The Timaru Herald TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1926. SOVIET FAILURES.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 30 March 1926, Page 6

The Timaru Herald TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 1926. SOVIET FAILURES.

Another victim: of the* high priests of the Soviet legiine has been deposed and a Red reigns in his place. M. Zinovieff, the notorious Communist leader, who struck fear into the hearts' of British electors in the famous letter which gave Mr Baldwin his big- majority in the House of Commons, has offended the Soviet, leader's and _ his dismissal is announced this morning. Doubtless the Russian leaders are discovering that there is no alternative to private enterprise, since Socialism whenever it is being tried out in its entirely is dying of its own absurdity. The actual effects! on Russian life of the Soviet, experiments in nationalisation and Communism are strikingly set forth in a valuable memorandum by Dr. E. Luhoff, based on up-to-date Soviet documents and entitled “The Soviets in 1925,” published by the Anglo-Russian News, of Fleet. Street, London. In this interesting- little contribution t.o contemporary Socialistic literature Trotsky is quoted as having made the following pronouncement cn socialised industries. “The best of the undertakings we have nationalised,' Trotsky confessed, “the bad ones we leased to private enterprises. The result of this is that, the bad undertakings in the, hands of private business men, produce better goods.” Soviet cloth and Soviet boots were found to' he “unreliable and of inferior quality.” : No others can be bought., and wages were in 1925 only £2 5s a month, or about 10s a week. Retail prices were 111 per cent, above pre-war prices, or much higher than they are in Britain. The report throws a, lurid lig-ht on the policy of nationalising- industry, which some demented people are anxious to thrust, upon the British Empire. Reviewers of the Soviet reports point out that, nowhere has nationalisation been carried out, with such merciless thoroughness, as in Russia under the Bolsheviks. They have now been iu power eight, years—for n. was in February, 1918, that they concluded their traitorous peace. For the last four years they have onj oyed freedom from civil war. There has been time to give their experiment an adequate test; and if nationalisation is the remedy for human evils and distress which it is represented to be by fanatics, Russia should by now be. a perfect paradise. It cannot he pretended that, the Bolsheviks have not, had great, advantages t.n their side. They have repudiated all Russia’s war debt, and even the debt, incurred for building railways, tramways and factories, and developing mines and oil wells. They started free of liability, whereas the people of Britain have paid not only their Avar debts but also a very large part of the debts of several of their Allies. We should therefore expect Russia, to .show higher Avages, greater prosperity, and a mud/loftier level of human happiness than Great Britain—if nationalisation is the blessing that it is represented to be. So far from nationalisation having proved a success, the Bolsheviks have noAV made the discovery that if they cling to it in every department of industry tliev rvill be faced Avitli r uin and the whole’of Russia rvill be menaced Avith starvation. Trotsky himself has been forced to a,dmit that “bad undertakings iu the hands of private business men produce better goods.” Bolsliqvik products, turned out in nationalised factories, have two fatal defects. They are Avretchcd in quality. They are dead in price. And yet tire people employed in turning them out, are miserably paid. The nationalism's were ivamed when they tried their mad experiment., that they Avould not abolish poverty but Avould simply make everybody poor and miserable And this they have succeeded A-cry effectually in doing-. The present income of the Russian people is one-third what it was before the Avar. As retail prices ave risen 111 per cent., it follows that money Avill go only half ns far as it would before the Avar, so that under the Bolshevik and Socialist, regime people are one sixth as well off as they Avcre m 1914. Those telling facts avcio probably remembered by the Royal Commission inquiring- into the coal industry of Great Britain, in meeting' the almost insolent demands of Labour extremists for the nationalisation of the British coal industry. .State coal miners have been tired in other and more civilised countries than Russia, arid have failed dismally. Those: avlio have the effrontery to tell the British minors that the remedy for their troubles is nationalisation should note that the “Sirnot coal administration aaos compelled to dismiss some 38,000 miners in April, 1925. Unemployment, is increasing-, and oven the Soviet, authorities could not, hide that fact. Their figure** admit, a rise, front 399,500 in March to G 13,000 in duly, and over a million at the end of 1925. The doAvnfall of the Soviet, economic system ivas inevitable; in fact look where wo will, lbeio seems no exception to thei principle that Statcvimuiaged industries are more costly and less efficient, than private enterprise. The enormous losses in State shipping enterprises since, the Avar are further warning against, risking public money in the bunds of irresponsible nationalism's. As recently as last, week,' tin' cubic ino.ssi'iges from London told of the heavy loss inflicted on the British Treasury in connec-

tion with the dye-industry- -'-ihe Judge observed,” tbo cable message reported, “that, this control had cost, the country £1,100,000.” The fundamental secret is that private business goes bankrupt if it is not efficiently managed, whereas State enterprise in the hands of politicians, as the Soviet has discovered, often lives like' a parasite upon the community by taxing the people or selling them bad goods or rendering- them inefficient service at exorbitant prices.