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As to whether there is any truth in the assertion that he held out prospects of larger Government orders than he actually gave, I cannot say. That he cut down prices, and showed himself a hard man to deal with, there seems no doubt. The reader may naturally be inclined to jump to the conclusion that the commercial crisis just referred to was the cause of M. Witte's fall.
CARY. "To their own carol on they came Dancing, in festive ring angelical " WRIGHT. "And songs accompanied their angel dance." Here Mr. Longfellow has apparently followed the authority of the Crusca, reading "Cantando al loro angelico carribo," and translating carribo by saraband, a kind of Moorish dance. The best manuscripts, however, sanction M. Witte's reading:
Some of the members of that body, especially M. Bunge, who had been himself Minister of Finance, and who remembered the evil effects of the inordinate inflation of the currency on foreign exchanges during the Turkish War, advocated strongly the directly opposite course a return to gold monometallism, for which M. Vishnegradski, M. Witte's immediate predecessor, had made considerable preparations.
Even in his own effaced existence he had reasons, not altogether trivial, for gratitude to the Czar Alexander II, whose firm neutrality had saved him some terribly anxious days and nights in 1862; while he had seen enough of Russia to sympathize warmly with Prince Khilkoff's railways and de Witte's industries.
Russia till Lately a Peasant Empire Early Efforts to Introduce Arts and Crafts Peter the Great and His Successors Manufacturing Industry Long Remains an Exotic The Cotton Industry The Reforms of Alexander II. Protectionists and Free Trade Progress under High Tariffs M. Witte's Policy How Capital Was Obtained Increase of Exports Foreign Firms Cross the Customs Frontier Rapid Development of Iron Industry A Commercial Crisis M. Witte's Position Undermined by Agrarians and Doctrinaires M. Plehve a Formidable Opponent His Apprehensions of Revolution Fall of M. Witte The Industrial Proletariat.
In support of their insinuations they cited certain cases in which well-known Socialists had been appointed professors in academies under the control of the Ministry of Finance, and they pointed to the Peasant Bank, which enjoyed M. Witte's special protection.
I remember once asking a well-informed friend of M. Witte's what he thought of him as an administrator and a statesman. The friend replied: "Imagine a negro of the Gold Coast let loose in modern European civilisation!" This reply, like most epigrammatic remarks, is a piece of gross exaggeration, but it has a modicum of truth in it.
With the arguments thus supplied by Agrarians and doctrinaires, quite honest and well-meaning, according to their lights, it was easy to sap M. Witte's position. Among his opponents, the most formidable was the late M. Plehve, Minister of Interior a man of a totally different stamp.
In the mean time, the two strangers awaited the arrival of Mr. Witte. The king enjoyed his comic situation immensely. Balby looked anxiously at the bare feet of the king, and said he should never have submitted to Madame Witte's caprice. The floor was cold, and the king might be taken ill. "Oh, no," said Frederick, "I do not get sick so easily my system can stand severer hardships.
De Witte's discussion of the whole subject was liberal and statesmanlike. Unfortunately, there was, as I believe, a fundamental error in his general theory, which is the old Russian idea at the bottom of the autocracy namely, that the State should own everything.
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