VISIT TO RUSSIA

Taranaki Daily News, 12 August 1932, Page 9

VISIT TO RUSSIA

“CURE FOR COMMUNISTS” MELBOURNE MAN’S VIEWS. A letter received from Mr. .A. R. Mills, a Melbourne ‘solicitor, who has returned to London after a 3000-mile tour in Russia, indicates that conditions in that country are deplorable. “I had more than hoped that unfavourable -reports of Russia were untrue,” Sir. Mills Stated. “Unfortunately, it is difficult to write anything of praise. I saw tens of thousands on the verge oi starvation. Long queues -tapd for hours in the streets waiting for an issue of .bread. Bread and coloured water, called tea, is almost all these poor Russians have to sustain them. They look it, too. Their clothing is largely tags, and in all cases of the poorest quality. It is not uncommon to see. these long queues waiting until midnight for bread. Milk is scarcely obtainable, and ’only' a reckless person would drink it. _ “In Leningrad, with a population of more than 2,000,000, the shops are. not better and seldom as good as a shop for pioneers in the back country of Australia. If I were to tall you about the had conditions of the streets, tramcars, sewerage, or housing condition , you would think I might be exaggerating the bad state of affairs. I met there several Australian Communists and also sbme English and American Communists, They, with one exception, an Englishman, whose bona fides I suspected, were simply not Communists any more. I am endeavouring to get one misguided Australian home from there. Russia will cure any Communist if le goes to work there.”