"You will bear in mind how entirely unsuited to the modern conditions of an agricultural community, such as we are, a gold currency must be. Russia has large amounts of debt contracted abroad. She is what you call a great debtor nation.' Our railways have been built with loans made in Paris and elsewhere. We pay the interest on these loans by our export of wheat; did we throw ourselves upon a gold standard, we would impair very seriously indeed our ability to export our agricultural products, and were our exports to be thus checked it would be a serious matter for us; indeed it would break down our scheme of currency reform after much distress and drive us back toa paper money regime.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.