Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1899 American Edition.djvu/1289

 FINANCE

933

The figures of the last column represent those of the fourth column, after

deduction of the outlays which had to be made according to previous estimates.

As to the liabilities to the State, they were as follows on January 1, 1898: —

Military contributions from Khiva ,, ,, Turkey

Railways ....

Redemption of peasants' lands Debts of local treasuries Debt of Nobility Land Bank.

Various. . . . ,

Roubles

290,108 paper. 175,626,072 gold. r 86,568,697 gold. \ 123,832,570 paper. 1,531,392,928 paper. 91,518,196 paper. 83,105,961 gold, r 6,086,346 gold. \ 129,490,458 paper.

Total .... 2,403,644,873 paper.

Besides, there are at the Treasury various sums, partly in cash, and partly in debts (famine fund, pensions' funds, military, philanthropic, special agricultural funds, funds for scientific prizes, and so on), which attained on January 1, 1898, a total of 314,994,844 roubles.

The payments of interest and capital for the State and railway debts in the budget estimates for 1899 appear as lollows, no distinction being now made between payments in gold and in paper money, but all being expressed in roubles = yV of the imperial, i.e., in paper roubles: —

1890

Interest and

cai»ital Roubles

1. Exterior loans

60,045,559

2. ,, bonds .....

6,597,397

3. Interior loans

34,591,956

4. ,, bonds .....

94,984,450

5. Obligations of State railways

20,737,028

6. ,, of private railways (to be re-

paid by them) .....

51,688,807

7. Payments for debentures not drawn liy

their owners in former years

1,481,000

8. Banking expenses

Total

111,889

270,238,086

During the year 1895, the Ministry of Finance, in order to put an end to the continual fluctuations in the value of the paper rouble, ottered facilities for all payments to the Treasury^ and railways being made in gold, at a certain ratio between gold and paper currency to be determined from time to time by the Ministry. By the laws of May and November, 1895, the ratio had been established at Ir. 48c. in paper money for Ir. in gold, the golden ' imperial' coin of lOr. thus being taken for 15r. 24c. in paper money, and the new lOr. gold coin (law of December 29, 1885) at 14r. 80c. in paper money. For the year 1896, the value of the old and the new 'imperial' has been established (in December, 1895) at, respectively, 15r. 45c. for the old, and at 15r. for the new coin — the ratio between gold and paper being thus 15 paper