SOVIET RUSSIA

Hokitika Guardian, 8 June 1929, Page 6

SOVIET RUSSIA

BRITISH TRADE DELEGATION

A DISAPPOINTING TRIP,

LONDON, April 25

An interesting statement was made by one of the trade delegates who went to Russia recently to see what could be done towards re-establishing trade.

“It was a very disappointing trip,” he said. “There is not one of us who has not come hack very much disillusioned. Many of us are convinced that we being used by the Boslieviks or someone else as political cats’paws. I say that for this reason : We were told of phantom orders in the aggregate amounting to between £l-50,000,000 and £200,000,000 during the next five years, hut, as the public already knows, the Soviet’s first demanded political recognition, long trade credits, and a big loan to Moscow raised in London.

“ U course-, the whole thing was hopeless, and a very large number of us, if not all, were convinced that we were being told that we could havj these orders under these conditions .'n the hope that we should return to this country, to act as propagandists for political recognition. But what sane business man could urge that trading should start with the Soviets under present conditions? “ The possibilities for trade in Russia are enormous, as everyone knows, but not under the regime now existing tohre. The Bolsheviks may be right and Government trading lie the right 'form of commerce, but it will never work until the rest of the world thinks the same way.'

“ Stalin, the Bolshevist Dictator, ap pears to have ‘ hitched his waggon to an ohm or ampere,’ H’or he seems to be banking on the success of the Soviets and the rejuvenation of Russia through its great electrification and ■■ ■ -

dustrialisation scheme. All the money the Soviets get after the army and propaganda have been provided for, including plots against England, goes into electrification. There is nothing to carry on ordinary commerce. SAD AND HOPELESS COUNTRY. “ Besides the Soviets have killed individual initiative and enterprise. Everything is reduced to a dead level. No one has the slightest interest In his job beyond doing the regulation hours to get the regulation pay.- Whv should he? Why should a man work harder than his neighbours when Ins reward will he no greater? “ And how can anyone trade with a country where these conditions obtain? Personally I am convinced that there will have to be an alteration in the system before trading relations can he re-established with any hope of success. “ This is not my opinion alone, but also that of many responsible Russians with whom I talked in Moscow and elsewhere. Indeed, they went further. They said that they thought, that Stalin himself realised that his scheme would not work and was preparing to make way gracefully for somebody else—who, they did not know.

“ I could not help but being struck with the mentality of the Government which, anxious to establish trading relations with the outside world, permits its great cities like Moscow and Petrograd to fall into disrepair. Millions will have to be spent in each of the ;e cities to make them right again. 11 anything falls down it is allowed to lie where it falls. “ That kind (if thing cannot inspire confidence in a lending nation. The fact of the matter is that the Bolshevist regime lias reduced everything to a dead level—you can see it everywhere, even in the faces of the workers, who appear sad and hopeless.”