FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1921, Page 5

FAMINE IN RUSSIA.

TERRIBLE FOOD SHORTAGE. “HER CUPBOARDS ARE BARE.” By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyrigtt. Received Dec. 1, 7.30 p.m. London, Nov. 30. Sir Philip Gibbs, reviewing the Russian situation, says the Government supplies are restricted mainly to the use of Soviet workers, and even to them it is a povertystricken ration. He adds: “I believe the Government is doing its best, but with the best will it can do little.” “The situation is summed up in a few words,” he says. “Russia has not a reserve and her cupboards are bare. Even in Moscow everybody lives from hand to mouth. The Government can hardly pay its officials or feed its soldiers, who are worn threadbare by war and civil war and a general breakdown of economic life due to social chaos from its own Government. Peasants in the famine area cannot hope for succor. It is undeniable that the Russians hold on to what they have with desperate selfishness, and will not share with anyone, and they cannot be blamed if they do not give of their secret hoard to neighbors, for if they do their own children will die. City folk have not much pity for the peasants, and when they are starving the peasants would not send them food, even destroying it to avoid Government requisition, which is one of the minor causes of the famine.” “The Save the Children Fund was preparing to feed 70,000 children, while the American relief administration was working on a bigger scale with immense energy, actually feeding this month 201,000 children. These are all that are being fed out of a child population of 6,000,000. It is but haphazard relief after all. The Russians in the hunger zone could have been saved if tbe cry for help had come sooner from the leaders, and the world powers had come to the rescue quickly, and if the Soviet had been readier to accept help without political control. Good UQitumn sowings of rye have been made, and that is next year’s hope fox Russia.”