CHAPLAIN'S VIEW OF RUSSIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 196, 17 August 1920, Page 5

CHAPLAIN'S VIEW OF RUSSIA.

'•BOLSHEVIK RULE IS HELL." BRITISH "BOL-SHIES" BA_dBOOZL__Ii\ (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, May 26. The Rev. Frank North, lately British chaplain in Moscow and a man who has. long residential qutUiticiitions to enable him to contrast Russia to-day with Russia under the (.'r.arist yoke, lias just ltturned to England with a number "i British civilian refugees. Mr. North gives perhaps the best and most authoritative evidence we have yet had as to the conditions of Bolshevik Russia, tor he was in a sense treated by the Soviet authorities a--, some sort of 1111----orlicial representative of Great Britain, and seems to have been permitted a great deal more freedom of movement than mo.-t of his fellow-countrymen there, and to have escaped a good many of the worst ''inconveniences'' which foreigners in Russia were apt to experience. Mr. North's evidence can be summed up in his own pregnant phrase —"Bolshevik rule is Hell!" lie tells us, in ctl'ect. that the Russian people in general are reduced to a dull apathetic condition, with scarcely enough physical energy left to pray for a deliverer. They are hopelessly demoralised, and only an iron system of compulsory labour induces them to work at all. Transport has almost come to a standstill. The railways are repositories -for broken-down locomotives and coaches; the majority of mills stand idle, the machinery out of order and repair. Bolshevism is unsurpassed as an instrument of destruction; no despotism has ever invented so effective ' a system of rule. The Moscow wireless has just sent out a message to tiie world declaring that deserters from the Labour Army will be liable to imprisonment from two weeks to six months and that more serious offence against Labour duty will be dealt with by the Revolutionary Labour Tribunal—which awards the death penalty to human Deings with just as little compunction as they, would decree the extinction of a mangy cat. It is one of the really funny tilings about Bolsheviks that they publish broadcast such messages as these, which reveal the desperate state of their industrial conditions, though when they receive friendly Labour visitors, from foreign countries they put themselves to all sorts ,__ trouble to make ''everything in the garden look ( loveiy" in their visitors' eyes, and to impress them with the beauties and benefits of Bolshevik rule. Mr. North tells us that he has seen plant carried from a dozen factories to make a single factory fairly complete, so that Mr. Lansbury and his brother travellers might admire the Bolshevik industrial organisation, and that he has seen -schools, of starving children and gaols of starving- prisoners specially stocked with provisions for the inspection of these personally conducted tourists, who were only allowed to sco what their guides particularly desired they should. The value of the evidence of Mr. Lansbury and his friends as to the state of affairs in Russia has already been heavily discounted, but Mr. Norths testimony suggests that it is quite valueless; that, indeed, this gentleman was not only not permitted to see Tilings as they really were, but shut his eyes to those things which did Sot coincide with his preconceived notions concerning the blessings of Bolshevik rule. Mr. North says that when he invited Mr. Lansbury to pay him a visit, the latter declined the invitation on the ground that he was being- watched too closely! j Mr. North also state-,' that Mr. Lan-s-Tjuxys single excuse f.ir all the atrocities and vilene-s of the Bolsheviks was, "It is a revolution." These two statements are decidedly illuminating. They s'hnw us what measure of freedom is permitted to the eyes and ears of even such I avowed friends of the Bolshevik regime as Mr. Lansbury when they are in Russia, and throw a strong light on t.-ia astonishing 'mentality of our British revolutionaries. They claim on the ground of liberty tlte utmost protection of the laws of the system which they are keen to overthrow, but when they "have overthrown it—well, evervbo H- who is I not quite of their way of thinking can I UToperly be deprived of all rights because I "it is revolution."' . i Mr. North, by the way, i s one of those j who do not .believe in the theory that |we should swallow Bolshevism and its | works for the sake of opening up trade | with .Soviet Russia. The Bolsheviks, he I .says, are eager enough to get British I goods; but all they have to export in . return arc "Bo.shevik ideas."' To enI courage trade under these circumstances; would certainly be bad business for us, , even if politically justifiable, which is ; doubtful. In fine, Mr. North's con- ! sidered opinion seems to be that nothing j good can come out of Russia till itpresent rulers have met the fate which, in his opinion, tiiev most richly deserve.