Skoda Must Pay

The scandal that never withers is Rumania's hardy perennial that munitions are sold in Bucharest on a strict basis of bribe-as-you-go. Disclosures of the week concerned the deal with Skoda, Czechoslovakia's Munitions Trust, which backfired when General Zika Popescu of the Royal Rumanian Army put a bullet through his brain (TIME, April 10, 1933). Just what had been at stake General Cihofhi of the Royal Ordnance Service volubly revealed to a Parliamentary committee last week.

"Rumania had to pay 25% more than Jugoslavia paid for the same type of equipment," said General Cihofhi. "As a matter of fact the price at which the contract was let was a great deal higher than the price at which Skoda first wished to sell."

In one deal for $3,300,000 worth of field guns Rumania's uniformed grafters set the price Skoda must pay to get the contract at some $800,000, which works out in native currency at 79,000,000 Rumanian lei.

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