“Meanwhile the plot thickens and the $700 daily losses multiply. The Bank of France just has brought suit in the Federal courts of New York to recover the gold bars, on the theory that they are the identical gold sent from Paris to Petrograd in 1917 at the instance of the czar but to be returned to the owner on demand. “Which raises further technicalities. In the first place, this gold is not gold, since there is an embargo against Russian gold and legally no Russian gold can exist in this country. “So far as Uncle Sam is concerned, the casks contain only ‘material’ In the second place, the United States has never recog- nized Soviet Russia, so Russia does not exist. And, being non- existent, Russia cannot sue or be sued in this country, albeit she occupies one-sixth the land surface of the globe. “So there you are. And yet foreigners call us ‘the most practical people in the world” It may be a good thing for Soviet Russia, just now, that she does not exist, legally, in this country; other- wise the French might grab the twenty casks of gold. “But regardless of who owns the yellow treasure, its enforced idleness is now netting somebody an economic loss of about $30 an hour, $700 a day, $22,000 a month or approximately $275,000 1 year. “That much money would pay for a lot of goods. Making these goods would keep a lot of people busy. And they do say we have amongst us considerable unemployment.” Taunton, Mass., Gazette, March 13, 1928 SPURNING $5,000,000 “Verily, some of the ways of high finances and high government are hard to fathom. “The Soviet Government recently sent $5,000,000 in gold bullion to New York, intending to use it to buy goods in the American market. But government officials have decided that this money may have come from the reserves of the czar’s old Imperial Bank ; hence it may be subject to other claims. So they have prohibited its use nn this countrv. “It is good gold, but the Soviet cannot buy here so much as a package of chewing gum with it. They can, however, send it to another country and buy $35,000,000 worth of goods there. The ultimate losers, it would seem, will be American manufacturers.” zn 3 y'