TALES OF HORROR

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 197, 17 February 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

TALES OF HORROR

FAMINE IN RUSSIA. The famine that is ravaging Eastern Kussia does not seem to have attracted much attention m others parts of Europe, but reports from the afflicted districts show that an appalling state of affans exists. Last season the crops j weie a total failure in eight provinces ! h partial failure in twelve others, the total deficiency in breadstuffs being estimated at forty-eight million quarters An official report that was placed before the Duma late m November stated that more than nineteen million people, representing about half the population of the region were in need of State assistance. xiouse-to-House investigation had shown, M , iuister said ' that 8 200 000 people were in immediate peril

°, starvation, and he asked that relief should be provided for that number. But it is to be feared that the position has become worse with the advance of winter. "Only five years ago," writes a correspondent of the London Daily News the provinces passed through a similar experience. The people lost most of their horses and cattle, used up all their stocks and savings, and incurred a large debt to the State, which the surpluses oli the intervening years have had to repay. Thus these wretched millions have now to face death by hunger practically without reserves or resources of any kind to fall back upon. Hay and fodder have failed as well as the grain crops throughout this large region." The situation has been aggravated by the determination of the Russian bureaucracy to make the relief of the starving practically a State monopoly. Apparently the rulers of the country fear that organisations might distribute revolutionary sentiments as well as food and consequently the relief funds have been allowed to pass into the hands of a horde of dishonest and inefficient officials A sum of nearly £500,000 was spent on

seed, which reached the distressed provinces so late that the fields could not be sown in the autumn. Probably half the money which the Government and generous people have provided has gone into the wrong pockets. The suffering of the villages in Russia's eastern provinces during the famine has been of a dreadful description. The people sold their cattle and household possessions at ruinously low prices when first they felt the pinch of hunger, and in November hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were trying to keep themselves alive with acorn bran field weeds and the bark of trees,' bcurvy and typhoid fever, which are the usual accompaniments of famine, had

made their appearance. "Until the snow began to fall and covered the ground" wrote a correspondent, "the women and children collected the acorns, which thev mixed with a little flour for the househoul consumption. The husks could not be spared, and this acorn bread has produced severe sickness, accompanied by intense pain. School teachers write pitiful letters from .the villages to the newspapers, describing how the. children are pining away before their eyes while they are powerless to help. Similar appeals come from the doctors, whose healing art has no remedy for famine. The priests of two villages in the Turay territory have applied to their superiors for instructions, as the whole population in despair demanded the Last Sacrament before they died of starvation." The economic ruin of the afflicted provinces is being ensured by the money-lenders, who have swarmed among the starving peasants like carrion crows, for the purpose of buying allotments. Many thousands : of small landowners have sold their holdings for scarcely more than the value of the standing buildings, and others have contracted loans at exorbitant rates of * interest. The Russian Government has opened public works of various descriptions in 4800 sub-districts, but the assist- ! ance that is given by that means is not ! of very great value to the sufferers. The peasants are required to work hard for very low wages, and then they find that the prices of all kinds of food are cruelly high, owing to the lack of transport facilities. The Russian famine of 1911- , 12 will long be remembered by the poorer subjects of the Czar as among the bitterest experiences of their hard lot.