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Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1641, 14 May 1925, Page 6

After they had absorbed the arable land they began to cast longing eyes at the forests which the Bolsheviks were attempting to exploit under Government ownership. Eventually the peasants began to make use of those means of coercion to which they have been led in other' directions olso by their political impotence under the Soviet system. In an endeavour to placate them the lorests are being, virtually made over to them. It is reported that nearly 2,500,000 acres in the government of Smolensk, and some 800,000 acres in that of Minsk, are to be handed over to peasants for their " free use." Nominally, as in the. case of the arable land, the Soviet claims that the forests are still nationalised, but, in truth, the peasants are the owners, and would resist any measure taken to dispossess them. It is hoped that this sop will reconcile them to the principles of Communism.