AMERICAN PROBLEMS by WILLIAM E.BORAH 1924

RECOGNITION OF RUSSIA 197
driven by reason of this condition of affairs into
alliance withotKer nations.
1
—FcaTT "attention
fcTa paragraph or two from
an article which appeared in L'Echo de Paris,
a clerical daily, published in France on March
8, 1922, which reads as follows:
Germany began as early as 1919, to make overtures for
business relations with the Soviet Government
And we ought to bear in mind as we go along
that one of the reasons assigned for our failure
to do business with Russia is because it was
unsafe as a business proposition
She believed that, although the chaos in Russia might
prevent her realizing at once her ultimate political projects
in that country,
she might open a profitable market there
for her manufactures, that would be paid for in gold,
precious stones, and the raw materials that Russia still
********
had in stock. It was with this object in view that Germany
sent an investigating committee to that country.
after February, 1921, there was rapid progress. From this
month, in fact, dates the resumption of commercial intercourse
between German and Soviet Russia. On the 18th
of February a protocol was signed at Moscow by representatives
of the German foreign office and of the Soviet
foreign office to regulate provisionally relations between
the two countries. Commercial delegations were to be
attached to the delegations already established at Moscow
and Berlin in order to insure free intercourse between the
two nations. Among other things, this agreement regu-