The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-10-29
IN RUSSIA LABOR HAS SUFFERED
MOST SEVERELY FROM CHEAP
MONEY.
NO ADVANCE IN WAGE SCALE.
PRICES HAVE ADJUSTED THEM
SELVES TO VALUES
OF FIAT PAPER.
REDEMPTION NOW CONTEMPLATED
silver to be Given "A Wide Employ
ment, hut Coined Only on Gov
account

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2S.-In answer
to the state departments circular call
ing for information as to money and
wages in foreign countries, United
States Minister Breckenridge, at st.
Petersburg, has submitted a very elab-
crate report on the Russian financial
system n it's workings. He shows
that the standard for many years has
been fluctuating paper, measured ex-
ternally in terms of gold. The per
capita circulation is about S.. In cir
culatiOn the government has 1,055, 000,-
600 rubles, including: Gold, 5000, 900;
silver, rs, 900, 900, and subsidiary coin,
silver and copper, 10000, 900 rubles. The
coinage of silver, on private account.
was stopped in 1893, and an extensive
redemption scheme is about to be put
into operation, to carry out which the
government has accumulated a sum of
gold about equal to $50, 900, 900 gold
rubles. The paper ruble, now valued at
81 cents in gold, will be redeemable
in a special gold coin of the same value.
Silver will be given a large field of en-
ployment, but its coinage will be upon
the account Of the government, and it
fNA NANAA SOA0s
Concerning the practical effect of the
existing currency on manufacturing in
dustries n the rates of labor. the
minister submits data which, he a
will enable the subject to be viewed
from different points of view. Manu-
features have long been stimulated by
a protective tariff, as we'll as by the
ability to pay their workmen approx
mately the old scale of wages, in the
cheaper money Of the present system.
Manufacture, while growing considera-
bly,, has not been as marked as would
be expected from these advantages,
though in lines most c%ongenial to the
people, the growth has been greatest,
and it's profits enormous.
The Workmen, however, did not par
ticipate apprcciably in the benefits be-
slowed upon these industries. Not a
word is heard favorable to the condi-
ton OF agriculture and the universal
testimony is of extreme depression and
the wages of the agricultural laborers
have had, in the main, a downward
tendency. AS to factory wages, the
minister, after submitting official ia
bles, remarks hat wages in Russia
have undergone little or no change for
thirty years and that there is no record
VI ACAl OCll6 dllSClCd ny Tie great
changes in the purchasing power of
the paper rouble-the medium Of pay
ment.
1t may be assumed that had Russian
labor been organized as in the United
States, it at least would have strug-
gled to change the scale to correspond
to the change in the value of money
but there has been no such struggle
and no change. Wages in England
and America are respectively 124 and
379 per cent higher than in Russia
and the latter salaries are still further
reduced by fines imposed upon work
men.
In conclusion Mr.. Breckenridge says:
Russia. as a nation, during a long
period Of peace, has grown steadily in
population and wealth. How much
faster she might have grown and how
much more equally the products of
labor might have been distributed had
she enjoyed during all his period a
good currency, conforming to a stable
standard of value, and had the chan
nels of both domestic and foreign trade
been less DETECTED from their natural
laws and sources, is a matter of specu-
lation into which 1 do not enter. Nor
do l attempt to say to what extent
the failure here of deprecated cur
rency to transmit it's expansion to the
vast interests enumerated, would pre-
vail in our country"