In June, 1920, the government of Moscow sent some gold to Sweden to purchase indispensable goods.  Millerand, President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared to the Minister of Sweden at Paris that if his Government consented to receive Russian gold ferait acte de receleur.  He then telegraphed to the Minister of Finance at Stockholm regretting that the Government and public opinion in Sweden were tending to consider the revendications juridiques of the French creditors of the ancient Russian regime to be such that they did not stop the consignment of Swedish goods against Russian gold.  He added at the end that the syndicates of creditors could utilize the news in telegram No. 355, in which the Swedish Government gave notice of the trade and put a sequestration on Russian gold sent to Sweden.

This telegram, better than any speech, shows the diversity of conception.

The Bolshevik government may be so immoral that we cannot recognize it until it gives serious guarantees.  But if the government of Moscow sends a little of the gold that remains, or has remained, to buy goods, what right have we to sequestrate the gold in the interests of the creditors of the old regime?

The new regime, born after the revolution, can also not recognize the debts of the old regime and annul them.  It is not for that that we have no relations with it.

We have pushed Germany by absurd demands to ruin her circulation.  It is already at about 100 milliard of marks; if to-morrow it goes to 150 or to 200, it will be necessary to annul it, nearly the same as is done for bills of exchange.  And for this should we not treat with Germany?

The new plutocratic conception, which marks the policy of a section of the Entente, is not lasting, and the people have a justifiable diffidence towards it.

Bolshevism, as I have repeatedly stated, cannot be judged by our western eyes:  it is not a popular and revolutionary movement; it is a religious fanaticism of the orthodox of the East hoisted on the throne of Tsarist despotism.

Italy is the country which suffers most from the lack of continuous relations with Russia in so far that almost all Italian commerce, and in consequence the prices of freight and goods, have been for almost half a century regulated by the traffic with the Black Sea.

Ships which leave England fully laden with goods for Italy generally continue to the Black Sea, where they fill up with grain, petroleum, etc., and then return to England, after having taken fresh cargoes in Italy and especially iron in Spain.  It was possible in Italy for long periods of time to obtain most favourable freights and have coal at almost the same price as in England.  The voyages of the ships were made, both coming and going, fully laden.

The situation of Russia, therefore, hurts especially Italy.  Great Britain has Mediterranean interests; France is partly a Mediterranean nation; Italy alone is a Mediterranean nation.