Times | 20 Agosto 1936

Duce’s Help With Threshing FROM OUR OWVN CORRESPONDENT ROME, AUG. 19 Continuing a now well-established custom, Signor Mussolini to-dav paid his annual visit to the cornfields of the former Pontine Marshes to lend a hand in thresh- ing the grain. Early in the morning the Duce, himself piloting the aeroplane, flew from Forli to Littoria and thence drove to the township of Pontinia. Here, throw- ing off his coat, he mounted a threshing- machine and laboured for an hour under a hot sun feeding into the machine the wheat which was part of that he himself had sown in the district last December. Visits followed to Sabaudia and Littoria, where he opened a new beet-sugar factory which is expected to employ 1,000 hands. During the course of the morning Signor Mussolini signed a new agreement which grants to the tenant farmers of the Pontine Marshes improved economic conditions in the development of their holdings. One of its objects is to guarantee to the farmer a sufficient monetary compensation for his labours even if the land he is working should not in the first years of his contract give a return adequate to maintain him and his family. A sum of 1,500 lire a year for each labourer on the farm is to be granted for five years, plus the customary share of certain farm produce. It is thus hoped to prevent the farmer from incurring debts so heavy as to prejudice the object of the agreement, which is intended to enable tenant farmers to become owners of the land they cultivate. Addressing afterwards the crowds that had gathered to welcome him, Signor Mussolini said that the agricultural agree- ment he had just signed represented a notable progress on the preceding one. He affirmed that with the threshing of the grain of Pontinia and the opening of the new sugar factory it could be said that the reclamation of the Pontine Marshes was an accomplished fact, and the merit for it lay with the workers and ex-combatants. WAGES INCREASED Further wage increases, benefiting in all 86,000 workmen, have been granted to employees in the printing, pottery, mineral waters, beer, malt, and hydro- thermal industries. The increases vary from 5 to 9 per cent. and come into force on dates between August 15 and Sep- tember 14. It was announced to-day that a very strict watch would be kept by the Fascist authorities on the cost of living, now that salaries are being raised, in order to pre- vent any unfair difference arising between the new salaries and the already increased prices of food, clothing, and the like. Strong action is promised where offenders are detected. The recent Government in- tervention in favour of workmen’s wages is held up as an illustration of the vitality of the corporative system, under which, it is added, economic conditions do not, as has been alleged abroad, remain static, but are modified where necessary by agreement between masters and men. DUCE’S HELP WITH THRESHING GRANTS TO FARMERS ON RECLAIMED LAND