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Show Vast Sums of Money Are Lost in State Ownership SL Petersburg, March 2 A rather strong Indictment of state ownership, as far as Russia Is concerned, was raaoe recently In the dunia, when the shortcomings In various branches of j the Russian state management were illustrated In tho report of a commit-, tec of inquiry rend by Deputy God-ueff. God-ueff. The navy headed the list for ruinous neglect of the lntorests of the trcasuvy a well as those of the service One flagrant Instance of lack of business method was given In repairing the lco-breaker Yermak in England, one of Its engines, costing $100,000, was removed. An offer to buy tho discarded discard-ed engine for $15,000 was mado, hut the Russian naval officers thought that a low price and shipped the engine to Reval at a cost of $.500. There it lay in the open for Bevon years and was finally sold for $000. Excessive allowances and inaccurate inaccur-ate bookkeeping on voyages of Russian war vessols abroad wore very frequent. fre-quent. The committee discovered that on tho same day in the same port different dif-ferent vessels purchased coal at prices varying from $5 0 to $9 50 per ton. The army showed similar mismanagement. misman-agement. In ono enso tho treasury was the gainer because of the irregularity. irregu-larity. At the Tchita stores 5GS.0000 horseshoes were Inscribed in tho books, while the committee discovered by counting that the actual supply was 1,367,000. The supply of nails to go with them was also more than doublo that entered. The usual experience however, was to find the actunl stocks far short of the amount recorded. In the budget of the ministry of railways, rail-ways, next largest after tne mlnlslry of finance with its spirits monopoly, there was a deficit of $61,000,000 for the year 190S on a budget of $2G0.500.-000. $2G0.500.-000. This chronic deficit is ascribed j to the greater cost of construction over that prevailing on private rail- ronds and to other similar causes. On an average the state spent $10,150 50 i more per verst (about 5 furlongB) than private rallroadB. The Amur railroad is costing 10 to 15 per cent morcthan the ostirant.es'ATpe Hoc ajcmjul Ilako ,aJ!oi fast $5r,0OO 000 mon t!5n the estimates, es-timates, that being 20 per cent of tho entire cost. Tho state iron works on the Urals show a similar unsntlsfacton rcord, with a deficit totaling So.OOO.non for the last ten years. Rep Godnfff referred re-ferred to the fact that this deficit occurred oc-curred despite the membership of these state works In the combiation of Iron works which kept an unnaturally high lovel of prices, which it is not the province of the government to encourage. en-courage. Naphtha-bearing lands in the Cau-cusus Cau-cusus were in arrears on their payment pay-ment of the land rent to the state. The sum now due from them amounted amount-ed to $12,000,000. A particular cause of grievance was the ineradicable habit of most ministries minis-tries to obtain appropriations for other I needs, thus depriving the duma of a good deal of its effective control on the budget Sums totaling 533,500,000 were thus transferred from one head to another in one yenr's budget alone. Scarcity of supply of the precious metals in the goldsmiths' and jewelers' jewel-ers' trade has forced the government to undertake the retail sale of gold and Bilver This so-called 'gold famine" fam-ine" hns caused heavj Inroads to be mado on the specie In circulation. Russian Rus-sian law threatens with heavy punish, ment tho re-conversion of coin Into metal by private Individuals as well us tho clipping of coin or its reduction in weight Nevertheless, goldsmiths have recently been melting coin in large quantities, particularly at points distant from the principal government mints. This Is done especially in tin "taiga," the large. marsh forest which covers a great part of Siberia. Hitherto, Hith-erto, gold bars could be bought only at the mints In St, Petersburg, Moscow and Odessa To meet the legitimato demands of the trade, the ministry of finance will hereafter sell gold in hars, planchels and sheets, 999 per 'thousand pure, at a flxod price, and allow the mint at St. 'Petersburg to sell pure metal In auantitles up to IS pounds of gold and 3G pounds of silver per applicant, to privato individuals nnd government offices A special distributing agency through the medium medi-um of government offices at points conveniently situated throughout the empire Is now being organized. on |