Sovnarkom Extends Credit of 3,000,000 Roubles to Jewish Settlers

The sum of three million roubles in credits instead of one million will be available for the Jewish settlers this year as a direct result of a decision yesterday by the Sovnarkom, Council of People’s Commissars, on the Jewish situation. The decision ends the long fight between the Comzet, governmental society for settling the Jews on the land, and the Soviet Agricultural Bank the latter having refused special credits for the Jewish settlers on the ground that no exceptions can be made between Jews and non-Jews in granting credits and that the Jewish colonists would be enable to repay the increased credits.

The decision of the Sovnarkom gives the Comzet more hope now of overcoming the Agricultural Bank’s opposition thus tripling the Jewish credits with instructions from the Finance Commissariat to the Bank based upon the Sovnarkom’s ruling. In other points the decision recommends assistance to the Jews along collective ### only which eliminates relief for individuals.

The Sovnarkom spent some time discussing what should be done with the serious economic situation amount the Jews in the towns and villages. The entire Soviet cabinet agreed that the Jewish situation was more difficult than among other groups of the poor population in the Soviet Union and also that the percentage of unemployed among the Jews is greater than among other nationalities.

Realizing this the Sovnarkom decided to adopt: as relief measures instructions to the department on collective farming to collectivize the Jewish colonies instruction to the industrial department to cooperate with the Comzet in developing industry in region where there is Jewish labor and instructions to the labor department to assign a larger fund for teaching unemployed Jewish youth qualified professions and also for sending non-qualified Jews to work on buildings coal mines, timber fields, and especially to develop greater registration at the employment bureaus in regions where the impoverished Jews live.

In connection with the artisans, the Sovnarkom urged the trade department to see that the Jewish artisans were organized into artisans’ cooperatives and obtained credits and raw materials provided with work which does not require imported raw materials.

While the Sovnarkom admits that the Jewish economic situation is extremely bad the “Emes” Yiddish Communist daily in an article on the same subject says that conditions in the small towns are better this year that last and comments on a government report investigating the situation in White Russia and the Ukraine to prove that the earnings of the Jewish artisans in those regions are high. The paper urges that no mercy be shown and that a strict distinction be made between artisans and the declassed Jews since the latter as former paders are not entitled to any assistance.