The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-01-28
RUSSIA HAS FOOD
BUT POOR RAILOADS
That Is the Way Leslie Urquhart, Brit
ish Subject, Sums Up the Situation
Food Prices in Siberia
Are Nearly Normal.

London, Jan. IS Correspondence of the
! Associated Press -Demorslized trans
portation, not lack of food, is responsible
for the famine conditions in Russian
cities and towns, according to Leslie
| Urquhart, capitalist with large metal
| lurgical and mining interests in Siberia.
Mr. Urquhart, who recently returned
| from Russia, has been appointed by the
| British government 10 assist in the re-
yival of Siboria's economic life.
Considering the depreciation of the
ruble, he told a representative Of the As
ISOLATED Press, food prices in Siberia arc
practically normal. In western Siberia,
he said, there is so much food on hand
that a considerable surplus could be sent
into other parts Of Russia, and the same
applies, he understood, to southeastern
Russia and to the Ukraine.
Broadly speaking, it can be said that
! in the country as whole there is no
| shortage of food and although the large
towns of north and central Russia are
starving there is plenty of food in the
| villages. The difficulty of transport, due
to the disorganization of the railways,
! the industrial strikes and risings which
| brought about the flooding OF the Donetz
coal mines and the decreases in the sup
ply of fuel to less than Is per cent of
normal production. civil war in the coun.
| try and economic chaos generally are all
reasons for the state bordering on famine
in the towns.
"Ekibastous, the greatest wheat pro-
ducing province in Siberia, with large
stocks of wheat lying less than 100 miles
away, is living from hand to mouth, as
! it is practically impossible to transport
the wheat for lack of strap iron with
which to make tires for wagon wheels,
THE continual increase Of wages in
the industrial and manufacturing towns
has raised the cost of iron, steel, cloth
ing boots and other essentials of every
thing indeed that the peasant wears and
uses-and the peasant represents 50 per
cent of the population OF the country
to 20 and even so times their normal
value. The town workers, or is per cent
of the population, however, would not
permit the soviet government to raise
the maximum prices fixed for food. This
one-sided legislation not mnaturally in
censed the peasant. While he had to pay
20 and 50 times the normal price for all
essential commodities produced by the
industrial workers in the towns, he re-
ceived only about double the normal pre-
war price for the preduce of his own la
Dor
Therefore the peasant sits tight on
his grain. He refuses to sell wheat to
the bolsheyiki at the requisition price of
one and one half cents a pound wheR he
can sell il at 90 cents a pound or even
more. When it can be got, bread to-day
in Petrograd OF Moscow is l6 rubles or
more a pound. The peasant is willing TO
barter his food for cloth, steel textiles
and other necessaries, but the industrial
workers have ruined industry. Nothing
is being produced, there is nothing to bar
ter with. The peasants have large ac-
cumulations of paper money, but this is
of no value, for they can buy nothing
with it. Meanwhile the peasants are
boarding their produce.
In a sense then, the peasant is master
of the situation. He has the food, the
tOwnspeople have not. The bolsheviki
have tried with varying success to take
wheat and other produce by force to feed
the proletariat of the towns, but neither
the Germans in the Ukraine, as they
have found to their cost, nor the work
men in the towns can get food from the
Russian peasant if lie does not choose to
let them have it,