106
HONGKONG DEFENCES.
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
需求
B's "
RUSSIAN FINANCES.
"
13
she
[February 20, 1905
"So
The French, it is said, are thoroughly satiated with the bonds, and view with something like consternation- the new attempts to issue paper, for every new issue depreciates the old. The banker previously referred to, asked for his opinion of the real
the Russian bonds, said value of long as our Russian peasant is able to starve and to sell his grain, as long as there are gendarmes to aid the tax collector, and people who are willing to make further loans to us, so long is the payment of dividends assured." That was just twelve The Russian peasant seems months ago.
The starving less willing to starve now. may be reserved for the buyer and holder of Russian bonds,
A GERMAN REVIEW OF TADE.
Commerce
(Daily Press, 11th February.)
(Daily Press, 13th February.) There is an observable difference in the With reference to the new Russian loan various accounts of the recent mobilization that, according to the Times extract we mauœuvres of the Hongkong garrison, and published yesterday, was being puffed so a still more patent paucity of desirable assiduously in Germany, much more might details, to account for which it should have been said than that journal permitted scarcely be necessary, in the case of the itself to say. It mentioned the alleged thoughtful newspaper reader. This mobiliza-
cooking" of recent Russian Budgets, and tion, and these manœuvres, were presumably the Russian habit of maintaining credit by carried out as nearly as possible on a basis making new creditors satisfy old ones, with of actual warfare, with a view to testing out elaborating those points. In that the defensive quality of our local Gibraltar. amusing stage trifle "Charley's Aunt," Without more thay a mere mention
some readers will doubtless remember how of the fact that the naval and military the tout was tipped by the undergraduate. authorities of Hongkong have got into a His-patron, " A," borrowed half a crown from habit of exaggerated reticence whenever a "B." "B" obliged him by borrowing it newspaper reporter approaches, however from “C," who in turn had bad to gratify insignificant and uncompromising the de-
request by borrowing the coin from sired information might be, we may at once the tout. A gravely tipped the man
(Daily Press 14th February) admit that the result of such a test, if of a with his own ha f-crown. Russia's solvency The Hamburg Chamber of Commerce in its certain character, were better left unpub- seems to be on a par with that of the three annual Report issued last month is pleased lished. It is obvious that the information college young men, and the enormous gold to be able to state that the improvement in that would most interest the residents would
reserve 0 one hundred and seventy six trade to which it drew attention last year As it be more interesting still to others.
nillion roubles alleged to exist three months has made further progress. happens, however, what has been reported ago is a fleabite to the mass of "kites more particularly has shown renewed activity already may very easily alarm the timid
is flying. The "material, financial, and and enterprize. A prominent feature in the colonist, aud amuse the unsympathetic out- commercial improvement" of which Russia development of German industries has been sider. Before erroneous inferences are male boasts, "in spite of a sequence of bad the tendency to combine. Thus a fusion of upon insufficient or misrepresented data, it harvests and in spite of a period of economic the principal dye-stuff works has taken will be well to remember that however depression," is akin to the physical improve-place, whilst the coal syndicate has been closely the manoeuvrers sought to approxi- ment that some of SANDOW's pupils exhibit, renewed on a broader basis for a further mate war conditions, they quite failed to
who slow enhanced biceps and conceal a period of twelve years. The Chamber sees secure such conditions as could alone make damaged aorta. This ruinous war may no reason to change its opinion that com- such a test afford evidence of any value. prick the bubble of Russian crédit, expose binations have under present circumstances The swiftest means of communication her internal bankruptcy, and lead to a come to be of vital importance to many between the sentinels or outposts and repudiation of debts that will give a painful trades. At the same time it is bound to the massed troops waiting to be sum- shock to her dear ally among others. Å admit that there is a reverse to the medal, moned were lacking. The withdrawal Russian financier is reported to have said and that, to quote an example, the granting of a thousand troops to represent the to a German journalist recently: "We of considerable concessions in price to enemy considerably diminished the strength still maintain ourselves upright by stimu- foreign buyers of raw materials or half of those whose duty it was to look out for lants, by loans, which, like all stimulants, finished goods by some of the syndicates the invader. It must not be forgotten, only help to ruin the system more quickly." may in many cases seriously handicap home either, that the feet representing the enemy In spite of an annual increase in population makers in competing in markets abroad. would, or others for them, be waiting to of something like two million head, Russia's Moreover the power gradually acquired by received him, accompanied by swift craft immense natural resources remain uu- some of the combines has become so great that would patrol the neighbouring waters developed. Agriculture cannot be made to as to verge on a monopoly. The State has and give the land forces timelier warning pay the small farmer who is too heavily therefore considered it its duty to interfere; than they had on this occasion. Considering burdened and oppressed, and the number of the Hibernia case, of which our Hamburg how nearly the British Government has ap-
workmen employel by the commercial correspondent has given the history in proached the brink of war in recent times, undertakings of which we have heard
instance of this. his letters, being an the condition of our garrison is by no means
much is absurdly swall in proportion. It is much to be regretted that the new.. all that we could wish for. How far the Shortly after the Port Arthur fleet was tariff, by raising the duties on most articles, Governor Sir MATTHEW NATHAN, has
destroyed, a Russian bank director realised this may perhaps be gauged by his said! to a well known correspondent energetic endeavour to popularise the Voluu-
of Vienna that Russia's financial credit teer movement. It is not at all impro- was basel on fictitious claims. We have bable that behind his promotion of a Volun-paid to secure fu ure credit. This policy of teer Reserve, and his encouragement of the honest debtor is wiser than the occasional ordinary corps, there was more than the discontinuance of payment." It is not as personal predilection for a useful organisa- if R ssia met these loans with a view to tion. There is no secret, so far as we know, con-olidating them, or securing renewals at about the fact that the Hougkong garrison the minimum interest of the period. This has never been maintained at anything like banker said:"Do not forget that no course suffered through the war, but others its nominal strength; and lately there has Government pays to the world such com- have been benefited. The necessity how. been the talk of withdrawing another native
ever of a clearer definition of the meaning of detachment. If the argument be that there
contrabaud of war and other points of is no reasonable probability of their services
international law, after peace shall have being required for a long time to come, why
been concluded, has become imperative. not economise by still further reducing the
The rising of the natives in south-west available force? But no such argument
Africa bas, commercially speaking, been of will be seriously advanced. No one can tell
little importance, its effects having been what the morrow may bring forth, particu-
confined to Germany. larly in this Far East, where, as Professor SKRINE remarked, there are all the elements of an Armageddon.
There is need, says the Paris Figaro, for a school of sang froid. The professors ought to teach the students ow to brace themselves for
any ordeal. The writer, comments the Peking Times, has evidently never been in the For East, otherwise he would have realized that
no other school is needed to cultivate an op- parently inherent (rait in all men. The com- posure with which the $15 stripling will walk into the stores month after mon h and spend $200 would have silenced him.
missions for loaps as we do.
14
80
Prussia pays
will tend to increase the difficulties of foreign competition at home, and thereby render less effective one of the few checks that exist on the greed of monopolists.
Satisfaction is expressed that neither the war in the Far East, nor the rising of the natives in Southwest Africa, nor other. untoward events of lesser magnitude have materially affected the course of improve-
ment. Certain branches of trade have of
half per cent., Austria one and a half. We pay three per cent., and, between ourselves, it doesn't end with that, but the issuing banks also get their six per ceut. Just calculate what a commission of three to six per cent. means on a loan of five hundred to a thousa million roubles, which we shall surely need in this war. Let us say only three per ceut., officially. That means thirty millions." Assuming the large cash reserve to exist, it should not be long in disappearing at the present rate of war expen·liture. The new loau seems to denote au expectation that the struggle may continue for another year or more, and each month of it is supposed to be costing Russia a hundred million roubles. The price of the outstanding bonds has had to be maintained in Germany by bare faced bistering, at which German holders cannot cavil and consider their own interests.decidedly more active.
A simultaneous revival of trade in Great Britain (which is gradually recovering financially and commercially from the effects of the Boer war) and in France, has greatly contributed to the improvement in Germany. The United States, too, have tallied in a remarkably short time from the depression prevailing there at the close of last year; whilst the demand for goods from most of the republics of Ceutral and South America, upon which the export trade of Hamburg depeads to sa great an extent, is
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