AMERICAN PROBLEMS by WILLIAM E.BORAH 1924

216 WILLIAM E. BORAH
of the Soviet Government. I assume that they
would state the facts as they understood them,
and would not be consciously biased in favor
of that Government. The dispatch, under
date of February 15, said:
Moscow, February 15—Foreigners can do a profitable
business in Russia today. They are doing it already, and
whereas a year ago foreign business men here were mostly
represented by fly-by-night firms and were interested in
highly speculative, not to say wildcat, transactions, today
there are Americans, Germans, British, Scandinavians,
and even Frenchmen with real money beside them here
to look the ground over.
For the Government or,
rather, governmental trading
organizations of one kind or another, stick to their contracts,
and life and property are as securely guarded and
as safe as they would be in America. What is more, the
Government organizations are willing to guarantee against
loss in transit, although the projected system of State insurance
has not yet been carried through.
For instance,
a foreigner here shipped bales of valuable goods to Germany
of which one, worth about $25,000, was lost between
Moscow and the Lettish frontier. On discovering
his loss he went to the foreign trade monopoly bureau
which had given him a permit to buy and ship goods. The
bureau took the matter up with the railroad authorities,
who admitted their liability, and within two weeks the
foreigner received from the railroad a check on the State
bank payable in foreign currency for the amount of the
purchase money.