CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 December 1929, Page 9

CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

REPORTS BY BRITISH MINERS.

A few weeks ago, cable messages reported from London the disillusionment of two British miners who went to Russia to see the real conditions of the Russian people at first hand., Recent English mails have brought more detailed accounts of the miners’ impressions. Their names are J. Crane and W. Roone. and they were accompanied by R. Southan, a schoolmaster, who acted as interpreter. Their visit to Russia arose out of criticism of certain innovations which were introduced at the Tilmanstone Colliery in Kent; Some members of the Kent Mineworkers’ Association urged that conditions were better in Russia, and Mr. Tilden Smith, managing director of the colliery offered to send Messrs, Roone and Crane to Russia to investigate, on condition that if things were better •here than in Kent they should remain there, and that any friends of theirs at the colliery who might desire to ioin them should be sent out at his expense.

On their return they made their reports frankly at a meeting of their own trade union called to hear them. Mr. Crane, who spoke first, explained that the reason that they managed to get into the coal-mining area unaccompanied was that their passports had not been handed over to the police. That they had toured Russian industrial, areas without the usual escort greatly surprised the Soviet authorities when they returned to Moscow, and for some days they were threatened with imprisonment. In Moscow itself,, said Mr. Crane, they saw a whole series of revolting sights. The stench at times was indescribable, and they were accosted by a never-ending stream of beggars. The first mine they visited was the Barovsky mine. The mine was simply i hole in the side of a hill. “When ve saw it,” said Mr. Crane, “we never Ireamt for a moment that anyone was working there. The seam appeared to be perfectly vertical. We went down by the process of sliding on our backs from prop to prop. We had to keep on going down until the seam came out on to the level again. We were told that the miners worked six hours a day in that mine, and we told them in reply that the British miners would not work three hours a day in such a place.” At the New Economical Mine they were informed that the cost of producing coal was 17/6 per ton. The working day here was also six hours, and the wages ranged from £9 to £l2 a month, payment being made according to measurement. They asked why the men were not paid a daily wage, and the reply was that if they were there would be no coal produced.

DEGRADATION OF WOMEN. At this pit women were working on the screens in eight-hour shifts. They saw women pulling coal out of the cage in their bare feet. They also visited the workers’ homes, which had no water laid on and no baths. Returning to Slovansk, on the railway line, they found it impossible to secure hotel accommodation, and spent the night in a doss-house, where men and women were together. At all stations in Russia there was a horde of people sleeping every night on the floor—beggars and cripples, hundreds of them, over whom one had to walk. Giving a few of the prices of commodities in Russia, Mr. Crane said the cost of water for six persons for one week was 12/-, eggs were 7Jd each, butter 4/- a pound, boots £2 a pair, soling and heeling a pair of boots 10/10, and a bicycle cost £2O. The exchange rate for the purpose of trading with Great Britain was 33 roubles to the pound sterling. The actual rate at which they changed their money in Russia was 9.3 roubles to the pound. All the women appeared to be without stockings or shoes, and unemployment in the towns was heavy, largely on account of the peasants having left the land and refusing to go back. There were women in the army and women workers on the railways and roads. There was no home life in Russia. All meals w'ere taken in eating-houses. “We could have married/’ added Mr. Crane, “if we had wished, and the marriage could have been continued during our stay and then have been dissolved.” He explained ythat the father of a child had to contribute 30 pei* cent, of his wages towards its maintenance, and lazy men found it possible to live without working by marrying a woman with, say, three children who was receiving three contributions from the fatherswf the children.

Mr. W. Roone, the other miner, said that when they ai’rived in Moscow, they had been without food for 19 hours. They visited a restaurant, and eventually obtained chunks of beef on a steel skewer, black bread, and mineral water. Although ravenously hungry, they could not eat the food. While they sat resting in the place they noticed a boy of 12 or 13 years steal in and pick up a bone which someone had left on a plate. They gave the boy the remains of their own meal. On the way to the Grand Hotel, where they were furnished with a room, they saw cripples, aged beggars of both sexes, standing, sitting, or lying on the pavement and in the gutter. When they saw these people they commented that a Government which preached the brotherhood of man and spent enormous sums of money on spreading propaganda abroad would do better to spend that money in looking aftei’ its aged, its cripples, and its infirm.

COMMUNISM IN PRACTICE. As they passed from one street to another in Moscow they saw bread queues, where thousands stood from morning to night to obtain their rations of bread. “As we walked along the street to our hotel, we noticed a large jeweller’s shop displaying in the window such things as diamond rings up to and over £5OO sterling each. On going further along this street we noticed the expensive and fashionable clothes which were displayed. This street was a mile long, and every shop was displaying goods which we knew only rich people could buy, We contrasted the appearances of this street with the poverty all round us. If the people who hold Communist views could walk along this street they would say much the same as we said, that it must be all hypocrisy. For, as I told friend Crane, this is the very thing that you Communists, in England condemn, and here in the heart of Soviet Russia they do the very things that you criticise capitalist countries for doing.” The housing accommodation was bad, and in most cases families lived and slept in one room. There were many thousands of unemployed. Sanitation was dread-

ful, and there were flies by the million. It was a common sight to see foodstub’s exposed for sale with millions of flies covering them. At Artimovsk, in the trades council office, they were shown into a very luxurious chamber, far in excess of anything in the workers’ homes. All round this fine building workers were crowded into single rooms, where they ate and slept and did everything under conditions of foul sanitation, while in the trades council office modern sanitary arrangements were installed. Next morning they were called before the president of the trades council and subjected to a political examination as to the progress they were making in England. Roone told them that greater progress had been made by the Labour party in the few months it had been in office than Bolshevists had made in Russia under their five years’ plan. The president and the other members of the trades council began to criticise MacDonald, Henderson, Clynes, and a few other British Labour leaders’. Roone said, that he and his colleagues began using very strong language, which, of course, the Bolshevists did not understand.

Mr. Roone concluded his speech by saying: “Having been to Moscow and seen for myself the conditions prevailing there I have no desire to take up my residence there, but if any of the workmen at Tilmanstone wish to go I will do all that I can to assist them.”