STATE OF RUSSIA

Hokitika Guardian, 27 January 1931, Page 5

STATE OF RUSSIA

FEAR OF WAR

LONDON, January 25

Claiming to be the only British newspaper man admitted to Russia for more than a year, Mr C. J. Ketclium, a “Daily Express’’ special representative, declares that the apprehension of impending war hangs hourly over the Kremlin. A high 'official of the Soviet Foreign Office confided tho reason for this- fear. He said neither Roland, Roumania, France nor England was expected to declare war, but yet in the not distant, future, ano.her Soviet Ambassador would be assassinated at Warsaw, and simultaneously there would be an incident on the, Rnsso-Polish frontier, provoked iby roving hands oi White Russians. He said that Russia would have no alternative but to declare hostilities. Then sixty thousand White Russians would march across Europe, upon which France would despatch olfieers, aeroplanes, and artillery. thi s being helped by the Bolshevik enemies in Germany, England, America and bv their money. The high official said:—“l tell you that it is as clear to us as the stars in heaven. Gur confidential reports from Paris and from Berlin tell us the precise moment choscii by our adversaries, who cannot say but that this menace compels us to' be constantly alert and always in a state of preparation.” Contrasting bis latest visit- to Russia with one of three years. before, when the shops were laden with protisisons in plenMtude, and there nom motor cars in the streets and comparatively well-dressed women, Mr Ketclmm says that no longer are public shops accessible to the man in the street. The workers stand in the icy streets in unending queues in front ot State rationing shops for meat that does not come. There is black-grey bread, but eggs. milk, butte,- and f .h ceS e are available in the most menerro quantities. Working clothes, pinchased bv certificates, are provided m cas n s of urgency and are vouched tor. A woman’s ordinary shoes cost from eighteen to twenty pounds sterling m Moscow. There are three million peonU in Moscow crammed into a city that is equipped with houses for not more than one million. It is a common exrerimeo to find sivtocn hundred " 10 ” n nd women crowded into an apartment of sixty rooms.