IMPORTS FROM RUSSIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 99, 29 April 1933, Page 8

IMPORTS FROM RUSSIA.

The observer outside Russia, who is apt to be sympathetic towards what he supposes to ■ be the democratic impulses of the Soviet system, frequently does not fully appreciate the dangers underlying the industrial competition of Russia. The vast resources of the Soviet State should suffice to give her own people, in due time, living conditions as good as those of the industrial democracies of the West. But the methods of Russian industry are the same as those of Russian justice— ruthless, overbearing and regardless of the private rights of either Russian subjects or foreigners. When the Bolsheviks seized control they confiscated, lock, stock and barrel, all the capital investments of foreign industrialists in Russia. Adding to their natural resources this great bonus of millions of pounds' worth of plant aud experience paid for by shareholders in other countries, employing Russian workers at low rates of pay, and forcibly depriving the Russian people of reasonable necessities in order to create an "exportable surplus," it is not surprising that Russia can throw her products upon the world market at prices-with which the generouslypaid industries of Great Britain and America cannot compete. Apart from the social aspect of this competition, which is of grave importance in itself, the matter takes on a new significance in view of the action of the British Government towards Russian imports into England. As a protest against the conviction of the British engineers on charges which no non-political court would have held to be proved, the British Government has prohibited the entry into the British Isles of practically 80 per cent of the commodities which have recently been coming from Russia, including butter, grain, cotton, oil, petroleum and timber. This embargo cannot pass unnoticed by New Zealand. The Prime Minister, Mr. Forbes, has already indicated that any action taken by Great "Britain will be carefully watched by the New Zealand Government. The step taken in Whitehall must incidentally have an effect upon the economic situation in New Zealand. At least it affords a ray of hope for the New Zealand dairy farmers that the glut of butter in London may be relieved by the withholding of Russian supplies. N.Z.