FOOD RATIONS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11452, 28 February 1931, Page 9

FOOD RATIONS

PUT ON STRICTER BASIS IN

RUSSIA

HEAVY MANUAL LABOR GAINS BY NEW CLASSIFICATION.

MOSCOW, Juu. 3. Beginning in November new ration books were introduced in the Soviet Union. Up to this time all the population was divided into two categories : manual workers and employees. Children up to 14 years enjoyed the privilege of special cards. Due to tne shortage of food and clothing. -.Hit population has now been divided into six categories, children again remaining in a class by themselves. This division will enable the Government to operate with greater dexterity and 'distribute whatever products there are among the classes whom it considers most important. The new system of -rationing divides the manual workers into two categories: those doing heavy work in mines and large lac-lories and those working tor light industry and smaller factories. Hot I j categories are officially entitled to the same rations, . but should a shortage, develop in the supply of some product and leave insufficient- of it tor all workers, then those in the first category will get it, the others will not. Employees and ordinary citizens lxa'e been put into the remaining lour .categories according to the; importance and difficulties of work they are performing. Those having the misfortune to belong to tho sixth and last category will be supplied with their rations only after the first five have had theirs.

Thq Soviet Government frankly claims to be a class state with definite privileges for the chosen. For the present it scorns the idea ol equality as childish sentimentality.

FLOUIt PROSPECTS IMPROVED. Another innovation is the promise that due to this year's good harvest the quality of Hour will be improved and the bread-card owner may get bis full allotment in white bread, if lie cliooses. Last summer and autumn only half tho ration was given in white bread, the other half, was “black” usually pasty, sour and un-

appetizing. The; situation with meat and butter is different. No butter is being given to adults during the months of October, November and December. They are receiving, instead, small rations of margarine from about a 1 pound to H pound per month depending upon their category. Efforts are made to abolish the long queues iu which women in some districts waited all night in order to be sure of obtaining their rations. li> is announced that meat coupons will be actually in the stores and all the coupons can be honored, which was not the case before.

The? system of “closed stores’' in effect for sonic weeks now, will be extended. By this system some of the best and largest stores are “attached” to certain factories and important state institutions. Onlyworkers and employees of the given factory can buy in their store. Everybody else is excluded. It was found that the closed stores helped to eliminate largo queues and further permitted the Government to supply certain factories with merchandise unobtainable by others. A statement made by Z. S- Boletin, chairman of the Moscow trade department, shows how inefficient and bureaucratic a state controlled system may become. Mr. Bolotiu said that despite the extreme shortage of manufactured goods felt throughout the Soviet Union, the shelves of some state and co-operative stores have actually been overcrowded with millions of rubles worth of goods lying idle for lack of customers. The trouble is that not a pair of shoes, or a yard of textile material, or a pair of stockings or socks can Ikbought now without a special order

issued by some organisation. The path thq order must travel from the time it is 'issued till the owner is ac-

tually allowed to obtain the indicated article is so long and devious that,

it often travels weeks before it gets to the store. Tlie adventures and travels of an order for merchandise havq now. been limited to a month’s time and it is hoped this: will change the anomalous situation whereby the Soviet citizen is shoeless while shoes lie idle on the store shelves.