The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, MARCH. 10th, 1925. RETORT OX RUSSIA.

Hokitika Guardian, 10 March 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY, MARCH. 10th, 1925. RETORT OX RUSSIA.

The belated report, of the trade union delegation' which visited Russia last a good deal of its value, for it was considerably over two months since the delegation returned to Britain, and after a summary of conclusions had been published on December' 21, the main report was held back in the belief that the delegates had been fooled. For instance, in the latest English files to hand, an account is given of the sad deception practised on the delegates when they visited the Kra.sni Trougolnik (Red Triangle) factory, in Petrograd. After visiting the factory,

they were invited to take a meal in the factory dining-room, and although they were given to understand that they had caught the kitchen staff unawares, they were amazed at what was described as tho daily dinner of the workmen. It turned out later that this delectable dinner had been artfully arranged in advance, and that all the workers in the factory who spoke English had been ordered that day not to come to the factory. The Russian workers were indignant at this stratagem, and a few days later disturbances took place at the factory when the workmen asked for advances in wages. That the delegates were tricked hardly admits of argument, and as for the true state of Russia, the latest Moscow newspapers show a state of abject misery. In August there were 1,201,0(H) unemployed, while the Education Department admits that in the Russian schools—in an Arctic climate—there are no stoves, and the roofs are unsound and leaky. Recently, the Bolshevik authorities in Moscow .seized the printed copies of the report ot the congress of school teachers from Unhunger district. In the report the teachers stated that the schools were like hospitals, filled as they were with children suffering from scrofula, and tuberculosis caused by starvation. The moitality among children of school ago was 50 per cent, and among infants 90 per cent. The hunger of the peasants was so great that teachers were attacked by them simply because they were Soviet officials. On the other hand, soldiers of the disciplinary expeditions sent to crush revolt in the villager made it a rule to arrest school teachers, whom they accused of being the cause of the revolt. For this reason numbers of teachers have lelt their work ami taken refuge in the towns. Out o! the report of the delegates comes confirmation of views of the situation in the Sovietised country by observers whose opinions have been discounted because they were uttered by men who were not pink enough to lie above suspicion in radical quarters. The Trade Fnion delegates show that Bolshevist) in Russia lias failed, although the Bolshevists are clinging to power, and that Marxism -has -.ollapsed through its own weaknesses. Those delegates, in their report, have not disguised the fact that the Government controls with an iron hand the Press, the platform and all political machinery, and also uses the schools and the I niversity ior party propaganda. The most powerful section of the Army, too, is used to protect not the State, but the political party in power. It is not difficult to imagine the conditions under which the Trade Union delegates saw Russia. The maintenance of.a censorship brings in its train grave responsibilities. Democracy, we see, is a dead thing in Russia.