OUTLOOK IN RUSSIA

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1929, Page 3

OUTLOOK IN RUSSIA

TRADE DELEGATES’ OPINION VERY DISAPPOINTING VISIT. SAD AND HOPELESS PROSPECT. London, April ’25. An interesting statement was made by one of the trade delegates who went to Russia recently to see what could bo done toward re-establishing trade. “It was a very disappointing trip,” the delegate said. “There is not one of us who has not come back very much disillusioned. Many of us are convinced that we were being, used by. the Bolsheviks or someone else as political cat’s-paws. I say that for this reason: Wo were told of phantom orders in the aggregate amounting to between £150,0T0,000 and £200,000,000 during the next five years, but, as the public already knows, the Soviets first demanded political recognition, long trade credits and a big loan to Moscow raised, in London. “Of course, the whole thing was hopeless, and a very large number of us. if not all, were convinced that we were being told that we could have these orders under these conditions in the hope that we should return to this country to act as propagandists for political recognition. But what sane business man could urge that trading should start with the Soviets under present conditions ? The possibilities for trade with Russia are enormous, as everyone knows, but not under the regime now existing, there. The Bolsheviks may be right and Government trading may be the right form of commerce, but it will never work until the rest of the world thinks tho samo way. SHORTAGE OF MONEY. “Stalin, the Bolshevik Dictator, appears to have ‘hitched his wagon to anx ohm or an ampere,’ for he seems to be banking on the success of the Soviets and the rejuvenation of Russia through its great electrification and industrialisation scheme. All the money the Soviets get after the army and propaganda have been provided for, including plots against England, goes into electrification. There is nothing to carry on ordinary commerce. Beside, the Soviets have killed individual initiative and enterprise. Everything is reduced to a dead level. No one has the slightest interest in his job beyond doing the regulation hours to get the regulation pay. Why should he? Why should a man work harder than his neighbours when hie reward will be no greater? “And how can anyone trade with' a country where these conditions obtain? Personally I am convinced that there will have to be an alteration in the system before trading relations can be reestablished with any hope of success. This is not my opinion, alone, but also that of many responsible Russians with whom, I talked in Moscow and elsewhere. Indeed, they went further. They said that they thought that Stalin himself realised that his scheme would not work and was preparing to make way gracefully for somebody else —whom, they did not know. CITIES IN DISREPAiIL “I could not help being struck with the mentality of the Government which, anxious to establish trading relations with the outside world, permits ita great cities like Moscow and Petrograd to fall into disrepair. Millions will have to be spent in each of these cities to make them right again. If anything falls down it is allowed to lie where it falls. That kind of thing cannot inspire confidence in a lending nation. The fact of the matter is that the Bolshevik regime has reduced everything to a dead level —• you can see it everywhere', even in tho faces of the workers, who appear sad and hopeless.”