OCR Text |
Show RUSSIAN INDUSTRIES CRIPPLEDBY 11 People in Large Centers Are Starving Despite Surplus Sur-plus of Foodstuffs. GRANARIES ARE FULL Terrible Slav Losses Kept Secret by Government, Physician Says. BERLIX, Jan. 13. Dr. Sigurd Sven- son, a Swedish physician who was permitted per-mitted to visit the prison camps in eastern east-ern Russia and Siberia as a representative representa-tive of the Swedish Red Cross society and returned recently, has arrived here to make a report to the German authorities. authori-ties. In an interview he said: "Conditions "Condi-tions throughout Russia are extremely bad. So many men have been sent to the front that all industries, even the railroads, are crippled., Although there is ao enormous surplus of foodstuffs in certain sections of the vast empire, the population of the large centers is starving. starv-ing. Great quantities of wheat are rotting rot-ting in the grain elevators of Odessa and in other ports of the Black sea, while in Kishineff, Kieff and Charkow, only a few hundred miles away, the people peo-ple can get no flour and bread. The transportation service is demoralized. Harvest Falls Off. "This year's Russian harvest was far below the average, but the granaries are still filled with the surplus from former years. There would be no suffering suf-fering if the government were not thoroughly thor-oughly incapable. Much of the misery is caused by the fact that certain dishonest dis-honest high officials are. silent partners of the food speculators and prevent reforms re-forms from sheer avarice. "The Russian people are sick and tired of the war. This impression I gained everywhere on my travels. In many places I found much unrest and I know of at least two cases of serious riots. "The illiterate masses have only a vague idea of the war situation, .but they realize something is going wrong and w?.nt to know the truth. All Want War Over. "Although, the terrible Russian losses are kept secret by the government, they have become known in the most remote rural districts through letters from the front which occasionally escape the censor. cen-sor. The government, through the press, assures the people daily that the war is practically won and that the central ; powers and their allies are beaten, but ! the peasants and working men cannot ! understand why they continually have to furnish more and more recruits if the enemy is defeated and not capable of further resistance. I talked with men and women in all walks of life, and they all expressed the fervent hope that the war may come to end soon. This universal desire is the cause of the bitter bit-ter parliamentary battles and the attacks at-tacks on the government in the duina. The movement to end the war is growing grow-ing steadily and the aristocracy openly advocates a separate peace." |