The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 23, 1932, Page 4

Padlished by ¢ 1st Ada ess and Vage Four e ALgonquin 4-7956, Cable “DAIWORK.~ y Worker, 50 Bast 18th Street, New York, N. ¥. Dail Yorker’ Porty US.A. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Foreign: one year, $8; six months, $4.! By mall everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. WHY THEY MARCHED IN DETROIT By a Ford Worker Grim, in the lashing cold wind, five thousand workers hed to Monday, March y workers who did not participate ¢ ot, realize the mear hopes. Ford, today z and recognized as the most typical specimen of a calculating and cruel class, had promised -time and again and publicly announced through the servile press that he was hiring thousands of men, that all he was concerned with was the happiness-and welfare of his men. As early as three years ago, when unemploy- ment was already great, he had announced the iring of 75,000 men. From all over the country came floc! hungry hopeful. When he crowds from all the states came to the gates asking for jobs, after standing in the bitter cold all night, and some even part of the day before, hydrants were turned on them, and those were not quick in lea were clubbed mercilessly Meanwhile, within the factory, the amount of work required of each man was mounting gec cally. The speed-up in every department s infernal, and the profits for the man that we hall [bra forever ‘@ |murderer was mounting constantly Ford’s or a Lay-ofts Then came the lay-offs. ‘Those lay-offs were denied or ignored by the pr and by Ford, but we know better. With ley-offs came a stricter discipline in that already penitentiary-like fac- tory and their wage-cuts. Men who had worked most of their lives within those walls and who had the illusion of having gained a life-long right to employment were fired, thrown on the ‘crap heap. The others were kept within mail- reach with promises, with short periods of employment. In many departments, men were required to come to work daily for an hour or two. Often they were not even allowed to start working. No concern was felt for the expense of transporta- tion, often quite high. There are men who must wpend as high as forty cents daily to go and come from work. Often the total weekly earnings were less than the transportation expenses. The number of unemployed kept on mounting, but the wealth of the murderer was not diminishing Palse statements given to the knowing press were eagerly published informing the public c a rise in the employment of men, in the payroll. These statements were given out with the pur- pose of lulling the unemployed into the hope of a general resumption of work. They were meant vo stop the growing resentment against Ford. The American Legion Convention At the time of the American Legion convention last September, Ford made a great gesture for four days. Many thousands were put to work, and word was allowed to go abroad that employ- ment would soon reach a new record.| The gaping Jegionnaires that went through the plant carried home stories of great employment, of what some call prosperity. But before the filth and vomit of the dmmken legion hoodlums brought to our shores by Frank Murphy could. be mopped off the streets of Detroit all those men were laid off and still are. The winter saw hunger and despair in those homes. The city of Detroit, at the behest of Mayor Murphy, had made a pact with Henry Ford and the Wall Street banks that relief to the hungry would be cut to nothing in exchange of loans used mainly to pay interest te the bankers themselves. ‘The Stash in Wages ‘Then came the wage cut last November. A more complete subjection by the press, a more cynical attitude by the Ford Motor Company, could not. be imagined. Men of great skill and experience, men who had been the most useful in the building of the: -industry,: found’ their‘ wages literally cut in half. From $10 and $12, they were cut to $8. And if ‘the slightest sign of disappointment [was evidenced, they . were coldly discharged. , And still the speed-up was mounting, the dis- cipline stricter. We began to realize that no | matter how bad hell may be, it can always be made |worse. Such “a ruthless {cut -lwas ‘first denied, and later called a readjustment. A howl went up in the factory, but the lack of organiza- tion among the workers made it impossible to crystallize the anger into action. The Slash in Unemployment Relief Throughout the winter, the conditions became worse. The demand for action against Ford, the Har, the thief, the ruthless exploiter, and against | Murphy, the vile demagogue of the whip and | club, as ready as the: tear-and the soft: word became insistent. ‘The March 3 ‘Then,-the Hunger March was organized: Th intention was to present demands of the un- employed to Henry Ford, and also to demonstrate the power of organization before the factory. No incendiary intention, no desire nor preparation for any violent action, but the steeled determina- tion to present the demands. The rest is known. ‘The massacre at Baby Creek, a thousand dollars worth of gas bombs were used, and although the anger among the marchers was great, the police were put in flight with stones and sticks found on the ground. Before the plant, fire hose, revolvers, shot guns, machine guns. In the presence of Edsel Ford, Charles Soren- son, Harry |Bennet, jex-Governor Green, and some officers of Henry Ford, the massacre was prepared, carried out. There was no justifica- tion. The guards were within the gates, behind the fences. The crowd of workers had stopped and was being rallied by Alfred Goetz, who was advising the workers to go back, as we had | accomplished our task, when fire broke loose | retreat, another protracted firing machine-gun | from several points. As the workers began to | fire mowed the crowd down. The workers were no less than 300 feet from the guns. No plea of self defense could justify the slaughter. The action of the service-men of the Detroit and Dearborn police was most vicfous. After the massacre, the [wounded and the dying that were not rescued in time by the workers were allowed to remain on the ground for as long as fifteen minutes, whilé the éops stood by idling. The Press and Courts Conspire The very day of the massitre, the todls of capitalist justice tried to charge the murdered, the wounded and leaders with criminal syndical- ism, while the murderers |were (congratulated. The farce is too obscene. The workérs ate hot fooled by it, Our action, the anger within the plant, the wage-cuts, and the lay-offs to come will build the Auto Workers Union. The blood of the victims will cement the Union. Their example will be our beacon, and the Ford Motor Company will be made to come to terms. SUCCESSFUL LIVING IN THE MACHINE AGE, by Edward A. Filene, in collaboration with Charles W. Wood. Simon & Schuster, 82.50 By M. R. FELIX bet “guthor” of this book is the chief owner of the enormous Boston department store, Fi- lene’s, and has a finger in another dozen juicy pies. His collaborator (a polite name/ for a lit- erary prostitute who writes books for rich men) is Charles W. Wood, ex-Socialist, ex-muckraker, and present booster of Mr. Filene. Mr. Filene has a burning message to give the world, and so important does he think it, that he has given up active management of Filene’s to devote his time to talking before Manufacur- er’s Associations and Chamber of Commerce banquets, conferences with labor fakers, and “writing” this kind of clap-trap. . The message of Mr. Filene is that Communism van be headed off by American capitalism. “If these: business leaders only knew it, they could make America absolutely immune to communist propaganda. All that they would have to do would be to tackle the prob- lem of memployment.... It is not a problem, to be sure, which can be solved in a day; but if American business would once promise to solve it...that in itself would fasten the at- tention of both workers and unemployed upon the business program, and distract it from the agitators who now get a hearing...” (My em- phasis.) And what kind of ballyhooey shall the capi- talists use in promising to solve the unemploy- ment problem, in order to “distract atteniton from the agitators”? Mr. Filene’s slogan for the cepitalistie demagogues is “production for the masses”. “Genuing mass production industries most make prices lower and lower and wages higher and higher, while constantly shortening the workday and bringing to the masses not only more money but more time in which to use and enjoy the ever-increasing volume of industrial products.” And how does Mr. Filene promise to bring this about? Why, by the goodness of the business- men of America! Sometimes Mr, Filene says they will do it because mass consumption will make business profits greater and greater. But Mr. Filene knows as well as anybody else that real mass consumption means the disappearance of private profits. For profits is just this, the withholding from the working masses of the fattest slice of what they have produced and are prevented from consuming, which the capitalist keeps for himself. So Filene trots out another explanation of why business men will bring about # social system of mass production and consumption: that business men will see that in an economy of mass consumption and produc- tion private fortunes will offer few advautages. Behold, the usual trick of taking over the Communist end, a classless society of mass pro- duction and consumption, and trying to pretend to get to that end without the Communist road of class siruggle, proletarian dictatorship and Review socialist construction. Instead, Mr. Filene would like us to believe that business. men will, some- where along the road, expropriate themselves! Of course, says Mr. Filene, the process of organ- izing the country for the benefit of the masses, will require stern measures and strict discipline— at the hands of Big Business. Behind Mr. Fi- lene’s fatuous smile, we find the grinning death's head of Fascism. Do not laugh at this mixture of Mussolini and the Second International. We see in it the latest rationalization of capitalist ideology, which has been crystallizing over the last ten years. It ts Henry Ford’s panacea for capitalist crises, which he enunciated before the depression. But if you think that the depression means the end’ of | Ford and Filene’s theory, you are mistaken. ‘That theory has just been enunciated again, with the | Necessary additional rationalizations required by the depression, by Lincoln Steffens. In the same breath in which he speaks of “our victory in Russia” and of how much he learned from Bol- shevism, and of how liberalism 1s benkrupt, this | “radical” Steffens declares that “the only move= ment see that is moving in a hopeful direc- tion here” is—the mass consumption bunk of Ford and Filene! And he tells us that it was not the inevitable contradictions of capitalism that caused the depression but the temporary fail- ure of the capitalists to apply Ford and Filene’s notions! “There were not enough of these prophets to establish and hold up this buying power, this time. They were defeated, like us liberals, this time. But they say they are going at it again, next time, and they see in the dark of this discouraging depression that there is great extragance and waste in their everhead.” (My emphasis.) Not capitalism, but high overhead costs, are given as the explanation of the depression! Here comes another cat out of the bag. In the name of eventual benefits to the masses, these “prophets” will try to force on the workers further and further industrial rationalization, leading to more and more unemployment. And this, at present only in the case of Steffens, but later no doubt by others, will be promoted, as indeed capitalistic “planning” already {s, in the name of the Soviet Union! But we mustn't laugh at this tdiotic mixture, For in all likelihood it will be the reigning capi-~ talist ideology during the next pertod. The in- sidious slogans of “Mass Production and Con- sumption” and “Social Planning” will be pro- claimed within the capitalist class by men. like Ford and Filene, among intellectuals and Uberals by men lke Lincotn Steffens and Stuart Chase, and among the working classes by the progres- sives and the Socialists. We must prepare to fight this damnable united front against Com- munism, Every shop, mine end facwry a fertile field for Daily Worker sabe soriptiony, WHILE WORKERS’ CHILDREN STARVE Sear ; i a NEWS ITEM:—Hoover spends $4,000 per year on milk—daily milk bill $12.35. Merril 0. Maughan, executive secretary of the Milk Council, Inc. BY BURCK “Our star customer,” says | development of Soviet industry, particu- | * larly heavy industry, during 1931 and the in- | | dustrial program for this year were dealt with at considerable length in a réport given by G. K. | Ordzhonikidze, Commissar for Heavy Industry, at the conference of the Communist Party of the U.SSR., at the end of January. Last year the output of state large-scale industry as a whole totaled 27.1 billion rubles $14, billion), an imerease of 21.7 per cent over 1930 and 38 per ént above the figure set for the third year of thé Five-Year Plan. Taking the main divisions of industry, produttion was as follows:. heavy in- dustry—11.8 billion rubles, a gain of 287 per cént Gver 1030 and 68.6 per cent over the origi- nal third-year schedule; the lumber industry— 2.8 Billion rublés, a gain of 12.6 per cent over 1980; light itdustry—7.6 billion rubles, an in- ‘erease of. 13.0 per cent; the food industry—5.2 billion rubles, a 26.4 per cent growth. Industry as & whole fell below the control figures (annual | program) for 1931, which had been set at a fig- ure far in excess of the Five-Year Plan. Especially high gains in production were regis- tered last yeay by the electrical industry (61.5 per cent) and machine-building industry (40 per cent). Certain branches of the latter indus- try recorded even greater gains: tractors (215 per cent), automobiles (140 per cent), and ma- thine tools (73 per cent). The 1931 output in the oil, electrical, rubber and machine-building in- dustries exceeded the original schedules for 1932- 33, the last year of the Five-Year Plan, by a considerable margin. Output in a number of other industries, including coal and peat, was in | excess of that set by the Plan for the third year. The iron and steel industry alone failed to show ; am increase over 1930. Output of Consumers’ Goods, Despite the fact that the main emphasis was still placed on heavy industry, considerable pro- | gress was made last year in increasing the sup- | ply of consumers’ goods, such as food, clothing, and articles of general use. As stated above, the output of the food industry totaled 5.2 bil- | lion rubles, an increase of more than 26 per cent. over 1930, while that of light industry, including | the textile, shoe and leather, rubber and soap in- | dustries, amounted to 7.6 billion rubles, or 13 | per cent over 1930. Due to an insufficient supply of raw materials, the cotton textile mills had to Tun at about 40 per cent below capacity. As a Tesult, the output of cotton textiles remained | about stable (at 2.3 billion meters), while that of cotton yarn showed an increase of only 8 per | cent (306,000 metric tons as against 284,000 in 1930). Woolen cloth, with an output of 132.7 million meters, showed an increase of 3 per cent; silk goods, with 18.5 million meters, of 4.4 per. cent. cy j In ‘spite of the limited growth in the output | of textiles, the supply of ready-made clothes in 1931 showed = large increase. Thus, production in the clothing industry amounted to 1.8 billion rubles, or 53 per cent over 1930, while that of kmit goods reached 400 million rubles, a gain of 29.5 per cent. The output of rubbers was 54 million pairs, an increase of 27 per cent over 1930 and double the 191% output; that of leather shoes was 77 million pairs, 12 per cent over 1930 and four and one-half times the 1913 output (16,9: million ‘pairs, including handicraft, produe- tion). Shoe production closely approximated the Goal set by the Five-Year Plan for 1932-33 (80 million pairs) and considerably exceeded that set by the Plan for the third year (60 million). Even as regards soap, about the scarcity of which there has been so much comment, the output in 1931 was nearly double the 1913 figure (182,000 tons as against 94,000). However, the supply of consumers’ goods still falls far short of meeting the demands of the population. The output of consumers’ goods still falls far short of meeting | the demands of the population. The output of consumers’ goods this year is scheduled to show ; an increase of 29 per cent over 1931, while by | 1937 it is expected to amount to from two to | three times this year’s output. | Difficulties In Irpn and Steel Industry. | ‘The lagging behind of the iron and steel in- dustry was due chiefly to the fatlure of the trans- | portation system to deliver to the metallurgical | Plants regularly and on ‘time adequate supplies | and raw materials, to an extreme shortage of | engineers and technicians, and to the great dif- ficulties involved in maintaining and increasing output at a time when many of the old plants were in process of being thoroughly overhauled and expanded. Yrregularity in recelpt of mate- rials such as coke, ore, fluorspar, magnesite, tire-clay, dolomite, and limestone t# especially | disastrous for metallurgical plants, where it not only disrupts production but also subjects the furnace to serious deterioration. Among other factors to which the low output in the iron and steel industry in 1931 is attributed are insuffi- | cient coal supply, the tendency toward equaliz- ing wages, which was not seriously combatted until the latter part of 1931, and unsatisfactory conditions as regards food, clothing, and shelter for the workers. The radical measures instituted in the second half of the year to overcome these shortcomings, togéther with thé great increase in the total capacity of metallurgical plants, are expected to inake possible the fulfillment of the large program of production set for this year. New Steel Mill Construction. As regards construction work in the iron and steel industry, 1931 witnesséd big achievements, constituting the basis for a rapid Increase in production this year and the coming years. In addition to the Magnitogorsk and Kuznetz plants, which have been constructed at a cost of hundreds of millions of rubles, several other new steel mills will start operations this year, in- cluding Krivoy Rog, Kosogorsk, Lipetsk, Zapor- ozhye, and Mariupol. Moreover, several plants in the Ukraine have undergone such extensive re- construction that. they practically constitute new plants. For instance, the Makeyevka plant, which in the pre-war period produced 230,000 tons of pig iron annually, produced 402,000 tons in 1931, is scheduled to produce 670,000 tons in 1932, and when reconstruction work is complete, will have an annual capacity of 1,500,000 tons. In the cur- rent year 26 new blast furnaces are scheduled to start operations and to produce 2.8 million tons of pig iron. Their total capacity is set at 74 million tons. Construction and reconstruction work on plants producing high-grade steel, of great im- portance to the machine-building industry, re- | sulted ina trebling of output in 1931 (200,000 | tons, as compared with 65,000 tons in 1930), The output this year is expected to reach 660,000 tons, while the full capacity of such plants now under construction or in process of reconstruc- tion totals 1,500,000 tons, . Other Industrial Construction. Extensive construction work was carried on in | all branches of industry in 1931. Total capital investments in electrification and large-scale in- dustry under the Supreme Economic Council amounted to 7 billion rubles $3.5 billion), as compared with 6.1 billion rubles in the preceding two and/one-quarter years. New plants with a total value of 3.5 billion rubles in the preceding two and one-quarter years. Among the new plants completed last year were a number of very large works built and equipped in accord- ance with the latest technique and having excep- | tional significance for future industrial develop- ment. A few of them are listed below: Nizhni Novgorod automo- bile plant . 140,000 automobiles Moscow (“AMO”) automo- DHE PIANt verescscccsesee 30,000 trucks Kharkov tractor works .. 50,000 tractors Saratov combine works .. Ural machine-building plant (first section) ...... Moscow machine-tool plant 6,200 screw machines Nizhni Novgorod machine- tool plant ....... Leeeseee 12,500 milling Ural copper-smelting plant 20,000 tons copper A number of plants practically completed in 1931 commenced operations in January of this year. Among the most noteworthy of these are: the Magnitogorsk steel mill, the Berezniky chemical plant, and the Moscow ball-bearing plant, Many other large factories upon which the main construction work was carried out in 1931 will be completed and start operations this year. » Sixty new coal mines were opened lact year, with a total capacity of 28 million tons. Four of these have an annual capacity of 1 million tons each. Capital investments in the coal industry last year amounted to 627 million rubles ($323 , million), or nearly double those in 1930 (320 million rubles), | Last year there were completed a number of | new electric power plants, with a combined ca- pacity of one million kilowatts, as much as in the two preceding years and nearly equal to the total capacity of all plants in 1913. Some of the no:t imporant of the new stations are: Zuevo, | 150,000 Ikw., present capacity; Kashira, 100,000 kw.; Nigres, 94,000 kw.; Ivgres, 72,000 kw.; Lenin- | grad (2nd plant), 48,000 kw.; Cheliabinsk,. 48,- 000 kw., and Magnitogorsk, 36,000 kw. The necessity of accompanying the construc- 20,000 combines SOVIET INDUSTRY IN 1931 tion of these new plants with a mastery of the | technique required to operate them successfully was stressed by Ordzhonikidze. Considerable pro- | Sress was made in this direction in: 1931. The difficulties undergone in operating the Stalin- grad tractor plant were not only overcome last year, but the experience gained strved to obviate | | similar trouble during the early months of oper- | ation of other new plants. Thus, the Kharkov plant, which commenced operations in October, | 1931, was already producing 50 tractors per day | after four months of operation, whereas it took | the Stalingrad plant ten months to reach this tate of output. Progress has also been made in mastering the technique of mechanized coal mining. This was a prime factor in raising the output of the Donetz Basin mines from 70-75,000 tons per day in the Fall of 1930 to 140-144,000 tons by January of this year. In 1931 mechanized pro- duction constituted 57 per cent of the total output, while in 1932 this percentage is set at 72 for all coal mines and at 81 for the Donets Basin mines. Manufacture of New Types of Machinery, A field in which exceptionally rapid advances were made last year is that of the manufacture of machinery formerly either not produeed in the country at all or only in insignificant quanti- ties. This necessitated not only the building of new plants but the thorough reconstruction of old factories. The share of the new types of machinery in the total output of the machine- building industry in 1931 amounted to over 25 per cent, as compared with 9 per cent in 1930. The transition to new types of agricultural machinery (tractor drawn) has proceeded at an even more rapid (pace. The share of such equip- ment in the total output of agricultural ma- | chinery was eduled by the Five-Year Plan to reach 25 cent in 1932-33. Last year it had already reached 61 per cent, and the program for 1932 is 76 per cent. By the end of 1931 the total output of tractor-drawn machinery totaled 378 million rubles $195 million), or 32 per cent in excess of t he Plan for five years. Among the most important tractor-drawn machines manu- factured in 1931 were: combines, windrowers, pick-ups, grain seeders, threshers and binders, cotton seeders and harvesters, haymokers, and beet-diggers. In 1931 the production of tractors and auto- mobiles, which only within the last few years has begun to take on commercial proportions, was about triple that of 1930. The number of auto- mobiles manufactured rose from 8,500 to 20,500; tractors from 13,000 (125,000 hp.) to 41,000 (537,000 hp.). The large-scale! production of complicated } equipment for power plants is also a new devel- opment. Generators driven by steam and hy- draulic turbines were not manufactured at all prior to 1924,.In 1931 steam turbo-generators up to 50,000 kilowatt capacity were produced. In 1930 the capacity of turbines manufactured amounted to 283,000 kw. and in 1931 to 753,000 kw. This latter figure was more than double the schedule set by the Five-Year Plan for the third year (300,000 kw.). In 1931 the manufac- ture of 62,000 hp. generators for Dneptrostroy was commenced. Electric equipment of all kinds is now being produced, including high-voltage cables and transformers, ‘ge motors, etc. New equipment for the tallurgical, mining, coal, and oil industries was manufactured in considerable quantities. In 1913 steam boilers were manufactured to a total of, only 30,000 square meters. In 1930 their output reached 138,900 square meters and last year 297,090. The Five-Year Plan schedule for the third year Was 145,000 square meters. In 1931 Soviet in- durtries constructed the first two blooming mills and four casting machines. Other equipment manufactured for the first time in 1930 or 1931 included pipe stills, cracking equipment, concen- trating equipment, and many types of tools and instruments.’ Machine tools were manufactured last year to a value of 56 million rubles, as com- pared with 8.9 million rubles in 1928-29 and 3.3 million rubles in 1913; hand tools and instru- ments were produced to a value of 171 million rubles, as against 131 million in 1930, The out- put of high-grade cutting and measuring tools and instruments increased by 100 per cent (31.7 million rubles in 1931, as against 15.9 million in 1930). Two new tool plants, with a combined production capacity of 110 million rubles, will start operations in Moscow this year. New equipment manufactured for transporta- tion included high- locomotives, tank cars, Some Facts on the Sales Tax — a i By Labor Research Association | A sales tax is a tax on goods that are consumed by the masses of workers and farmers. It 9 @ tax advocated by the rich and the capitalist and banker class to escape heavier taxes on incomes, gifts and estates, The “manufacturers tax” section of the reve enue bill now before Congress calls for a tax ef 2%% on @ vast number of manufactured articles, The tax is paid by the manufacturer, but the price of the product consumed is raised by the amount of the tax, or more, and is thus passed on to the worker and farmer consumer, i This “silent tax,” as proposed in the bill before Congress, would put a burden of some $600,000,000 chiefly on the backs of consumers; not only this, but an additional estimated $900,000,000 which wholesalers and retailers will add to the retail price of goods taxed, Some of the commodities to be taxed are all kinds of clothes, including shoes and sotckings, furniture, soaps and cleaning materials, lard, oil, household uterisils of all kinds, medicine, ice, coal, and various canned products. As some one has put it, “everything will be taxed but Bibles, pigs’ knuckles, and admission to the bread line.” The tax will increase the price of goods not by a mere 214%, but by much more, even in some cases as high as 100%. For example, when..® worker bus a hot dog or a bottle of pop, he may | find that the retailer has raised the price of the article by from one to five cents, that is, from 20% to 100%! Thes> hos been a little experience in this country with titis ¢2.-. o> during the war days and the tax or “luxuries.” Soi. drinks rose in price from 5 to 7 and even 10 cents. The same would now apply under the sales tax law to much more necessary articles such as soap and the thousand and one things purchased by workers in cheap stores. The price of a 5-cent cake of soap will be raised by at least one cent, which makes an increase in'price to the worker of 20% instead of the 214% which the manufac- turer pays. Some one may say that no tax 1§ wuteme plated on raw foods. | But |the tax on jsuch articles as gasoline will be passed on by the food manufacturers and jdealers |to the food |con- sumers. Taxes on building materials will be felt in increased rents. And taxes levied on such prod- ucts as machinery, electricity and motor trucks which are not directly consumed by the workers, will be passed on to the cost of the finished article of food or clothing consumed by the worker. Those who are poor and living from hand to mouth, and buying in small lots always pay more proportionately for what they buy than the rich. The workers will thus pay a much heavier tax than the rich. In fact a family whose cost of living uses up the full amount of its income, as is more and more the case, will be actually paying a tax upon every cent of its income, while the rich, whose incomes, of course, are much Jarger than what they spend, are exempt from the tax on this part of their income. And the richer the person is the greater the exemption Even the capitalist economist, Seligman, once admitted, “The sales tax represents an attempt to put an undue, an extravagant burden upon the consumer, instead of on the producer or the Possessor of wealth.” I) | H/ Unemployment Increases and Wages Go Down : * in Textiles ” ‘By Labor Research Association. ‘The New York Times Annalist index of ems | | ployment shows for textiles as a group a decline from 74.7 in January, 1931, to 71.1 in January, 1932, This is a drop of nearly 30% below the average employment of the 1923-25 period. The figures of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Stat- istics shows a similar drop, although they cover only up to December, 1931. In that month, employment in cottow goods manufacturing waa 26.2% below that in 1926; but the total payrolls in the industry showed a much more drastic decline—43.2%—in the same period, reflecting not only the tens of thousands of workers laid off entirely, but also the great increase in part time work and the wage cuts for those who still had any jobs at all. se Woolen and worsted plants showed by Decem- ber, 1931, a drop in employment of 34%, but.2 drop in payrolls of 43.2% below 1926. Carpets and rug plants showed a drop in employment of 36.9%, but wages dropped 45.1%. .In silk goods the employment drop was 29.1% while payrolls dropped 42.1%, In the dyeing and finishing of textiles employment fell off only 17%, but wages were 28.5% below 1926. . Figures issued by the Department of Labor and Industries of Massachusetts show something of the extent of both full unemployment and part time work in typical textile plants of that state. Reports from 49 cotton mills showed that the plants “normally” employ 33,294 workers; but in December they employed only 19,270, and in. Jan- uary only 17,374, and of these only 10,542 were employed full time. In woolen and worsted goods plants, normall employing 17,567, only 10,489 were employed in January, and only 7,382 of these had full time jobs. And in 8 silk goods plants where 3,237 are normally employed only 651 had full time jobs in January. Average weekly earnings of cotton mill workers who had jobs in the reporting mills in Massa- chusetts in January were $14.71; those of woolen and worsted workers were $88.72; those of silk workers were $13,60, The lowest average wages of any city in the state in December, 1931, were paid in New Bedford ($13.91). In Fall River the average of the few plants reporting was $15.24. I for the chemical inductry has shown rapid dee velopment, and the new chemical plants—Vose kresensk, Bobriky, Berezniky, etc—are being largely equipped with Soviet machinery. Certain types of equipment, such as refrigerators, vac- « uum dryers, gas-holders, centrifugals, ete. were ) manufactured for the first time last year. l Improvements in working and living condi- ,tions resulted in a marked lessening of | turnover and a considerable increase in ] ductivity. However, the program! 2s raising labor productivity and reducing duction costs was not fulfilled in 1931, this con- stituting one of the chief shortcomings of in- dustty last year. Nevertheless, even in this re- spect most branches of industry showed a de- cided improvement during the last half of the year, which presages the fulfillment of the pro-. gram for 1932 (22 per cent increase in’ labor whit and dump cars. The ‘production of machinery productivity and % per cent reduction im pre» duction costs), i