Russia Buys Wheat The news that Russia is buying Canadian
and ,Australian wheat is significant, particularly when it coincides with the issue by the Government of a new decree permitting the peasants, after delivery to the State of a certain proportion of their crops, to dispose of the rest themselves as they choose, though only, apparently, to individual purchasers, not to merchants or speculators. This, like Lenin's New Economic Policy of 1921, is a confession that human nature is stronger than State regulation, but, probably enough, there will be a reaction back from the new leniency, as there was with the N.E.P. The agricultural outlook in Russia is clearly not good. The chief reason for the foreign purchases of wheat is that there is a large concentration of Russian troops-100,000 aceording to rumour—in the Vladivostock region, and it is easier to feed them from overseas than from European Russia or Siberia. The concentration is to be explained by fear of a possible Japanese attack rather than as sign of contemplated Russian aggression.
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