MILLIONS TO DIE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 February 1922, Page 5

MILLIONS TO DIE.

TRAGEDY OF RUSSIA. CANNIBALISM EXISTS. SHOCKING CONDITIONS. By Tclecraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. Received Feb. 17, 8.40 p.m. London, Feb. 17. Dr. Nansen, lecturing at the Central Hall, Westminster, said that this would be his last desperate appeal to the British Government. How, he asked, could other nations stand callously aside and allow 20,000,000 Russians to die of starvation? The audience shuddered when Dr. Nansen declared that he had the names of scores of Russian fathers and mothers who had killed their children, not in order to end the children’s sufferings, but in order that the parents might eat them to live. They must be prepared to hear that cannibalism was spreading within an area of 1100 by 600 miles in the Volga district. Nineteen million out of thirty million people were in danger of starvation, and ten million would inevitably die, whatever was done.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.

A FAMINE REVOLT. HUNGRY PEOPLE’S THREAT. Received Feb. 17, 8.40 p.m. Helsingfors, Feb. 16. A famine revolt has broken out in the province of Tcherson. Large armed forces are advancing on the town of Tcherson, which the starving people threaten to sack. Lenin, at a meeting of the Central Soviet in Moscow, proposed to reduce the army by fifty per cent., in order to reduce the difficulty of provisioning and in deference to the wishes of the American famine delegation. In consequence of a violent protest from Trotsky Lenin’s proposal was rejected, Trotsky saying demobilisation was impossible in view of the general situation in Europe.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. RE ORGANISING RUSSIA. NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE. Received Feb. 17, 8.40 pjn. London, Feb. 17. The Morning Post’s Paris correspondent says secret pourparlers are proceeding between the French Government and Krassin (representing Russia), relating to guarantees which France intends to demand before she is willing to confer with the Soviet delegates at the Genoa Conference. It is understood that the Soviet has offered an important provisional undertaking to place Odessa, Sebastopol, Petrograd and Novorissisk under a special regime as free ports, enabling foreigners to secure bases and assemble materials preparatory to reorganising transports. The French interpret the German annoyance over a possible Franco-Russian rapprochement as indicating that Germany, feeling confident of British support, hoped to find France isolated at Genoa, and now realises that this is unlikely.—Aus.-N x Z. Cable Assn.