Page 16 — April 14,

1945

Romania Looks To
-Groza’s National Govt.

By JOHN GIBBONS
BUCHAREST (By i Warclesa) = Bucharest is the only

wartime city I have visited in which——provided one has the
money—it is possible to eat, drink and smoke to one’s heart’s

eontent. Relative to its popula-
tion, Bucharest has more idle,
wealthy men and women parad-
ing the streets than any United
Nations capital. The only ra-
tioning is that enforced by the
gulf between wages and prices,
which affects the great bulk of
the population, resulting in a liv-
ing standard considerably below
that of wartime Russia.

In the Athenea Palace Hotel
and in luxurious restaurants, the
wealthy people enjoy ham and
eees for breakfast, their choice
of pork, mutton chops, roast
beef, broiled chicken, washed
qgown with wines and ices, where-

as in factory canteens and in
workers’ homes the meals are
meatless, eggless and butterless

With the exception, perhaps, of
Sundays.
Here are some of the prices

per kilo (2.2 lbs.):

Prewar Today
Butter _.-.. 60 lei 6,000 lei
Bread ......- 8 lei 130 lei
Shoes ——... 400 lei 45,000 lei
LOOT MARKET
Cameras looted from Odessa

and elsewhere in the Ukraine are
sold quietly for half a million lei.
An American colleague who had
bought what he thought was a
German Leika for 650,00 showed
it to a Soviet photographer who,
cpening it up, found it to be a
Soviet- made camera with Ger-
man lettering skillfully super-
imposed on the Russian trade
mark. Needless to say, the deal
was called off, much to the dis-
gust of the seller who is doing a
roaring business in this line.

COLLABERATORS

The ultra “respectable” Mes-
dames Goga and Antonescu —
wives of the notorious collabor-
ators—took a liking’ to Soviet
furniture. This has now been re-
stored to the Soviet Legation and
soon the ladies will tell in court
how it came to be in their posses-
sion.

The high price of soap makes. ia

washing a costly item, with the
result. that Ministry of Health
figures recently reported 55 per-
cent of the Bucharest population
verminous. At the moment there
are over a hundred typhus cases
in city hospitals.

Far different from the bar and
vestibule of the Athenea Palace
are the factories and workshops.
Here one really feels that in ad-
dition to the Romanian divisions
at the front (some 250,000 fight-
ing’ men), the country is really
contributing to the war effort.
In the Vulcan works, its walls
ablaze with National Democratic
Front posters, output rose 10
percent since August last year. I
saw men working at mobile gun
and tank parts with a skill and
dexterity that I somehow had
not expected to find in Romania.

In the canteen I mentally com-
pared the riot of rich food served
in hotel restaurants and luxury
eafes with the solitary plate of
meatless soup and the 12 ounces
of bread constituting a -worker’s
mid-day meal.

ALLIED MARKSMANSHIP
The efficacy and really remark-
able accuracy with which Allied
airmen bombed targets in Buch-
arest and Ploesti is plain to see.
Great railway sidings and ware-

houses are shattered; shops of
the central locomotive works and
the tangled ironwork of Ploesti’s
refineries tell the tale. The giant
locomotive works, which produc-
ed 50 locomotives a month, even
bow after considerable repairs—
are turning out a mere ten.

In and around the city are the
graves of 900 American lads who
made the supreme sacrifice while
crippling the vital plants ‘then
workine for the Germans.

The people with whom I talk-
ed here are of the opinion that
Premier Petru Groza’s National
Democratic Front government
will ensure political and economic
stability in the country.
the three previous post-armistice
governments, which represented
only narrow groupings, the Gro-
za government has the .backing
cf the labor movement as a
whole, of the peasantry through
the Ploughmen’s Front, of the
Army and of many supporters
of the old line conservative par-
ties—Nationa]l Miberal and Na-
tional Peasants. It has the sup-
port of the Orthodox Church —
ever a powerful force in Roman-
ian political life.

Traps sprung by the Red Army
at Kishiney and Jassy liquidated
the German divisions and thereby
saved Romania from the destruc-
tion wrought by the enemy in
Soviet territory. Consequently,
recovery will not be the problem
it is in other countries, and, with
teamwork, good will and sincer-
ity, Romania can contribute much
more to the Allied war effort and
end the corruption and instabil-
ity which led her to disaster in
the period between two wars.

Unlike”

CLAUDE DONALD

Early Date Set
For Victoria Meet

The first meeting of British
Columbia’s labor-government
committee is expected to be call-
ed for the end of April or the
first week in May, according to
information received this week
by officers of the B.C. Federation
of Labor through Minister of La-
bor George S. Pearson.

The information was contain-
ea in a letter forwarded by the
labor minister to the BCFL, the
B.C. ‘executive of the ‘Trades
Congress, and the Railway Bro-
therhoods, congratulating each
group on their nominations to
the committee, which was estab-
lished by government authority
to recommend and: draft new la-
bor legislation.

Setting of the tentative date
for the first committee meeting
is made necessary by the depar-
ture for Ottawa of CCL unionists
who will take part in the Con-
gress’ annual presentation of its
legislative program. They are
expected to be away for at least
ten days. Among the delegates
attending the Ottawa gathering
are Harold Pritchett and Harvey
Murphy, both representing the
BCFL on the labor-government
committee at Victoria.

63 West Cordova Street

A PROGRESSIVE. WORK BOOT FOR EVERY PURPOSE
Prices According to Wartime Regulations

JOHNSON‘S BOOTS

Phone MA. 7612

for

“Wait For Me”

Broadway at Commerciai

Tel. FAir. 3010

Armstrong & Company

304 Dunlevy Avenue

Tel. HAst. 0141

sociation to all B.C. unions to
the WEA House Draw.
which gives the lucky holder
value $7,500) or $5,500 in cash,
will take place in Toronto on May
24. There are five other prizes
of $50 each.

Claude Donald, WEA Pecans
director, stresses that purchase
of these tickets is actually an op-
portunity for unionists to make
an investment which will return
dividends to this province’s trade
unions. The national WHA has
provided that every dollar raised
in, B.G. will remain here to as-
sist in the very important work
initiated this year.

As was reported in last week's
P.A., the -recent first annual
WEA provincial conference de-
cided on several highly signifi-
cant projects to carry out the
major objective of providing the
trade union movement with
necessary trained leadership to
meet the many complicated prob-
lems facing the trade unions to-
day.

Most important was the estab-
lishment of a lLabor Gollege,
similar to those so successfully
used by the trade union move-
ments in England, Australia,
New Zealand, USA and USSR.

Full personnel of the labor sec-
tion of the joint Gornensise is as
follows

Representing the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labor—Harold Pritchett,
Harvey - Murphy and Daniel
O’Brien; B.C. executive of the
Trades and Labor Congress —
Birt Showler, R. K. Gervin and
John Stevenson; Railway Broth-
erhoods—H. Hlliot, H. Mackey
and H. Ward.

Support Urged For
WEA Housing Dra

Special appeal is made by the Workers’ Education:

step up the sale of ticke

The drawing of the winning

:
choice of the house (e

Need for the training ¢
school can give was Stres~
Claude Donald, who told:
“Until recently, about all ,
leader needed was “guts?
certain amount of organiz”
ability. Now, he must knox
labor laws, be able to an
with experts, understand ;
grievance procedures, anc
unlimited patience.

This year the WHA wi
its Summer School at Ocea
from June 16 to 26, si
leadership: There will be;
Gay intensive course for
date shop steward training
cial-attention will be gi
training . educational di”
and classes will be held for
bookkeepers and business ~

‘It is therefore most im
that the ticket sale for the
Draw be a real success,” =
concluded.

“TI would like —
mind everyone that it he
endorsed by the leaders 1
Trade Union Congresses
WEA is non-political and «|
Ey 40 or more union locals
around Vancouver. — ie
“Don’t be content to «~
admire what unions haye —
ether countries. Do it her
if you do not win a pr
haven’t given away your ©
you will have made an inyi
in your own future wellbe) ~
your ticket from your oy ©
officers, or communicate - |
Workers’ Educational |
tion, 1413° Dominion £ ~

‘Vancouver, Pacific 5831.

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