MISERY IN RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 October 1921, Page 5

MISERY IN RUSSIA.

TRAGEDY OF STARVATION. OUTSIDE HELP VITAL. THE PERIL OF WINTER. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Sept. 30, 5.5 pjn. London, Sept. 29. The Daily Chronicle’s special correspondent at Saratoff relates a tragic story of the Volga zone. The authorities are making a big effort to stop trekking from the famine areas, and in every village the Soviet is prohibiting the "people from removing heavy implements, cattle and goods, so that only comparatively few can now evade the regulation by escaping during the nighttime. But the greatest restraining influence has been the delivery of seed and corn, which is encouraging people to prepare for the next harvest, and haa greatly stimulated confidence in the Government. The commissioners have been forced to use some seed and corn to feed children. As one told xne, “When you sep children picking over garbage for food, you. cannot tell them to wait till the next harvest.” In some villages children were found lying dead in the streets, and many were mere skin and bones, with their faces like little old men and women. Failing help from abroad the people must starve by the beginning of December. The Volga granaries, which contained twelve million poods of grain in 1920, are empty to-day, and fields which were normally producing eighty poods, yielded barely one, and were not worth harvesting. The peasants are ploughing grain into the soil for next harvest. They are showing extraordinary heroism, working through the night ‘'by the light of lanterns in the anxiety to complete the winter sowing before the snow comes, but already the wild geese are flying southwards, and the peasants realise it is a race for life. The authorities are endeavoring to 'fight cholera, but sanitaxy provision is impossible among the bulk of the peo-ple,—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.