Industrial

NZ Truth, Issue 877, 16 September 1922, Page 1

Industrial

Conscription A record of a most. interesting experimenthas just reached- us from Bulgaria, one of the most remarkable perhaps of modern times m, the history of the industrial movement. Bulgaria is a s primitive state almost, one might say a peasant state, without.reserve of industrial capital to draw upon , and when the war was over the community found themselves m almost as severe straits "to reconstruct their and ruined country as they were to find men and money to fight the enemies which the ghastly mistakes of FoxyFerdinand had made for them. So the Sobranje passed a law authorising labor conscription, even as during the. war there was military- conscription. Men from the :age of 20 and vomen from the age of 16 were liable until they were 60 to be called 1 up'to take part m public works .for a; certain period of the year. On reaching the age of conscription: they /vere ;enrolled m the local lists. Therefrom the authorities were empowered .to call tip > labor as it was wanted, upto the proportionjof not more than 40 per cent, each year. The system proved a complete success. The; State houses clothe and pay a standard wage,' and the • first year's; 1 budget showed a profit- of something like £2,---000,000. Educationally the system has been of great value. In the country young were allowed to serve a period In the study of scientific ifarming, gardening, fruit culture,'! stock breeding, and so on—callings ■; iwhich would become of inestimable benefit to them'in their lives; Girls' calledup In the towns were employed m hospitals, the government departments, "on the telephones, and where possible were given domestic training that would fit them for becoming the wives of the peasantry and-the small holders who constitute so large a proportion ,of the state's population. Of course, the experiment was the more successful because of the primitive industrial conditions of Bulgaria. In a more^complex and cultivated counti'y, it'would have, been far more difficult,-not to say impossible. . ./.,