Page:Alice Riggs Hunt - Facts About Communist Hungary (1919).djvu/25

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21

the twenty-eight counties still left in Hungary, and Mr. Hamburger states that five and a half million acrces would be sufficient to feed Budapest.

BIG ESTATES SOCIALISED.

"The big estates covering such a large proportion of the country were so badly administered that they produced very little food." said Commissary Hamburger. "The small estates were well cultivated and have the cattle, and our policy is not to coerce the small farmer until we have the large estates socialised, because we are practically dependent upon these small estates for food. We have therefore organized tho large estates into districts of one or two thousand acres for each local guild to administer. All crown and church lands are already being worked by co-operatives, and we are establishing agricultural academies, which experts are colonising. These experts have at least ten years experience in farming, or five years in study of the subject, and are ranked among the highest paid workers. To ensure the harvest we left the same men on the farms, except where the man is politically opposed to this Government.

"It is a question of organization and prevention of export of food stuffs and not of food shortage. In the ten counties which I have taken over especially for the supply of food, on which I am concentrating, to the civil population there are ninety-five thousand head of cattle, which, with the harvest, is enough to feed the population for three months.

VILLAGE FOOD CENTRES.

"Every village has its selling organization, where the small producer sells the foodstuffs. This small producer can only obtain implements for his farm if he sells his products, but each farmer is allowed to keep a certain proportion of his produce for his family. The question of money is not therefore important, as food and implements are the essentials. Any man in the country who desires to work three hundred and sixty days a year can become a member of these co-operative societies. The wages are in food, which is debited to his community account, and at the end of the year the community divides the money profits, according to the number of hours worked by