CONSCRIPT LABOUR

Southland Times, Issue 19278, 24 June 1924, Page 6

CONSCRIPT LABOUR

A BULGARIAN EXPERIMENT. GREAT SUCCESS CLAIMED. 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, as is shown 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 of Parliament, were to utilise the labour power of the State for public purposes, to incalculate 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 of 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 and telephone construction, forestry, live stock-raising, vegetable gardening and fruit-raising. The labour conscripts, or “trudovake,” as they are designated, are also available for fighting 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 originally passed applied to females of the age corresponding to the “military age” of man, but as the provision for female labour proved ineffective it was discontinued.

Under the Stamboulisky 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 Stamboulisky regime the national conscription of labour was inefficiently conducted. It was immediately recognised, however, as a valuable asset if more capably managed, and the systematic improvement of the labour army was immediately taken in hand. The leakages were gradually stopped, and the improvement of the service on those lines is continuing as the beginning of its four 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 these Bills provided for 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, after earning all its running expenses and paying for all its raw materials, has netted a profit in all departments of 17,524,779 leva. The “trudovaks” are uniformed in dark grey, with puttees of the same colour, and grey visored cape. The only thing approaching military exercise in their daily life is the setting-up exercises. All youth of the age corresponding to the miiitazy are subject to conscription in the army of labour.