THE FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13813, 29 January 1907, Page 5

THE FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

A CONTRACT CANCELLED,

MILLIONS STARVING.

Press Association—By Te 1 eßrat>li—Copyiigh t.

ST. PETERSBURG. January 27.

M. Stolypin, (lie Russian Premier, lias cancelled the colli raet by .M. Gurko, Assistant-Minister of (he Interior, l" Lidval, Ilio ])iTipric((ir of gaining tables, to supply bread jo .starving people.

1 linco (i. Lyoll. who recently returned nom a long ton,- m t ] tl , f itm ino-.-,trkk<'n legions, give,,-. ,in ||,e liuHskivu Yedoinosti, a heartrending account of his experience.,. He ( declares that while (he Government is supposed 0 he. investigating the sieged fiauds bv tln> firms employed |~v I lie Under - noisier .or the Interior in convev supplies to the famine re-lon, tin- linliiippv and innocent people are suffering untold'privalions and torture. J| i, s n.-it in ihe economic sense. Imt m Ihe ,tired meaning of Ilia word, thai: tlio populace are dying. ' They are actually living | V nin day i'<> dav. from oaf to loaf, tviihoiit. the slightest; iione of l»U)g able to prolong the sirugele fo'r life until tin; snnnjr. Tho croiw have f;iiiori oomploioly. Thorn isi nriiher food nor forage. The granaries stand absolutely empty. Over a stretch of 1000 ver.-i, the Prince saw in only olovou villages a fow house-owners who had left ;i litije of tlie coin stored from live to leu years ago. Thcro is r.o trace of either oats or buckwheat. t In one district the Prince found only seven out of thirty-three villages in which acorn flour was not mixed with the rvc to mnko the scanty bread. In some village*, acorn-flour bread aione was eaten. This ''bread ' the Princu titys. formed tlio staplo food nf million., <if peonle since September. Such as H is there is nowhere enough to give more than one feed a day fn each person. The children are given usually this acorn Hour mixed with hot waler into a sort of gruel. The people havo a strange look from feeding on this 11 hunger broad." as it is culled. 'They are pale, exhausted, with dimmed eyes and shaking limlis. All complain that it " makes their hearts burn." Whore hunger bread is eaten tligro also is found scurvy and typhoid.

x Tho assistance that is being sent 'iiy th-j Government is wholly insufficient in quantity and badly organised. Tho Central Government has, in fact, actually forbidden the organisation of relief committees, fearing that they may become centres of revolutionary propaganda. Meantime, newspapers are. being suppressed for hinting at the discovery ol more gross lrands in connction with the distribution of tho Government relief corn.