CHAPLAIN’S VIEW OF RUSSIA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 16823, 23 August 1920, Page 5

CHAPLAIN’S VIEW OF RUSSIA.

“BOLSHEVIK RULE IS HELL.” BRITISH “BOLSHIES” BAMBOOZLED. LONDON, May 26. The Rev. Frank North, lately ilritish chaplain in Moscow and a man wtio Jia.s long residential qualifications to enable him to contract Russia, today with Russia under the Czarist toko, his Just returned to England with a number of British civilian refugees. Mr. Nortli gives perhaps the best and most authoritative evidence we have yot had as to the conditions of Bolshevik Russia, for ho was in a sense treated by the Soviet authorities as sonic sort of unofficial representative of Great Britain, and seems to have been permitted a groat deal more freedom of

movement than most of his fellow-coun-

trymen there, and to have escaped a good many of the worst •' 'inconveniences” which foreigners in Russia were j apt to experience. , iAlr. North’s ovi- ; deuce can be summed up in his own pregnant phrase—“ Bolshevik rule is I Hell!” He tells us, in effect, that the Russian people in general are reduced to a dull apathetic condition, with scarcely enough physical energy left to pray for a deliverer. They are hopelessly demoralised, and only an iron system of compulsory labour induces them to work at all. Transport has-almost come to a standstill. The railways arc repositories .for brokendown locomotives and coaches; the majority of mills stand idle, the machinery out of order and repair Bolshevism is unsurpassed as an instrument of destruction ; no despotism has ever invented so effective a system of rule. The Aloscow wireless has just sent out a message to the world declaring that deserters frcun the Labour Army will be liable to imprisonment from two weeks to six months, and that more serious offence against Labour duty will he dealt with by the Revolutionary Labour Tribunal—which awards the death penalty to human beings with just- as little compunction as they would decree the extinction of a mangy cat. It is one of tho really funny things broadcast such messages as, these,, whicn,, reveal the Of their jn-' dustrial conditions, though when they receive friendly Labour visitors from foreign countries they put themselves to all sorts of trouble to make “everything in the garden look lovely,” in their visitors’ eyes, and to impress them with tho beauties and benefits of Bolshevik rule. Mr. North tells us that he has seen, plant carried from a. dozen factories to make a single factory .fairly 1 , complete, so that Air. Bansbnry and his brother travellers might admire the Bolshevik industrial organisation, and that he has seen schools of starving children and gaols of starving prisoners specially slocked with provisions for the inspection of these personally conducted tourists, who were only allowed to see v-hat their guides particularly desired they should. The value of tho evidence of Air. Larisbury and his friends as to tho state of affairs in Russia has already been heavily discounted, but Air. North’s testimony suggests that it is quite valueless; that, indeed, this gentleman w as not only not permitted to see things as they really were, but shut his eyes to those things which did not coincide with his .preconceived notions concerning the blessings of Bolshevik rule. Air. North says that when he invited Air. Lansbury to pay him a visit, the latter declined the invitation on the ground that he was being watched too closely!

Mr. North also states that Mr. Lansbury’s single excuse for all the atrocities and vileness of the Bolsheviks was, “It is a revolution ” These two statements are decidedly illuminating. They show us what measure of freedom is permitted to the eyes and ears of even such avowed friends of tho Bolshevik regime ns Mr. Larisbury when they are in Russia, and throw a strong light on the astonishing mentality of cur British revolutionaries. They claim on the ground of liberty the utmost protection of tho laws of tho system which they are keen to overthrow, but when they have overthrown it—well, .'everybody who is not quite of their way of thinking can properly bo deprived of all rights because “it is revolution.’’ Mr. North, by the way, is one of those who do not believe in the theory that we should swallow Bolshevism and its works for the sake of emcning up trade with Soviet .Russia. The Bolsheviks, he says, are eager diiough to get British goods; but all they have to exportin return are “Bolshevik ideas.” To encourage trade under these circum-f stances would certainly be bad business for us, even if politically justifiable, which is doubtful. In fine, Mr.' North’s considered opinion seems to be that nothing good can come out of Russia till its present rulers have met the fate which, in his opinion, they most richly deserve.