RUSSIA TO-DAY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 254, 26 October 1937, Page 6

RUSSIA TO-DAY

SOME IMPRESSIONS HON. W. NASH'S VISIT A LUNCHEON TALK While abroad the Hon. W. Nash, Minister of Finance, visited Russia, and at the Y.M.C.A. Optimists’ Club luncheon, at Wellington, he gave some of his impressions of the country and the results of the Soviet regime. 'Mr. Nash first referred to his visit to Berlin 'in connection with the German Trade Agreement negotiations. “I think that the agreement is helpful,” he said. “I think it links us with one of the best types of people in the European world. I don’t like their Government. That is another matter altogether. I don’t like their form of Government.” From Berlin, he continued, they went to Moscow and while they were there they decided to absorb to their capacity all the information they could obtain with regard to the governing section of Russia. He had intended remaining five days because of his desire to be back in London by May 1, but M. Litvinoff declared that it would be unfair to Russia if they left two days before the national festival, May Day. They thought that it might be misunderstood by some of the people of Russia, so it was decided to remain over May Day. In the Red Square. On the morning of May Day they were given the privilege of taking their places next the stand in the Red Squire occupied by the Executive— Stalin, Litvinoff, and the others. At 10 a.m. the army machine started to march by. It was an amazing display I of military instruments, from the horse and cossack on its back to the tank, and right up to the very latest equipment of modern times. He saw tanks of an amazing size race across the Square at 40 miles per hour. For two hours they saw the various sections of military machines march by, or be driven or ridden by. The parade concluded with an air display in which 823 machines took part and flew over the Square. Some of them were an amazing size, and some flew very slowly, which made them a greater menace because of their hovering possibilities, and others flew at tremendous speed. Mr. Nash said he never felt once that what he was looking on was a menace to the world. “I felt, however, —and I am simply giving you intuition now and I don’t know their general policy —that that machine, in so far as it was powerful from a defence point of view, would be used to the limits. There was no thought, from the conversation I had, of the old Imperialist objective. The thought was that if anyone interfered with them they wanted this machine to be absolutely perfect. I felt that." Mr Nash also described the displays given by athletes, young men and women, and the march past of the townspeople as part of the celebrations. The athletes in their coloured uniforms made a wonderful spectacle and were an inspiration. The people of Moscow began their march at mid-day and at 4.40 p.m. they had not ; finished marching. It was estimated i that over one arid a-quarter million 1 people marched past the stand occupied by Stalin and the others. If the picture of the athletes typified what Russia might be ultimately then it ! would be a magnificent country, and in saying this his reference was to the element of freedom that seemd to i live in those young people. A Menace. Conversation with a brilliant young ! woman scholar was refered to by Mr Nash as being indicative of the I fact that the people were impressed : with only one side of a question or ! situation. That was a danger and i his advice was nor to let anyone ger. I hold of the machine that drove nome lone side of the question only. It was I a menace. It was a menace in Ger|many, Italy, and Russia. He felt that I in this respect in Russia there was I just a shortage; the people did not know evreything. i Mr Nash said he attended a Greek 'Orthodox Church service, attended by poor peasants, and the freedom of religious expression was manifest in that church. He also visited a motor factory at which motor-trucks were being turned out. Russia had not thought of making cars before the war, and he could not help thinking of the industrial evolution of the country. In this factory, a complete motor-lorry came off the line every three minutes and eh thought that was a remarkable achievement.

He was in Russia for ten days. There were tremendously difficult tasks ahead of the people there in the realisation of their objective and th? building up of another form of society and another for mof social activity, but if they had one thing more than anything else that struck him as being ahead of any like thing in New Zealand, it was their appreciation of art. The people of Russia had an appreciation of art from the ground up. “If they can only see the major objective of life--and some day they will—that they have to give the individual soul the right to full expression, then, if they see that, Russia will be another major potent agancy to build the type of world that we think ought to come into being,” Mr Nash concluded.