RUSSIAN TRADE WITH GERMANY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1549, 11 May 1916, Page 4

RUSSIAN TRADE WITH GERMANY.

As an example of Russia’s lack of organisation for the war, Dr E. J. Dillon, in a reeent article, refers to the trade which Russia continued to carry on with Germany after the war had began. “A Russian publicist,” he says, “has remarked that at tin? opening of the campaign the voice of the nation was heard saying : ‘Corn we have in plenty, and vegetables and salt. It is we who feed Europe. Germany will therefore starve without our corn. Our armies may relnv.i, hut our corn will go with them, and the more the Germans advance into Russia, the further they move away from their bread.’ In this the average Russian saw a pledge of victory. But before six months had elapsed the every-day man grow indignant. For he learned that his corn was being conveyed through Finland and Sweden into Germany, and in such vast (plantities as had never before been heard of. Here is a street scene illustrative of this traffic and the feelings it aroused. A long string of carls laden with flour blocks one of the Petrograd streets leading to a bridge over the Neva. A general walking with his wife stops one of the drivers : ‘Wherever are you taking the Hour to V ‘Where do you suppose 1 Sure, we are taking it to the Germans ; we have to feed the creatures; they are a bit faint.’ ‘There, you see !’ exclaimed the general to his wife, ‘didn’t 1 tell you ? Aiid every morning without fail the same long line of carls blocks the streets while our corn is being taken to the Germans.’ It is to be feared,” adds Dr Dillon, “that this commerce has not yet whollv ceased.”