ESCAPEES' STORY

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 33, 9 February 1931, Page 9

ESCAPEES' STORY

Sir ;E. Hiltou Young, Conservative M.P. for Sevenoakß,. has sent to, the Prim© Minister, Mr; Mac Donald, sworn statements by three escaped Bussians as to the appalling; conditions; of slavery inthe Soviet lumber camps wheretimber is prepared for export to Britain (says the "Daily Mail"). Sir Hilton Young says that the three men.are prepared, to give evidence on oath if it ia. taken in private, ,and, asks: — ■ "■•■ VDoes the Government propose to take any steps to put a stop to a .trade which is stamped with, the worst features of servile labour? . i "Trade carried on in such "conditions is not only unfair to workers in the British timber industry, it is a disgrace to civilisation, and it is : not consistent with our traditional reputation, for j humanity that Great Britain should j continue to engage in it." The three Russian prisoners, who have been living in this country since June, escaped in a British', ship from Archangel.-One is a Cossack, another a farmer, and- tho third a shopkeeper. Two had been engaged iv loading timber at the Archangel camp, and the third in felling, and they give'the following figures of prisoners employed in other Russian lumber camps:—Vishesky, on the North Dvina Eiver, 30,000 prisoners; Ussolsk, 10,000; Penujsky, 25,000; Kotlas, 30,000; Solovetsky, 20,----000; Kema, 20,000. At the time the men escaped there^ were 100 ships being loaded with tim> ber at Archangel, and about 500" prisoners were employed for'loading each ship. The statements these men have sworn to as to the terrible conditions in the camps are claimed to confirm revelations previously made in the "Daily Mail." They say:— , The food consisted of 2Jlb of bread, which was given to-a prisoner only if ho fulfilled his task. If he could not do so his ration was cut down accordingly*. Sometimes a prisoner got only lib of bread a day, or less. "There iB no medical aid to be ob-, tamed, and prisoners have to work, whether ill or injured, until they fall down. The Communists say that they do not mind if 20 or 30 millions die off, because most of them being political prisoners or persons who. do not agree with Communist v views lit would be as well that they should die in this way. ..■'■" "If a prisoner is too weak to work he is flogged and put into a hole dug in the earth, and as ho is in rags and geis hardly any food when he is* not working ho dies very soon in the intense/cold. ■'.-,■ "The wives and children^ of the prisoners are taken1 from their homes and sent miles away from any town or village and left to inakc the best of it. They receive no money, and only get a small pittance in the way of food. _On the Biver Lusa, in the north, there is a camp which contains 30,000 of these women and children." i-