SOCIALISTIC EXPERIMENT

Taranaki Daily News, 11 June 1932, Page 5

SOCIALISTIC EXPERIMENT

NEW GOVERNMENT OTI CHILE

FOREIGN DEPOSITS SEIZED

BANKS TO RETURN PESOS

INSTRUCTION IN SCHOOLS

By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.

Santiago (Chile), June 9.

The new Socialist Government to-day ordered all deposits in foreign currency in the various banks to be turned over to the Government. The banks were instructed to give depositors pesos at the legal rate in exchange. The Government has begun to put its Socialist policies into operation. The Central Bank, created in 1926, has been taken over and the board of governors dismissed. The Government will name a new board, which will operate the bank along lines similar to a central bank.

The provincial authorities have been directed to suspend taxes on properties when owners have not enough money to pay.

School teachers have been informed that an important part of their work henceforth will be the direction of education towards Socialism, in order to form a public conscience which will support the new Socialist Republic.

The revolutionary junta which deposed the Chilean Government led by President Juan Esteban Montero has marked Socialistic tendencies in ‘‘modified Soviet form.’’ A manifesto gave the Government monopolistic powers over the major industries, including oil, matches, alcohol, sugar, iodine and tobacco. The programme socialises the banking system, and hints at confiscatory taxes to promote a gigantic unemployment relief campaign and the confiscation of unproductive lands for the use of the unemployed. The junta prepared numerous decrees enabling the first Socialistic Republic of Chile to take over immediately the productive forces of the nation, redistribute wealth by the imposition of confiscatory taxes on large incomes, and seize various private and capitalistic enterprises, both foreign and domestic.