New-York tribune., 1921-09-04

stock consisting of $4,000 vehicles and r,ot,r
cars and 5000 motorcycles. with all th.;r
spare parts. He spoke to me about it at .
conference which L had with him in the Hotel
Adlon, IN Berlin, in July, 1919. All the gen.
eral managers of the firm had been invited to
attend this conference, as well as its ,eca,
ADVISER, Mr.. Thomas. The matter was dis.
cuSsed IN detail, and SHINES asked me to nro
ceed Immediately to Coblenz. on the Rhine in
order to inspect with his engineers this stoc!,.
was given specification of it which had
oeen made by the liquidation commission aad
from which the depreciation value had been
deducted. This valuation amounted tn al .
Aoo'ooo.oe- went to Coblenz, as requested.
ana sent report to Shines, after which he
sel't me TWO experts, engineers of considerable
reputation, with whom, through the courtesy
OF the American commandant of the paris
where the vehicles were stored. we exam;nsa
the whole. stock in detail. Then the two enoi.
neers sent in their report to SHINES. in which
they stated that the depreciation value had
oeen honestly calculated by the Americans
lew days later / received from Hamburg
Telegram IN which I was told to try and acquire
Ihe stock IN question for $4000,OO0 and Stin.
nes confirmed this message in letter entirely
written IN his own handwriting. which con.
sequently, had not been seen by anv of his
secretaries. Before receiving the letter had
already explained to him that the instructions
contained IN his telegram from Hanburg were
absolutely impossible to fulfill. Nevertheless.
on my way back from Coblenz to Sweden
stopped IN Berlin to discuss the matter once
more with one Of Stinnes's managers ranod
Schmidt, who then, on behalf of Stinnes suo.
gested to me that in order To acou;re th;s
stock for $4,o00,000 after it had been va,ued
az q4i,ooo'ooo ought to approach the Amer.
'oah Liquidatlon Commission suggestion
"hlch promptly declined, saying that such
neonods were out of the question and that
l never mad done business in such wav .nd
was not gong to begin Schmidt insisted and
seemed very much surprised that his words
haa shocked me. 1t was evident that for him
Vney represented nothing new. but that his
'lrm was quite used to such transactions and
nad ofeen been engaged in them.
Nevercheiess, in spite of my refusal to be
associated IN deal of such character---re.
lusai OF which reached the ears of SHINES.
ana, as learned later on, turned him against
me--i was summoned by him to I,andsyfrona
and both he and his engineer tried IN Y,ake
clear to me that what had oaused tbem to
o''er sueh low price for the stock of the
american Liquidation Commission was The
iact ehas included among the Is 900 vehicles
enere were 1850 motor cars manufactured BY
nenry FORD, which they considered Of no
value for the use they wanted to make of
then1--to sell them to Russia AT this point
oJinnes became humorstic and said that there
were plenty of toys in Nuremburg but that
ne needed none, and that consequently !
ought TO make another effort to induce the
American Liquidation Commission to accept
his offer. | replied that l could not bring
myself to approach the commission with such
ridiculous proposition.
AT that time SHINES expected. as he wrote
to me in his letter of August %. that there
was chance of Russia becoming uacified
Within few weeks, when it would become
possible to start business upon larger scale
with that country What induced him to ad.
NIT this possibility do not know, but he was
undoubtedly engaged at the time in some
intrigue or other Very likely it was con-
nected with a probability which had heard
MN discuss, to the effect that Germany might
md herself compelled to allow a certain free
aom to the Bolshevik movement within her
frontiers as means of putting q stop to the
demands of the Allies, who would undoubted-
~ feel frightened at the spread of move
ment by which they might become themselves
injected, owing to the troubled condition OF
their own countries. 1t is most likely that,
having this contingency in view, he felt con-
-