man
parasites on the Russian people. One might scrutinize the history of
corruption in every country of Europe without finding anything to beat
this Teutonic device, which at the same time gratified the cupidity of
the money-makers and dealt a stunning blow at the Russian State. Half
of the shares of the celebrated Putiloff munitions factory are said to
have belonged to the Austrian Skoda Works.

[40] Cf. _Novoye Vremya_, August 17, 1915.

At the outset of the present war, when Russia's needs were growing
greater and more pressing, the works controlled by Germans and
Germany's agents diminished their output steadily. In lieu of turning
out, say, 30,000 poods of iron they would produce only 5,000, and
offer instead of the remainder verbal explanations to the effect that
lack of fuel or damage to the machinery had caused the diminution.
Again, one of these ubiquitous banks buys a large amount of corn or
sugar, but instead of having it conveyed to the districts suffering
from a dearth of that commodity, deposits it in a safe place and
waits. In the meantime prices go up until they reach the prohibition
level. Then the bank sells its stores in small quantities. The people
suffer, murmur, and blame the Government. Nor is it only the average
man who thus complains. In the Duma the authorities have been severely
blamed for leaving the population to the mercy of those money-grubbers
whom German capital and Russian tribute are making rich. "Averse to go
to the root of the matter," one Deputy complained, "the Government
punishes a woman who, on the market sells a herring five copecks
dearer than the current price, yet at the same time it permits the
Governors to promulgate their own arbitrary laws regulating imports
and exports from their own provinces. In this way Russia is split up
into sixty different regions, each one of which pursues its own policy
unchecked."

The importance of the role played by the banks financed by German
capital in Russia can hardly be overstated. They advance money on the
crops and take railway and steamship invoices as guarantees--they are
centres of information respecting everybody who resides and everything
that goes on in the district and the province. I write with personal
knowledge of their working, for I watched it at close quarters in the
Volga district and the Caucasus with the assistance of an experienced
bank manager. Their political influence can be far-reaching, and the
services wh