SOVIET FINANCES.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19691, 7 August 1929, Page 11

SOVIET FINANCES.

UNFAVOURABLE REPORT. DEDUCTIONS FROM WORKERS' WAGES. trwiTSD PREiS Association— B* blkctbic telegraph —coptjuo ht ' (Received August 6th, 7 p.m.) LONDON, August 5. Following upou the decision to compel workmen and officials to subscribe six months' wages to * new industrialisation loan, tho Soviet Union has instructed factories to deduct the lirst instalment from August wages, and two further instalments in September. The instructions have been issued in consequence of the State Planning Commission's unfavourable report on the financial situation. —'"The Times Cables.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST RELIGION. PRIESTS CONDEMNED TO DEATH. (TTWITM ra«dS ASSOCIATION—BT *LICTHIO TILIORAPH—COPTBIQHT.) (Received August 7th, 7 p.m.) LONDON, August 6. The Riga correspondent of "The Times" reports that a Soviet tribunal at Samara condemned to death the Orthodox priests and four members of their congregation on a charge of "healing tho sick and casting out devils." They were also charged with urging the faithful not to observe Soviet laws. —"The Times" Cables. The Moscow correspondent of the "Observer," in a recent article, said: The promulgation of a new law regulating religious societies, forbidding the Churches to undertake educational and social work, and restricting their missionary and propagandist activity by preventing priests and ministers from preaching outsido their own parishes, coincides with an unmistakable intensification of the anti-religion campaign of the Communist Party and affiliated organisations. Last year the so-called Society of the Godless, which publishes a number of atheistic journals and is the main agency of anti-religious propaganda, increased its membership from 250,000 to 600,000. The newspaper "Workers' Gazette" states that during 1927 17 churches, 14 synagogues, and nine mosques were closed throughout the Soviet Union, and in 1926 359 churches, 59 synagogues and 88 mosques were closed. It is stated that all these closings corresponded with tho desires of the local workers.

DEATH.