TIMBER CAMP LIFE

Taranaki Daily News, 1 August 1931, Page 12 (Supplement)

TIMBER CAMP LIFE

INHUMAN AND OPPRESSIVE. “That some of the labour in the So- , viet prison camps is not voluntary is clearly established,” states Lord Buckmaster in the preface which he contributes to the “Report on Russian Prison Camps.” He adds: “The greater part of labour is drawn from people accustomed to the work, who work freely and at wages and under conditions fixed after - consultation with their trade unions. That these wages and conditions are such as no British workman would dream of accepting is certainly true.” The inquiry on which this report was ■based was carried out on the initiative of the Anti-Slavery Society by Sir Alan Pim, a distinguished Indian civilian, and Mr. Edward Bateson, formerly a judge in Egypt. Lord Buckmaster points out that “the fairness, independence and competence of these men no one can doubt.” They emphas.’ i the fact that the Soviet is enforcing “what would in any other country be described as a system of industrial conscription.” Much of the labour employed is prison labour, which is “biased in almost every feature of importance against prisoners of a political type. “For elderly or feeble people, or even for townspeople not used to manual labour, the conditions would be dangerously severe .... inhuman and oppressive, though there is no evidence of organised brutality.”