NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1932. BACK TO BARTER AND LAND

Northern Advocate, 21 December 1932, Page 4

NORTHERN ADVOCATE DAILY

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1932. BACK TO BARTER AND LAND

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper.

While international organisations are striving to find a way out of the economic crisis, national governments are coping with immediate social problems in caring for their millions of unemployed. Some of , the schemes they have devised are working out remarkably well as palliative measures. ' Poland, where economic conditions seem at the moment to be improving, and Italy, where the situation is becoming desperate, have partially eliminated the troublesome monetary element in dealing with unemployment relief. The Polish Government is I collecting arrears in land and property taxes, death duties, and taxes on industry “in kind.” A partial list of things that can be used to pay obligations to the State includes rye, cheese, barley, beans, buckwheat, jjotatoes, coal, and firewood. Taxpayers wishing to avail themselves of the privilege of payment in kind must deliver the goods, at fixed valuations, to' agencies designated by the Minister of Finance. • These agencies distribute the collections to needy families under strict Government supervision. The scheme not only enables certain industries, farmers, and land owners' to keep going and furnishes work for labourers, but it also enables the Government to collect taxes that otherwise would be lost and lessens the State’s expenditures. In some Polish districts and in Germany entire communities have adopted the “barter system,” eliminating the use of money. In Italy, where, unemployment figures continue to mount, despite the seasonal demand and the heroic efforts of the Fascist Government to furnish work on public undertakings, shortening of hours, etc., the “relief in kind” system also is being adopted. Foodstuffs, particularly macaroni, bread, and milk, are distributed to the registered unemployed, Actual cash payments have been reduced by from 1.25 to 3.75 lire pci* day, according to the previous wages of the recipient. But with 1,200,000 persons! registered as unemployed, airid'

the pumber increasing, it mani-j fes'tly. is impossible for the Gov-j ernment to continue cash doles i indefinitely. Italy’s Budget is reported to show a deficit of 2,000,QOO.OOO lire, and internal loans, the only hind the Fascists can raise, are becoming very ■ difficult, j •The Cabinet a short time ago approved four -bills for public! Avorks to the amount of a billion! ; lire provided the money could be .secured through an internal loan, i This sum is earmarked for use in maintenance of roads, improvement of hygienic conditions, for railways, aqueducts, etc. The sum of 306,000,000 lire is set aside especially for repair of damage . caused by the earthquakes and the Great War.

Germany, perhaps, more than any other European State is. taking an enlightened course in dealing Avith the depression. While in the conduct of its foreign affairs the Government blames all cauls on Avar debts and reparations, industrialists hold a different view. Of the 6,000,000 unemployed in Germany, they estimate that 2.000. arc idle because of purely internal causes. The A. G. Farbenindustrie Akteingesselschaft points out that there are 500,000 persons under 21 years of agc.throAvn upon the labour market annually and another half-million of superannuated Ipersons in jobs avlio should be retired. Furthermore, modern industrial methods have displaced 1.000. able-bodied Avorkers between the ages of 21 and 50. To absorb these million into other trades, to eliminate the elderly, and to postpone the younger generation’s entry into the labour market is the task facing Germany, say the industrialists. One palliative for distress that has made some headway in Germany is the “back to the land” movement. Several hundred thousand persons already have been placed on a self-supporting basis by becoming small landowners. On the outskirts of many cities and toAvns garden colonies arc being founded; Large estates, falling into the Government’s unwilling hands through non-pay-ment of taxes, are being broken up. State, provincial, and communal lands,, as Avell as private property, may be expropriated (except farms worked by families) by the Federal Commissioner;. Only tAvo conditions are attached to the letting out of the small tracts willingness and ability to work'the land and an intention of developing the’holding and becoming the eventual proprietors. The number of derelicts of the Avar and subsequent disorders that have been “reclaimed” is astounding. Neither the Nazis nor the Communists gather many recruits from among these garden colonies that fringe the cities and promise to become the strength of Republican Germany.

In France, where the available supply of agricultural labour is always insufficient for seasonal needs, a determined effort is being made to get the unemployed out of the cities. Ordinarily France opens her frontiers to a half-million Polish and Italian farm workers each summer. This year bars have been set up and an effort is being made to get the idle city workers out upon the land. Large industrial establishments are allowing out employees that have had experience on farms, find are giving bonuses to those that promise to invest the money in agriculture. One agency recently settled 150 Parisian families on farms.

Egypt’s acute unemployment problem in regard to agriculture has forced the Government into the seed and banking business. An Agriculture and Land Bank has been organised to liquidate frozen credits of farmers and small land-owners, and the Egyptian Land Company, operated by the Government, is empowered to purchase farms, when necessary, to prevent their beingsacrificed at unfair prices and :to reduce the rates of interest on mortgages.