MARRIAGE FARCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 July 1927, Page 7

MARRIAGE FARCE

RUSSIAN DIVORCES INCREASE DISSOLUTION AT WILL (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) (By Cable—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, July 21. The Riga correspondent of “The Times” says:—ln five months, 9,681 marriages have been registered in Soviet Russia and 7255 have been divorced, as the result of a new law, enabling the annulment of marriage at the desire of either party, without giving any reason. The proportion of divorces to marriages has risen-in 12 months from 26 per cent to 75 per cent. The Soviet’s first campaign was the destruction of the religious ceremony, then forcing the people to recognise the Soviet’s monopoly. They next sought in 1925 to abolish even the registration of marriages, making cohabitation the sole form of marriage. This atempt broke down because the peasant women said it was hard enough to keep husbands already. The proposal was then temporarily withdrawn, but it was again introduced, and it became law in 1927, with a concession to the peasant women thftt the marriages and divorces may be registered if both parties agreed. “UNITY” OF WORKERS/. ,

RIGA. July 22. A venture into prophecy was indulged in by M. Bukharin, when speaking on the fourth anniversary of the' Soviet. He said: “Our constitution of Government Dominion is the biggest alarm bell for the working classes in Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Australia. If' war is declared on us, it will draw in the working classes of the enslaved capitalistic countries. In the event of the bourgeoisie shooting at us, the Union of the Spcialist Republics will change from half Asiatic and European, into a great Asiatic-European Union. The recent Pacific Conference was a great step forward in the unification of workmen, despite the united hostile front of the governments, including the Australian, whose professional unions were not allowed to participate in the conference. The Secretariat will be the means of joining up the fourteen and a half millions of organised workers fringing the Pacific.”