J.D.B. News Letter

(By our Paris correspondent)

The headquarters of the Jewish Colonization Association has just issued a detailed report on the work of the Ica in Soviet Russia during the five years since 1923 when it resumed its activity in that country.

The Jewish Colonization Association (Ica), the report says, resumed its work in Russia in 1923 after a break of several years, on account of the great war and the civil war. This was done on the basis of a special arrangement made with the Soviet Government.

The area of the fields sown in the old colonies where the Ica is at work, is today equal to that which was sown before the war and in some regions, as, for instance, in Krivoi Rog, it is larger. Thanks to favorable legal provisions, to the work done by the surveyors and the new distribution and management of the farms carried out by the representative organs of the Commissariat of Agriculture, it was possible for the crops to be better diversified. This has been the case, primarily, with the winter-wheats, which play a most important part in the fight against the drought that affects these regions, and this crop now occupies almost 50 percent of the total cultivated area.

The Ica also developed its activities for the benefit of the colonists in the field of viticulture. Before 1923 the vineyards created with its assistance in 12 colonies covered a total area of 50 hectares. During the years of the war a large number of plants were destroyed. The first care of the Ica was to replace the missing plants. It introduced for the first time, after an interval of ten years, the French system of grafting, thereby making possible the resumption of the older cultures, as well as the production of new ones. Thus the area undr grape culture at the close of 1927 had increased to 285 hectares, or an average of one quarter of a hectare to a viticulturist. The vintage last year amounted to between 330 and 450 poods (I pood equals 36 pounds) on the hectare. To encourage the manufacture and sale of wine, the Ica has started the construction of cooperative wine-cellars, the first of which has been established in the colony of Kalinindorf.

Arboriculture has not been overlooked: due to the aid of the Ica, the colonies have today in their possession approximately 40 hectares of fruit orchards belonging to 162 different colonists.

At the same time that it helped the older colonies, the Ica has contributed to the establishment of the new colonists who have come of their own accord to establish themselves on the land of the old Jewish colonies. The Ica has interested itself in 378 families, who were enabled, by the loans of the Ica, to augment the number of their horses by 45 percent, and the number of their cattle by 68 percent. Of these 378 families, 340 live in houses built or bought with credits advanced by the Ica. The new colonists have been enabled, moreover, after a period of five years, to acquire 617 agricultural machines and implements of various kinds.

Lastly, while continuing its full support to the older agricultural colonies, the Ica is taking a large part in the new colonization and has undertaken to set up 3,300 families on the land granted by the Government. This colonization was inaugurated in 1926 and is being actively pursued according to a definite program under the auspices of the Comzet.

The work of the ICA thus covers a territory containing nearly 11,300 families and about 150,000 hectares.

The work of the small-scale credit institutions in which the ICA was interested before the war has also taken an important place in its new activities. There are now 370 such loan cassas in the area where the ICA is at work; and subsidies are given to nearly 200 of them. All these cassas show a normal development. Their membership has risen beyond 100,000, which makes about 500 members a cassa. The artisans and cottage workers (kustars) form the bulk of the clients of the loan cassas, making 82 percent of the total.

The turnover of business done by 135 cassas for which reliable statistical data are available reached an mount of 600,000 Roubles. The average, which in the beginning of 1924 did not amount to more than 35.6 Roubles per member, mounted by the close of 1926 to 86.8 Roubles. The increase in the deposits is still more favorable. Thus, the total amount of deposits in October, 1926, reached the sum of 1 million Roubles, and compared with 1924 the deposits during 1927 were more than ten times as large.

The increment in the revolving funds has made it possible for the cassas to augment the loans granted to the members. The average of these loans at the present time is about 100 Roubles, instead of the 50 Roubles in 1923. The maximum of a loan has risen in most of the cassas to 200 Roubles, but is as high as 400 among some of them. The rate of interest, too, has been declining appreciably; after fluctuating between 42 and 48 percent in 1923, it sank to 36 percent in 1926 and to 20 percent and even 18 percent, in 1927. On the other hand, the term of repayment has increased from 2 to 6 months on the average and in certain cases even to 9 and 12 months.

This development of the Jewish loan cassas in Russia is one of the most marked achievements of the work of the ICA, the paper states. The ICA assists these organizations in two ways: It procures for them technical assistance, in their administration, book-keeping and general conduct of business; and, in the second place, it grants them financial assistance. The ICA does not charge more than 6 percent interest on the loans which it makes to the cassas, a rate which is below that charged by the banks. The total of the loans granted by the ICA to the cassas in Russia exceeds half a million Roubles.

Special inspectors of the Ica are visiting the cassas and supplying them with the necessary instructions to help them to solve the technical problems concerning the administration as well as the clients, the establishment of revolving and other funds, deposits.

Since the beginning of its activities in Russia, the Ica has been subsidizing also the vocational schools. The war and the troubles which followed in its wake forced the Ica to interrupt its activities and disorganized the greater part of the technical instruction establishments, which found themselves deprived of the funds necessary to carry on their work. The Joint-Distribution Committee having furnished the equipment and borne the cost of repairs, the Ica has since 1923 devoted itself to assuring the maintenance of these schools. It is now subsidizing nine vocational schools in the Ukraine and one in Leningrad, with a total attendance of 1.400 pupils. The subventions which it grants them are intended, chiefly, for the purpose of augmenting the number of professors and instructors. Their cost equals on the average 24 percent of the budget of each school. It sometimes rises to 52 percent.

One hundred and ninety-four pupils completed in 1925 their studies in the vocational schools maintained by the Ica; and in 1926 the number of pupils passing through these schools was 472.