BRITISH & FOREIGN ITEMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 December 1921, Page 1

BRITISH & FOREIGN ITEMS.

hebteh’s tei.egiums. THOMAS’S CIjAJM. LONDON, November 30. jfr J. H. Thomas, ALP., (Railway-' men's Secretary) under cross examination iii a court said lie believed on April 6th. the Triple Alliance strike would mean a new Government though lie would not Vie party to such. Justice Darling :—“lt the Triple Alliance found themselves opposed to the Government, and it meant a bloody revc !u\tion. then you would have had to withdraw from the Alliance? Thomas replied : -‘ That would have been Mv attitude.*’ Replying to defendant’ counsel. Thomas stated that by retaining his position as the railwnymen’s leader he had saved the country from a revolution. SHIPPING ACCIDENT. LONDON, November 30. The steamer Austral Peak, proceeding in ballast from Cork down Queenstown harbour, narrowly escaped being driven ashore in a gale. She fouled three steamers, but was eventually safely moored. PLAGUE IN SYDNEY. SYDNEY. December 1. The Health authorities announce the * illness wherefrom the Sussex Street suspect is suffering, has definitely been diagonised as plague, nis condition is serious. The patent resided at Glebe, hut in the authorities’ opinion, I*icame infected at his business premise! in Sussex street, or in the vicinity. Everything is being done to deal wit) infection, which may still be present i> S*s*ex Street.

reports of r.ussta TjONDON, November 30. Sir Phillip Gibbs, reviewing the Russian situation, says: “The Government supplies are restricted mainly to the use of the Soviet workers. Even to them it is a poverty stricken ration. I believe the Government is doing its best, but with the best, it can do little. The situation is summed up in

ii low words. Russia Ims no icsorvos and her cupboards arc hare. Evon in Moscow everybody lives from hand to month. The Government ran hardly I'.ay its officials or feed the soldiers, who are worn threadbare by war and civil war, and a general breakdown of economic life, due to social chaos. From their own Government the peasants in the famine area cannot hope for succour, ft is undeniable Mhftt the Russians hold on to what they have with desperate selfishness, and will not share with anyone. They cannot he blamed if they do not give of secret hoards to their neighbours. If they do, their own children will die. City folk have not much pity for. the starving peasant, and would not send them food, even destroying it to avoid Government requisitions, which is one of the minor causes of the famine. Sir I’. Gibbs states the Save the Children Fund has been preparing to feed 70.000 children, while the American Relief Administration has been working on a bigger scale with immcnee energy, and are actually feeding this month 201,000 children. Thcso are all that are. being fed out of a child population of six millions. It is but haphazard relief, after all. The Russians in the hunger zone could have been saved if a cry for help had come 1 sooner from the loaders, if the world Powers had come to the rescue quickly, and if the Soviet had been readier to accept help without political control. Good autumn sowings of rye have been made. That is next year’s hope for Hussia.