Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia

MEANS TAKEN TO ENFORCE IT. 205

humbly represented to the governor that those among the merchants who had effected sales of goods at a price fixed according to the ancient rate of money, which they had done, acting in dependence upon the relations between the paper and the silver rouble being continued as they were at the last fair, would be exposed to the necessity of submitting to payments that would be not the less fraudulent because authorised by the law, since they would rob them of their just profits, and might ruin them if the present edict were allowed a retro-active effect; the consequences of which would be a multitude of small bankruptcies, that would not fail finally to draw in the others.

The governor replied, with the gentleness and calmness which presides in Russia throughout all administrative, financial, and political discussions, that he perfectly entered into the views of the chief merchants interested in the business of the fair; but that, after all, the mischievous results dreaded by these gentlemen only threatened a few individuals, who would have, as a guarantee, the severity of the existing laws against bankrupts, whereas, on the other hand, a delay would always look something like resistance ; and that such example, given by the most important commercial place in the empire, would involve inconveniences far more injurious to the country than a few failures, affecting only a small number of individuals; for disobedience, approved and justified by men who had hitherto enjoyed the confidence of the government, would be an attack aimed at the dignity of the sovereign, at the administrative and financial unity of Russia, or, in other words, at the vital principles of the empire : he added,