MUST FEED WORKERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 127, Issue 127, 9 July 1941, Page 8

MUST FEED WORKERS

SPANISH EMPLOYERS ORDER BY GOVERNMENT Confronted with a growing inadequacy of its own transportation and food distribution system, the Spanish Government in effeict withdrew from the field and placed the responsibility for feeding their workers upon the shoulders of key industrial and mining owners of Spain, said a dispatch from the Madrid to the New York Times on January 31. Under an order issued by the Minister of Labour, any factory or minf he designates; hereafter must establish company stores to supply employees with articles of primary necessity. These arc defined as potatoevs, lard, fresh sausage, tinned sardines and butter. Others may be specified later, 111 view of the fact that the Minister holds owners personally responsible for any deficiencies, the; order is expected to be effective. The newspaper "Pueblo," organ of the syndi calist movement, says that the order takes the place, of a general wage increase. If it is enforced, owners presumably will have to pay bootleg prices for what they get. The continued gravity of the food situation w r as reflected in an ordei closing for three monthsi four Mad rid butcher shops and six groceries for illegal sale of rationedi articles. From, one end of Spain to the other fines or labour battalion sentences are being imposed on hoarders or bootlcggersi of lard, sugar, etc. The public 'are invited to denounce' of fenders and get 40 per cent of f!h® heavy fines. The sufferings of the poor grow worse. As beggars are to be met at every street corner in Madrid, the Government has. just voted a new drive to clear them off thei streets. Newspapers continue their work of explaining-that the situation is no fault of the Government. Lack of gold, of shipping, and of fprm stock deterioration of farm lands and railway rolling-stock, even a shortage of gasoline for trucks and asphalt for repairing highways arc being brought forward day after day as excuses. It has been announced that when the Government takes over the railroads) it will inaugurate a 600,-000,000-peseta programme for Buying more locomotives and cars, but naturally the effect will not be felt immediately. The Press continues to place blame upon the United States and Great Britain. The newspaper "Madrid" went to the extent of declaring that the British blockade is a "warlike procedure aided and abetted by the United States" that isi impoverishing: all Europe,. "Without the blockades wheat and other food, with more or less difficulty, would arrive here," it said. Actually shortage of foreign exchange is holding up imports of food and one, even on credit, could get here without British consent. However, one may recall that there was only one mention in the Spanish Press of the United States cotton credit extended in 1930, and most Spaniards do not know that it was ever given.