Skoda Loan

A major Bolshevik objective pursued without success ever since the fall of Tsardom: to float a fat Soviet loan abroad and get Bolshevik bonds regularly listed on an exchange outside Russia.

Last week this great objective was achieved by smudge-mustached Foreign Trade Commissar Arkadi Pavlovich Rosengoltz.

Amount: 250,000,000 koruny ($10,450,000.)

Lenders: Czechoslovaks.

Purpose: To supply the Soviet Union with "urgently needed Czechoslovak goods," chiefly munitions from the great Czechoslovak works of Skoda.

Guarantor: As usual with munitions loans, Skoda and other participating firms are protected by their Government's guarantee of the entire loan, the Bolshevik bonds to be shortly listed on the Prague Exchange.

This deal having been consummated, "Europe's Smartest Little Statesman," Dr. Eduard Benes, perpetual Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, set off last week for a goodwill visit to Moscow. As his train halted in Warsaw, Col. Josef Beck, Germanophile Polish Foreign Minister, was pointedly not at the station, snubbed Dr. Benes by sending only minor Polish officials to greet him.

In Moscow every potent Bolshevik from Joseph Stalin down feted Dr. Benes who is also a favorite of King George, often dining at Buckingham Palace. Dr. Benes, champion of the League of Nations, has long been first in peace, now seems likely to be first in war as a Skoda supersalesman, remains first in the hearts of Czechoslovaks along with his venerable friend and patron, permanent President Thomas Garrigue Masaryk.

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