LAND REFORM PROPOSED

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26671, 4 March 1952, Page 7

LAND REFORM PROPOSED

UNDERDEVELOPED AREAS

(Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, March 2 The National Planning Association proposed to-day that the United States sponsor a “world revolution” in land reform to wipe out poverty and hunger and to block Communist schemes to conquer the underdeveloped areas of the earth. The association said that land reform must be used to supplement investment and technical assistance to underdeveloped areas if standards of living were to be improved. The major point in the recommended programme was the elimination of absentee ownership of farmlands, compelling landlords to sell land to the existing tenants at a reasonable price. The report said that land ownership by tenants in under-developed areas would greatly improve farm production by doing away automatically with one of the worst ills of the old system, under which tenants too often failed to improve their land for fear of having their rents raised. BIRTHDAY OF POPE PIUS VATICAN CITY, March 3. Pope Pius XII yesterday celebrated his seventy-sixth birthday. Thousands of telegrams of cqngratulation poured into the Vatican City’s little telegraph office. The Pope’s birthday coincided with the thirteenth anniversary of his election.