SOVIET REGIME.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 118, 19 April 1932, Page 7

SOVIET REGIME.

POSITION OF FOREIGN OIL DEPOTS. LONDON, April 18. The Daily Express says that after years of endeavour Russia’s foreign oil depots are likely to be closed. Russian petrol is now selling at a loss of twopence a gallon, and world production gives no promise of a substantial rise in price for a long time. The Soviet Government believed that with confiscated oil wells, “free of the incubus of capitalistic ownership,” it could undersell the oil companies of the world, and thereby raise muchneeded funds abroad. The scheme was successful for a while, but over-pro-duction ended foreign credits. The Dailv Express is of the opinion that as the* wheat gamble has also failed, the Five-Year Plan may be regarded as a failure. “DISMAL FAILURE.” SOVIET ADMINISTRATION. “Dismal failure” in supplying meat, milk and butter to the populace is admitted by the Soviet leader, M. Stalin, and the Commissar of Agriculture, M. Molotov, reports the Riga correspondent of the London Times. This failure, they state in a decree, is causing the “toiling masses,” and also the Red Army, serious privations. The decree witheringly exposes the conditions on the huge State cattle, pig and chicken farms. The names of hundreds of delinquent directors and managers throughout the Soviet Republic are published. Thirty of these have been arrested and handed to the Red Tribunal for trial and exemplary punishment. The authorities have also dismissed 1700 farm workers and stablemen in the Ukraine alone, owing to the unexampled neglect reducin gthe majority of draught horses to unfitness when they were needed for the spring ploughing. The decree announces the division of cattle farms; which are suffering from maldistribution of fodder and unwieldliness, until limited to 8000 head and of dairy farms to from 400 to 600 cows.