TIMELY TOPICS

Northern Advocate, 15 September 1932, Page 4

TIMELY TOPICS

WOMEN AS MINERS. The Riga correspondent of “The Times’’ says that the Soviet Government has authorised the introduction of women labourers for underground work in Soviet coalmines, and permitted the Commissariat of Labour to waive the restrictions in Article 129 of the Soviet Labour Code, which forbids the employment of women underground. The abandonment of these restrictions was decided on some time ago, although the decision -.-was hot published, ami the Soviet Government’s spokesmen more than once emphatically denied that women were employed underground. The Donet.z Basin has already taken the first women’s “brigades” down the coal pits, where they work alongside the men, assisting the hewers and acting as trimmers or hauliers. A number of them arc registered as “shock women,” and according to Soviet, reports they are working magnificently at and near the coal face. Two have already received special distinctions of merit for underground work in the Donetz mines. Apparently the introduction of women labourers is in-

tended to shame the men into greater activity, as, although 80,000 additional* workers liaVe been employed since 1931, the output in the Donctz mines continues to fall and lastweek reached its lowest, level since 1930. .

CREW OP OFFICERS. A deck crow’ of eighteen certificated officers, crowded off the fewer bridges now at sea,’has made the Port Gisborne's"'departure for "New Zealand a matter of comment in the ‘‘Daily Mail.” According to recent, figures, Britain has 14 per cent, of tonnage laid np, but Italy has 18 per cent., Holland 19, Denmark 20, Norway 21, U.S.A. 24, France 28, Germany 31. Sweden’s la id-up tonnage is comparatively low at H per. cent., and Japan’s at S. Why arc ships out of work? asks the “Evening Post.” Because countries cannot pay for imports; their cancelling of , imports has 'hit back -at their own exports; and there has been a general attempt to live .within their own boundaries, tariff-fenced. The plan of self-containment, if pursued ' far enough, would empty the seas. There is no doubt a point of reaction, but it is not yet visible at sea. Cargo traffic, is estimated to have decreased 25 per cent, since 1929. This general condition ennnot, be banished either by low freights or high subsidies.