A Market for Munitions In view of the discussions in
progress at Geneva on the control of the private manufacture of munitions considerable interest attaches to charges against armament firms in connection with a case of alleged espionage in Roumania. The representative in that country of the well-known Skoda works in Czecho- slovakia is said to have deliberately spread rumours of an impending Russian attack on Roumania in 1930 in order to stimulate the Ministry of Defence into placing a large order for munitions with the Skoda concern. These appear so far to be still unconfirmed charges, but it is significant that Dr. Lupu, the Deputy who made them publicly in the Chamber, was received in prolonged audience by the King, with whom he discussed the whole affair. Whatever the truth may turn out to be, there is an instructive similarity between these allegations and the activities conducted on behalf of certain American armament firms at Geneva during the Naval Conference of 1927. Hints of scares engineered by armament firms in order to create a market are common, but water- tight evidence' very rarely comes to hand. It remains to be seen whether it is water-tight in this case.
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