THE GRIP OF FAMINE.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2670, 22 December 1928, Page 6

THE GRIP OF FAMINE.

MILLIONS IN RUSSIA. PECULIAR FOOD EXPEDIENTS. CHEMICALLY-TREATED BRAN. Remarkable facts about presentday conditions in Russia are related in the latest Soviet newspapers to reach Paris, said the Paris correspondent of the Daily Chronicle on October 15. The "Red situation" occupies columns of space, which is a clear indication of its grim seriousness.

In all towns and cities the bread card has been reintroduced, because, as the Isvestia reports, the harvest of European Russia is quite insufficient for the needs of the population. In the Kherson province, of the Black Sea, more than a quarter of a million families, or nearly a third of the population, are practically foodless. In Ukrainia, about 1,000,000 people are in the grip of famine, and the Government is organising a relief scheme. In the Volga region, according to a Moscow economic journal, the harvest was very seriously damaged by heavy and unseasonable rain. In Siberia the crops were good, but transport conditions are such that it will be impossible to transport grain in the necessary quantities to areas in need of it. SECRET BREAD PROCESS. All the Northern provinces of European Russia will be put on severely restricted rations during winter, and official preparations are being made to feed Moscow on bread made of chemically-treated bran. This latter fact is revealed by a paper appropriately named Bednota (poverty), which states that the process for making this bread is being kept a secret by the Government bakeries. Some of this chemical bread has already been issued, and it was thought that it had caused the epidemic of stomachic and intestinal trouble in the cities. Bednota discovered that private

bakeries had also been carrying out experiments in the production of bread, and that the common practice was to use plaster of Paris to increase weight—and profits. These plaster of Paris bakers will be severely dealt with by the authorities. Isvestia, in an article on the food situation, says that the "bread lines" on queues at the Government bakeries are now three times longer than only a week earlier. Such famine-like conditions are naturally having an extremely serious effect on the general economic situation. The buying of goods abroad is to be cut down to the utmost limit, and large orders for tractors placed in the United States hnve been cancelled. MANUFACTURE OF VODKA. Then Isvestia also reveals a curious state of affairs regarding the vodka monopoly. For a half-starved people the Government is going to provide more —vodka. A great new distillery is to be built to double the production in Moscow, and even now the Soviet authorities receive a larger revenue from vodka than did the Tsarist Government.

During the year 1926-27, Russia consumed 85,500,000 gallons of vodka, while for 1927-28 the figure is over 100,000,000 gallons. That ie only the official production and the statistics take no account of of the vast quantities which the peasants make and consume themselves.

In the North of Russia, Isvestia states, the peasants use about 30 per cent, of their potato crop, and in the South 25 per cent, of their grain crop for the brewing of vodka. The Government's idea in producing more vodka is to make it so plentiful that the peasants will be ready to sell more of their crop to the authorities. Meanwhile, the Red Gazette of Leningrad reports a great increase in drunkenness among the workers.