The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-07-15
RUSSIAN TRADE
 SEEMS MYTH
 TO JOURNALISTS

European newspapermen and Ame1i- ca1 newspe per correspondents in the
 European capitals. Scarcely d gay passes that some Bol -heVist agent does not announce a gigantic con tract entered into by the Russian government with some great concern usually a German or English corpor- ation.
 If all the locomotives and cars which Russia has bean reported to have contracted for in the last year were delivered the former empire | would require additional trackage to accommodate them.
 | At one time an announcement was | made that 10000 loc1 -. -5es were contracted fer in Germany alone. | When the report was run to ground | it was learned that an actual deposit ] had been made on a contract for 10C 1 locomotives, and it cannot be learned | that any of these have been deliver
 ed as yet.
 1 contract for 10000 tractors had been | made with an American automobile | factory. The owner of this factory
 advised the Soviet agents that deliv- | soon as Bo1shevist agents had Soviet | gold turned into Swedish coin and | deposited in a Stockholm bank. The
 gold was not forthcoming. The l tractors were not shipped, but the 1 Soviet propa gandists failed to herald
 that fact widely they did the | signing of the contract.
 One American concern which ship Iped 30 tractors to Reval without hav- | ing any deposit on them still has the | tractors in storage in Esthonia and l there is no indication that the Soviet | officials will fulfill their agreement | to take them.
 II Since the commercial agreements | were framed by the Bolsheviki with II Germany and Great Britain there has been a noticeable cooling of the Bol- representatives II ward America For the moment
 they pretend to be extremely indiffer- ent as to whether they establish cAo- 1 ser relations with America. But this is apparently not giving any uneasi-
 ness to Americans who have actually been in contact with Bolshevist
 agents and have tried to close con-
 tracts on a strictly business basis. H A Danish exporter and importer, who is representing many American firms in their efforts to get actual
 contracts with Soviet government, backed by substantial cash advances, told the correspondent: 'I am done
 chasing after this threatened Bolshe- vist business. There have been some
 who have sold the Bolsheviki stuff
 which they actually had to have. I II know men who have made a lot of
 money out of their business. But I
 up wonderful paper contracts that never came to anything. That has been ruy experience. I have been able to get wonderful promises, but
 I couldn't get any gold, and I didn't
 want to have a lot of stuff stacked
 up in storage at Reval as many men
 who have sent shipments into the
 Baltic without advance payments suf-
 flcient to insure the delivery and fin
 al payment"
 H German business men are appar-
 ently not enthusiastic about Russian
 business on the terms which the Bol- ch hnrr rie-f n-r ,4e- disposition to execute wholesale con tracts without something more der1n-
 lte in the way of payment than So-
 Naettn N5et signatures. German papers possibility of trade with Soviet Rus sia, especially since the Soviet gov ernment has refused to grant adn1s- sion to many German business rep reSentat1VeS who have sought to make an investigation of economic condi- tions there.
 Recently a number of German fur , dealers and leather merchants asked permission to visit Russia, but were denied viseS This caused much comment in commercial circles The Soviet government said it would ad- init these men if the government de- sired to send them as official trade
 experts, but would not allow them to enter as representatives of commer- cial concerns. Small shipments of
 sample hides and furs were made by
 
 to Leipsig, with the explanation that these samples would make it possi- ble for German merchants to make
 contracts in Germany for Russian furS.
 The Soviet governments refusal to admit William F. Johnston, the President of the American Interna- uona1 Machinists, has also been much commented on by the German press, which expresses surprise as Johnston had been an earnest advocate of trade relations between America and Russia.
 With Russia's transportation so badly down that there is little hope Of moving large quantities of heavy freight, and with the Russian gold reserve down to a point believed to be under $200,o00,0OO practical German business men generally dis count the idea, that a speedy resump- ton of business on a large scale is possible, even if the Soviet republic abandons it's monopolization of tra de and makes it possible for individual initiative to have play.