EVIL DECADE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1928, Page 7

EVIL DECADE.

SOVIET OFFENDED. Fourteen Professors Defame Regime. DEGRADED AS PUNISHMENT. ("Times" Cables.) (Received' 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, November 25. The "Times" Riga correspondent states that the Soviet has degraded fourteen professors, members of the Acadamy of Science, resident in Leningrad, for defaming the Soviet regime abroad by participation in a volume devoted to archaeology and art, published in Prague. The Soviet especially resented an academician named Zhebeleff writing a biography on an archaeologist named Smirnoff, who died in 1918, declaring that he was fortunate in dying then because he avoided an evil decade.

HOPELESS SITUATION. Request For Cancellation Of Farm Debts. SOVIET DILEMMA. ("Times" Cables.) LONDON, November 25. The Riga of the "Times" says the Agricultural Commissars throughout Russia held a conference to consider a request from the directors of the Soviet farm not only for the cancellation of the farm debts, but for a loan of 152,000,000 roubles as the only way out of a hopeless situation. The spokesman, Dmitrieff, disclosed the fact that the farm debts had grown from 22,000,000 roubles in four years. The wages were four months in arrears and the failure of the enterprise had seriously affected the Soviet's agricultural policy. "ALARMING FIGURES. ,, ARSON AND PIEES IN RUSSIA. ("Times" Cables.) (Received 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, November 25. In a book entitled "Alarming Figures," the Soviet has published a report on arson and incidental fires in the countryside since October, 1927. They number 110,000, largely due to strife, vengeance and hooliganism. One village was set on fire , 21 times, another 20 and a third eighteen. Eight were completely destroyed.

SHEEP FOR RUSSIA. AUSTRALIAN MERINOS. (Received 12 noon.) SYDNEY, this day. A shipment of 2000 Merino sheep leaves for Russia this week, including 600 first flock ewes from Falkiner's Haddonrig station, and 700 from Donald Grant's, Bairnkine stud. The purchase was made by the TextHe Import Company, one of the biggest wool buying organisations in Russia, which has already bought freely from the Argentine, Australian and New Zealand wool markets, and for some years has been importing such sheep from the Argentine and the United States.