The poorest kinds of money are continually forced to the surface. The better kinds--Imperials and Kerenskys--emerge reluctantly. At Chita, my hotel charged exorbitant rates, based on Bolshevist scrip. I had only Imperials. A Cossack officer who was a friend had only Bolshevist notes. So when I paid my weekly bill, I swapped my Imperials with the Cossack--and paid the greedy proprietor in the poorer paper. With money good to-day and not so good to-morrow, or vice versa, what a field for speculation presents itself! And fortunes are being made on the rise and fall of Imperials. With rubles ten for a dollar in Vladivostok, and seven for a dollar in Khabarovsk (for rubles are dearer sometimes in inland cities), you have only to buy a gripful at the one place, hop a train and rake in a fortune at the other. Return and repeat. And as the rate changes from day to day, there is always a lively interest in the fluctuation. It is said that when a Russian baby is born in Vladivostok, he immediately asks the doctor, “How much are rubles to-day?” Why should anyone wonder that Siberia is largely Bolshevist? Our Committee on Public Information tried to fight Bolshevism with movies, by word of mouth, through millions of pamphlets printed in Russian in the United States, and with a telegraphic news service. The Bolshevists handed out real cash. The people still believe that they have found Rainbow’s End. They are drugged with money--they are drunk on it! What solidarity has a country once its financial system has gone to pot? If we want to buy Siberian raw materials, what money can we offer them? And if they buy from us--? If we recognize the Bolshevist government, shall we recognize its money? Will we take that money at face value? If not at face value then at what price? _If_ the Bolshevist money be declared no good, there will be another revolt. On the other hand, if those billions are redeemed, the country that redeems them will be beggared. Why? Because no one knows the amount outstanding--and who could stop those busy printing-presses? XXVI LEAVES FROM MY NOTE BOOK Siberia is one of the richest lands in the world in undeveloped resources. The wealth in its plains and hills, its rivers and forests, is beyond computation. Our wheat fields of the northwest in comparison to the wheat plains of Siberia are but backyard gardens. Thousands of square miles in Siberia are literally underlaid with precious metals, its great forests are filled with fur-bearing animals, its rivers teem with great fish, its bird-life offers unlimited food possibilities. Siberian butter in normal times is shipped to Europe by train-loads and much of it sold through Denmark as Danish butter. Siberian honey is famous for its flavor. Fur and hair, hides and meat, vegetables and forage--Siberia could feed the world if its agricultural industries were operated under modern methods. * * * * *