"Slowly, slowly. You said at first that Russia will need in this war about a milliard rubles. That would be contrary to what I have heard from other very reliable sources—namely, that the cash reserve is supposedly equal to about a milliard rubles."
"I will bet you that in three months we shall not have left a single kopek of this milliard, assuming that it exists. In agreement with military experts, who, between ourselves, are not at all optimistic, I estimate the duration of this war at twelve to eighteen months at least. With our management, every month costs us at least a hundred million rubles. Thus you see that a milliard will not be sufficient."
"Well, let us say that the banks cannot reject the business, still they must, in the first place, dispose of the securities, which will not be so easy, since the French are thoroughly satiated with the bonds, and, as the fall in the rate of exchange has recently shown, confidence in these bonds is no longer any too great."
"They may drop still further," said the banker, smiling. "The fall in the rate of exchange would have been still worse had not our banks received a strict order not to turn over the deposited bonds to their owners during these days of convulsion."
"How? I do not understand this. The issue of the deposited securities to their owners is delayed?"
"Yes, my friend, that is being done. You again do me the honor to forget in my office that we are in Russia. Even worse things are done here. At the order of the minister of finance, the owners of the bonds who wish to withdraw their deposits are given only a few hundreds or thousands of rubles for the most pressing needs, but they do not get their bonds. This is in order to prevent, by all means, the bonds being thrown on the market and thus increasing the panic."
"But that can be done only here. You have no such power abroad."
"Well, the first alarm did cost a respectable sum. Then the foreign bondholders came to the rescue and intervened for their own interest. The price of the bonds was maintained, especially in Germany."
"Why particularly in Germany?"
"Because it fluctuates less in France. There it is in the hands of small investors who do not run to the treasury at the first opportunity. It is not as strongly intrenched in Germany, and must be supported there."