THE GRIP OF FAMINE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20586, 8 December 1928, Page 17

THE GRIP OF FAMINE.

MILLIONS IN RUSSIA. PECULIAR FOOD EXPEDIENTS. CHEMICALLY-TREATED BRAN. Remarkable facts about present-flay conditions in Russia are related in tbs latest Soviet newspapers to reach Paris, said the Paris correspondent of the DailyChronicle on October 15. Th. “Red situation ” occupies columns of apace, which is a clear indication of its .grim seriousness. 1 In all towns and cities the broad card has been reintroduced, because, at 'the Isvestia reports, the' harvest of European Russia is quite insufficient for the< needs of the population. ’ln the Kherson province, on the Black. Sea, more than a quarter of a.million families, or nearly a third of the population, are practically fobdless.. In Ukrainia, about 1,000.000 people Mb ifi the grip of famine, and the Government is organising a relief scheme. In the Volga region, according to a Moscow economic journal, the harvest was very seriously damaged by heavy and .unseasonable rain. In Siberia the crops were good, but transport conditions are ' such that R ,will he impossible' to trans- r port 'grain in the necessary quantities tb : . areas in need of It.. SECRET BREAD PROCESS. All the Northern provinces of Eurdpean Russia will be put op severely re- ‘ stricted, rations during winter, and official preparations are being mad.O to feed V Moscow on bread made of chemicallytreated bran. - . ' ' This,latter fact is revealed by a paper appropriately, named' Bednota (poverty),;, which states that the process for making this bread is being kept a secret by the Government bakeries, apme of this chemical bread has already been issued, and It was thought that It had caused the epidemic of stomachic and intestinal trouble In the cities. Bednota discovered that 'private bakeries had also been carrying out experiments in the production of bread, and that the common, practice was to use piaster-of-paris to. increase weight—and profits, , These piaster-of-paris bakers WiJi pe severely dealt with by the authorities. . Isvestia, In an article oa the food situation, say* that the ” bread lines” or queues at the Government - bakeries are now three- times longer tnap only a week earlier. Su<flf famine-like conditional are '- naturally haring an eytromely serious, effiect on the general ecooomic satuatlon.' The buying of goods abroad is Ab he put' down to the utmost limit, and - largo . orders for tractors placed iq ■ the United States have .been cancelled. ' ' ■ ■ manufacture ok vodka. - / Then ■ Isvestia also reveals ; a■ ’ ‘curious state of affairs regarding the vodka mono- .• Pty* F?F a half-starved people .the Government is gping ter- provide rao?c—vodka, A great paw diatiilory is to be .built to double the production {n Moscow, and even now the, govjet'OTthariti^ receive:A Jarger revenue from vodka.than the Tsarist Government. ' : During' fie year 1926-27, Russia conBurned 85,500,000 gallons of vodka, while for 1927-28 the figure is over 100,000,000 gallops. That is only the official production, and .the statistics take no account of the vast quantities which (he Peasants'mako . and consume themselves. - In the North of RjjßPia, *6veatia elates, thc_ peasants use about ao per. pent of. their potato crop; and. in' the Beuth 25 per cent, of their grain crop-.for the brewing of vodka. The Government’s idea in pfodd<4ng mere vodka j? to mskAit m> plentiful «hat the peasants! will to rehdy $o eell Sure of their crop to the authorities, Meanwhile, the Bed- Gazette of Leningrad reports a great increase ip drunkenness among .the workers.