TRADE UNDER SOVIET

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 56, 30 November 1923, Page 8

TRADE UNDER SOVIET

“A VERY TRICKY BUSINESS”

GENERAL STAGNATION AND UNCERTAINTY

DISTRUST EVERYWHERE

The general uncertainty of business relationship in Russia under soviet rule was stressed by Mr. C. J. Runikin, of Feilding, who has just returned from a six months’ business visit to that country.

“I left here last June,” said Mr. Rumkin to a Dominion representative, “and I havo spent part of the interim in Northern Manchuria, Russia, and China, but chiefly in V laaivostox. The idea of my visit was to find out tho prospects of timber trade. Siberia has a very good timber in the shape of cedar, a yellow grained wood like kauri, but not of so good a quality. I. came to the conclusion that any form of commerce in Russia just now is a very trickv business. Since tho Bolsheviks took control, tho foreign consuls havo all left, and now in Vladivostok there is not even a Japanese Consul. , . , “There is a general uncertainty about everything. I met most of tho Bolshevik leaders, who all seem keen to do business, but they have confiscated some of the banks altogether, and driven others away, _ which lias caused a very bad impression amongst merchants. The representative ot a Danish firm established there told me that when the Bolsheviks took over control, they paid his premises several visits during the first three ■weeks. They said nothing the first time, and when he asked ‘Why?’ he was told that thev had heard reports that he had stores of guns and ammunition there. Disquieting conditions.

“All that is very disquieting Every-thing-looks quiet and quite all right. Since everyone but Bolsheviks has been driven away, there is not sq much killing as there was, but you do not know the man you are talking to. He may be a spy, or he may not; you don’t know. Everyone distrusts everyone else. The man you meet mav be a spy, a thief, or a good man. i°o don’t know. There is nobody there fore, whose guarantee you can take. The onlv wav to transact business is to deal from Harbin, where the viks have a representative. This is Chinese territory, and, as it were, neutral ground. Always one is watched. followed and inquired into. “Things in Vladivostok were, however good, compared with conditions in the rest of Russia. In Central Russia there is nothing doing. A little barter trade is going on. If you can hand a man a bat. coat, or a pair or trousers, he will giro you something in return, but he will not take money in any shape. A good deal of washing for gold goes on in the summer, and trapping furs in the winter, but there is no work for the peasants at all. and many of them are merely existing. Currency Confusion. “The currency afloat is a wonderful thing. There have been so many successive Governments, each of which floated a new paper currency, and most of these notes are still in circulation. The Romanoff, Kerensky, different provisional governments Den ? iken. Kolchak. Semenoff.(some of these in different centres), and other governments succeeded each other, each leavinc a note issue, and after that the Bolsheviks began to print notes from different centres of authority. there was one man named Fly. who printed a separate currency, and that was known as “Fly money” by the peasants. It is no wonder they are distrustful. M manv of these issues were overprinted bv different governments, or simply marked with a rubber stamp in red at double or ten times their face value. “Railway charges are very high, and there is no through system of responsibility for goods over the Chinese, Japanese, and Bolshevik railways so tho fate of goods cannot he complained of with anv hope of redress. I here is a'Bolshevik railway from Vladivostok to Pogrannchnaya, then a Chinese railway to Harbin. Chinese cftfitrol on the railway to Dairein, on the Yellow Sea. ends at Chang-chun, from which point the Japanese control it. Chinese control on the railway from Harbin" through Manchuria ends at Manchuria, where it is taken over by the Bolsheviks. To do business from Harbin, on the outskirts of the rich Manchuria grainfields, and m touch with the fine timber country north of the Vladivostok-Harbin railway is therefore a very uncertain thing Mails are nevertheless fairly satisfactory, and a passenger train for Europa now leaves Vladivostok. Different gauges complicate the transport problem, and the extra, handling renders the arrival of goods less certain.”