A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 302, 17 September 1936, Page 9

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

— — Unemployed in Britain r Sir William Beveridge states that the minimum of unemployed in Britain must always remain at between 800,000 and 1,000,000. This same conclusion was reached in 1931 by Awjre Siegfried who, in his book “England’s Crisis,” said: “The" 1 phenomenon pf unemployment has constantly recurred in England af regular intervals. In 1879 it amounted to 11 per cent, of the total industrial workers, and in 1880 to 10 per cent; since 1874 it has never been less than two per cent Throughout the nineteenth century and until the Great War, however, the depressions never lasted any length of time in an acute form, as they were only symptoms of congestion. The gravest feature of the present / phase, which began in 1920-21, and of which the end is not yet in sight, is its permanency rather than its intensity.... Unemployment can be compared to a flood: the waters rise when world tempests ane raging (1920-21, 1930-31), and every country, without exception, is inundated until they subside. In England, however, the situation is different, for apparently there is a certain level Below which the flood never ebbs. A million unemployed seems to be the minimum. The figures dropped below that point only in April 1926 and May and June 1927, and then merely by.a few thousands. We must not be tob impressed by the 2,000,000 unemployed in 1930; the real problem is the permanent 1,000,000. ... In the England of Cobden, Peel and Gladstone, coal, iron, and steel, and the textile trades, could be counted on to absorb the surplus population, but to-day they are unable to do so, and are on the contrary flooding the labour market with their unemployed.'... England finds that she is burdened with a surplus of about 1,000,000 workers, whom she cannot profitably employ. . . Rostov-on-Don. Rostov-on-Don, where a number of people have been killed in a railway smash, is a town of Russia, standing on the right bank of the Don, 25 miles from its mouth, in Don Cossack territory. It owes its importance toj its facilities for navigation and its rail way systems. Of its many industries the most flourishing is the manufacture of tobacco. The chief exports are grain and wool, Rostov being the centre of the grain trade in that part of Russia. It was captured by the Germans in May, 1918. The population exceeds 200,000. For three months in the year the port of Rostov is closed on account of ice in the river. The Don, 1160 miles long, is navigable for half its length. In spring it nearly always overflows its banks and covers the adjoining country with unhealthy swamps. The fisheries on the river are very valuable. The Don is connected with the Volga by a canal planned by Peter the Great. Religion in Russia Mr. John Morgan, agricultural editor of the “Dally Herald,” told the story at the Wellington Travel Olub of the woman in Russia worshipping an ikon in her own home, while her children worshipped Denin. Mr. Morgan’s view of religion in Russia is confirmed by Mr. W. A. Smith, a Melbourne trainwayman, who visited Russia and, on his return, delivered broadcast talks which were afterward published in book form. “I attended church service (Greek Orthodox Church),” he said, “in two Soviet cities, separated by hundreds of miles—Moscow and Leningrad. On each occasion I observed mostly old people there. The congregations did not contain many young folk or children—onOy a few.... Religious instruction in institutions is forbidden by law until the child is 18. This does not mean that citizens cannot take their children to church, or teach religion at home. They are quite free to do either and can even take their friends’ or neighbours’ children to church with them. The law- aims at forbidding the establishment of Institutions such as our Sunday schools. Bible classes, Christian Brothers. Y.M.C.A/s, and other places where religion (the Soviet calls it superstition> is Imparted to children in an organised ■ way. The Soviet children are well versed in the sciences, particularly the sciences of Marxian economics and biology, which, in their case, embraces the Darwinian theory of evolution. It is this radical change in the education of the children, combined with antireligious propaganda, that is resulting in the rapid decay of orthodox religion in Rusisa. Because of the remarkable education they receive, the young Soviet generations are rejecting all the religious beliefs of their elders. As the old people die off. entire congregations, vanish and churches are no longer Required as such.” Generally these churches are turned into kindergartens Jews and Bolshevism The Jewish Congress has protested against, the statement made in Germany that Jewry and Bolshevism are identical. Hiilaire Belloc, in a sympa tlietic study of the Jews says: "The Bolshevist Movement was a Jewish movement, but not »a movement of the Jewish race as a whole. Most Jews are quite extraneous to it; very many indeed, and those of the most typical, abhor it; many actively combat it The imputation of its evils to the Jews as a whole is a grave injustice and proI needs from a confusion of thought” . . . I "There is a great element of truth,” . he says later, “in the statement that | this combination of Jews for the de- ■ struction of the old Russian society was an act of racial revenge. There is no doubt that the greater part of the Jews who took over power in Russian cities fin 1917] felt an appetite ! for revenge against the old Russian ' State comparable to that felt by any oppressed people against their oppressors.” . . . But "the Jew is not everywhere a revolutionary. He is everywhere discontented with a society alien to him; that is natural and inevitable But he does not exercise bis poweb 1 invariably, or even ordinarily, toward ■ the ovemetting of an established social i order by which, incidentally, he often i largely benefits. . . . The Jew is not. in , the history of Europe, the prime agent ! of revolution: quite the contrary." ' Lake Loen Disaster • The tidal wave from the Lake Loen | avalanche, besides doing immense danx ■ age and killing 74 people, has carried a I steamer, stranded in the 1905 avalanche, 150 yards further inland. In I the 1905 avalanche that steamer was i carried 440 yards inland. Lake Loen, where the village of Loen is situated. Is near Kjendals Glacier, famous for the wondrous colours of its ice, and also near the mighty Josterdalsbrae, by far the largest glacier in all Europe, having an area of about 365 square miles. The locality is the Nord Fjord, noted tor sonic of the most finest i t-cenery to be found in the whole of 1 Norway.