Karl Marx 
Count Orlov's Mission—Russian Finances during the War 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr.4007, 20. Februar 1854 

From Our Own Correspondent. 

London, Friday, Feb.3, 1854. 

I was able to see the State procession of the Queen to open Parliament, as 
it passed the Horse Guards. The Turkish Embassador was received with loud 
cheers and hurrahs. Prince Albert, whose countenance was deadly pale, was 
furiously hissed by the crowds on both sides of the streets, while the Queen 
was sparing of her usual salutes and morbidly smiled at the unwonted 
manifestations of popular discontent. In a previous letter I have reduced the 
anti-Albert movement to its true dimensions, proving it to be a mere party 
trick. The public demonstration is, nevertheless, of a very grave character, 
as it proves the ostensible loyalty of the British people to be a mere con- 
ventional formality, a ceremonious affectation which cannot withstand the 
slightest shock. Probably it may induce the Crown to dismiss a Ministry, the 
anti-national policy of which threatens to endanger its own security. 

When the recent mission of Count Orloff to the Vienna Cabinet became 
known The Times informed its credulous readers that Orloff was the very 
man the Czar used to employ on pacific errands. Now I need not inform you 
that this same Orloff appeared in the spring of 1833 at Constantinople to 
squeeze out of the Porte the treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi. What he now asks 
from the Cabinet at Vienna is the permission to send a Russian corps from 
Warsaw, by way of Hungary, to the Danubian seat of war. It may be con- 
sidered as the first result of his presence at Vienna, that Austria now insists 
upon the Porte's dismissing its present commanders on the Danube—Selim 
Pasha, Ismail Pasha and Omer Pasha—on the plea that they are renegades 
and revolutionists. Every one acquainted with the pasjt history of Turkey 
knows that from the beginning of the Osman power all her great generals, 
admirals, diplomatists and ministers have always been Christian renegades, 
Serbs, Greeks, Albanians, etc. Why not ask Russia to dismiss the forty or 
fifty men she has bought from all parts of Europe, and who constitute her 

Count Orlov's Mission—Russian Finances during the War 

whole stock of diplomatic ingenuity, political intelligence and military 
ability? In the meantime Austria has concentrated 80,000 men on the Turkish 
frontiers in Transylvania and Hungary, and ordered a Bohemian corps 
mustering some 30,000 men to join them. The Prussian Government on its 
part is stated to have declined to comply with the command of the Czar 
ordering Frederick William IV to send a corps of 100,000 men to occupy 
Poland in the name and interest of Russia, and thus setthe garrisons there 
at liberty to march to the south for the prosecution of the campaign in the 
Principalities. 

In a previous letter I called your attention to the recent financial expedient 
resorted to by the Austrian Government of exacting adiscount of 15 percent, 
upon their own paper money, when paid for taxes. This ingenious "tax upon 
the payment of taxes" is now extended to Italy also. The Milan Gazette of the 
22d inst. publishes a decree from the Austrian Minister of Finance, announc- 

ing that "in consequence of the fall in the value of paper money it will not 
be received at the Custom House unless at a discount of 17 per cent." 

As to the Russian Exchequer, I had on a previous occasion, at the be- 
ginning of what is called the Eastern complication, to warn your readers 
against the industriously circulated statement of the "hidden" treasures 
slumbering in the vaults of the Bank of St. Petersburg, and the ridiculous 
exaggeration of the vast monetary power that Russia can wield at a given 
moment. My views are fully confirmed by what has happened since. Not only 
has the Czar been forced to withdraw his metallic deposits from the banks 
of England and France, but, moreover, to commit an act of fraudulent 
confiscation. Prince Pashkewitch has informed the Warsaw mortgage or 
discount Bank that its capital will be taken as a forced loan, although the 
statutes of that bank forbid its advancing money upon any security but landed 
property. We are also informed that the Russian Government intends issuing 
a sum of 60,000,000 roubles in inconvertible paper, to defray the expenses 
of the war. This contrivance is no new one on the part of the Petersburg 
Cabinet. At the close of 1768, Catherine II, in order to meet the expenses 
of the war with Turkey, founded a bank of assignats, ostensibly instituted 
on the principle of issuing convertible notes payable to the bearer. But by 
a well-managed oversight, she forgot to tell the public in what sort of money 
these notes were to be payable, and some months later the payments were 
only made in copper coin. By another untoward "accident" it happened that 
these copper coins were overvalued by 50 per cent, when compared with the 
uncoined metal, and only circulated at their nominal value in consequenc of 
their great scarcity and the want of small money for retail purposes. The 
convertibility of the notes was, therefore, a mere trick. 

In the first instance Catherine limited the whole issue to 40,000,000 roubles, 

Karl Marx 

in 25 rouble notes, the rouble representing a silver coin varying from 38 to 
40d. British money, according to the rate of exchange, being equivalent to 
somewhat above 100 copper copeks. Atthe death of Catherine, in 1796, the 
mass of this paper money had risen to 157,000,000, nearly four times its 
original amount. The exchange on London had come down from 4Id. in 1787 
to 31d. in 1796. During the two subsequent governments, a rapid increase 
of issues having taken place, in 1810 the paper circulation reached 
577,000,000, and the paper rouble was only worth 25’/, copeks, i.e., one- 
quarter ofits valuein 1788; and exchange on London, inthe autumn of 1810, 
sunkto 11Vzd. the rouble, instead of representing 38-40d. In 1817 the amount 
of notes in circulation was 836,000,000, according to the statement of Count 
Gurieff ..As the custom-house duties and other taxes were calculated in silver 
roubles, the Government now declared these assignats to be receivable in the 
proportion of 4 to 1, thus avowing a depreciation of 75 per cent. During the 
progress of the depreciation, the prices of commodities rose proportionably, 
subject to very great fluctuations, which commenced troubling the Cabinet 
itself, and forced it to contract foreign loans in order to withdraw from 
circulation a portion of the notes. On the Ist of January, 1821, their amount 
was announced to have been reduced to 640,000,000. The subsequent wars 
with Turkey, Persia, Poland, Chiva, etc., again swelled the mass of the bank 
assignats, lowered the exchanges anew, and subjected all commodities to 
extensive and irregular oscillations of prices. It was not till the 1stJuly, 1839, 
that the rate of exchange, being ameliorated in consequence of an enormous 
export of grain to England, the Czar issued a manifesto, according to which, 
from the Ist of July, 1840, the huge mass of bank assignats was to be con- 
verted into bank notes payable on demand in silver roubles at the full amount 
of 38d. The Czar Alexander had declared the assignats to be receivable, on 
the part of the tax-gatherer, at the proportion of 4to 1; butthe Czar Nicholas 
is said to have restored them, by his conversion, to their full original value 
again. There was, however, acurious little clause annexed, ordering that for 
every one of such new notes three and a half of the old ones should be 
delivered up. The old note was not declared to be depreciated to 28 per cent, 
of its original amount, but 3 V2 of the old notes were declared to be equivalent 
to a full new note. Hence we may infer, on the one hand, that the Russian 
Cabinet is as conscientious and punctilious in financial as in diplomatic 
distinctions; and on the other, that the mere danger of an approaching war 
suffices to throw it back into all the monetary difficulties which Nicholas 
has tried for about twenty years to emerge from. 

One of the European Governments after the other comes forward appeal- 
ing to the pockets of its beloved subjects. Even the King of sober-minded 
Holland demands of the States General 600,000 rix-dollars for works of 

AL 

Count Orlov's Mission—Russian Finances during the War 

fortification and defense, adding "that circumstances may determine him to 
mobilize a portion of the army and to send out his fleets." 
If it were possible to meet real wants and to fill the general vacuum of 
money chests by any ingenious art of book-keeping, the contriver of the 
French budget, as published some days ago inthe Moniteur, would have done 
the thing; but there is not the smallest shopkeeper at Paris unaware of the 
fact that, by the most skilfull grouping of figures, one cannot get out of the 
books of his creditor, and that the hero of the 2d of December, deeming the 
public pocket to be inexhaustible, has recklessly run into the nation's debt. 
There can be imagined nothing more naif than the announcement of the 
Danish Ministry at the sitting of the Folkething, on the 17th inst., that the 
Government intended postponing to a more expedient season the proposition 
to change the fundamental institutions of Denmark, and introduce their much 
cherished Whole State Constitution. (Gesammtstaatsverfassung.) 
Karl Marx.