“BIGGEST ECONOMIC JAM”

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1933, Page 5

“BIGGEST ECONOMIC JAM”

CHARGES AGAINST SOVIET IMPRESSIONS OF TOURIST “MILLIONS” ROVING BANDS. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, July 16. “The whole Soviet system is the biggest economic jam in history and the strictest censorship cannot long hide the truth,” says a correspondent of the Times who lately has visited Russia. “No butter, milk or lemons are obtainable in the railway dining cars,” he states. “Only a tiny omelette, a little black bread and tea for 5J roubles, the official exchange for which is 16s, whereas outside Russia the rouble is worth 2d. “A member of the Communist Party with a full ration card gets value far in excess of a worker earning 125 roubles monthly, the. purchasing power of which, if he is lucky, equals 10s a week in Britain. “As the goods scarcity increases under the Five-Year Plan prices rise. They are now 20 to 25 per cent, higher than when the plan was inaugurated. Many public works are completely uneconomic. For instance, the Dneiprostroi power station, costing £33,000,000, is a wonderful technical achievement that should feed factories with ten times its own capital. It feeds none, because none exists. In the Kremlin 20 per cent, more land is under cultivation, but enormously less food is produced. Mulions of workers, goaded to desperation .by hunger and poverty,, become roving hordes seeking a livelihood.”