NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21115, 24 February 1932, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

THE WORKING LIFE OF RUSSIA. "One has the impression that the country is short-handed; one's friends complain of being drafted on their day of rest into the muddy fields in their thin and only shoes to cut cabbages, or to the railway yards to unload goods; one reads of sanatoriums being combed to find bean-pickers," writes a correspondent of the Times on his return from a second visit to Russia. "And along with this one sees an enormous amount of waste motion; nothing seems to be economically accomplished, everything is done in a difficult way, even scrubbing the steps. Stalin has precisely the same impression. The recruiting of labour is, he finds, one of the country's main difficulties, and there is a crying need for more of the work to be done by mechanical means, not only in the small things of daily life, such as washing and ironing, but in the major industries like iron and steel and lumbering. Workers no longer have the slightest fear of losing their jobs. 'You will be sent away with a bad "character," ' one worker was told. 'I hope so,' lie answered. 'I have five in my pocket nov;, and each time I add a new one to my collection I find belter work.' This one hears from a friend. Stalin says:—'The instability of labour power has become a plague of production, disorganising our industries.' He estimates the labour turnover at 30 to 40 per cent, a quarter, and traces its cause to 'the improper structure of wages'; he means the lack of adequate differentiation between the rates of pay for skilled and unskilled labour, in consequence of which the unskilled worker has no inducement to become skilled, and the skilled man looks upon himself as 'a sojourner in industry,' always ready to move on in the hope of at last finding an enterprise where his skill will be appreciated."

THE LACK OF RESPONSIBILITY. "The visitor gets the notion that, with the possible exception of parts of China, the living and housing conditions for workers in the Soviet Union aro the worst in the world," the correspondent adds. "Stalin could scarcely be expected to go so far, but he does say that these conditions aro in serious need of improvement, and that the old answer to complaints, that things, were still worse in the old days, is inadequate. 'We must set out,' he says very sensibly, 'not from the past, but from the growing requirements of the workers at present. . .

The worker demands the satisfaction of all his material and cultural requirements, and we have got to meet his demands.' Before the traveller has a chance to make any observations on the housing of the workers, he is struck by the untidiness, the dirt, the disrepair of everything he ?ees Public buildings, flats, stations, trains, shops, and lavatories, especially lavatories, all show a signal absence of interest on the part of all and sundry in neatness and order. This state of affairs runs right through industry, and Stalin has a word for it, one of those pompous, ridiculous, revolutionary words that help to make a simple thing sound complicated. If is "depersonalisation,' or 'the complete absence of responsibility for the work performed and absence of responsibility for the machinery, lathes, and tools.' In short, the old, old story of everybody's business being nobody's business."

NO MIRACLES AT WASHINGTON. The hopelessness of delaying a settlement, of reparations in the belief that the, views of Congress in regard to war debts will soften after the presidential elections was asserted recently by Mr. Walter Lippmann in an article in the New York Herald Tribune. "However enlightened and moderate the two presidential candidates may be. (lie individual Congressmen running for oflice will outbid each other in declarations of their determination to collect flip last red cent," he says. "There is only one general course open to Em ope, which offers substantial hope. That is to face the problem in Europe on the principle of European solidarity. This would mean that the Powers proceeded immediately at Lausanne and Geneva to apply the principles of the two Basle reports to revise reparations, to reduce tariffs, to unite for the strengthening of the machinery of peace, to reduce armaments and to prepare for common action to stabilise 'their currencies. They have five months in which no debt payments need be made to us. They should use them to deal with European questions as if, by some miracle, the Congress of the United States were enlightened and sympathetic. Then let them come to Washington and submit the matter to the conscience of the American people. No one can guarantee what would happen. But if anything in this world can change American opinion it would be the spectacle of a Europe which liar] successfully made peace within itself. I think one could reasonably hope that then the American people would be moved to make their contribution to the settlement. I feel certain they will never do it voluntarily while Europe is temporising discordantly with its vital affairs. And supposing the Congress remains irreconcilable? What then ? Europe would still be infinitely better off than it can hope to be by risking a general bankruptcy in the vain hope that a miracle will happen in Washington."