Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY, JANUARY 23rd, 1920 PEACEFUL PENETRATION.

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY, JANUARY 23rd, 1920 PEACEFUL PENETRATION.

As an alternative to war, Britain in the main seems to be relying on the peaceful penetration of Russia by means of trade as the most effective means to counter Bolshevism. Russia is a prolific country, yielding much of the food supplies which Europe requires. The internal condition of Russia during the war, and subsequently, has been so perturbed, that trading re. lations have been impossible. Although nominally on the Allied side, Russia, went out of the war when the extreme revolutionaries, or Bolshevists, .took charge, and their conduct has been so extreme 'that it was impossible for the Allied Governments to hold intercourse with them. An attempt was made to assist the sane element of Rus-

sia to restore order and capture the ’ Government of the country. More than once this seemed to be within the , range of possibility, but the Allies did not consort as effectively as they might have done, and, as Colonel John Ward, the British (Labour M.P., has told the nation, they missed a golden opportunity through the failure to throw 40,000 British troops towards Petrograd in 1918. Colonel Ward has served in the Russian campaign, and he is emphatically against opening up trading relations with the Soviet, or soldiers’. • Government. He distrusts the ruling , party, and no doubt has good personal • grounds for so doing. Mr Roberts, the food controller of Britain, realises how Russia can help to solve the food problem and the cost of living for Great

Britain, if the prolific harvest of Rusi sia is available. In the need for some expediency to solve the food problem, he suggests a system of barter with Russia in the matter of reciprocal sup. plies. Tlie food problem for Russia is probably more acute than in any otn ..r country, for under the living condition of the past five years, Russia has gone thread-bare in the matter of necessities it cannot produce for itself. These essentia'ls it is proposed to trade off with Russia for food, corn and raw materials which Russia has in abundance, but which, owing to war conditions, has not been exportable. Russia is a, vast country y and if some of its chief indus. trial centres, with their teeming population, can be returned to a sound economic condition, the leavening effect should bo of remarkable value as affecting the rest of the territory. The alternative along these lines is preferable to war, which can produce only a set of circumstances worse confounded

than those of to-day. The proposal is a great international experiment and its initiation is attributed to the genius of Mr Lloyd George. In all the jumble of news from Russia we may not have got at the real truth of the position yet. Probably the British Government has a better grasp of the 'internal situation than any other nation, for tlieir forces have been probing Russia at all angles., |The peaceful penetration scheme has a glamour of hope about it, because, according to report, it has been tested by the first statesmen of the land and' the highest financial and commercial authorities. If a peaceful transformation can be brought about by means of it, it will be one of the most remarkable achievements arising out of the great war.