TIMELY TOPICS

Northern Advocate, 26 July 1935, Page 6

TIMELY TOPICS

RUSSIAN COLLECTIVE FARMING. Soviet agricultural experts predict that Russia this year will gather the largest harvest in its history (says the “Observer’s” correspondent in Moscow). The strictly Socialistic type of organisation in the collective farms, in which professions and members were pooled and each paid according to his needs has been condemned and abandoned, for the time being at any rate. Payments on the basis of piecework and awards of premiums to those who excel in production have replaced the former system, and already is yielding superior results. Membership in a collective furthermore no longer restricts an individual from owning plots of land for private cultivation. Such plots vary according to location from three-quar-ters of an acre to about three acres; each peasant household in the grain areas maintaining membership in a collective farm is now encouraged by the Government to acquire a cow and raise calves, sheep, pigs, and unlimited poultry and rabbits. It is these incentives- which make for the better combination of peasants’ personal interests with the general interests of the collective which is resulting in increased productivity. These changes, introduced recently, are an important concession to the socialised portion of the peasantry, which now constitutes close on 90 per cent, of Russia’s twenty million peasant households, and bid fair to bring about an increase of 16 per cent, in the agricultural output which the Government seeks to achieve this year. <s> <•> <f> <?> ® Words of Wisdom. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.-^- Addison. «$> <<■> <•> <i> <S> Tale Of The Day. A Scottish minister was explaining why he never invited other ministers to preach in his pulpit. “If anither mon came and preached better than I do,” he said, “ma folk would never listen to me again; and if lie didna preach better than I do, he wouldna he worth listening to.”