A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 94, 15 January 1935, Page 7

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Bengal Terrorists The police of Calcutta have arrested three Bengali youths suspected to be wanted terrorists. The terrorist campaign, which is giving so much trouble to the Bengal Government, may be said to have grown out of the people’s keenness for Western education and the failure of the authorities to give to the majority the rewards usual after such education. The most distinctive feature of Calcutta, the capital of Bengal, is its university. It numbers more students —some 20,000 —than the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London and Edinburgh put together. It has produced a great number of men of whom any country might well be proud, but it has also produced a larger number who are not the most loyal in the State. Nowhere do students come up—many from the smallest towns and villages—more inadequately equipped, both intellectually and physically, or with greater illusions as to the real meaning of education, of which the passing of examinations as the open road to profitable employment and to a higher social status too often seems to them the one purpose. The large proportion of those who persevere to the end find themselves ultimately landed in a blind alley, merely to swell the ranks of the unemployed. The problem of what to do for these students is acute everywhere in India, but nowhere more acute than in Calcutta, where their number feeds political unrest. N.R.A. and Trusts. A Federal grand jury in the United States of America has indicted 12 motion picture corporations for an alleged violation of the anti-trust laws. The action marks the first important effort of the Administration to enforce the anti-monopoly laws since the National Recovery Act became operative on June 13, 1933. The purpose of the National Recovery Act is to encourage national industrial recovery and to foster fair competition. The President is empowered to approve codes of fair competition among one or more trade or industrial associations or groups which should make application to him for the purpose. Such associations or groups must be truly representative of the trades or industries, and they must agree not to impose any inequitable restrictions on admission to membership. Declarations must also be made that such codes are not designed to promote monopolies or to eliminate or oppress small enterprises and will not operate to discriminate against, them. The several district courts of the United States have been invested with jurisdictfbn to prevent and restrain violations of any code of fair competition. American Trusts. According to American law trusts are illegal. Trusts are usually brought about by an amalgamation of several firms in the same line of business for the purpose of eliminating competition, reducing overhead costs, and to dominate and control the market. Having gained a virtual monopoly, the trust is then in a position to determine the price at which the commodity is to be sold and even to determine the quantity of output. The first real trust in America was the Standard Oil Trust formed in ISB2 by Mr. John D. Rockefeller with a capital of 100,000,009 dollars. This trust at its inception was able to control 85 pen cent, of the total output of refined petroleum in the United States. The “Economist.” The “Economist,” which has consistently opposed the restriction of imports into the United Kingdom, is a London weekly journal founded in 1843 “to discuss financial questions in their wider social and commercial aspect.” • James Wilson was the founder and editor of it from its inception until 1877. He was succeeded by Walter Bagehot, probgbly its most brilliant editor, whose "Lombard Street” and “The English Constitution” are classics. He was also the author of “Literary Studies.” Another famous editor was Francis W. Hirst. The “Economist” has always been a force in politics. It was a strong advocate of free trade and the abolition of the Corn Laws, and later was opposed to indiscriminate laudation and extension of the railways. General commercial information for the current week is also to be found in the “Economist.” M. Kirov. Two men ata town in Russia enacted the complete murder scene when Sergei Mironov itch Kirov was shot on December 1, 1934, in Moscow. For 30 years Kirov had played a prominent part in the Russian working class movement, both before and after the Revolution of 1917. He was born in 1889 in the town of Urzum, and lost his parents in early childhood. In 1904 he went to Tomsk and was imprisoned for participation in the armed insurrection of January, 1905. On his release he joined the Bolsheviks and was placed in charge of the Bolshevik printing dfetablishment at Tomsk. He also organised a successful railway workers’ strike, and in the next few years served several terms of imprisonment (one of three years’ duration) for illegal work. At the outbreak of the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 he was one of those responsible for breaking the power of Cossacks seeking to destroy the revolutionary forces. His organising genius was recognised both by Lenin and by Stalin so that he was rapidly advanced from one responsible post to another. At the time of his death he held the position of member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of the regional and city committees of the Communist Party. An order signed by Stalin and others said: “On December 1, at the hands of a murderer-assassin sent by class enemies Comrade Kirov perished. Not only for us his nearest friends and comrades, but for all who knew him by his revolutionary work, who knew him as a fighter, comrade and friend, Kirov’s death is a loss not to be compensated by anything. . . . He created within ’ the whole Leningrad organisation the atmosphere of Bolshevik organisational qualities, discipline, love and loyalty to the cause of the Revolution —an example of which was Comrade Kirov himself.” Germany in 1914. A report from Paris states that within a few months Germany will be stronger than she was in 1914. Before the outbreak of the Great War Germany had 25 Army Corps of 40.000 to 50,000 men; a peace strength of 871.000 men. and a war strength of 5,000.0(10 men. The number of available men, however.’ was estimated at more than 9,000,000.