10 MONTHS IN SOVIET GAOL

Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1927, Page 10

10 MONTHS IN SOVIET GAOL

BRITISH SEAMAN’S EXPERIENCE. BOLSHEVIK FABLE OF £1 A DAY. Those who profess an admiration for Soviet Russfii, and have influence with the Bolsheviks, have been invited to interest themselves in the case of a British sailor who, on no charge whatever, rvas thrust into a Bolshevik prison for ten months. The man, David Scott, aged 34, a Londoner, in October, 1923, shipped as a fireman in the steamship Syorono, which sailed from Newport (Mon.) for Italy and the Russian port cf Novorossisk, in the Black Sea. At Novorossisk Soviet officials invited the crew to visit the Sailors’ International Club. Scott was so impressed by the

tales of the beautiful conditions of life under the Soviet that he determined to desert his ship and live there. Scott said to a Daily Mail reporter:— “They told me that there was plenty of work, and w'hen they heard that I had been in a boiler-making shop they said I could easily earn £1 a day. When I asked for a job I was sent to a grain elevator, where I was paid 40 roubles (about £4) a month. After three months I transferred to an. iron foundry where boiler-making was in progress. Instead of getting £1 a day, I was paid 30 roubles (about £3) a month. I had to join the Metal Workers’ Union, and had two kopecks stopped out of every rouble I earned. ODD JOBS AT THE DOCKS. “After about 18 months the part of the works in which I was closed down, and I had to take odd jobs at the docks.” One day he was arrested and dragged off to the police headquarters. All that he could gather was that he had “been talking to foreign sailors,” and for this he was flung into a cell. Proceeding with his story, Scott said: “It was a room of about 12ft. by 20ft., and was already occupied by 17 or 18 men of all classes and nationalities. All w. had to eat was lib. of black bread in the morning; thin soup—it was really vegetable water —for dinner; and hot w'ater at tea time. I was in that cell 32 days, when I was taken to the prison outside the town, and put into a cell smaller than the one at the police station. and overcrowded with political prisoners. “The food was the same as at the police station,-and, as I could not eat the soup, I had to live on the black bread and water. Prisoners in other parts of the prison were going mad under the strain. Finally, after I had gone on hunger strike, I was told that Moscow had decided my case, and that I was, to be dep-rted. Some days later I was marched under armed guard to the port and put on the steamship Koursk. I was signed on as a fireman and reached Rotterdam. On my return to London I put [isq.tt ‘pins 'uoiuq s.uaraajtj pun .slopes inuotgex sip jo apepanj; -.tpj " ./tIOTUfI S ( U3tUBJIJ UB .sjopug piuopips' atp a.tojaq as'u., aiu interviewed:—“l am writing to Mr. George Lansbury, Mr. A. J. Cook, Mr. Ben Tillett, and Mr. George Hicks, who clai mto have such a great interest in Soviet Russia, inviting them to take up the case cf Scott.”