"NO BRIGHTNESS."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 60, 12 March 1938, Page 9

"NO BRIGHTNESS."

Australian Visitor's Views On Russia. WOMAN'S CHALLENGE. SYDNEY, March 4. Miss Grace Seobio challenged the Assistant-Minister for Trade and Commerce. Mr. Perkins, after lie had given an address at the Feminist Club on Russia.

Miss Scobie is secretary of the Australian Federation of Women Voters. She wondered if Mr. Perkins had ever walked down the rows of povertystricken houses in parts of Edinburgh? Seen some of the houses in East Sydney ? Kead Tolstoi on the vice, squalor, and filth, of St. Petersburg? Considered the thousands who were sent to work in the Siberian salt mines during the ' days of Imperial Russia? j "Mr. Perkins has told us onlv of Russia's failures. What of its feats ?" j Miss Scobie demanded. 1 In reply, Mr. Perkins said that, lie j had seen the slums of Edinburgh, vi-ited those of East Sydney. '"They are but small se<-tior.~ of a large city," he said. "Hut Mosi-ow is j all slums. There is no brightne-s any- j where." ' '■ The Russians had torn down. not built ' up. Their method vas wrong. Now they were forward a little, i but only by stepping haekwsird. lie had been rue of a part\ ' representing every shade <.f political! opinion, from (nrt-en alive to I «nn-j munist. to > 1 *i;- - j.i. All c-anie ' lit ■ --n\ • n,i tii.it the hition wa.- a f.iilnr..