CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 189, 12 August 1931, Page 6

CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

A MINING ENGINEER’S VIEWS TESTING GOLD MINES IN KIRIN An English mining engineer from Mulin, Kirin, Manchuria, writing to a Wanganui resident comments upon conditions in Russia, and also in Manchuria. “New Zealand must be having a rough time as v his commercial depression obviously must very considerably decrease her none too large income, but, nevertheless, I think you will find that you are better off than most other countries. Take for instance this country, Manchuria, business here is completely paralysed, most of the larger firms are bankrupt and it is just a question if the whole country will not go bankrupt. The local currency is deprecating rapidly, the Harbin dollar was 14 to the £ when I first came to Manchuria, it is now about 30 to the x. Principally this country lives on agricultural products and chiefly beans at that, the last two seasons have produced bumper crops. Practically none has been sold; it is all in stock, and a new harvest that also promises to be a large one is coining. If something docs not happen soon and tho market brighten, these beans will have to be used as fuel or rot; this will mean certain bankruptcy. “In England trade is stagnant, in Germany it is worse; generally things in Europe are extremely bad and unsettled. By some we are told that Soviet Russia is the only prosperous country but this is all nonsense, there is nothing resembling prosperity in the U.S.S.R. There in that vast country there is nothing but abject poverty and misery and in the last two years 1 have been across the U.S.S.R. so many times that 1 have had a good opportunity of seeing tor myself. Since 1 left New Zealand I have been across the U.S.S.R. no less than seven times. “I have not been too successful in Manchuria, more troubles than anything else, but just at the present things look brighter than they have ever been. “I am now testing sonic gold mines in Kirin and so far things look right. I am hoping that one or two of these mines will warrant erection more extensive plant and launching out in a bi&l? e r fashion. Most of my work here up to tho present has been examining mines, most of which in the existing circumstances here have not been worth our taking up. Some of them would be good if they were in any other country but China, but the Chinese want so much of the profit that they would not pay u.s to develop. We can only hope to make profit out of a rich mine and they take finding. “During the winter I have not been able to work so I have been able to get home at this time; it only takes me days to get home from here. I am now on my way to some gold mines up in the north near the Russian border. As there are no roads I have to go by pack-horses, and to-day I have been hold up by rain.”