The Hawera Star FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 1926. RUSSIA: THE UNKNOWN FACTOR

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 22 January 1926, Page 4

The Hawera Star

FRIDAY, JANUARY 22, 1926. RUSSIA: THE UNKNOWN FACTOR

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock in Hawera, Manaia. No’-macby, Okaiawa, Eltbam, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, HurleyviUe, Pat-ea. Waverley, Mokoia. Whakamara, Obangai. Meremere, Fraeer Road. and Ararata.

With the Treaty of Locarno in operation and the entry of Germany to the League of Nations assured, the statesmen of AVestern Europe will with one accord be turning their thoughts to Russia. Russia was not represented at Locarno, and she is not a member ot l lie League. And yet it may well bo that Russia will have more effect upon I lie immediate future of Europe than i lie majority of Ihe Bowers whose councils she steadfastly refuses to join. Since 1917 Russia lias passed through the fires of severe trial, and there is reason to suspect that the world at large has become so in the habit ol looking upon the country as the home of Bolshevism that it has lost sight of the real Russia, with her immense potentialities. Russia of the Reds is no more the real Russia than France of the Revolution was the real France. France of the Revolution was but a

plume of degradation between two epochs of greatness. May it not be so with Russia? Wild and disastrous experiments in government cannot alter the physical facts that Russia still com prises practically one-eighth of the land area of the world, and that she has a population of a hundred and thirty-five millions. Russia is the headquarters of revolutionary Internationalism — “Hie cent nil spider of the Communist ie web.” as one writer has put it but she is something more. If her methods of government do not improve, she may become the most powerful enemy to civilisation that the world has known. That is a statement which most of us admit to be true. U hat we are much slower to recognise is that, if her methods do improve until they conform to the ordinary usages of international intercourse. her industrial health is such that her competition, which has become .already a danger, may yet involve her rivals in disaster. The leaders of the Soviet Union are driving the State coach over a dangerous road at a reckless gallop; yet, in spite of this handicap, Russia’s trade is growing by leaps and bounds. What might she not do if Government and people were pulling together with a common object ! For that matter, the 'earlier Bolshevist ideas of trade, and Ihe place of capitalism therein, have been modified already to quite a considerable extent. It may only be a matter of a year or two before Russia stands again on the threshold of greatness. What then? In a recent issue of tin; Fortnightly Review, Air. Robert Crozier Long comments on the marked recovery noticeable in Russian trade statistics, and also shows, in no uncertain words, the industrial danger which such recovery connotes to Europe in general and Britain in particular. The economic position of Russia is better to-day, he asserts, than at any other time since the Revolution. The currency lias been stabilised; the foreign trade is rapidly extending; and the business year 1925-26 will probably beat all records, both in volume and value, since 1913. Russia’s harvests are regaining their old-time influence on the world’s markets, her export of timber and wood products has already seriously injured the trade in other countries of Northern Europe, and her fishing and mining industries are making rapid strides. But it is Russia's relations with Germany that Air. Long sees the most urgent danger to Britain. Germany is of the AVest, but she has an Eastern gate, too; and her position, aided by the foresight of her trade authorities, lias enabled her to get ahead of her rivals —particularly of Britain — to an alarming degree. In Russia proper, Britain lias still a fair market; but in Boland, Finland and the minor Baltic States which wore Russian before the war, Germany has hopelessly ■beaten British merchants. This is cold comfort when we reflect that Russia, the moment she finds her feet securely again, will be an immense buyer on trieworld ’s markets. Tn her former greatness the bulk of her custom went to Britain. AVill it-again?