Page 14 — P.A. Features, December 23

Foibles,
Fancies
And Facts

Oh, for the Good
Old Stays

Miss Elaine Burton,
Common Wealth candidate
for Sevenoaks . . . said yes-
terday: “A corset parade
through London might be
one way Of getting better
ones. They are terrible, and
ft is not surprising when we
find that the Board of
Drade’s first advisory panel
consisted entirely of men. I
always thought it was the
woman who wore the cor-
sets, but apparently the
Government thought other-
wise.’ (News item in Rey-
nolds News, London, Eng.)

i

Who Promotes
Dictatorship

“In time the British will
be forced to declare martial
law and treat Greece as an
eccupied country; what we
really need is a strong-arm
military government to re-
place the present weaklings
who are not taking proper
action against the Bolshe-
viks.”’ (Statement by Greek
General Elias Diamesis of
the rightwing EDES on
Noy. 29 before the conflict

broke out.)
o

Let’s Face One Way
At a time, Boys

It is quite true that all
things being as they should
be Canadians do not wish
to have an election at this
critical stage of the war. But
Since things are not what
they should be an election
is preferable. (William Ir-
vine in CCF People’s
Weekly.)

These interests wanted to
do a knife-job on Mackenzie
King, and if in the process
the nation was rent asunder,
an election was forced, riots
broke out, race hatred flared
and recruiting dried up,
these things would be inci-
dental. (Alex Macdonald,
CCE Parliamentary Secre-
tary, on Tory role in recent
crisis, in the CCF News.)

[

So Sorry, Blow Wrong
Direction Leyte-ly

“The Divine wind based
on the Japanese spirit is now
Sweeping everything before
it in the Philippine Islands,
but it will not be long be-
fore another - divine wind
based on Japan’s scientific
resources strikes for the

Philip pines.” (Tokyo

broadcast quoting president —

of the Japanese Govern-
ments Technical Board: re-

corded by CBS.)

New Insecticide
Boon To Farmers

The Colorado Beetle, the Fruitfly, and countless other
insect pests which between them cause billions of pounds in
damage every year to the world’s crops, may be largely
eradicated in a few seasons after the war.

The locust, which for thous-
ands of years spread ruin and
famine among the peasant cul-
tivators of Africa and Asia,
may be brought under control.
These are some of the new po-
tentialities of DDT, the won-
der insecticide, which are in-
dicated by the latest experi-
ments being conducted on
American farms. Professor I.
M. Heilbron referred to the ex-
periments when he gave the Al-
dred lecture at the Royal So-
ciety of Arts in London recent-
ly.

It was the first time it had
been possible ‘to envisage such
uses for an insecticide, he said,
because DDT was the first in-
secticide which was _ entirely
non-poisonous to human beings
and animals at the strengths at
which it is sprayed or dusted.

DDT had been found by J. R.
Geigy, of Basil, to have marked
insecticidal Sowers, although
the preparation of this com-
pound was first described in
1874, little was known about it.

Switzerland was the pioneer
country in using it for agricul-
tural purposes on a big scale.
“An attack of Colorado Beetle
that threatened the entire pota-
to crop was successfully beaten
off by extensive spraying.

America has since tried DDT
on dozens of varieties of the
chief pests. Pea weavils, toma-
to fruit-worms, thrips, cabbage
caterpillars, cankerworms, have

all succumbed. The codling
moth, which causes so much
harm to apple crops, was

brought under “nearly perfect
control,” says the United States

Journal of Economic Ento-
mology.
It is efficacious against the

mosquito, louse and fly. DDT
Was responsible for stopping
the dangerous outbreak of ty-

phus in Naples in 1943. For the

first time in the history of med-
ical science a typhus epidemic
was stopped in mid-winter and
with almost miraculous speed.

It is generally conceded by
those best able to judge, that
the use of DDT, coupled with
vaccine, would in future so
greatly reduce the incidence of
typhus in every part of the
world as to ensure freedom
from virulent epidemics of the
disease. The common housefly,
and similar species in the trop-
ics which caried dysentry and
other diseases, were readily
killed by a pyrethrum-DDT
spray. The discovery of DDT
heralds a new era in man’s
ceaseless fight for mastery
against disease.

_moon and photograph

Con. from Page 12

V-2'

-2s

perhaps other heavenly bodies.
Samples of the air could also
be taken for analysis. The air
would certainly contain a big-
ger fraction of ozone, and prob-
ably a good deal more hydro-
gen, than at ground level.

A rocket intended to reach
the moon would need about ten
or 20 times the charge needed
to reach London from Holland.
But for the cost of a day of war
it should be practicable to send
a series of rockets round the
its far
side. So, if the human race so
desire, giant rockets can serve
ends other than destruction.

Josip Proz Tito

New Pamphiets

AND BOOKS

THE YUGOSLAV PEOPLE FIGHT TO LIVE—

: 20c

Gene Weltfish

RACES OF MANKIND—By Ruth Benedict and

T. R. Carskadon

THE HERITAGE OF THE COMMUNIST POLITI-
CAL ASSOCIATION—By Robt. Minor

WORKERS AND BOSSES ARE HUMAN — By

SOVIET FARMERS—Anara L. Strong —
OF SMILING PEACE—By Stephen Heym __
TEMPERING OF RUSSIA—Tlya Ehrenberg
THE AMERICAN INDIAN—A. Hyatt Verrill
THE ROAD TO THE OCEAN—By Leonid Leynoy
RING AND THE RIDDLE—Ilin and Segal ___

20c

20c¢
3.00
3.75
98c
3.25
2.50

PEOPLE’S BOOKSTORE

420 WEST PENDER STREET
Phone MArine 5863

ETT | Il TTT TT TTT TTT

(pHoss who really want the truth about Soviet Ru

w

ried crops, and so on. While some in all its phases of livestock, va —

Book Review

USSR In Reconstruction

Published by the American-Russian Institute, Inc., New York, |
$1.50, 160 pages with maps. : =

and that
means all readers of such a paper as the P-A., should read this
book. Sf

As its title implies, its object is to give the outside world, an:
especially the American public, as clear an idea as possible of the
Way in which the Soviet state and people are tackling the tremen_-
dous problems imposed upon the country by the ruthless Nazi
invasion. met

The book consists of ten essays, with an introduction, each by
a specialist in his or her particular field. _They cover practically
all the various phases of reconstruction and rehabilitation work.
What impresses the reader most is the absolute unity of aim ang
purpose of the Russian people and their government. Whatever
has gone before, however tragic the losses, no doubt seems for a
moment to enter anyone’s mind that these losses can be eventually
made good, and a greater, stronger, happier Russia eventually
emerge,

The Russians do not talk of ‘postwar rehabilitation” They
are not waiting for the final guns to be fired. They have made
or are busily making their plans, and those plans, once made,
warm no pigeon-holes, but are being implemented with an energy ~
which may seem well nigh ineredible to us, who follow in the main —
the comfortable jogtrot of our lives despite the war. &

e ‘

-

POBSEUZING the introductign, the first chapter, ‘Ostashevyo, a |
Liberated County,’ is a translation of an article by the secre-
tary of the Communist Party in that area, some 70 miles west of
Moscow. It tells movingly of the scene of devastation to which
the people of Ostasheyo, or what were left of them, returned.

From this tragic homecoming it proceeds to the village meet ~
ing, the record of destruction, the organization to rebuild, and how.
after only six days from the ousting of the Germans, the economy :
of/ the county began again to function, not haphazardly, but on a
carefully planned basis. All had a part,-each contributed what he
or she could. This whole thing constitutes a communty effort
equally as heroic as any military exploit of the war.

In an incredibly short time Ostashevo was not only support. |
ing itself, but beginning to look around to see what it could de
to help the general war effort, and to pass on some of the out--!
side help it had received to other districts still in the more acute 1
stages of distress.

Following this story of Ostashevo the chapters range over the
country as a whole. We hear all about the careful planning of
great and small cities razed almost entirely by the Nazi vandals
and of the vast amount of yoluntary work done by everyone in the
actual building work, over and above their normal daily oceupa-
tions.

Another chapter tells of the re-citing and rebuilding of in:
dustries, great and small all over the country. The next tells of |
the reclamation on the same super-human scale of agricultun ;

statistics are necessarily given, this is no dry-as-dust officia ©
‘blue-book.’ It is an epic story of human endeavor which fire -
the imagination. How puny and halting beside them all the ‘re ~
habilation’ schemes so far mooted in eapitalist countries seer -
by comparison!

A CHAPTER on the care given the Soviet veteran and his family

should be brough to the attention of every Legion post and
every discharged veteran. There is no niggardliness here. Nor or)
the other hand is any veteran encouraged to live on the commu ?
nity on the strength of what he has gone through. But everything z
possible is done to make him physically and mentally capable o |
fillmg a useful place, and that place is found for him when he i +
trained for it. Meantime, while training is In progress, he has nt =
worries about wife and children. The most prejudiced anti-Soviet :
eer among exservicemen could not fail to be impressed by wha |
he reads here.

For the serious student of economies there is a most enlighten §
ing chapter on Soviet finance, and another on the use of ant)
search for natural resources and the stimulation which the wa @
has given to both. In this connection, too, the chapter on postwa
Soviet trade with the outside world has its place. ;

Altogether a most stimulating and informative ‘book.

}