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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