ous of obtaining the concession shall be
obliged to _produce proofs of their contact with Allied_ and neutral
enterprises, and of their capacity to financing the work and supply the
materials requisite for the construction of the said line." On the other
hand, it appears from an _official_ document bearing the date of June
26, 1918, that a demand for the concession of this line was lodged by
two individuals--the painter A.A. Borissoff (who many years ago received
from me a letter of introduction to President Roosevelt asking him to
patronize this gentleman's exhibition of paintings in the United
States), and Herr Edvard Hannevig. Desirous of ascertaining whether
these petitioners possessed the qualifications demanded, the Bolshevist
authorities made inquiries and received from the Royal Norwegian
Consulate at Moscow a certificate[110] setting forth that "citizen
Hannevig was a co-associate of the large banks Hannevig situated in
London and in America." Consequently negotiations might go forward. The
document adds: "In October Borissoff and Hannevig renewed their request,
whereupon the journals _Pravda_, _Izevestia_, and _Ekonomitsheskaya
Shizn_ discussed the subject with animation. At a sitting held on
October 12th the project was approved with certain modifications, and on
February 1, 1919, the Supreme Soviet of National Economy approved it
anew."

The magnitude of the concession may be inferred from the circumstance
that one of its clauses conceded "_the exploitation of eight millions of
forest land_ which even to-day, _despite existing conditions, can bring
in a revenue of three hundred million rubles a year_."

What it comes to, therefore, assuming that these official documents are
as they seem, based on facts, is that from June 26th, that is to say
during the war, the Bolshevist government was petitioned to accord an
important railway concession and also the exploitation of a forest
capable of yielding three hundred million rubles a year to a Russian
citizen who alleged that he was acting on behalf of English and American
capitalists, and that Edvard Hannevig, having proved that he was really
the mandatory of these great allied financiers, the concession was
first approved by two successive commissions[111] and then definitely
conferred by the Soviet of the People's Commissaries.[112]

The eminent author of the article proceeds to ask whether this can
indeed be true; whether English and American capitalists petit