CONSCRIPT LABOUR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19205, 23 June 1924, Page 5

CONSCRIPT LABOUR.

BULGARIAN' EXPERIMENT. SAID TO BE A GREAT SUCCESS. The third year of Bulgaria’s experiment. in conscripting, man power for purposes' of production instead of military 'service is ending with large profit to the State, it.» by figures just submitted. ■ ; The conscription of labour of every kind/ on a national scale was introduced and puT into effect by Alexander Stamboulisky in April, 1921. Its purposes, as defined by Act df Parliament, were to utilise the’ labour power of tire State for public punposes, to inculcate in all citizens the duty of doing service to the State, and to elevate the status of physical labour. All departments of the public service, with some forms cf enterprise generally regarded as private, were included in the field of operations of the first class, or conscription of labourers instead of soldiers. Among them was road building, railroad construction. aqueducts, canals, irrigation, production" of building materials, including lumber and bricks; tailoring, shoe-making, fisheries, mining, telegraph tand telephone construction, forestry, live stock-raising, vegetable garden-* ing. and fruit-raising. , The labour conscripts, or '‘trudoyake,” as they are designated, are also available for lighting fires, floods, epidemics (by sanitation) and public Calamities ,of all sorts that can be combated by physical effort, reinforced by technical skill. The law as origin-ally passed applied to females of the- ago corresponding to _ the “military age”’of men, but as the provision for female labour proved ineffective it was ’ discontinued. ...

Uudei the Stemboulisky regime the conscript army, about 30,000 men in the first year, operated in the opinion of experts, as the principal force remaining to Bulgaria under the treaty of Neuilly of maintaining national discipline, the principal manifestation of which in all the other Balkan States is obligatory military service. When the Tsankoff Government took over the machinery of State last June it was seen by the new administration that as carried out by the Stamhouliaky regime tbo national conscription of labour was inefficiently conducted. It was immediately recognised, however, as a valuable asset it more capably managed, and the systematic improvement of the labour army was immediately taken iu hand. The leakages were gradually stopped, and the improvement of the service on those lines is continuing as the beginning of its fourth year approaches. The practical application of conscript labour to public improvements of many kinds was shown recently by the introduction in Parliament of Bills appropriating money and numbers of units of labour to enterprises for the public benefit in various parts of the country. One of the these Bills provided foo 3,000,000 leva and 1500 conscript labourers for the construction of a water supply system near Plovdiv, -

In the preliminary report issued last month, it is shown that Bulgaria’s army of labour, alter earning all its running expenses and- paying for all its raw materials, has netted a profit in all departments of 17,521,779 leva. The “trudovafcs” are uniformed in dark grey, with puttees of the same colour, and grey visored caps. The only thing approaching military exercise in their daily life is the setting-up exercises. All youth of the age corresponding to tha military are subject to conscription in tha army of labour.