THE SOVIET UNION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 100, 28 March 1939, Page 2

THE SOVIET UNION.

Impressions of his recent visit to Soviet Russia as one of the South Australian Trades and Labour Council’s delegates were given an audience in the Aloteor Theatre on Sunday night by Mr T. C. AlcGillick. The speaker told in simple language the story of what he saw in a country which, he said, was attempting one of the greatest social experiments of all time. Mr McGillick commenced by praising the comfort and speed of the railway train which had carried him to Moscow, where he had stayed at the Moscow Hotel, in which there were 1000 rooms. This hotel claimed to be the largest in Europe. He had noticed that there were many new cars in Moscow. The Government had called in all the new cars in the city and had sent them out to the colleotive farms to help the farmers solve their transport problems. Still there were tens of thousands of cars in the streets. He had visited M. Stalin’s automobile plant, which covered one and a-half square miles, and which employed 40,000 workers, who worU

a seven-hour five-day week. There was a hospital attached to the factory.

Air McGillick also touched on other subjects of interest, including visits to a huge locomotive works and a big-scale collective farm. He also saw the march past of the Hr 1 Army in the Red Square, which took seven hours to pass a given point. Referring briefly to the building problem, Mr McGillick said it was causing some concern there as a shortage of materials and labour was apparent. However, last year the Soviet had manufactured 7.500.000 tons of cement and none of it was exported. Describing his visit to the locomotive works at Vorowshilovgrad, Air AlcGillick said that 25.000 workers were employed there on a six-hour day. The engines produced at this factory were capable of /a speed of 100 miles an hour, and could travel ICOO miles without refilling with water. Two of the engines had been exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in 1937, and had gained two gold medals. Dealing with his tour of the big collective farm at Kharkov, the speaker said that this farm had 1400 acres under grain. 64.5 acres of orchard. 240 acres of potatoes and a cultivation of sunflowers from which valuable oils were extracted. There were 545 men, women and children on the farm. Each worker had his own cottage and a plot of land on which he grew produce for himself. Here again the farmers were paid wages in accordance with the quality a.nd quantity of their -work. The quality of fhe land was always taken into consideration when making these payments. In the event of natural interferences with crops, such as drought, flood and fire, the farmer was assured of an income through the state insurance. which was non-contributorv. Concluding, Afr AlcGillick said lie was amazed at the city of Afoscow and the hospitality of the people. He had seen many thousands of Spanish children who were being eared for in Afoscow. The luxury industry in Russia had not developixl very much, and so the workers were placing their savings in the ba.nk for the time when the industry had expanded sufficiently to meet all demands.