same bread rations that the soldiers receive.  At the Putilov works some 400 men struck and part of them were dismissed.  Both Shatov and the director of factories said that there were no executions, though the population the next morning reported 80 workers shot and that afternoon the rumor had increased the number to 400.  There is practically no robbery in the city.  Shatov left the opera the other night early because he told me the previous night a man had lost 5,000 rubles and it was such an exceptional thing to have a robbery that he was going out personally to investigate the matter, having some idea as to who was responsible.

11. Currency plans.—­Zorin tells me that the Soviet Government has or had printed a new issue of currency which it is proposed to exchange for the old currency within the next three months.  The details of the plan have not been completed but he thinks that an exchange of ruble for ruble will be made up to 3,000; an additional 2,000 will be placed on deposit in the government bank.  That beyond 5,000 only a small percentage will be allowed to any one, and that a limit of possibly 15,000 will be placed beyond which no rubles will be exchanged.  Then the plan is, after a certain period to declare the old ruble valueless.  Zorin feels that as a result of this plan the new ruble will have some value and that the present situation in the country in which the farmer has so much paper that he refuses to sell any longer for money, will be relieved.  This exchange would be followed later on by the issue of still other currency the entire purpose being the more equal distribution of wealth and the gradual approach to elimination of currency.

12. Concessions.—­It is asserted that the northern railway concession has been signed and Amundsen tells me that all negotiations were accomplished without the payment of a single cent of tea money, probably the first instance of the absence of graft in such negotiations in the history of Russia.  He says that Trepov, through his agent Borisov, at Moscow, was the greatest opponent of the Norwegian interests.  Trepov was formerly minister of ways and communications and is reported to have been refused a similar concession under the Czar’s government.  Amundsen claims that Trepov has made every effort to secure this concession from the Soviet Government.  I am attaching a statement regarding a concession which is supposed to have been granted to the lumber interests.  There are rumors that other concessions have been granted.

13. Y.M.C.A.—­Recently the Y.M.C.A. secretary arrived in Petrograd, claiming to have come without authorization from his superiors.  He has been staying at the embassy but recently went to Moscow at the invitation of Tchitcherin.  Schklovsky tells me that the American has plans for the establishment of the Y.M.C.A. in Russia which he wanted to put before the Moscow government.  Schklovsky doubted