among the general population, and 121 females to 100 males among the Jewish population.

The Soviet organization for public health limited their activities mainly to the care for the health of the workers and their families. The result of this policy was that tens of thousands of orphans and the poor population generally remained without means of receiving medical relief from the state. The Soviet policy has thus affected the sanitary and medical conditions of the Jews for the worse.

In Poland, the Yiddish schools of Warsaw made an investigation, covering nearly 1,000 families, which showed that 31 per cent of the families lived in one room and 43 per cent lived in one room and a kitchen, while the remaining 26 per cent lived in residences having more than one room and a kitchen.

POLITICAL LIFE.-Before its dissolution, the Polish Constituent Sejm controlled by reactionaries, adopted, on July 28, 1922, an election law which provided for the districting of Poland in a manner which, representatives of the minorities claim, was designed to deprive minority populations of due representation in the sejm. To counteract the expected disastrous effect of the law, all the minorities of the Polish republic, on August 17, 1922, joined to form a bloc of Minority Nationalities, and put up a fusion ticket. This bloc included the Ukrainians, the Russians, the White Russians, the Germans, the Lithuanians, and the Jews. As for the Jews, the Folksists, the Poale-Zionists, and the Bundists refused to join the bloc. On November 6, 1922, elections were held to the sejm and the bloc of Minority Nationalities succeeded in electing 83 deputies out of a total of 444. On the basis of an agreement among the

minorities, the Jews received nearly half the minority deputies elected. In addition, the Folksists independently elected one deputy; while all the candidates of the Bund and the Poale Zion failed of election. On November 12, 1922, the election to the senate was held, in which the Minority bloc was again successful in electing 26 out of the 111 senators, the Jews getting 12 seats in the upper house. Neither the Folksists nor the Bund put up a ticket for elections to the senate. The success of the bloc was a complete surprise to the Polish reactionaries.

The Polish elections to the sejm of last fall caused a good deal of agitation among the Jews of the Vilna district. Inasmuch as that region, while held by Poland, had not yet been made part of that country by the Allies, the Jews felt that by participating in the Polish elections they would be prejudicing the outcome of the plebiscite; on the other hand, if they failed to take part, they might fail to secure representation in the sejm. After considerable public discussion, the Jews decided to participate in the election. As for eastern Galicia, Ruthenian leaders of the movement for the independence of the region held a conference at Lwow (Lemberg), and decided to boycott the election. The conference called upon the Jewish inhabitants to do likewise under the threat of an "outbreak of anti-Semitism" which was interpreted to mean pogroms. In eastern Galicia there are about as many Poles as Ruthenians. In addition, about 700,000 Jews live in that district. to that time, the Jews had remained neutral in the struggle for supremacy between the Poles and the Ruthenians. But last November, after serious debate, the Jews finally decided to participate in the elections, thus committing

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themselves to the support of Polish interests. cision called forth unpleasant incidents in some villages and small towns where the Jews lived among the Ruthenians, but fortunately the situation did not get out of control.

In Lithuania the government ordered elections early in autumn for the first parliament, the preceding sejm as in Poland having been a Constituent Assembly. There were nineteen tickets in the field, and on the face of the returns, the Jews polled enough votes to send six deputies to the sejm. The Election Commission appointed by the Constituent Assembly in which the Christian Democratic party, which suffered defeat in the elections, was in the majority, interpreted the election laws in such a way that it disqualified "on technical grounds" three or four Jewish deputies elect and nine deputies elect belonging to other minorities. The decision called forth adverse criticism in Lithuania and abroad, especially in France. Influential public opinion, led by ex-president Smetanas, vigorously protested against the manipulation of the returns of the Election Commission. On October 26, 1922, the deputies of all minorities, at a conference, decided to boycott the sejm. The Jews called a special session of the National Council, at which this decision of the Jewish group of deputies was approved. Thereupon, the government hinted at a dissolution of the Jewish National Council and the abolition of the Jewish Ministry, but the Jews did not recede from their position. Later the minority deputies entered the sejm, formed a coalition with the labor parties, and on March 12, 1923, the government was voted down. The president, thereupon, dissolved the sejm and ordered new elections.

Late in 1922 elections were held also in Latvia and in

Roumania. In the former country, with a Jewish population of 100,000, five Jewish deputies were elected; in the latter country, with a Jewish population of 1,000,000, the Jews elected but six deputies.

In Czecho-Slovakia a deputation of the United Jewish party visited Dr. Kalay, minister for Slovakia, and requested that election laws be changed in such a way as to make it possible for the Jews of Slovakia to have representation in the Czecho-Slovakian parliament. The minister expressed satisfaction with the nationalistic policy of the Jews in Slovakia.

Outside of Central Europe, a good many Jews were elected to the parliaments of the countries in Western Europe and the House of Representatives in the United States. These elections, however, have no special Jewish significance.

ECONOMIC LIFE. On the whole the economic life of the Jews in Poland has improved during 1922, according to press reports.

In Lithuania the government introduced a new monetary system with the American paper dollar as a basis. The Jewish press complained that this innovation impoverished the Jewish population in that country.

THE NEP IN RUSSIA.-In Soviet Russia, the introduction of the NEP (New Economic Policy) at first greatly improved the economic condition of the Jews. The improvement, however, proved temporary, and the year 1922 has witnessed the disintegration of the Jewish small trade which the NEP in 1921 brought to life. Moreover, in pre-NEP days the centralized state enterprises attracted great numbers of the Jewish middle class, the half-skilled laborers. This was known in Soviet Russia as the process of the industrial

ization of the Jewish masses. With the introduction of the NEP the centralized state enterprises were reduced, and great masses of Jews lost their employment. There then arose a movement, especially in the Ukraine, among the workers, Jews and non-Jews, to organize co-operatives, both of consumers and of producers. Practically all of these co-operatives disintegrated during the year, primarily, so the Communist press claims, because of lack of capital. The Jewish laborers have begun to go back to their pre-revolutionary mode of life, that is to say, there are again "kustari" (independent artisans), and small factories with hired workmen. In this connection there has been a revival, in the Ukraine and in White Russia, of the old agencies for supplying small capital to Jewish workmen, namely, private money-lenders and loan and saving banks which bear a zedakah character.

As for workingmen's co-operatives, no progress has been reported in the smaller towns of Poland, in many of which, the co-operatives have disappeared. The co-operatives in Warsaw and Lodz and other large cities, however, registered progress.

PEOPLE'S BANKS.-In 1922, there were about 200 Jewish co-operative credit banks in Poland. Eighty Jewish people's banks with a membership of over 18,000 were operating in Lithuania, by July 1, 1922, an increase over the preceding year of fifteen banks and 5,640 members. In Bessarabia the Central Union of Jewish Credit Cooperatives had twenty-five branches. During 1922, loans aggregating thirty-eight million lei were made to cover 20,000 persons. 18,500,000 lei was the during the year.

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