Godfrey Bowen’s Views On Soviet Union

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30270, 24 October 1963, Page 13

Godfrey Bowen’s Views On Soviet Union

. By nature man was sinful, and that was why there was no perfect system in this life, Mr Godfrey Bowen told 500 members and guests of the Christchurch R.S.A Tin Hat Cfeib. Maa was greedy, jealous and selfish. “Ifoq know that a* well as I do/’ he said. "It applies under any system ip this world." - Mr Bowen, who is field dir-

ector of the New Zealand Wool Board, was speaking on his recent trip to the Soviet Union, where he travelled 13,000 miles ou a 'four of instruction and demonstration in sheep shearing. - He called on his audience to be very careful of propaganda. 'The Soviet Union's picture of the Western world is much the same as ours is of theirs," he said. “Ibis came as a grave shock to me. I threw every paper of theirs away and said it was trash.” Mr Bowen said he thought much propaganda was put out by both sides. T Was told in Russia that in your Parliament (the English one) you open Parliament with a prayer, yet one of your top Ministers tells a ■ lie. Christine Keeler is headline news .throughout the Soviet Union. “Get your picture straight,” Mr Bowen said. “We hear bad things about the Soviet Union, And It hears bad things about us. ' “My job was to tell them something about our culture, some of the good things about the Commonwealth. Some of the people in the Soviet found what I said very hard to believe. I never believed they had such a distorted picture of us. But perhaps our picture has been a bit misty, too.”

Mr Bowen said he came back from the Soviet Union more of a champion of British democracy than ever. Outlining some of the history of the Soviet Union, he called on his audience to appreciate the struggle of the Soviet people and their courage in winning the revolution and their sacrifices in the last world war. “Appreciate their struggle,” he said. “Read their history —look at it squarely—and you will probably get the same shock as I did."

The Soviet people he saw were the most direct people he had ever met. be said. “They look straight at you. They look straight through you. They want to know what sort of person you. ere. They want to know what your heart is like. They want to know how you apply yourself."

The Soviet people, he said, had the necessaries of life, but there were no luxuries. The two greatest handicaps Were the severe winter—a hungry monster that took all and gave nothing, back—and the problem of transport set by the Vast distances to be covered.