Mass Unemployment In Hungary Forecast

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28160, 26 December 1956, Page 7

Mass Unemployment In Hungary Forecast

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 8 p.m.) BUDAPEST, December 24. An official forecast that 200,000 Hungarians would be out of work in 1957 cast a gloomy shadow over Christmas Eve as Budapest citizens trudged home through deep snow and slush after a final round of shopping.

The Socialist Workers’ (Communist) Party newspaper “Nep Szabadsag” predicted this unemployment in a 32-page Christmas number.

The coal shortage has prevented a resumption of production in the country’s factories and a number of plants have shut down until January 2, leaving scores of thousands idle. The newspaper said that the government planned to import about 3,500,000 tons of coal during the next year and might also draw electricity supplies from Austria. But in spite of this, the power supply would be one-quarter less than before the Hungarian rising began in October.

Government measures to meet the crisis include transferring scores of thousands of industrial workers back to the land from which in previous years they had been recruited for factories. About 400,000 farm workers had transferred to industry “in the period of over-zealous industrialisation,” the newspaper said. The newspaper said Hungary would need foreign loans from “capitalist” countries, as well as others, to rebuild its economy again. Churches throughout Budapest held their Christmas Eve masses in the late afternoon. The Hungarian authorities lifted a curfew banning people from the streets at 9 p.m. so that churches could hold midnight services, but many clung to their earlier arrangements to hold the services in the afternoon. The curfew will be restored tomorrow but will be two hours shorter —from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m. The Indian Ambasasdor in Moscow, Mr K. P. S. Menon, arrived in Budapest by air from the Soviet capital this afternoon for a visit lasting about a week, Indian sources said. This is Mr Menon’s second visit to Budapest since the Hungarian rising. He joins Dr. Jagan Nathan Khosla, who is the personal representative of the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Nehru. The two men will report to Mr Nehru on the Hungarian situation.