Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/91

Rh TABLE VIII. London Rates

New York (to ) Paris (to ) Brussels (to ) Berlin (to ) Vienna (to ) Amsterdam (to ) Switzerland (to ) Stockholm (to ) Christiania (to ) Copenhagen (to ) Italy (to ) Madrid (to )

$4.20^

. 53 fr.

55 fr. 200.

755 m.

11,500 kr.

II fl. 42 c.

21 fr. 51 c.

16.85 kr.

26.75 kr.

20.85 kr.

93 1- 5 c.

28 pes. 35 c.

of Exchange (Dec. 22 1921).

Greece (to ) Budapest (to ) Warsaw (to ) Helsingfors (to ) Mexico (d. to $) Buenos Aires (d. to J>) Rio (d. to milreis) Valparaiso ($ to ) Calcutta (d. to rupee) Shanghai (d. to tael) Yokohama (d. to yen)

TABLE IX. New York Rates of Exchange (Jan. 14 1922).

London (to ) $4.23

Paris (to 100 fr.) 8.23

Belgium (to 100 fr.) 7.88

Switzerland (to 100 fr.) 19.45

Italy (to 100 1.) 4.44

Berlin (to 100 m.) 0.56

Austria (to 100 kr.) 0.04

Hungary (to 100 kr.) 0.17 Czechoslovakia (to iookr.)i.66

Yugoslavia (to 100 kr.) 0.35

Poland (to loo m.) 0.04!

Rumania (to 100 leu) 0.82

Finland (to 100 m.) 1.89

Spain (to 100 pes.) $15. Holland (to 100 fl.) 36.87

Greece (to 100 dr.) 4.50

Denmark (to 100 kr.) 20. Norway (to 100 kr.) 15.72 Sweden (to 100 kr.) 24.95

Shanghai (to 100 taels) 75. Calcutta (to 100 rupees) 28. Japan (to 100 yen) 47.75

Argentina (to 100

paper dollars) 33-625

Brazil (to 100 paper

milreis) 12.875

Chile (to 100 paper pesos) 9.55

and had been the recipient of such huge amounts of gold from Europe should, in its banking operations, have only hoarded this gold, without utilizing it as a further basis of interest-pro- ducing credit, up to the point of accumulating a domestic bank- ing reserve of about 75 per cent, at a time when the whole of the rest of the world was in want of capital to set business going again. The American people were slow to see that the appre- ciation of the dollar was a source of weakness, not of strength. On Jan. i 1922, according to the U.S. Treasury Department's annual Report, the stock of gold (which had reached the highest point yet known), the amount of Federal Reserve notes, and the total stock of money, in the United States, showed the fol- lowing figures (in dollars) as compared with the corresponding figures on Jan. i in the preceding years back to 1915:

Jan. I

Gold

$

F.R. Notes

$

Total Money

5p

1922 1921 1920 1919 1918 1917 1916 1915

3,656,988,551 2,784,834,427 2,787,714,306 3,080,510,011

3,040,439,343 2,864,841,650 2,312,444,489 1,815,976,319

2,781,791,260 3,735,719,345 3,295,789,145 2,559,843,920 1,350,764,025 300,106,180 214,125,000 17,199,225

8,282,433,487 8,372,959,004 7,961,320,139 7,780,793,606 6,256,198,271 5,012,045,517 4,401,988,337 3,972,373,686

In spite of this apparent evidence of monetary wealth in the United States, trade had languished there during 1920 and 1921, and complaints of overtaxation were as rife as in England. American public opinion had not yet realized the interdependence of international finance in its bearing on national economic prosperity, nor had any general appreciation of the full meaning of the expositions of financial doctrine given at the Brussels Conference penetrated to the hearts of the business community. It still remained for the world's statesmen to put their heads seriously together in a cooperative effort to restore world-con- sumption, through a revival of world-purchasing-power, to the level of world-productive-power, the first essentials being peace, reductions in State expenditure, and a new progress in private savings for capital investment.

It was not till the Washington Conference, at the end of 1921, that the United States once more came into practical touch, officially, with the European situation; and even then its scope did not include the great international financial problems still awaiting attention. At the opening of 1922, however, the prospect was held out of another general financial conference, as proposed by the Italian Goveanment to be held at Genoa in March; and it seemed likely in various other directions that, during the year, an improvement might be seen in the functioning of world-finance. (H. CH.)

FINLAND (see 10.383). The remarkable development of Finnish nationalism in the closing decades of the igth century was primarily directed against the Swedish language and Finno-Swedish cultural domination. Through the revival of their own singularly rich and beautiful tongue, the Finns of Finland had learnt to think of their country as "Suomi," as utterly distinct from Sweden and Russia, as possessing thought and literature of its own. Though open to European influences, specially in their art, and taking their political ideas from Scandinavia and Germany, the " Fennomans " (Finnish Finns) climbed " unto a language island " and, developing along extremely democratic lines, took no part at all in Russian affairs and showed little interest in those of Scandinavia. There was no sympathy even with the Russian proletariat in its early struggles, while the revolutionaries were cold-shouldered.

Second Period of Russification 1008-14. The successive governors of Russia, however, regarded the " Suomilaiset " (or the people of the fens) as a strange and totally different nationality from themselves, although the Finno-Ugrian race blended with the Slav is to be found all over northern Russia; they could not forget that the " country of the thousand lakes " had been under Swedish rule for 600 years, and cherished a civilization wholly alien to their own. This so obviously democratic, almost self- governing grand duchy of Finland was a thorn in the side of the vast autocratic Russian State conception. Out of this train of thought arose Russia's first attack upon the liberties of Fin- land during the dark years 1899-1906.

This article does not deal with the first attempt at Russification when the Finnish constitution was suspended and the country came under the rule of the military dictator, Gen. Bobrikov. This earlier period of repression was arrested by the Russian Revolution of 1905 which, in the wake of the disasters of the war against Japan, forced a weakened Tsardom to concessions. The manifesto of the Emperor-Grand Duke of Nov. 4 (Oct. 22) 1905 annulled all unconstitutional interferences of the preceding seven years and enabled the dominant Finnish Constitutional party to democratize the Diet on the broadest basis full adult suffrage, regardless of property, class or sex, coupled with proportional representation based on d'Hondt's distributive principle which contains safeguards against the tyranny of the majority. That was gain. But the Russia of post-revolution days was still the landlocked colossus whom Panslav aspirations directed against all that was alien in language, religion, character and administration. What had led to conflict with the Tsar now led to conflict with the imperial Duma the tendency to create one vast homogeneous Russia stretching from the Norwegian coast to the Pacific. In this scheme of power, the first step towards the ultimate possession of the warm-water ports of Scandinavia was, once again, the Russification of Finland.

The initial cause of friction was, as on previous occasions, the question of the payments to Russia in lieu of military service. The Diets had voted an annual indemnity of 10 million Finnish marks in respect of the years 1905-8, though reluctantly, not only on account of the financial burden the people were called upon to shoulder, but by reason of the unconstitutional argumentations upon which the demands were based. More particularly, the first one-chamber Diet which passed the grants in respect of the years 1907 and 1908 expressed the hope that this matter be either thereby considered regulated or else settled forthwith in a constitutional manner. This notwithstanding an imperial ukase, dated Oct. 7 1909, declared the issue to lie solely within the competence of the Crown, and peremptorily fixed an annual contribution which, beginning at 10 million Finnish marks, was to increase automatically by a million a year until, in 1919, it was to attain its maximum total of 20 millions of Finnish marks. The objections of the Diet, which was even now ready to compromise, were answered by its dissolution and the annual amounts due made over to the Russian exchequer. The same occurred with the new Diet in March 1910 in respect of the contributions for the years 1910 and 1911. Finally the Duma, by the imperial law of Jan. 23 (loth) 1912, approved of the principle of the Finnish annual indemnity in lieu of military service.

The interference of the Tsar with the constitutional rights of Finland was provocative and for that reason opened the new era of conflict. From the spring of 1907 to the spring of 1909 had supervened the two " crowded years of glorious life," of great internal progress and political development. The old feuds of " Sveckoman" (Swedo-Finn) and " Fennoman " (Finno-Finn) had been taken up with renewed vigour. Aristocracy, middle class and proletariat were all politically equal; capital and labour, though frequently in conflict, yet fought their battle more scientifically than anywhere else in Europe. But by the end of 1909, the fresh wave of Russification