File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎679r] (1005/1080)

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Frotn that time th'e policy of England relative to Ireland has in no way*
changed; wliiie in the place of 30,000 men there are there now 100,000. For
three centuries Ireland has been under the dominion of England. This regime
is excessively irksome. For instence, the Irish have not the right to own pro
perty valued at more than five pounds, and an Englishman, if he ■ sees an
Irishman on horseback, can : appropriate the animal by paying the owner five
pounds. Very frequently English aristocrats for the sake of amusement hunt
human beings.
The result of such a policy of the English is a strong tide of emigration to --
America which loss of population is expressed by the following figures. Out \
of 8,170,000 inhabitants in the beginning of 1911 there remain scarcely 430,000. ^ \
A'-total of 3,700,030 has emigrated to America .and this has recently s welle 1 to^
1,500,000. ^Figures as given in the paper).
Ulster appears to be the hotbed of all revolutionary movements in. Ireland.
It includes a population of 800,000 operatives an 1 at the present moment is ;
seething with disorder. The Protestants, comprising the majority of the citizens,
are warring with the Cdtholics, the homes of whom they are laying waste
and whom they are expelling from the towns. Many unhappy women and
children, bereft of refuge, are perishing of cold and hunger. This is one of the
visible proofs of the perfidy of the English It would not be wise to refer to
the displeasure of the English when they are eye witnesses of the destruction
of whole families from whom they recruit their soldiers The populace nearly
always offers armed resistance to the English who do as they please while the
Irish are.ns yet helpless.
Eosta of 25th January has an alarmist paragraph entitled “ Poland Arm- -
ing.Y According to information-.received from Dantzig there are daily arrival
act that part, of ships loaded with artillery stores and munitions for the Polish ,
army woieh, with feverish haste, is being reorganised under the direction of
French officers. The establishment ot an artillery park has been increased.
from 6 to 9 batteries. Many English, firms have received orders from the
Polish Government for ammunition hoots and uniforms of cloth of a protective,
shade. Payment will be made by Paris banks who have opened a new credit
with the Polish Government. These orders are tantamount to a renewal of hos
tile operations against Soviet Russia.*
Rosta of the 4th February prints information on the economic state of
Batum and Tiflis. The readers of the paper must recognise in the narrative-
many parallels to their own miserable conditions of existence in Askhabad—the
homg of the paper.
“ Two Italian and 1 English ship with freights for Georgia have recently
arrived in the port of Batum., They will leave wiih Greek refugees. Arrest
and perquisitions are in active process in the town. Those arrested are sent to
the penal establishment at Kutais. The train from Batum to Tiflis takes more
than twenty hours. As far as Tiflis engines consume coal and from Tiflis to
Poilo on the frontier, they are fired with wood. There is a complete dearth of
oil and the electric power houses are kept going with wood fuel. In Bat urn
the price of commodities is excessive, black bread costing 1)0 roubles per Geor
gian “ funt ” and white, 300 roubles. The population is starving because the
issue of bread by ration cards has been suspended. Four destroyers arc at
anchor in the port.,
At Tiflis life is even worse than at Batum, all communist papers have
been sealed, while only one bourgeois paper, the “ Slovo ”, is current in the
town. There is no oil,.and the trams are stopped., The high prices of every
thin" are terrible. A.“ funt ” (about 14 ozs.) of meat costs 350 roubles while
the prices of other commodities is the same as at Butum. Theie is great
quantity of cloth in the town but the price is very high, an arshin (about H ,
yard) of the commonest variety costing 15,000 roubles., Ihere is a great,