Billions Lost

Sweden's empire of matchwood and matchpaper seemed to be going last week where every kind of match goes sooner or later. Foreign auditors were prowling through the graceful, modernistic business palace where Ivar Kreuger had ruled as "The Match King" until he put a pistol to his heart. But it was in Sweden's Parliament that Sweden's woe last week found utterance. "We know now that the Kreuger Company broke down not because of bad luck or bad conditions but because of dishonesty," cried Deputy Arthur Endeberg. "Sweden's business reputation will be ruined--unless we retrieve it by honesty, complete honesty!" Among English investors, according to WTylie King of the London Financial Times: "Feeling runs high against the neglect of responsible houses that omitted independent audit of the Kreuger companies. This is in line with certain irresponsibility regarding the flotation of many foreign loans since the War."

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