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Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 170347, 21 October 1920, Page 7

The Christchurch "Press" can find "no excuse" for Timaru's resentment the expression of which it calls a "violent attack"—of an attempt to come between it and its water power. An appeal to Philip sober from Philip drunk can decide the point. On October 7th, before the City Council had suggested that the Government should commit a breach of faith, and when the matter could be* considered in th«-. calmest spirit, "The Press" had this to say:— iJ" - e il re ? fraid that ifc is rathe* late in the day for members of the progress League to complain about Hip government's action in extending the -Lake Coleridge electric supply to Timaru before the needs of Christchurc. and the immediate district were satis! ned. Ihe Tminru scheme nas gone too far for such protests to have any effect." General recognition of that fact by tne Christchurch bodies is all that South Canterbury requires.

A committee of the Xeague of I\"a. tions has issued a report on conditions in Russia u -hch shows reason, at Imist. why Sovietism should be declining. The Soviet Government started well* with an industrial programme not so aa vanced as that which New Zealand enjoys., since a 48-honrs woek wa«= ia eluded in it, but truly advanced for Russia. The nationalisation of three thousand factories, 90 per cent. pf the whole, under first workers' and then State control, proved, however, a disastrous experiment. Higher wages failed to get near the increased cost of living, caused by the falling off --f production. From July 1916 to A. D ni 1918, the price of food increased S9S per cent., while the wages of skilled workmen increased only 237 per cent.. of semi-skilled workmen 344 per oent. and of the common labourer 450 per cent. The average increase in wage* of a skilled metal worker was »iv~ times less than the increase'of tin cost of living. According to the Soviet Press, the number of workers employed in industry, exclusive of those on the railways, decreased by 2,402,000

up to January, 1919, while an extractfrom the report of the Supreme Council of Popular Economy of March, 1919, declared that production in the greater number of Russian industries had tiecreased from 400 to 500 per cent.

In February 1920. Sunday was declared a working day. and the hours ) of labour increased, by official edict, by two each day. The first article of the Labour Laws of 1919 says:—-''All citizens of the Russian Federal Soviet Republic, with the exceptions stated in Articles 11 and 12, are subject to compulsory labour." The exceptions are the young, the old. and the sick. Fino and imprisonment were made penalties for omission to work. Military discipline for labour has been the. ideal since then. ' "Military system" is the name that is given to it by Trotsky. Tho Russian workers, of course, have an object to work and to put up with these conditions. They can share the losses. It would pay Governments ofinanco trips to Bolshevy of their malcontents, who hold up Russia as a model, if only they could be sure that they would complete the journey ind not stop short at Helsingfors.