As is well known, the Soviet is the only European country
which did not incur any foreign funded debt since the conclusion
of the great war. Its invisible exports, such as revenue from the
tourist traffic, sea-carrying trade, other transportation, banking,
brokerage and insurance services, for the use of which foreign na-
tionals would be called upon to make payments to the nationals or
the ‘Government of the Soviet Union, are altogether insignificant.
The only item among the invisible exports, which temporarily assum-
ed sizable proportions—remittances from the United States to
friends and relatives in the Union and disbursements by various
benevolent organizations, such as the Joint Distribution Committee,
the American Relief Administration, the Jewish Colonization Society,
the Society for Promoting Industrial and Agricultural Labor among
the Jews in Russia, etc., of funds mainly collected in the United
States, has lost some of its former importance, though still represent-
ing relatively large amounts. It follows, therefore, that an excess
of imports over exports, and other net debits on international account
have to be liquidated either by means of short-term unfunded credits,
or else by foreign shipments of gold. Now, while the security
markets in Europe and the United States remained closed to the
Soviet Union, its short-term credit, with the developments of trade
relations with the outside world, showed a slow though steady growth.
At present its amount exceeds probably $100,000,000 and possibly
approximates $150,000,000. :

Shipments of gold during 1920-22 practically exhausted the
monetary gold reserve of the Union. In fact the new State Bank
started operations about the close of 1921 without any gold reserve,
its capital endowment by the government consisting of trillions of
unredeemable and steadily depreciating paper rubles. Its present
gold reserve of over 180,000,000 rubles, shown in the statements of
the Bank’s Issue Department—is largely the result of imports, new
output, and purchases in the domestic market, since the adoption of
the gold standard and the maintenance of a stable currency.

Russia’s gold production for the year 1914 was valued at
67,000,000 rubles, or about $35,500,000. During the great war and
the subsequent period of internecine warfare gold production steadily
declined and in 1921 reached a minimum below $1,000,000. Since
then, owing to governmental efforts involving the employment of
foreign capital and skill, and the installation of modern machinery,
the industry became partially rehabilitated, and, according to recent
information taken from the Annual Report of the U. S. Director of
the Mint, its annual output has reached a total of nearly one million
fine ounces, valued at $20,500,000. Part of this gold—mined largely

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