School finance in Colombia

Colombia's national school fund will do much to strengthen the nation's primary school system, especially in rural districts where the need is greatest. Created by the school finance law of December 1944, the fund is to be used for training primary teachers, for erecting buildings for primary and normal schools, and for payment of teachers' salaries in regions where local revenues are too low. The law also requires that no less than 33 percent of the national school budget be devoted to primary schools and the training of primary teachers.

Colombian primary schools have been depending on three different sources for their support. The law of 1903 provided that school buildings should be furnished by the municipality and teachers' salaries by the department, while the national government paid for school supplies, and later for teachers' pensions. A law passed in 1934 required that no less than 10 percent of the nation's total budget be assigned to education, but in practice only a tiny fraction of that money has been spent for the benefit of primary Eschools.

In Colombia, as in many other countries, there is wide variation in local revenues. Some towns have not been able to provide decent school buildings; some departments. I have not paid teachers a living wage. In his defense of the finance law of 1944 the Minister of Education reported that the total · primary school attendance as of December 1943 was only 679,273, out of a primary school age population (seven to fourteen years) estimated at more than two million. For every child in primary school there were two who were not in school, most of them -country children because more than 70 percent of Colombia's population lives in the country.

The school fund created by the law of

1944 will reinforce local school revenues according to need, providing much where local revenues are low and school population large, less where local revenues are more nearly adequate. It will assist the towns in providing school buildings, and it will assist the departments in paying salaries, imposing the requirement that no teacher be paid less than 720 pesos a year.1

School support provided from this fund is to be over and above the 10 percent of the national budget which is called for by the law of 1934. It will be financed from increased income and inheritance taxes, supplemented by a small tax on stock transfers. When the bill was first introduced the money was to be raised by indirect taxes on rentals and on soft drinks, but public opinion was strongly opposed to these indirect taxes, and direct taxes were therefore substituted in the law as finally passed.

Cuban labor regulations

Decree No. 1213, approved by the President of Cuba on April 21, 1945, prescribed regulations for the application of Cuba's DecreeLaw No. 598 of October 16, 1934, in regard to paid work done by women workers in their homes.

These regulations provide, among other matters, that work done in the home must be contracted for under the same conditions that exist for similar work in factories or shops; the employer must keep a full record of the worker, description of work, wages paid, amount due the working woman for paid rest periods, and the discount made for maternity insurance. A day and hour must be fixed for giving out new work and receiving the finished product; a woman worker must not be made to wait more than half an hour to receive or deliver her work

The Colombian peso is worth 57 cents.

and to collect her wages, but in case the waiting time exceeds that limit, she must be paid for the extra time at a rate proportionate to the wage for work she might have done in the same time. Employers must obtain licenses before they can contract for home work, and to ensure compliance with the new regulations, all existing licenses. were canceled as of the date of the decree and a period of thirty days allowed for the procurement of new ones.

A haven for servicemen in
Barranquilla

"At Barranquilla, Colombia's busy city on the Caribbean, there was an unusual center for service men," writes Virginia Leffingwell Hazen, an American resident of that city. "In a setting of picture-postcard tropics, financed and operated by Americans living in Colombia, this club gave the weary and lonely serviceman a chance to relax, read, play and, by no means least important, feast on juicy steaks and homemade pies.

"The Center opened early in 1943, when many submarine chasers were stopping at Barranquilla. The crews, exhausted by action in the then Nazi-infested Caribbean, had no place on shore where they could find rest and diversion. So a group of American women decided to start a canteen where these boys could get hot coffee and sandwiches. It proved to be such a success and the need so great (at times even clothing was provided for men who had met with disaster at sea) that it grew into a tremendous undertaking. The sandwiches evolved into full meals and two years later about 20,000 men had been served dinners with countless gallons of beer and cola drinks, not to mention pyramids of between-meal snacks, with peanuts and—a real home touch—even fudge.

"After those first sub-chaser days many other types of U. S. craft called at Barran quilla, their crews enjoying Center hospi tality. That the boys loved it is evidenced by the many tokens of appreciation they sent back.

"To visualize the Barranquilla Center you must imagine a tropical scene complete with palm trees, steady blue skies, splashy bougainvillea, low pastel-colored houses and sleepy burros, but leave out the monkeys and pith helmets. This is a modern city, the residential section of which might easily, except for differences of vegetation, be a suburb in the United States. Half the year there is a cool breeze that keeps the leaves gossiping and there is always a tang of salty sea in the air. The sun points at you with a hot finger which makes the sailors rush for the cold beer all the faster.

"The Center was a one-story building designed in the usual Spanish Colonial style, around a central patio. A big ice box bulg ing with beer and coca cola was popular. Various rooms offered all sorts of gamesping pong, cards, jigsaw puzzles. There were a rest room and shower and a gift shop where the boys found well-selected silver jewelry and trinkets at fair prices.

"Back of the house was a garden with long tables and benches, and with hammocks strung between the trees. Here dinner was served every evening, steaks being prepared on an open grill, and when the boys had downed all they wanted of the first course a procession of homemade pies, donated by the women of the community, emerged from the kitchen.

"There is nothing emptier than Christmas among strange faces, in a strange country speaking a strange language, and the Center tried to relieve this holiday loneliness. Last Thanksgiving turkey with all the frills was served all Americans in the city, civilians

paying their way, servicemen invited guests. Christmas week the house looked like a composite picture of the traditional American. home. Tropics or no tropics, there was a fireplace (of wood with crepe paper bricks) with snow (cotton) on the mantle and logs "burning" brightly. Wreaths, colored lights, candles and Santa Clauses all created a Christmasy atmosphere and some families invited the boys to their homes for dinner that night. On New Year's Eve especially elaborate refreshments were served.

"Thus the Service Center kept up its work for these boys whose spirits needed refueling as much as their ships."

We see by the papers that—

Independence Hall, Philadelphia, was the scene last September 16 of a celebration of Mexican Independence Day. The guests were some of the Mexican railway workers

who by agreement between Mexico and the United States came to this country to take the place of American workers called to other duties by the war. Other Mexicans helped out in agriculture. Those who came in the war emergency numbered about 300,000, although not more than 125,000 were here at any one time. (See Workers from Mexico, by Dorothy M. Tercero, BULLETIN, September 1944.)

• Four easily operated cinchona extraction plants have been made for use in Latin America. Since these plants are demountable and fairly small, they can be carried over mountain trails and operated near where the cinchona trees grow, requiring only one educated person in addition to laborers. The product of these machines is totaquina, which contains quinine and other related chemicals. It is considered a satisfactory remedy for malaria and is produced at a very low cost. The machinery was devised

by the Cinchona Research Unit of the Engineer Board, United States Army.

• A colony of 1400 Poles, men, women, and children, has found temporary refuge in León, Guanajuato, Mexico. The colony is operated by Polish funds.

• Brazil, which is deeply interested in obtaining a larger supply of petroleum within its own territory, has engaged an American expert to work under the National Petroleum Council and carry out the necessary geological surveys. The well known Brazilian engineer, Guilherme Guinle, will undertake petroleum exploration in an area of 25,000 acres near Ribeirão Claro, on the border between the states of Paraná and São Paulo. About three or four hundred barrels of oil per day are now produced in Bahia.

A population census will be taken in Argentina beginning December 1 of this year in fulfillment of a decree issued October 6, 1943.

The second official estimate for the 19441945 corn crop in Argentina placed the total at 3,070,000 tons, a reduction of almost 65 percent from the 1944 crop. The acreage planted in 1944 was 9 percent less than that planted the preceding year, and furthermore there was a severe drought.

• Since 1942 the Argentine National Bank has been granting credits to small farmers, requiring no guarantee beyond a good reputation on the part of the borrowers. More than 27,000 loans, amounting to 41,506,000 pesos, have been made to improve farms and diversify production by the purchase of poultry, cows, pigs, sheep, and goats.

The Government of Ecuador set aside the sum of 6.5 million sucres in the 1945 budget for amortization of its debt to the Central Bank. A legislative decree of March 10, 1945, authorized use of that sum for con

solidation of all the Government's debt to the Bank, including both internal and foreign debt. Once the debt is consolidated, a time limit is to be fixed for its service by the payment of 6.5 million sucres a year until it is extinguished. The maximum annual interest to be paid by the Government on the consolidated debt will be 2 percent. • The Argentine Ministry of Agriculture has decided to push agricultural instruction in primary schools by advising teachers, starting agricultural clubs, and promoting the planting of school gardens. A railroad car equipped with educational films operates in the province of Buenos Aires.

• That cooperatives play an important part in the milk supply of Rio de Janeiro is shown in the figures for last April. In the state of Minas Gerais, which furnished 54 percent of the seven million liters (1 liter equals 1.1 quarts) of milk brought into the Brazilian capital, 59.11 percent of its share originated in cooperatives; and of the 42.51 percent share of the state of Rio de Janeiro, 88.20 percent was furnished by cooperatives. The 3.49 percent originating in the state of São Paulo came from independent dealers. • Two million sucres of the funds accumulated in the Central Bank of Ecuador for reconstruction in the provinces of Loja and El Oro (regions which suffered much destruction during the Ecuadorean-Peruvian boundary dispute) have been released by the Department of Public Works for immediHalf the money will be spent for a light and power plant for the city of Loja and the other half for a workers' housing project in the Province of El Oro.

ate use.

• November 10, 1945 was the first anniversary of the Brazilian decree-law authorizing the establishment of unions of rural workers or employers.

Late in June 1945 Carlos Chávez, internationally known Mexican composer-con

ductor, resigned the post he has held as director of Mexico's Symphony Orchestra since he himself founded the Orchestra in 1928. The resignation, tendered because he wished to devote his full time to study and composition, was to become effective on September 9, 1945, the end of the 1945 concert season. The Orchestra's Board of Directors, however, loathe to have the Orchestra lose the artistic guidance of its distinguished conductor, arrived at an arrangement with him whereby he will continue as musical director and conductor but be relieved of the organizational and administrative details that have hitherto required so much of his time.

April 3 of each year was recently designated as Cuban Song Day (Día de la Canción Cubana). It will be marked by an

annual award of three prizes of $1000, $500, and $250, respectively, for the three best Cuban songs composed during the year and presented on the Day's program. The Minister of Education is charged with working out publicity for the Day and fixing rules for the annual song contest, and the sum of $3,000 per year is allocated to defray the expenses of the celebration.

Ecuador's former Polytechnic School was recently replaced, in accordance with a presidential decree, by a new Higher Polytechnic Institute which will function as an independent body with study programs and other regulations approved by the Department of Education. The Geological Institute of Ecuador will become one of the sections of the new Institute and others will be established as soon as possible.

FLORENCIO HARMODIO AROSEMENA.-Former President of Panama and civil engineer. Born in Panama City, September 17, 1872. Educated in technical schools in Germany and Switzerland. Graduated from Munich University in 1895. Did engineering and contracting work in Panama, Ecuador, Cuba, and Central America. Built the Government Palace, the National Theater, the City Hall, the National Institute in Panama, and played a prominent part in construction of the Concepción-Puerto Armuelles Railroad and the Guayaquil section of the Ecuadorean railway system. Chief engineer of the United Fruit Company at Bocas del Toro, Panama. Elected President of Panama in 1928 and served until overthrown with his government in a revolution on January 2, 1931. Died in New York August 30, 1945.

ALEJANDRO PONCE BORJA.-Ecuadorean jurist, statesman, and teacher. Born in Quito in 1891 and received the degree of Doctor of Jurisprudence and Social Sciences at the University of Quito in 1914. Appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1934 and for several years after leaving that post served as legal consultant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Delegate to the Ecuador-Peru Boundary Commission, 1936-38, and to the Third Meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the American Republics, Rio de Janeiro, 1942. For many years served as professor of law at the Central University, Quito; was legal consultant for the Mortgage Bank of Ecuador and the Southern Railway; and for a time was Director General of the Central Bank of Ecuador. Died in Panama, January 10, 1945.