes.
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