RUSSIA'S DESIRE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 18, 22 January 1937, Page 16

RUSSIA'S DESIRE

A TRADING NATION ADVANCEMENT WITH PEACE (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, January 2. Russia has trebled its gold produc • tion in the last five years. It is now the second largest gold-producing country in the world. It hopes, shortly, to surpass even the production of the Rand, in South Africa. This declaration was made by the Soviet Ambassador in London, M. Maisky, ai a farewell dinner to M. Ozersky, the Soviet trade representative, on the occasion of his return to Russia. M. Maisky also had a word to say of the Soviet foreign policy. Russia, today, he said, felt sufficiently strong to defend herself with success, singlehanded, against any Power or any combination of Powers. However, her main goal was not to win a waxbut to prevent war. The goal could not be reached by Russia alone. That was why Russia had no sympathy for the policy of isolation, and that was why she was a member of the League of Nations. The Soviet, with her vast territory and huge population, the wealth and variety o£ her natural resources, could more easily than any other country in the world, possibly with the exception of the British Empire, become, if it so desired, a really "autarchic" economic unit. None the less, she did not aim at breaking its commercial relations with the rest of the world, and her economic policy was one of econortiic independence, but not of economic exclusiveness. Notwithstanding the fact that the Soviet had practically already achieved economic independence, it could still be a great exporter, and a great importer as well. From Britain's age-long trading experience they knew that the economic prosperity of any given country was always an asset and not a liability to international trade. The Soviet was at present in the midst of an all-round and rapid economic advance, which, if they succeeded in avoiding war, would undoubtedly continue to develop in a crescendo. Russia was already capable of producing all that was needed; that did not exclude the possibility of large orders abroad. M. Ozersky said that at the present time Soviet industrial production was about seven times as great as it was before the war, while the increase, compared with 1928, the last year before the introduction of the first FiveYear Plan, was about five-fold. The ever-growing importance of Russia in the political as well as in the economic sphere had brought about a definite change for the better in the relations between the two countries. Mr. Eden's visit to Moscow had marked an important step forward, as one could see from the joint statement issued in Moscow after his conversations with the leaders of the Soviet. It was now increasingly realised that greater collaboration between Great Britain and Russia was essential for the maintenance of world peace.