LIVING STANDARDS

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 14067, 23 May 1946, Page 6

LIVING STANDARDS

Sir. Mr .). T. Mcßelfi seems now to bo asking it' tractors and turbines Instead of donkey power and

candles have improved the lot of the ordinary Russian. It certainly is a

step in the right direction. Primary production fell because many farmers were against collectivisation during the change over. Atterwards

they found it just, as successful as British farmers did during the war period. After the change over, millions cf Russians were employed in other industries, and perhaps, because of wheat surpluses in othei parts of the world, they did not try to bring food production to Us former level.

Bernard Shaw told ns to make all the butter we need for export, see that everybody got plenty of butter on their bread, then use out brains and make something else. Substitute wheat for butter and the thing seems obvious to anybody. Regarding propaganda and clear thinking, cur great war leaders and cartoonists. Tell in. over early Rnsso-Finnish affairs. At present

various press agencies are in constant contradiction. Mr Mcßel.lt tells ns of Russian concentration camps. I think of them in other countries. Few countries like Britln would let Sir Oswald Mosley, Captain Ramsay and followers, parade around. Russia bits solved ■hei Jewish problem, to the satisfaction of the Jews. Their brains are appreciated. Two of their greatest generals were Jewish. Prosecuting Jews was Hitler’s loss. If Jews were too clever for Germans as financiers it was just the system that allowed it. I have also read that the Armenians, after years of torture and prosecution, aslccd to be taken into the Soviet Union, as the League of Nations seemingly could do nothing for them. Russia, usually looked upon as the greatest religious persecutor, seems to have the greatest freedom of religion. Newspapers told us that churches and cathedrals were crowded during peace celebrations, preacher, priests etc., all complete, yet a few years ago we were, told that churches were all smashed and all religion abolished. What sensib’e community could tolerate Rasputin? The difference in the ending of this war and the ending of the 1914-18 war showed that Russia had got somewhere, and now that Russian grain is to be sent to France, great enthusiasm is felt there. J. B. Priestly recently toured Russia and he says that reconstruction is going on at a great pace. In his book “One World,” Mr Wendell Wilkie has written —“The best answer to Communism is a living, vibrant, fearless democracy. All we need to do is to stand up' and perform according to our professed Ideals. Then those ideals will be. safe.” The propaganda machines which are to-day so enthusiastically pro-Russian may to-morrow be again trying to inflame passions against Russia; the passions which are the prelude to w T ar.

There are peop'e in Britain and America who wanted to see Russians kill Germans by the millions and so end the Nazi peril. These same people hate Communism or any kind or socialism because they fear that it threatens their power and privileges etc. Being a true socialist myself. I would hardly call some of the men mentioned by Mr Mcßeth socialists, any more than I would, the members of our own Labour Party who believe in taxing people whose income is below the minimum standard. —I am, etc., CHAS. T. ALLINGHAM.