The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-08-23
RUSS FAMINE
DUE TO REPEAT
Scarcity of Seed Promises Short
Crops for 1922.
All Haste Used to Get Food to
b. the Starving.
TRANSPORTATION is DIFFICULT
Half Starved Workers Cannot
Make Much Speed.
Headquarters for Relief To Be
Established at Riga.

London, Aug. 23.-Four parties OF
Russian relief workers will start for
Russia. Thursday, it was announced
today at Russia relief headquarters.
One will go to Petrograd, second
will go to Moscow and third will go
into the volga famine district to estab-
lish local headquarters and the fourth
which win go from Cpnstantinople. will
enter the southern part of the Volga
district and work northward.
DR. Nansen, who will be actively
in charge of the international relief
movement, will not enter Russia. Ho
will maintain headquarters in Riga.
The first ship from New York with
American supplies is expected to sail
! in week.
Famine ParaIyzes workers.
Efforts of employed workers in
/ Russia to help the famine sufferers
are hindered by the fact that they
themselves are weakened thru lack of
proper food, says a Moscow dispatch
to the Daily Herald.
Famine now is paralyzing the strong
and weak alike. it adds, and many
men for whom employment is avail
able are too enfeebled to do anything
requiring physical exertion. 1t is esti-
mated by the Herald's Moscow cor
respondent that the workers in the
| suburbs of the larger towns are re-
ceiving only 80 per cent of the aITot-
ted rations .tn
! Operations of the Volga river fleet,
the chief means of carrying food to
the famine area. is continued with the
| greatest difficulty because the crews
are half starved. In the Kazan area
many have been without bread since
June and the correspondent says.
dock workers often are without food
| for three or four consecutive days
In aVo1sa aV-Q IL .
grass that escaped. the scorchiny
drouth, and acorns are regarded as a
! luxury.
| No Hope for Next Year.
| At least a partial repetition next
4 summer of this years crop failure in
the Volga region now appears inevit-
| able, according to official Bolsheviki
1 advices and independent dispatches
from Moscow
| q The Russian peasants are said to be
/ doing their utmost to furnish a seed
supply for the stricken provinces, but
with only few weeks remaining be-
fore the latest possible date for SOW
| ing an extremely small proportion of
the seed grain needed has been gath
| cred in Russia and the foreign grain
! which has been ordered is slow in
| coming.
Great seed Scarcity.
THE collection of the natural tax
and the return of seed loans. up to
August 10. produced all together /,
0e7.000 pools, (about $40, 200 bushels)-
while for the Volga, region alone there
are needed nine million poods. of
grain" says a radio dispatched from
Moscow. Time doesNnot wait, and
our stride is too slow"
| Another somewhat contradictory
radio dispatch says that two consign-
ments of seed rye totalling 1900, 600
poCds, already have been received and
distributed among the districts of the
] Samara government, allaying the
! paEio and curtailing the migration of
peasants. The source of this supp.y
is not explained.
For reign seed deliveries are so DO
layad. says a Moscow dispatch to the
Letvian telegraph agency that they
W u not aid the famine stricken gov
esrments SO far as planting is COLI
ceThed. but the seed grain will be good
fog &C nsumption.