RUSSIAN FAMINE

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 129, 3 June 1922, Page 14

RUSSIAN FAMINE

SEED PLSNTING OPERATIONS

DIFFICULTIES OF TRANSPORT.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESrONOIHI.)

LONDON, 21st April.

Mr. Jamea P. Goodrich, former Governor o£ Indiana, has been in Russia in. connection with the work of tlie American" Relief Association. Before leaving for New York he gave, in an interview, some impressions of the: conditions in Russia. If the transport system did not break down, he hoped that the famine might be largely checked in the near future. He found a more hopeful atmosphere in Russia, as the situation was getting pretty well in hand. As to the present Government in Russia, he said : "I see no prospect of its fait ing." : ■ . , „.-■•..

" When I was in Kussia last autumn the children were dying very rapidly. Thanks to the combined work of all the relief organisations, that state of affairs has practically ceased, so that child mortality is now approaching normal. I am quite certain that in another thirty days, if the railways are able to deliver the grain to the railheads—the terminal places from which it must be taken by the peasants who come in to fetch it—the people ■will not starve to death. The grain is already in the ports or1 on the railway, and the authorities are now moving it back into the country.. The peasants come for it on sledges, and haul it back. as much as 100 versts. ■ It is going to tax the railroad capacity of Russia to the utmost to get the .grain where it is needed, and it is too early to say how far it is possible. There is very great congestion now. The Government is giving preference to the seed programme over both the , child feeding and adult feeding programme, because if the peasant cannot sow this seed by the 26th April it will not do him any good. The Commissary of Railways told me there were perhaps two cargoes of grain which he did not believe they would be able to get to the peasants in time ;for sowing, and that they were arranging to replace it by a lot of seed. maize for planting in its stead. They can' plant the latter early in May.; ■ • ■

"The; people," Mr. Goodrich said) "were looking forward more hopefully to the situation confronting them. There is a. feeling among the peasants, so far as we1 can ascertain their feeling, that if the_y could get the seed grain and sow it, i with a normal crop and plenty of rainfall, the distress tvould practically be over as far as starvation is concerned. I am going back in June, when the seed for the new crop will all have long been sown, and when one ■will be able to estimate very closely the actual crop likely to be raised' this year, the number of people to feed, and whether the crop will bo sufficient for this purpose. It must not be forgotten, however, Russia is a country where ftimines have occurred while there was still food. In 1891, -for example, 300,000 people.,starved to death in Russia, and yet in the same: year Russia exported about 300 million poods of foodstuffs. I am, however, returning with a more cheerful feeling as to the saving of the Bussian people from actual starvation.' The situation is getting pretty well in hand." •

Mr. Goodrich mentioned one place in the famine area where he was snowbound for si*:days at the latter end of March., During this time he counted 149 camels and horses drawing sledges laden with food. They came day after day. This was at a place where the British Friends were working. He.visited Mos■cow as well as the famine area. Coiijtions in Moscow have changed somewhat from those obtaining when he was there in the autumn, more sho^s being open than on the previous occasion.