SOVIET DECREES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 7, 6 December 1932, Page 8

SOVIET DECREES.

CONTROL OF FOOD SUPPLIES. (Times Cable.) Received December 6. 12.26 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 5. The Riga correspondent of the Times states that attempts to utilise food cards invalidated by dismissal lor truancy are punishable by death, according to Stalin’s decree authorising the directors of factories to control food supplies. Another decree permits peasants in certain areas to begin selling grain and flour in the open market at an unrestricted price instead of waiting until January. The decree explains that the privilege is due to the areas supplied by the Government’s grain quota, but the truth is that the measure is necessary to correct the food scarcity in Aloseow and Leningrad, where people are often in bread queues for 10 to 12 hours, after which they are not supplied owing to the supply being exhausted. A message received from Riga a few days ago stated that in order to check the drift of workers seeking better positions. the Soviet has issued a decree affecting all industrial areas, the inhumanity of which lias been unparalleled since tho anti-Kuiak drive in 1929. The decree insists on dismissal and the forfeiture of food cards for unauthorised absence from factories even iV* a single day: and immediate eviction from - dwellings regardless of the season and without providing for other dwellings or means of transport. Offenders cannot he re-employed for six months, consequently starvation is certain in the event of full enforcement of the decree which is already operative in Moscow and Donetz. affecting hundreds.