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relations to the confusion of the United States and the aggrandize- 
ment of France is hard to understand. 
“In the first place, French trade with Russia is not of a char- 
acter to profit by any losses that this country might sustain in deal- 
ings with the Soviets. Secondly, interference with gold shipments 
is merely a pin prick by comparison with the major obstacles to the 
development of Russo-American trade which are created by the re- 
fusal of the United States to establish a definite basis for trade with 
Russia.” 
New York Times, April 10, 1928 
THE “SOVIET GOLD” 
“The question what became of the old Russian Imperial Bank’s 
gold reserve after the Bolshevist coup d'etat in 1917 has long been 
shadowed in mystery, but interest in it now bids fair to be super- 
seded by the question about the international status of the gold now 
held by the Soviet national bank. The $5,200,000 gold sent by that 
institution last February to establish a Russian credit balance at 
New York knocked at doors and was denied admission ; no one was 
ready to conform to the Government's requirement and ‘guarantee 
title.” This was unusual enough, but a still more singular controversy 
followed, of which the end is not yet. 
Friendless as the $5,200,000 gold appeared to be, a legal claim 
for it was put in by agents of the Bank of France and the Bank 
of Rumania on the ground that in 1917 the Soviet had seized and 
misappropriated gold held by the old Russian bank for their account. 
Eventually, however, and without withdrawal of the law-suits, the 
Soviet gold was quietly shipped out last week to Germany. What 
Germany will do about it is not yet known. Probably the gold will 
be received in a friendly spirit, seeing that remittances of Russian 
gold have been accepted without question during the past year, not 
only by the Reichsbank but by the Bank of England. 
“Counsel for the Bank of France declare, however, that if the 
courts were to sustain its claim the New York banks which held the 
gold would be responsible for it, even with the gold back again in 
Europe. So the litigation still has possibilities. But the controversy 
has some confusing aspects. The Soviet bank has been quoted, in 
the first place, as declaring that it has nothing to do with ‘pre-rev- 
olutionary reserves’; that it had not itself gone into business at all 
until 1921, since when it has accumulated its present reserve of 
$90,000,000 from new Russian production in the Ural. It might still 
be contended that at the time of the Bolshevist coup d’etat the 
SR