Chaos prevailed from the arrival of the first group and continued up to the time of the writer's departure. It was the old story of the cook trying to do the shoemaker's job. While certain qualification forms were issued upon the arrival of the fourth group, to be filled in by the colonists to determine for what they were best fitted along the lines of industrial activity, apart from certain trades such as carpentry, engineering and mining, most of the other labour departments werd in charge of men who had absolutely no conception of the requirements of their Guties. An ex-railroad conductor was in charge of the com-emissary; a train despatcher was superintendent of the American section of the coal properties at Kemerovo; a l-year-old watchmaker, sent with the first Kemerovo group, had a mandate appointing him mining engineer in charge. It is difficult to comprehend the mental calibre of the New York office when once the opportunity given one to look over the field of human material that was sent over—
70-year-old men, one woman close upon 60 years, men with no other qualification than that of common labourers, matrons and near matrons—and all because they possessed G. $300 or thereabouts. There was also another type.of man who came to Kuzbas, the ambitious East Side or new East Side young man whose aim, as near as can be judged from observation, is a possible commissar position. Most of this type have already succeeded in securing a berth this kind, and who knows where they will be in the not distant furture?
The New York office of Kuzbas further misrepresented the facts by promising colonists work at their trade or profession, when in reality no such work was available. The writer's case was typical. In a letter to the New York office, he specified that he was interested in railway location or construction a9 an engineer and that if they could j use him in that line, or as an industrial organizer, to advise him accordingly. A reply was received notifying that he was just the man they wanted, but there was no railway to be located in connexion with the Kuzbas project, the Russians engineers having already surveyed and mapped it years previously. One
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.