AMERICAN PROBLEMS by WILLIAM E.BORAH 1924

RECOGNITION OF RUSSIA 195
[From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.]
FROM ESSEN TO RUSSIA.
While the French were completing their plans for the
seizure of Essen the Krupp firm closed a contract with
the Soviet Government for the peaceful invasion of Russia.
In the most important concession yet issued by the
Lenin-Trotski administration the Krupps obtained the
right to exploit some 250,000 acres of rich agricultural land
in southwestern Russia which was an appanage of the
Russian Crown.
The Krupps are sending to Russia a staff of technicians
provided with the most modern agricultural machinery.
The machines are of the tractor type. They are being
turned out in factories which supplied German tanks during
the war. The Krupps propose to create a model farm,
operated on the most scientific principles. After some
wrangling the Soviet Government has conceded the right
to export from Russia whatever this land can be made to
produce.
And while the French are destroying Germany's capacity
to pay with their bootless invasion of the Ruhr the
Russo-Asiatic Bank is supplying British capital with the
consent of the British Government in order that the
Krupps may develop this new market for their merchandise.
Russia's huge land areas have never been properly exploited.
The Germans have the agricultural experts and
the plants to produce machines which could quintuple
Russian production in a decade. The British are wise
enough to realize that here is an ideal field for German
development. It creates the markets for their manufactured
products which they must have ; it supplies them with
a part of the food they must purchase abroad ; it provides
no cutthroat competition in existing world markets.