CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 November 1935, Page 5

CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

AMBASSADOR AND MR. COATES [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] . WELLINGTON, November 8. The “Evening Post” has received the following cablegram from the Soviet Ambassador in London (T. Maisky): My attention has been drawn to a report published in your issue of August 22, in which you quote Mr. Coates, Minister of Finance in New Zealand; as saying that “statistics show ’ that there are probably more people hungry in the Soviet Union, than anywhere else: I had it from the Soviet Ambassador himself. I discussed the matter with him for hours. “If Mr. Coates is correctly reported, then I should like to make the following comment. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Coates in London, last Summer, at the Lord Mayor’s reception, and we had a talk, not a very long one, on the situation in the Soviet Union. In this talk, I outlined the progress which had been made, ticularly during the last five or six years. Certainly, I did not, in our conversation, use the words attributed to me above, as it would be contrary to the facts. Independent observers of all kinds who have made prolonged! surveys of the conditions- in. my country, have published reports,, which completely refute any suggestion that the U.S.S.R. abounds with hungry people.” SOVIET ANNIVERSARY , \ [by CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYBIGHT.] (Rec. November 9, 8 a.m.) ‘ MOSCOW, November 9. The Soviet’s greatest tank display marked the Moscow celebrations .of the eighteenth anniversary of the-Bol-shevik revoluti'on, when M. StaHn from the review stand, atop of Lenin’s red marble mausoleum, saw 420 tanks, ranging from light amphibians to great land battleships, pour, across the rough cobbles of Red Square. Thereafter, twenty-five thousand troops filed past. Finally, nearly two million civilian demonstrators paraded displaying enormous figures of Soviet leaders, held aloft by large balloons.