RUSSIAN IMMIGRATION

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 248, 10 June 1932, Page 8

RUSSIAN IMMIGRATION

BAN PLACED ON ARRIVALS SEEKING UNSKILLED | WORK. | AMEBICANS' DIFFICULTIES. Americans and other foreigners looking for work should stay away from Soviet Russia unless they can arrange definitely for jobs before tbey leave tbeir own countries, says an American Associated Press dispatch from Moseow. Notwithstanding numerons warnings against coming here in the hope of finding work after arrival, the Government has noted with concern an increase in the numher of those immigrants and is taking measures to keep them out. It needs skilled workers badly. But it can accommodate just so many outsiders, who must he contracted for in advance hy its agents abroad, becatise of restrictions imposed by its "FiveYear Plans." There is absolutely no room here for foreign unskilled labour. With a view to controlling the situation, the Government has set up a special immigration bureau in the Commissariat of Lahour. It is headed by Michael Borodin, noted as a Soviet foreign agent in China. It is his dtity to keep a check on all aliens, to see that travellers leave Russia at the date specified in their visas, and to ascertain that those working here by proper authorisation are placed where their qualifications best suit them. In no case will travellers be .allowed to stay and look for work. At the same time the Government intends to see that only bona fide tourists enter the country on toprist visas, and has ordered its world-wide tourist agency "Intourist," to sell only round-trip tickets for tours within the Soviet horders. In this way it can guarantee itself against the possibility of having destitute persons on its hands. It has not been compelled to meet that problem so far, but it is taking no chances on a menace of the character presented hy acute unemployment elsewhere in the world. In some cases workers have come here on the assuranee of a Soviet travel agent in their country, either ignorant of conditions or anxious to increase his ticket saies, that they wonld have no trouble finding jobs. A majority of them have been bitterly disillusioned and fox-ced to borrow money on which to get out of the country. Currency Problem. Many, too, lose sight of the fact that Soviet money cannot he spent outside this country, and foreign currency can he had only by special permission and in limited quantities. So even those who wish to go home and have no foreign money are sometimes up against it. Americans who have come here in a futile search for jobs have met more difficulties than most other foreigners because they have no , Consulate nor Embassy to which to | turn when they find themselves unable to get work and without sufficient funds for f are home, save in a comparatively few cases. Some have been reduced to the necessity of selling most of their belongings in order to make their way to the nearest American diplomatic representative. Americans among the unskilled portion of Moscow's foreign population, which comes closer to living on the same scale as the* natives than any other alien element, represent broadly two types. One is the student or older intellectual anxious to study the socialistic experiment at first hand, and the other the wanderer or adventurer. Few, even of those who obtain employment in a Government institute for languages, are granted privileges to buy food at the stores operated for foreigners where prices are relatively reasonable, and none is given privilege in the matter of lodging. The result is that they pay the highest prices for food in the Government's "open" stoi^es or on the "private" market. They obtain lodgings as best they can, and consider themselves lucky to get a corner couch in a single room occupied by a whole Russian family. Sometimes they are able to obtain board where they sleep, but oftener than not they are compelled to eat in "open" restaurants where prices are* exorbitant for mediocre food.