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BERLIN. March 29 — The present Russian famine is as bad as the great starvation of 1921, when millions died, according to Gareth Jones, private secretary to David Lloyd George, former British Prime Minister, who just reached here today after a long walking trip through the rural districts of the Ukraine.

Mr. Jones will deliver an official report in London to the Royal Institute of International Affairs tomorrow explaining the conditions in Russia and the reasons underlying them. He speaks Russian fluently and, while all foreign correspondents mostly were forbidden to visit the famine regions of the Ukraine, Jones was allowed to do so.

His report explains the dislike of the Russian authorities to having conditions in the Soviet investigated.

Mr. Jones saw famine on a huge scale and the revival of a murderous terror. The Russians are thoroughly alarmed over this situation and, he explains, the arrest of British engineers recently as a "maniac measure" following the shooting by the Government of 35 prominent Russian agricultural workers, including a vice-commissar in the ministry of agriculture.

"I walked through the country visiting villages and investigating twelve collective farms," Mr. Jones today told The Sun correspondent.

Everywhere I heard the cry:

‘There is no bread: we are dying!’ This cry is rising from all parts of Russia: from the Volga district, from Siberia, from White Russia, from Central Asia and from the Ukraine black dirt country. I saw a peasant pick up a crust of bread and an orange peel which I had thrown away in the train.

"Soldiers warned me against traveling by night, as there were too many desperate men about. A foreign expert who returned from Kazakstan told me that 1,000,000 out of the 5,000.000 of inhabitants there have died of hunger.

"After Dictator Josef V. Stalin the starving Russians most hate George Bernard Shaw for his accounts of their plentiful food, whereas they are really starving. There is insufficient feed and many peasants are too weak to work the land and the future prospect seems blacker than the present. The peasants no longer trust their Government and the change in the taxation policy came too late."

Mr. Jones attributes the famine chiefly to the collectivization policy and the peasants’ hatred for it. Other causes are bad transportation, the lack of skilled labor, the bad State finances and Governmental terror. Unemployment is steadily growing in the land that but a few years ago boasted of its freedom from ills current in capitalistic society.

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"Russia to-day is in the grip of famine, which is proving as disastrous as the catastrophe of 1921, when millions died," said Mr. Gareth Jones, formerly one of Mr. Lloyd George's political secretaries, when he arrived in Berlin this morning on his way to London after a long walking trip through the Ukraine and other districts of the Soviet Union.

Mr. Jones, who speaks Russian fluently, is reporting to the Institute of International Affairs tomorrow in an interview with the New York "Evening Post," Mr. Jones said that famine on a colossal scale was impending. It meant death to millions by hunger and the beginnings of serious unemployment in land which has hitherto prided itself of every man having a job.

This summed lip Mr. Jones’s first-hand observations.

The arrest of the British engineer in Moscow is a symbol of panic, and is a consequence of conditions worse than in 1921, when millions died of hunger (declared Mr. Jones). The trial, beginning on Saturday, of the British engineers is merely a sequel to the recent shooting of 35 prominent workers of agriculture, including the Vice-Commissar in the Ministry of Agriculture, in an attempt to check the popular wrath at the famine which haunts every district of the Soviet Union.

I walked alone through villages and twelve collective farms. Everywhere was the cry, "There is no bread; we are dying." This cry came to me from every part of Russia. In a train a Communist denied to me that there was a famine. I flung into the spittoon a crust of bread I had been eating from my own supply. The peasant, my fellow passenger fished it out and ravenously ate it. I threw orange peel into the spittoon. The peasant again grabbed and devoured it. The Communist subsided.

A foreign expert returning from Kazakstan told me that one million out of five million have died of hunger. I can believe it. After Stalin the most hated man in Russia is Bernard Shaw; to many of those who can read and have read his descriptions of plentiful food in their starving land the future is blacker than the present. There is insufficient seed. Many of the peasants are too weak to work the land. The new taxation policy, which promised to take only a fixed amount of grain from the peasants, will fail to encourage production because the peasants refuse to trust the Government.

In short, the Government’s policy of collectivisation and the peasants’ resistance to it have brought Russia to the worst catastrophe since the famine of 1921 swept away the population of whole districts. Coupled with this, the prime reason for the breakdown is the lack of skilled labour.

Gareth Jones, a serious young man with glasses, arrived in Berlin last week after a three—week tour of the Ukraine. He had a dreadful tale to tell, and Berlin correspondents listened politely because serious Mr. Jones was once a private secretary to David Lloyd George and before making his trip to the Ukraine he spent many a long hour learning to speak Russian - far more fluently than most Russian correspondents. Said he:

"I walked through the country visiting villages and investigating twelve collective farms. Everywhere I heard the cry: ‘There is no bread, we are dying!’ This cry is rising from all of Russia from the Volga district, from Siberia from White Russia from Central Asia and from the Ukraine black dirt [Earth] country

"Most official deny any famine exists, but a few minutes following one such denial in a train I chanced to throw away a stale piece of my private supply of bread. Like a shot a peasant dived to the floor grabbed the crust and devoured it. The same performance was repeated later with an orange peel. Even transport and G.P.U. officers warned me against travelling over the countryside at night because of the numbers of starving, desperate men. . . .A foreign expert who returned from Kazakstan told me that 1,000,000 of the 5,000,000 of inhabitants there have died of hunger.

"After Dictator Josef V. Stalin the starving Russians most hate George Bernard Shaw for his accounts of their plentiful food. . . . There is insufficient feed and many peasants are too weak to work on the land and the future prospect seems blacker than the present. The peasants no longer trust their government and the change in taxation policy came too late."

A rebuttal was promptly presented by Walter Duranty, a U.S. correspondent long in Soviet good graces, but it was a rebuttal of much mildness.

"The number of times foreigners, especially Britons have shaken rueful heads as they composed the Soviet Union’s epitaph can scarcely be computed . . . This not to mention a more regrettable incident of three years ago when an American correspondent discovered half the Ukraine flaming with rebellion and proved it by authentic documents eagerly proffered by Rumanians. . . .

"Since I talked with Mr. Jones I have made exhaustive inquiries about this alleged famine situation. . . . There is serious food shortage throughout the country with occasional cases of well-managed state or collective farms. The big cities and the army are adequately supplied with food. There is no actual starvation or death from starvation, but there is wide is mortality from diseases due to malnutrition . . . In every Russian village food conditions will improve henceforth, but that will not answer one really vital question — What about the coming grain crop? Upon that depends not the future of the Soviet power which cannot and will not be smashed, but the future policy of the Kremlin."