UNITED STATES' ATTITUDE.
It is not very surprising, therefore, to find that in reply to a lengthy letter from Mr. Ivy Lee to the President of the United States Chamber of Commerce, Washington, suggesting that the Chamber " on behalf of American business should establish a Bureau in Moscow," the suggestion is keenly combated. In the course of his reply, the President of the Chamber, Mr. Pierson, says that in the opinion of the Executive of the Chamber " nothing but propaganda harmful to our country would result from such a movement," and later on he says : " We do not believe that it is posSible to bring the Russian people back to normal conditions through trade relations as long as they are under the complete control of such insincere, unrepentant and misguided rulers as those who in the last ten years have degraded the character and lowered the living standards of 140 millions of people. . . . Trade relations prosper only when founded on mutual good faith and integrity, and no such foundation exists to-day in the whole Soviet record of repudiation, of conflicting and confiscatory edicts, of bad faith, and misrepresentations in international relations, and in the treatment of their own people. . . . American business is certain that recognition of the Soviet regime, however skilfully disguised, is not for the public good."
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