RUSSIA TO-DAY

Hokitika Guardian, 22 January 1932, Page 6

RUSSIA TO-DAY

SORDID CONDITIONS PREVAIL. NEW ZEALANDER’S OBSERVANCES. Australian Press Association.) (Received this day at 11.15 a.m.) SYDNEY, January 22-. Robert Laidlaw, manager of the Farmers’ Trading Coy., Auckland, accompanied by his wife, arrived at Sydney en route for New Zealand 1 , alter a world tour oi tlurty-three countries, including Russia. Interviewed, Mr Laidlaw said that he had spent several days at Leningrad, and Moscow., and was deeply impressed by the sordid conditions, the absence of private trading as European's knew it, the poorness of tli e stores, and the difficulty of obtaining deeeiit’Tiieals, except ' at exorbitant' prices. He did not see a butcher’* or a shoe shop in Moscow. All the people possessed, generally, was what they stood up in. Russia’* live-year plan, lie believed, was a very Lamest attempt to rationalise the nation, hut it appeared to lie breaking down, because of the shortage of exports over imports. It was certainly not discreet to look clean in Russia, it being far better to gjo about unshaven. The jpeopfe, allegedly, were satisfied with their lot, because there simply was no alternative. Mr Laidlaw is returning to New Zealand by the Maunganni to-day.