Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-01-24 | Page 6 | Russia's Famine

RUSSIA'S FAMINE. We have but to compare the railroad situation in this country with the situation sit-uation iu Russia to bo of good cheer. Home inconvenience and discomfort has been caused in this country by the order or-der of the fuel administrator, but the war work has been accelerated and suffering suf-fering due to coal and food shortages has been relieved. In Russia the incompetent Bolshevik government is wrestling with a similar simi-lar but incomparably more difficult problem. There', too, industries are being be-ing shut down while an effort is being made to transport sufficient fuel and food from Siberia to Kuropeaa Russia. Hut every phase of the problem is worse than in this country. The workmen work-men aro inefficient as compared with our highly efficient workers; the railroads rail-roads are fewer and wretchedly equipped and the winter is probably more severe se-vere than the unusual winter which has settled down upon our eastern states. It would be unfair to hold the Bolsheviki responsible for conditions which existed beforo they took control, con-trol, but it is apparent that they have intensified the disorganization by closing the banks and by permitttng their soldiers to commandeer railway facilities at will. The Russian conditions are so appalling ap-palling that they probably offer an explanation ex-planation of Prussian firmness at Brest-Litovsk. The Prussians have assured as-sured themselves that the Russians are incapable of carrying on the. war and must yield in order to keep their country coun-try from starvation. Moreover, the Germans see that peace might not bring them the benefits they expected. If the Russians cannot feed themselves, they cannot feed the Germans. Undoubtedly Undoubted-ly there is enough food in Russia, but the railroads are incapable of distributing distribut-ing it properly. Spring may bring some relief and the railways, if managed by the Germans, might do better, but the authorities at Berlin know that civil war will follow the peace treaty and that the Russian railroads will be torn up in all parts of the country.