AN EMPTY THREAT

Southland Times, Issue 19101, 20 November 1923, Page 4

AN EMPTY THREAT

Soviet Russia continues to provide the world with queer contradictions and surprises. In the face of official estimates that put. the cereal crop at less than the country’s requirements, the Government is calling for boats to carry wheat cargoes from the south, and despite financial difficulties the Soviet rulers are buying aeroplanes, most of them far from up-to-date, in large numbers. These purchases probably gave rise to the recent sensational stories about Russia’s great aerial preparations, but although the official organ of the Government uses the arrival of 150 aeroplanes as the opportunity for a grandiloquent statement about their use to protect the nation from another ultimatum by Lord Curzon, the real position is that these machines cannot be regarded as a serious threat against anyone. To keep an aerial fleet in being under war conditions a large technical force is necessary, and the country must be able to manufacture and repair the machines, the wastage in which is very heavy. It is only necessary to recall the vast organisation, in the field and in the factories, needed to maintain the British and French air forces during the war—and even in peace—to realise how empty are the boastful words of the Iszuestia, though the Russian people doubtless do not appreciate how hollow they are.