SOVIET SIDELIGHTS

Northern Advocate, 17 August 1931, Page 5

SOVIET SIDELIGHTS

MISSION TO ENGLAND. DISLIKE PROFESSED. (Received 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, August 16. ‘'We are glad we tame, but we are gladder to leave,” was the parting farewell to capitalist England of a party of Soviet workpeople tourists. When asked whether they had learned anything, an earnest consultation between their close-cropped heads'produced the verdict: “We are impressed with the beautiful parks and efficient municipal system of tubes and traffic control, but we unanimously dislike the weather, the food, and the human derelicts on the Thames Embankment and in the London trams.”

One spokesman said: “No wonder, you are still under the capitalistic yoke. The climate is enough to suppress all enterprise. lam frankly shocked at the tipping system, and also at the tremendous differences between Mayfair and the East End. lam really sorry for your workers, whose standard is insufficiently high. Unfortunately we had insufficient opportunity of mixing with them to discover their point of view.” ANOTHER ANGLE. POVERTY AND TYRANNY. FLIGHT TO POLAND. (Received 11 a.m.) BERLIN, August 16.

The 37 remaining inhabitants of the village of Mochanowaka, near the Polish border who were reduced from prosperity to poverty under the Soviet, decided to flee to Poland with their possession loaded in handcarts. Red Guards, however, discovered them crossing the frontier, and when the runaways refused to return several were shot dead. Twenty-one reached Poland. The Dictator, Stalin, in a speech which was not published, and the purport of which Ts known only to inner circles, announced that the entire rationing system is being abolished early in 1932, when the bread cards will be withdrawn. This will probably mean immediate restrictions on wheat exports. The harvest has been much diminished as compared with the estimates, owing to the bad weather.