Valuta for Russia

On direct instructions from the President, Federal Loan Administrator Jesse Jones made a deal last week which was not like Jesse Jones at all. With U.S.S.R.'s Amtorg Trading Corp. he signed a contract to buy for delivery sometime in the future $100,000,000 worth of manganese, chromite, asbestos, platinum. Against this contract he promised to advance $50,000,000--$10,000,000 of it at once.

The U.S. badly needs Russia's chromite and manganese, has lesser need for its asbestos and platinum. But the U.S. cannot get them, no matter what agreements are signed. Much of Russia's manganese is mined in Transcaucasia, was formerly shipped to the U.S. through the Mediterranean. Now it would have to be shipped 7,766 miles overland to Vladivostok, thence across the Pacific (where shipping space is more precious than platinum), or around Africa via Baku, Iran and the Persian Gulf. Not an ounce of Russian manganese has arrived in the U.S. since last December.

Jones explained that the contract called for deliveries over "the next two or three years.'' A better timetable: after the war. Thus the contract was really just an indirect method of giving financial aid to Russia, which has unlimited natural wealth but none too much dollar exchange. From Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. came a similar move: he announced that he had advanced Russia $10,000,000 last month against future gold shipments.

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