Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-02
..JSSIAII FINANCES
Need of a Foreign Loan Being
Seriously CanvasSed.
DEPENDENCE ON FRANCE
Explanation of the Black Hundreds
and Their Method.
COMMUNIST FACTORY IDEA
Imperial Government Now Straining
Every Nerve to Draw the Peasants
From the Terrorists.
gpecial Cablecram to The Star.

Special Cablegram to The Star.
ST. PETERSBURG, December IA new
scheme for a foreign loan Is being pro-
posed. BY this particular scheme new Sc
ries of Russian railway and other conceS-
sions will constitute the bait for catching
western capitalists. 1t is claimed that for
the past fifteen years the government has
been prosperous. while the country Is being
industrially impoverished. This paternal-
istic method OF dealing with the people
will 1t Is believed, sooner or later be aban-
doned. and valuable concessions to private
capitalists will be granted. which will have
the effect of putting the nation more on a
par with the other nations of the world.
One of the projects proposed is a series of
railways, extending from north to south.
In various sections of the empire. Hereto
fore most of the trunk lines have been east
and west lines. but 1t is thought that some
valuable concessions running north and
south will be snapped up by English and
American concessionists.
There Is not much doubt in spite of the
energetic protests of a section of the Rus
sian press, that NJ. Izvolsky, the Russian
minister of foreign affairs, tried on the oc-
casion of his recent visit to Paris to obtain
the recall of NJ. Bonpard, the French am
baSSador to the Russian court NJ. Bonn
Russian affairs from the same angle as the
czars government, AMI his reports, in con-
sequence do not paint the reports in the
color that NJ. Stoypin would like. France Is
said to be the chief hope of Russia for the
much-taked-of loans, for America, after
all! is regarded as too far away and Ger
many and England have never been too
friendly. and, besides they have large-sfzed
enterprises of their own which must be
looked after. But it is also said that the
people here do not want the credit of the
country damaged any more, since things
have reached point where they are just
about rs bad as they can be. If. therefore,
the French ambassador can be induced to
take an optimistic view OF the situation, 1t
Is argued, the chances of gaining the ear
of the French people will be greatly in
creased.
Recollection of Strauss.
1t is too early to say just what the final
resultant of all of the intrigues now going
on will be by NJ. Bompard's position. which
is stronger than most people here in st.
Petersburg think. He is a diplomatist by
profession and not a rich man who has
been given the post without any prelimi-
nary training. He has worked his way up
from the position of unpaid attache to the
ambassador and has put in several years
of the hardest kind of hard work in the
French foreign office itself. He, there
fore has the influence of the French dip
lomatc service, clannish in the extreme,
behind him, and this has certainly no in
tention of allowing the tenure of foreign
posts to depend upon the good will of the
government to which the dplomatist may
be accredited. OF coTuse in the first in
stance the foreign government is always
consulted, no minister or ambassador being
appointed until the sovereign or ruler to
which he is accredited has declared that
he is persona grata. 1t is of course very
rare that the nominee is ever rejected, but
there have been instances of that nature.
One of the most famous cases of this kind
on the records was the refusal of the
Austrian Emperor to accept Mr.. Strauss
the United States ambassador o the VII
emma court. Mr. Strauss was a born Aus
trian who had naturalized in America. and
who in addition was a Jew. The Ameri-
can President finally Withdrew the nominal
ton and Mr.. Strauss was sent to Con-
stantinople instead.
An association busy In Odessa, according
to reports from that place, is the Soiouz
Rousskavo Gharoda, better known as the
Society of the Russian People. better
known still as The Black Hundreds Ac-
Cording to the latest reports though things
are quieting down in some parts of Russia.
Odessa in many ways continues q hotbed
of agitation and anarchy. The initial idea
of the BLACK Hundreds was to repel and
punish the ruftians who trafIicked in ter
rorism and in the guise of revolutionaries
pillaged for personal gain. But II was not
long before ii was seen that the Black
Hundreds We're hooligans, also-if possible
worse than the other NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
their daily pay for their ruffianism. AS
general thing they have their meeting
places in second-class restaurants They
always walk like loutish DULLES, and what