The Company undertook to spend nearly 2/ million pounds on
• development within seven years, but up to the time when the working of the concessions became impossible last year the company had already spent much more. The reason for a change in the attitude of the Soviet towards the Company was that the New Economic Policy had been scrapped in favour of the Five Year Plan. The Company had been promised originally that it should be free to trade as it liked ; that it should not be prejudiced in any way because it was Capitalistic ; that it should be immune from the interference of trade unions ; that it should be protected by the pc lice, and so on. Undoubtedly if these promises had been kept the Company would now be in a fair way to make vast profits. But the authors of the Five Year Plan were evidently determined to make life impossible for the Company.
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