INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE STUDIES AND REPORTS Series B (Economic Conditions) No. 15 REFUGEES AND LABOUE CONDITIONS IN BULGARIA GENEVA 1926 PBEFACE On 8 December 1925 the following letter, addressed to the Director of the International Labour Office, was received from the Superior Labour and Social Insurance Council of Bulgaria : MINISTRY OF COMMERCE, INDUSTRY AND KINGDOM OF BULGARIA LABOUR OF THE No. 13615. « SOFIA, 4 December 1925. Sir, The Superior Labour and Social Insurance Council of Bulgaria dealt, inter alia, at its last session with the question of the application of protective labour legislation. This legislation, as you are aware, is based entirely on the decisions of the International Labour Conference ratified by Bulgaria. The question was examined as a result of complaints emanating from workers in various towns, due to the unemployment prevailing in the country. During a discussion of the obstacles to the application of protective labour legislation, the Council unanimously came to the conclusion that the greatest of these was the presence of numerous refugees in Bulgaria, who are a source of danger to production and to social peace. Basing themselves therefore on the fact that Bulgaria has ratified the Conventions, the Council unanimously decided to apply to you for assistance in connection with the solution of the refugee problem, and to facilitate the application of these laws. IV What is the present state of the refugee problem in Bulgaria ? (1) Since Bulgaria threw off the Turkish yoke in 1878, until 1912 when the Balkan wars broke out as a result of the unbearable political conditions in Turkey, more than 250,000 Bulgarian inhabitants of Macedonia and Thrace have emigrated to Bulgaria. The great majority of these refugees were able, under the normal economic conditions prevailing before the war, to settle and to find means of livelihood. A great number, however, obtained employment as commercial employees, or as workers, principally in the building trades. (2) During the years 1912-1915, more than 120,000 refugees from Thrace, Macedonia, and the Dobrudja entered Bulgaria as a result of the Balkan wars, and of the struggles between the various nationalities living in the former Turkish territory. (3) From 1918 to 1925 an even greater influx of refugees due to the same causes from Thrace, Macedonia, the Dobrudja, and the districts of Tzaribrod, Bossilegrad, Trn and Kula occurred ; and the total may be estimated at 180,000. (4) Apart from these refugees, Bulgaria was also compelled to give asylum to approximately 40,000 Russian and 20,000 Armenian refugees who had left their homes as a result of the Russian revolution and the disturbed conditions prevailing in Asia Minor. Refugees belonging to the three latter groups would not have been a burden to Bulgarian economic life had they come provided with sufficient means to maintain themselves ; and had their arrival coincided with a corresponding emigration movement of non-Bulgar stocks : both these conditions were, however, lacking. Bulgarian refugees belong to two categories : one consisting of landless agricultural labourers working on farms in Thrace and Macedonia ; the other of owners of land which had been either confiscated, as in the Dobrudja, or expropriated without compensation, although compensation had been fixed, as in Greece. The Russian and Armenian refugees were in the same position. During this whole period, on the other hand, no foreigners have, been expelled from Bulgarian territory ; and the only ones who have left the country are those who have done so of their own free will, in spite of the fact that there are more than 400,000 Turks, Greeks, Roumanians, etc., in Rulgaria. The only solution of the problem, in view of the condition of the refugees of all nationalities, consisted of an appeal for State aid to meet the most urgent needs. Lands were distributed for settling some of the refugees and providing them with work ; while others received financial assistance on several occasions, which was inadequate owing to the heavy burdens imposed on Rulgaria by war losses and reparation obligations. The majority of the refugees have therefore swelled the ranks of the wage earners. This would not have imposed an undue strain on the economic resources of the country had its economic position been sound ; but as long as Rulgarian industry is not in a position to increase its capacity of production and to employ more than 200,000 workers, it is obvious that any influx of foreign workers is bound to disturb labour conditions. When the number of refugee workers is greatly in excess of that of native workers, as in Rulgaria, it is obvious that the position must become intolerable. It should also be remembered that the great majority of the refugees were entirely devoid of industrial habits and traditions, and therefore compete unfairly with native workers. Wages, hours of labour, minimum age conditions, etc., have been entirely reversed. The moral condition of the workers is deplorable, and both native and refugee workers are suffering from destitution and misery. In the Pernik mines, for instance, out of 7,000 workers there are 2,000 Russian refugees living under the most deplorable conditions ; while in a tobacco factory at Nova-Zagora there are 60 invalid Russian refugees out of 160 workers. At Haskovo, Plovdiv, Bourgas, Sofia, etc., conditions are similar. The position has become worse owing to the decrease of employment in the tobacco factories last autumn ; and some 40,000 unemployed, comprising with their families 120,000 refugees of all nationalities, are in a state of complete destitution, which the State is powerless to relieve owing to the severe economic and financial crisis which prevails. There is no way out without foreign assistance and the help of the International Labour Office and the League of Nations, as Rulgaria is powerless to solve all these questions unaided. The country requires assistance : VI (a) To drain the Bourgas district, where malaria is prevalent, and to render it habitable ; (b) to provide peasant refugees with dwellings, agricultural implements, and stock ; (c) to help Armenian refugees to emigrate to countries where the economic conditions are better ; (d) to divide Russian refugees into two classes : invalids, and those fit to work. As regards the former, international institutions must provide them with sufficient means to prevent them from having to become workers, while the latter must be assisted to reach countries where better economic conditions prevail. Other measures of this kind might be suggested, but these are the most urgent for relieving the great poverty which prevails. The Superior Labour and Social Insurance Council feels confident that you will respond to this appeal. The Council presents its respects and begs to assure you of its readiness to grant you every help in complying with the present request. For the President : (Signed) G. SOKOLOFF. For the Secretary-Rapporteur : (Signed) Dim. NICOLOFF. Members of the Permanent Committee of the Superior Labour and Social Insurance Council. President of the Employers' Group : (Signed) : Al. ZAIMOFF. President of the Workers' Group : (Signed) : F. LOULTCHEFF. Representative of the Actuaries : (Signed) : Dr. Al. IVANOFF. Bulgaria is one of the Stales which has co-operated most actively with the International Labour Organisation ; has ratified all the International Labour Conventions ; and has accomplished VII — during the past ten years a great and praiseworthy effort of social legislation. We could not remain indifferent to the declaration of the Superior Labour and Social Insurance Council that labour conditions have been profoundly and adversely modified owing to the influx of refugees, and that the application of social legislation and the fulfilment of the obligations undertaken by Bulgaria by ratifying International Labour Conventions are threatened by their presence. We have fell it necessary to obtain the fullest information regarding the position to which the Bulgarian Government has drawn our attention, and Mr. Tixier, Chief of the Social Insurance Service, was instructed to proceed to Bulgaria and to investigate the effects of the presence of the refugees on labour conditions and social legislation. The question of the Bulgarian refugees is, moreover, bound up with that of Russian and Armenian refugees, and the emigration of the latter is being organised by the Refugee Service attached to the International Labour Office. Colonel James Procter C.B.E., former Commissioner for Refugees, was therefore requested to investigate the position of Russian and Armenian refugees on the spot, and to ascertain if it was necessary and possible to provide for their evacuation. Mr. Tixier and Colonel Procter, accompanied by Mr. Nicolaïew, a member of the Information Section of the International Labour Office, rapidly visited the chief industrial centres and the villages where the greatest number of refugees are living. The Bulgarian Government, to whom I wish to express my warmest thanks, extended the heartiest welcome to these officials, placing every facility at their disposal for obtaining the fullest information and making themselves acquainted with the conditions prevailing. Thanks to the unflagging zeal and the constant help of Mr. Nicoloff, Chief of the Labour Section, who arranged for the active cooperation of all the provincial labour inspection services, they were able to become fully acquainted with the position of the refugees and to fudge the effect of their presence on labour conditions. Colonel Procter submitted a separate report, which goes somewhat beyond the original scope of his mission and deals with the refugee problem as a whole, outlining a scheme for the settlement of Bulgarian refugees. Without assuming any responsibility for this report, it has been communicated to the Bulgarian Government and to the Secretariat of the League of Nations for their information. Mr. Tixier has drafted a report on the position of the refugees, Vili which deals mainly with their activities as workers, and their influence on labour conditions. He also felt it desirable to make certain suggestions as to the most appropriate solutions for ensuring the permanent settlement of the refugees, without undue interference with labour conditions. The publication of this report will, in our opinion, be of great value, as it emphasises the social aspects of the refugee problem ; and is in harmony with the constant endeavours of the Office to safeguard, in all circumstances, the application and development of labour legislation. Albert THOMAS. CONTENTS Page Preface Introduction CHAPTER I. — The Number and the Position of the Refugees . . . . The Russian Refugees The Armenian Refugees The Bulgarian Refugees The Number of Bulgarian Refugees The Distribution of Bulgarian Refugees The Organisation of Relief for Refugees Organising t h e Settlement of Refugees The Necessity for Reorganising and Co-ordinating the Various Services dealing with Refugees Conclusion CHAPTER II. — Influence of the Refugees on Labour Conditions and the Application of Social Legislation Bulgarian Social Legislation Sudden Increase in the Number of Wage Earners due to the Arrival of the Refugees The Influence of the Refugees on Unemployment Influence on the Standard of Wages The Influence of the Refugees on Hours of Work Influence of the Refugees on the Employment Exchange System and on Unemployment Insurance The Influence of Refugees on Social Insurance Conclusion CHAPTER I I I . — Solution of the Refugee Problem §1. The Evacuation of Russian and Armenian Refugees and the Repatriation of Bulgarian Refugees Emigration for Armenian and Russian Refugees The Repatriation of Refugees to their Own Homes §2. Settling Bulgarian Refugees on the Land The Agrarian Problem in Bulgaria The Agrarian Reform Act .The Machinery for Applying the Act The P a y m e n t of Compensation for Expropriated L a n d . . . How Land is Assigned to New Owners and Paid for . . . . The Results of Agrarian Reform Schemes for Acquiring Additional Land The Funds Immediately Required for Settling Refugees on t h e Land Conclusion I 1 2 2 4 5 5 7 9 10 12 13 15 15 16 18 20 20 21 22 23 24 24 24 25 27 27 29 31 32 32 33 34 35 37 2 ERRATA Page 3 : Table at foot of page : against "Relief to the aged, the disabled, to women and children", for "530,000 leva" read "330,000 leva". Total: for " 1,204,000 leva" read " 1,004,000 leva ". " 27 : 5th para., 5th line : for " 57.6 " read " 47.6 ". "28: 3rd para., 1st line : for "Bulgarian refugees" read "Bulgarian refugee families". THE REFUGEE PROBLEM IN BULGARIA INTRODUCTION The influence exercised by the refugees on labour conditions depends both on their number and on their vocational distribution as compared with the total working population of the country and the general vocational distribution of the workers. Our first enquiries were therefore directed to examining available refugee statistics with a view to ascertaining how many active workers are comprised among them. The present condition of the labour market and the effects produced by the arrival of refugee workers on labour conditions and on the application of social legislation were subsequently investigated in collaboration with the Labour Department, the provincial labour inspectorates, employers, workers' organisations, and social insurance authorities. After noting the gravity of the situation, it became necessary to examine the various solutions that have been put forward, and to endeavour to ascertain how far they conform to the object in view, namely, the improvement of labour conditions and the protection of social legislation. This study will comprise three chapters : Chapter I : The number and the position of the refugees ; Chapter II : The influence of the refugees on labour conditions and on social legislation ; Chapter III : Proposed solutions of the refugee problem. CHAPTER I The N u m b e r and the Position of the Refugees The refugees at present living in Bulgaria consist mainly of Russians, Armenians, and Bulgarians. It is proposed to examine the numerical importance and the position of each of these ethnic groups successively. THE RUSSIAN REFUGEES These refugees began to enter Bulgaria in small groups during 1919, after the first evacuation of Odessa, and subsequently arrived in much larger numbers, both in Feburary 1920, after Denikin's retreat, and in October 1920 after the defeat of Wrangel. According to the information supplied by the Sofia office of the Refugee Service, at present attached to the International Labour Office, the arrival and departure of refugees is shown in the following table : Date 1919-1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 Arrivals 8,640 21,460 6,240 900 400 140 Departures — — 3,000 2,000 2,100 1,040 37,780 8,140 Stayed in Bulgaria — 30,100 33,340 32,240 30,540 29,640 These 29,640 refugees are distributed as follows, according to age and sex : 22,884 males, 4,110 females, 2,646 children. The Russian refugees form a body of 20,000 workers ; and — 3 — on 31 July 1925 the number of male refugees engaged in some form of occupation were approximately 14,500, as follows : Doctors 100 Engineers 65 Employees in Russian establishments 200 Teachers in Russian schools 130 Teachers in Bulgarian schools 40 Professors 16 Priests 20 Employees in Bulgarian companies 1,500 Employees in private undertäkings Small merchants Workers in mines and factories Workers in small industrial establishments Dockers Agricultural workers . . . Total . . . . 2,500 300 4,000 1,250 350 4,000 14,471 About 6,000 men worked occasionally or were without work. Out of 4,110 women, some 1,300 were being maintained by their husbands, while 2,500 had found employment as governesses, factory hands, waitresses or housemaids in restaurants and hotels, etc. ; 1,200 refugee children were being maintained by their parents, and 1,400 were provided for by Russian schools especially established for this purpose. Finally, the number of aged and disabled refugees amounted to approximately 1,400. The aged, unemployed, war disabled, and children have all received assistance from Russian Refugee Aid Committees, from Associations of Russian Disabled, and from the Rulgarian Government ; and, thanks to the help thus afforded, it has proved possible to set up twelve institutions for housing disabled and destitute persons. The sums which figure in the Bulgarian budget for the relief of Russian refugees are distributed as follows : Relief to the aged, t h e disabled, to women and children . . Grants to Russian schools and students Subsidy to a tuberculosis sanatorium Relief to Russian veterans of the war of 1877-1878 Total Leva 530,000 570,000 50,000 54,000 1,204,000 It will be seen, therefore, that the aid furnished by the Bulgarian Government to Russian refugees is by no means negligible ; and the financial effort in question is the more praiseworthy in view of the extremely limited financial resources of the State, and the fact that the Bulgarian Government is also compelled to meet the heavy expenditure entailed by the — 4 — relief of Bulgarian refugees. Despite this, however, the Russian refugees have been treated like brothers in Bulgaria ; and if it is now proposed to transfer them to other countries, this is solely due to the difficulty of the situation and to the necessity of reserving every opportunity of employment and relief to Bulgarian refugees themselves as far as possible. THE ARMENIAN REFUGEES In 1880 there were some 5,000 Armenians resident in Bulgaria, while the Armenian massacres of 1895 caused an influx of some 7,000 or 8,000 refugees, who also settled in the country. A fresh arrival from Turkey took place in 1920, particularly after the Greek evacuation of Asia Minor, but no official statistics are available concerning this latest influx of refugees. A comparison between the estimates made by Armenian committees and by the Bulgarian police authorities leads, however, to the conclusion that approximately 28,000 Armenians entered Bulgaria at that period and that some 20,000 of these are still resident in the country. The most important Armenian settlements are situated at : Plovdiv Bourgas Varna Rousse 601 families 606 ,, 567 „ 419 „ Stara Z a g o r a . . Haskobo Sofia . . 313 families 522 ,, 170 These refugees constitute a mass of workers varying from 8,000 to 10,000 persons, who have settled by choice in the towns, where they earn their living as small traders and artisans, or as home workers, particularly in the case of women. Both Bulgarian retail traders and artisans feel the effects of their competition, and their presence has naturally led to active protests on the part of Bulgarian workers ; Bulgarian refugee committees have frequently appealed to us to intervene with the League of Nations with a view to ensuring the emigration of these refugees to other countries. Unemployed or destitute Armenian refugees receive assistance from Armenian communities in receipt of funds from Great Britain, the United States, Roumania, Egypt, France, and the Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople. — 5 — T H E BULGARIAN REFUGEES The Number of Bulgarian Refugees From its earliest days as an independent State Bulgaria was faced with a refugee problem which has become more and more acute in course of time and has now reached a critical phase. Immigration began immediately after the creation of the Principality of Bulgaria and of autonomous Eastern Roumelia in 1878 under the Treaty of Berlin, the latter province uniting with Bulgaria in 1885. Bulgarian refugees flowed into the Principality, where the Bulgarian race had at last succeeded in establishing political independence, from Serbia, Roumania, Russia, and particularly from Thrace and Turkish Macedonia. Immigration from Thrace and Macedonia was particularly active in 1903 after the failure of the antiTurkish rebellion of St. Elias. After the Balkan wars of 19121913 a further influx of Bulgarian refugees occurred from the portion of Southern Dobrudja ceded to Roumania, from the Macedonian districts attributed to Serbia and Greece under the Treaty of Bucharest, and from Turkish Thrace. Finally, a fresh tide of immigration, which is still continuing, set in after the close of the Great War. These refugees came from Southern Dobrudja, Greek Macedonia and Thrace, Serbian Macedonia and Turkish Thrace, Asia Minor, and the territories of Bossilegrad, Trn, Tzaribrod, and Tula ceded to Yugoslavia by the Treaty of Neuilly. A Convention dealing with emigration was signed between Greece and Bulgaria at Neuilly on 27 November 1919, under the terms of which each Government recognised the right of its citizens belonging to ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities to emigrate freely into the territory of the other. Emigrants lose the nationality of the country they have left, and acquire that of the country of destination. The time limit for emigrants to declare their desire to avail themselves of this Convention expired on 31 December 1924. The value of the immovable property belonging to emigrants is determined by a Mixed Commission, comprising one Greek, one Bulgarian, and two neutral members appointed by the Council of the League of Nations. A large number of Bulgarian refugees from Greece have, however, failed to take advantage of this Convention ; — 6 — and the committees representing them informed us that they prefer to avail themselves of the Minority Treaty concluded between Greece and the Principal Powers, whose provisions are better calculated to facilitate their return to Thrace and Macedonia. We shall confine ourselves at present to examining the problem presented by this mass of refugees as one of fact, without attempting to determine the question of the responsibility for their emigration. It has been estimated that the total number of Bulgarian refugees who have entered Bulgaria since it became an independent state exceeds 700,000, or some 14 per cent, of the present population, estimated at 5 millions. We have not, however, considered it advisable to include any statistics of refugees, classified according to their country of origin, in the present report, as all the figures hitherto issued in this connection have given rise to acute controversy and are moreover of secondary importance in connection with the present state of the Bulgarian refugee problem. In agreement with the qualified representatives of the various Bulgarian administrative services we have endeavoured to calculate the number of refugees arriving subsequent to the Balkan wars (i.e. from 1913 to 1925), on the assumption t h a t refugees who had arrived before the former date had been able to settle definitely and that the problem of assisting and settling refugees only applies to those arriving during the latter period. The choice of the year 1913 as a starting point is based on the fact that Bulgaria entered the world war in 1915, that the country has suffered from a succession of political crises, aggravated by severe industrial depression, and that, in these circumstances, conditions have never been sufficiently stable to allow the refugee problem to be tackled with any prospect of success : a problem which would require the undivided efforts and the entire resources of the country to solve. According to the figures supplied by the Refugee Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the number of Bulgarian immigrants from 1913 to 1925 amounted to 52,000 families, comprising at present approximately 221,000 persons. These figures, obtained as the result of enquiries carried out by the prefects, the sub-prefects, and the communal authorities, would appear to be the most trustworthy at present available. It must be noted, however, that they are incomplete as a — 7 — certain number of refugee families have, for various reasons, failed to fill up declaration forms. Nevertheless, in the absence of other and more complete official statistics, the figure of 221,000 Bulgarian refugees entering the country between 1913 and 1925 may be accepted as fairly near the truth. The 221,191 Bulgarian refugees at present living are distributed as follows, according to age and sex : males, 83,155 ; females, 67,716 ; children, 70,320 ; including 3,304 widows and 8,765 orphans. These refugees constitute a mass of workers varying from ^0,000 to 100,000 persons, of whom more than three-quarters were small peasant proprietors, agricultural day labourers, or rural artisans in their country of origin. The Distribution of Bulgarian Refugees Measures for receiving and distributing refugees only began to be organised systematically in 1923, at a time when they were arriving in large numbers as a result of more or less voluntary expatriation from Thrace and Macedonia. Until 1 August 1924 the reception, distribution, and settlement of refugees was undertaken by the Social Welfare Section of the Ministry of the Interior ; after that date, however, a new institution began to deal with refugees, namely, the Direction of Landed Property, which is now responsible for distributing and settling agricultural refugees. According to the plan adopted, refugees must report on arrival at one of a limited number of frontier stations, the most important of which are situated at Svilengrad, Makasa, and S veti- Vratch. Refugees are registered by a Police Commissioner, examined by a public health officer, and then handed over to the Bulgarian Red Cross services, who become responsible for their maintenance during their stay at the frontier station. "We were afforded the opportunity of visiting the Svilengrad station, which can normally accommodate 300 refugees. Registering and medical examination usually takes three days, and the number of refugees dealt with should not exceed 100 per day on an average. We noticed, however, from the figures in the Police Commissioner's registry that on some days as many as three, four, five or even six hundred refugees had reported at the station, which led to undue congestion of the services at certain periods, particularly in September and October 1924, and in February, March, and April 1925, during 3 — 8 — which it proved quite impossible to house or feed the refugees adequately. Arrivals of refugees at frontier stations are reported to the district sub-prefect, who informs the Minister of the Interior by telegraph, stating the number of refugees, their place of origin, and their trade or calling, information which is then transmitted by the Ministry to the Director of Landed Property in the case of agricultural workers. The Social Welfare Department of the Ministry of the Interior and the Direction of Landed Property, on behalf of non-agricultural and agricultural refugees respectively, then take the necessary measures for distributing refugees in accordance with the possibilities of settlement and, as far as possible, with some reference to their own wishes. The sub-prefect of the district where it is proposed to despatch refugees, and the sub-prefect of the frontier district are then informed by telegraph, the latter being responsible for notifying refugees of their intended place of destination, to which they are transported free of charge. Refugees are sent to the chief town of the district to which they have been assigned, where they are received by the subprefect, who distributes them among the various communes of his district with the advice and assistance of a special Commission, consisting of the sub-prefect as chairman, a representative of the Ministry of the Interior, a member of the General Council of the Department, a representative of the local agency of the Agricultural Bank of Bulgaria, an agent of the Ministry of Finance, and a representative of the Refugees' Associations. The sub-prefect is also responsible for organising the free transport of refugees to the commune to which they have been assigned, where they are received by the mayor, who is responsible for their distribution among the different villages of his district, with the advice and assistance of a special Communal Commission, composed of the mayor as chairman, the village priest, the village schoolmaster, the collector of taxes, and a representative of the refugees. This system of distribution has been followed fairly regularly during the past years in respect of all the families of refugees who have reported at frontier stations ; a considerable number, however, mainly from the Dobroudja and from Eastern Thrace, preferred not to report at all, either because they wished to evade the entrance formalities or because they wanted to choose their own place of settlement in Bulgaria ; and the general plan of distribution — 9 — adopted by the authorities has been interfered with to this extent. Most of the refugees are at present resident in the districts Of Bourgas, Sofia, Petritch, and Varna ; and the following table, compiled from information provided by the Befugee Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, shows how Bulgarian refugees are distributed among the provinces. DISTRIBUTION BY PROVINCES OF IMMIGRANT BULGARIAN R E F U G E E S ARRIVING B E T W E E N T H E YEARS 1 9 1 3 AND Provinces Number of inhabitants (not including refugees) Number of families Bourgas Varna Vidin Vratza Küsten dil Mastanly Pachmackly Petritch Plovdiv Pleven Rousse Sofia St. Zagora Tirnovo Haskobo Choumen Total 1925 Refugees Number of persons Number of families Number of persons 87,444 41,757 41,207 55,160 38,462 24,079 14,899 32,910 95,712 69,325 57,191 105,959 57,158 87,854 46,199 60,596 428,394 203,776 248,540 346,219 229,447 115,814 • 67,030 157,945 489,642 395,967 305,531 533,827 304,227 474,400 246,823 324,055 48,332 11,908 1,131 2,104 2,377 17,163 329 34,900 19,411 1,729 7,069 35,446 9,317 1,411 22,346 6,218 915,912 4,871,637 11,500 3,277 308 482 767 3,533 81 7,167 5,254 362 1,832 8,333 2,015 301 5,365 51,935 1,358 221,191 The Organisation, of Relief for Refugees Refugees assigned to villages are provisionally housed and assisted by a special Communal Commission, under the chairmanship of the mayor, which endeavours to find room for them in houses that have become vacant as a result of the departure of Turkish or Greek refugees. As these houses only exist in very small numbers, it is often necessary to ask Bulgarian peasants to share their dwellings with refugees, which naturally leads to considerable friction, or to shelter them in barns, stables, or cattle sheds. — 10 — The mayor and the Communal Commission are also responsible for ensuring the maintenance of refugees until they have found work. This entails a heavy burden, as most of the refugees were compelled to leave before being able to sell their property, or even to remove essential articles of household furniture ; and in the great majority of cases their extremely limited means are exhausted after a few months' or even a few weeks' stay in Bulgaria. Communal authorities, the sub-prefects, and the prefects have been in the habit of organising collections, either in money or in kind (corn, wood, clothing, etc.), and distributing the proceeds among the refugees ; and their efforts in this respect have received every assistance from the Bulgarian Red Cross and from the Refugees' Associations. But as collections of this kind have been made repeatedly during the last ten years, it will easily be realised that the charitable resources of private persons have become exhausted, and that the proceeds of the collections have become less and less. The need for establishing a regular system of relief for unemployed refugees, or those who have not yet been definitely settled, is becoming more and more urgent ; both Parliament and the Government, however, maintain that the establishment of a regular system of relief allowances is at present absolutely impracticable owing to lack of financial resources. From 1920 to 1925 the total sums figuring in the Budget for the financial relief of refugees amounted to 3,900,000 leva, of which 200,000 were voted in 1921-1922 and 1922-1923 respectively, and 500,000 in 1924-1925 ; and as these sums applied to 52,000 families of refugees they only amounted to 20 leva * on an average per family during the last three years. The total inadequacy of the financial aid from the State in this respect is obvious. Organising the Settlement of Refugees As already stated, the Social Welfare Department of the Ministry of the Interior and the Direction of Landed Property attached to the Ministry of Agriculture are responsible for settling non-agricultural and agricultural refugees respectively. Non-agricultural refugees need a dwelling and, if they are artisans, tools and machinery for carrying on their trade. 1 1 lev is worth less than 0.05 Swiss franc. — 11 — Agricultural refugees require a dwelling, land, cattle, agricultural implements, seed, etc. Communal Commissions are fairly ready to assign lots, out of the communal lands, to refugees for erecting a dwelling ; but as refugees are generally, whether agriculturists or not, practically destitute, they also need credits to enable them to build and furnish their dwellings. Loans of this kind should theoretically, and as soon as a piece of land has been assigned, be made by the Agricultural Bank of Bulgaria, to which the State should grant the necessary credits through the agency of the National Bank of Bulgaria. Loans of this kind, fixed successively at 20,000 and then at 50,000 leva, are repayable in 20 years, carrying annual interest at 12 per cent., subsequently reduced to 10 per cent. In fact, however, the credits granted to the Agricultural Bank of Bulgaria by the State have not exceeded 156,000,000 leva during the period 19141924 ; and only 11,713 families, of whom 6,906 were agricultural and 4,807 non-agricultural, have benefited by such grants ; 125,000,000 leva have been used for erecting dwellings. No credits of this nature, however, figure in the 1925 Budget, with the result that applications for loans forwarded with a favourable report by Communal and District Commissions are at present accumulating. Building has ceased, and the great majority of refugee families are still camped in barns, stables, or huts. The assignment of cultivable land to families of agricultural workers, which only began two or three years ago at the instance of the Direction of Landed Property, is proceeding very slowly, owing to the various difficulties explained in Chapter III. As a matter of fact, only 8,700, out of the 30,000 families of agricultural workers who have applied for land, have received grants ; and of the latter number only 3,000 were really settled and had begun to work their land at the end of 1925. Refugees do their best to obtain employment, but in most cases unsuccessfully. Bulgarian industry is as yet insufficiently developed, and is at present suffering from severe depression and unemployment, as explained in Chapter II ; while the agricultural situation is scarcely better. Bulgaria is a country of small peasant proprietors, who cultivate their own land with the help of their family ; a large number of Bulgarian peasants own no land, or not enough, and earn their living as agricultural day labourers. The refugees settled in country — 12 — districts have naturally swelled this agricultural proletariat whose standard of living was already a wretched one ; and refugees, therefore, can only find employment during a few months in the year, during the height of the season. Both agricultural and artisan refugees therefore tend to leave the districts to which they have been assigned by the public authorities, and gravitate towards the towns and industrial centres, where they hope (quite erroneously) to be able to obtain employment in commerce or industry. The general distribution plan is thus impaired, and at present nearly half the refugees are resident in the towns, whereas the plan provided for settling nearly 75 per cent, of them in country districts. The authorities are unable to relieve them properly or to settle them rapidly, and are quite powerless to deal with the situation, and it is obviously impossible to coerce such a large number of refugees, whose lot is moreover such a wretched one. THE NECESSITY FOR REORGANISING AND CO-ORDINATING THE VARIOUS SERVICES DEALING WITH REFUGEES The Government Departments and autonomous services and charitable organisations dealing with refugees are numerous : the Social Welfare Department of the Ministry of the Interior ; the Direction of Landed Property ; the National Bank ; the Agricultural Bank ; the District and Communal Commissions (as regards the distribution, relief and provisional settlement of refugees) ; other Communal and District Commissions (in respect of land reform and the settlement of refugees in agriculture) ; the Red Cross ; and the central and local refugee committees, etc. No co-ordination between the action of these various services, committees and institutions exists ; and the result is naturally a deplorable waste of effort, various obvious defects, and duplication of functions. At a time when there is some hope of the adoption of a general plan for settling refugees, the first reform required is a complete reorganisation of the refugee services, with a view to unifying or at least co-ordinating their efforts. The need for a single central authority has made itself urgently felt, not only for the establishment of a general plan of action, but also for centralising available resources, distributing tasks, determining responsibilities and ensuring some general form — 13 — of control. A Bill for the reorganisation of the refugee services on these lines is at present before the Sobranje, and provides for setting up an autonomous refugee service, with a Director, a Superior Council, and the requisite administrative staff. The Director would be appointed by the Council of Ministers and the Superior Council composed as follows : the Director of Landed Property ; three Members of Parliament appointed by the Council of Ministers ; the Directors of the National Bank, the Agricultural Bank and the Central Co-operative Bank ; a member of the Codification Committee of the Ministry of Justice ; the Director of the Public Debt ; the President of the Bulgarian Red Cross ; the Chief of the Social Relief Department of the Ministry of the Interior ; and four representatives of the refugees. The Superior Council would be responsible for drafting regulations to ensure the proper settlement of refugees, which would be compulsory on the public departments and the provincial and communal authorities dealing with refugees. The proposed organisation appears to conform to the requirements of the situation ; we venture, however, to draw attention to one obvious defect and to suggest a slight modification. The refugees, of whom at least four-fifths are not yet definitely settled, have necessarily become wage earners and a considerable number of them will remain so. Their influence on labour conditions is therefore a considerable one, and we are surprised to note the absence of a representative of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour from the proposed Superior Council, as this Department controls a network of employment exchanges, whose collaboration is essential for the purpose of organising the settlement of refugees, assigning them to trades and callings, and providing for their absorption in the ranks of industrial and commercial wage earners. There should be no difficulty, however, in remedying this defect. CONCLUSION The refugee problem is far from being solved ; and, both as regards relief and settlement, the chief obstacle is the same, namely, lack of funds. Destitute refugees have remained for months, and in some cases for years, in receipt of of inadequate or practically non-existent relief, generally unemployed, camped rather than housed in barns, stables or — 14 — huts, and suffering from the most appalling poverty, conditions which have naturally produced an alarming death and sickness rate, particularly among the children. In the course of a journey of inspection lasting a fortnight in Southern and Eastern Bulgaria, at Svilengrad, Plovdiv, Stanimaka, Haskovo,. round Bourgas, and even at Sofia itself, we witnessed the awfui conditions under which refugees are living and often wondered how they had managed to survive such privations. Living under these conditions they naturally become easy victims of every kind of subversive propaganda : warlike propaganda holding out the hope of a return to their country of origin and the recapture of their homes and property as a result of a war of revenge ; revolutionary, and particularly Communist propaganda, suggesting that the only hope of relief from their misery lies in a violent social upheaval. Until now the refugees, who consist mainly of frugal peasants and workers, have turned a deaf ear to such propaganda and have contented themselves with asking for land and work. It is to be feared, however, that their powers of resistance and their capacity to endure continued privation and suffering are reaching their limits. Moreover, the irresistible crowding of refugees towards the towns and industrial centres has led to an excessive and unhealthy increase in the size of the proletariat, producing a serious modification of labour conditions and endangering the effective application of social legislation. In fact there is every reason to fear a serious crisis if some effective means of relieving and settling the refugees more rapidly are not quickly found. CHAPTER II Influence of the Refugees on Labour Conditions and the Application of Social Legislation. BULGARIAN SOCIAL LEGISLATION Bulgarian social legislation is mainly recent in character, the first laws having actually been passed in 1905, as a result of an active campaign on the part of the workers' organisations. Since that date, however, progress has been comparatively rapid, and Acts for the protection of the work of women and children, and concerning workers' provident funds in public undertakings were adopted in 1905. In 1907 a system of labour inspection was organised, and in 1909 insurance funds were established in certain industries ; while in 1911 an Act was passed for establishing rest on Sundays and holidays. During that year the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Labour was created, including a special Labour Section, which became responsible for organising the efforts for furthering social legislation. In 1915, on the eve of Bulgaria's entry into the Great War, an Act was passed for unifying the various insurance funds ; but it was from 1917 onwards that measures of social legislation began to be adopted in considerable numbers. An important Act concerning hygiene and industrial safety was adopted in 1917, accident and sickness insurance were organised the year after, while in 1919 a Decree establishing the eight-hour day was passed. In 1924 both sickness and accident insurance were reorganised, and a system of invalidity and old age insurance was also instituted. Finally, in 1925 an Act was passed for creating a network of employment exchanges, and establishing a system of unemployment insurance. At present, therefore, Bulgaria, though she only became — 16 — an independent State less than 50 years ago, and despite the numerous wars and political and social crises to which she has been subject, has succeeded in providing her workers with an almost complete system of social legislation. This legislative work has been completed by a methodical organisation of the application of these laws by the Labour Department which, under the energetic and competent direction of Mr. Nicoloff and under the supreme authority of the Superior Council of Labour and Social Insurance, has with the assistance of an active and well-organised labour inspectorate done excellent work. Thanks to these efforts, Bulgaria has found it possible to ratify all the draft Conventions adopted by the International Labour Conference, and thus place her laws in conformity with international labour legislation. The satisfactory results attained during the last ten years enable us to prophesy a great development of social progress in Bulgaria. At present, however, the situation has undergone a change, and the work previously accomplished is threatened. The Superior Labour and Social Insurance Council has declared that the influx of such a large number of refugees has led to a profound modification of labour conditions, and makes the application of social legislation extremely difficult, rendering it perhaps impossible for Bulgaria to fulfil the numerous international obligations undertaken by the ratification of international labour conventions. This is the serious position which the Bulgarian Government requested the International Labour Office to investigate, and which was the principal reason for undertaking this enquiry. The facts which have come to our notice will be briefly summarised. SUDDEN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF WAGE EARNERS DUE TO THE ARRIVAL OF THE REFUGEES As already noted, many destitute refugees, in receipt of inadequate relief and lacking land or tools, have been forced to become wage earners in order to earn their living ; and it may be estimated that out of a total of 280,000-300,000 refugees some 110,000-120,000 have gone to swell the ranks of Bulgarian workers during the last few years. We will try to show by figures the effect and result of this. sudden increase. The last general census of the population was taken in 1920, and the figures therefore fail to take account of some 200,000 re- — 17 — fugees who have entered the country since that date. We were therefore compelled to request the Bulgarian authorities to make a rapid provisional census of the existing wage-earning population, with a view to distinguishing between natives and refugees. This census was carried out in a few weeks by the Labour section, with the assistance of the provincial inspection services, and applied to workers in agriculture, in industry, in handicrafts, and in commerce, but not to civil servants and government employees, the staff of public transport undertakings, wage earners in the liberal callings, or domestic servants. The statistics thus supplied at the end of December 1925 are therefore only partial ; and, owing to the haste with which they were compiled, it is more than probable that various omissions have occurred. Such as they are, however, these figures constitute fairly complete and valuable information, and enable us to determine with some accuracy the influence exercised by the refugees on labour conditions and on the application of social legislation. According to these figures, the number of wage earners on 31 December 1925 amounted to approximately 400,000, distributed as follows : Number Bulgarians Bulgarian refugees Russian refugees and Armenians Total 277,063 85,360 24,638 387,061 Per cent. 71 22 7 100 These 387,061 wage earners included 83,300 seasonal workers, of whom 68,300 were employed in agriculture and 15,000 in the building trades. The number of permanent wage earners therefore amounted to 294,761. The Bulgarian, Russian and Armenian refugees who have arrived during the last ten years have therefore increased the wage-earning population in agriculture, industry, handicrafts and commerce by some 40 per cent. The absorption of such a large influx of workers would only have been possible if the country had enjoyed great prosperity during the period in question, rendering an exceptional development of its economic capacity possible. Far from this being the case, however, Bulgaria has been seriously impoverished by war, defeat, reparation burdens, cessions of fertile territory, and political and social crises. The national finances have been completely disorganised, and normal economic development checked. It was obvious, in these circumstances, — IS' — that the influx of a considerable number of refugees would inevitably lead to disorganisation of the labour market, to serious unemployment, to a general lowering of the level of wages, and to a great increase in the financial burdens of the social insurance system. T H E INFLUENCE OF THE REFUGEES ON UNEMPLOYMENT Bulgaria is at present suffering from a severe unemployment crisis, due to the general impoverishment of the country and causing a decrease in consumption, to an export crisis in the tobacco industry, due to severe competition from Turkey and Greece, and, to an even greater extent, to an increase in the supply of labour due to the influx of refugees. According to the enquiry carried out by the Labour Department at the end of December 1925, out of 387,061 wage earners only 258,184, or 66.7 per cent., were employed, while 128,877, or 33.3 per cent., were suffering from unemployment. The above 258,184 included 214,562 Bulgarians (83 per cent.) ; 27,241 Bulgarian refugees (10 per cent.) ; and 16,381 Armenian and Russian refugees (7 per cent.). The 128,877 unemployed included 62,501 Bulgarians (48 per cent.) ; 58,119 Bulgarian refugees (46 per cent.) ; and 8,257 Armenian and Russian refugees (6 per cent.). TABLE I . Occupation STATISTICS OF W O R K E R S P R O V I D E D W I T H EMPLOYMENT No. of Bulgarians workers provided with employTotal Per cent. ment Bulgarian refugees Total Per cent. Russian, Armenian, etc. refugees Total Per cent. All refugees Total Per cent. 129,690 117,496 54.5 10,730 39 1,464 8.8 12,194 27.5 Industry 54,461 38,524 18.0 7,702 28 8,235 50.2 15,937 36.5 Handicrafts 47,367 39,122 18.5 4,954 19 3,291 20.5 8,245 19.0 26,666 19,420 3,855 14 3,391 20.5 7,246 17.0 16,381 100.0 43,622 100.0 Agriculture Commerce Total 9.0 258,184 214,562 100.0 27,241 100 Tables I and II show the distribution of wage earners in employment, and of unemployed wage earners according to their country of origin and occupation. These unemployed — 19 — TABLE Occupation II. No. of unemployed STATISTICS OF U N E M P L O Y E D Bulgarians Total Per ceni. Bulgarian refugees Total Per cent. WORKERS Rasiinn, Armenian, etc. refugees Total All refugees Per cent. Total Per cent. Agriculture 68,300 26,770 43.0 40,887 70.3 643 80 41,530 62.6 Industry 42,175 22,833 36.5 13,059 22.5 6,283 76.0 19,342 29.2 Handicrafts 11,850 8,714 14.0 2,308 4.0 828 10.0 3,136 4.7 4,184 1,865 3.2 503 6.0 2,368 3.5 Commerce 6,552 Total 128,877 6.5 62,501 100.0 58,119 100.0 8,257 100.0 66,376 100.0 include the whole, of the 83,300 seasonal workers abovementioned, so that the number of permanently unemployed amounts to 45,577, or some 15 per cent, of the total number of permanent wage earners (294,761), a figure in excess of the British unemployment figure of 11 per cent. These figures demonstrate the influence of the refugees on the unemployment crisis in a most striking manner, since 43,622 refugees have actually found employment, whereas 62,501 Bulgarian workers are at present unemployed. It may be affirmed that if the refugee problem were non-existent, unemployment in Bulgaria, or at least permanent unemployment, would be practically unknown. In these circumstances, the desperate .struggle for employment between refugees and native workers can readily be imagined. All are poor, their savings have generally long been exhausted, and to find work is therefore an urgent, an imperious necessity. In Southern Bulgaria queues may be seen of 300 and 400 workers waiting every morning outside the tobacco warehouses and cigarette factories (the main industry of Bulgaria) to compete for 100 vacancies. The Refugee Committees of Thrace and Macedonia have brought considerable pressure, even violent pressure, to bear on the authorities and on employers on behalf of the refugees, with a view to obtaining preferential treatment for their members ; and the appalling conditions prevailing have inevitably produced a bitter struggle for daily bread between native and refugee workers. — 20 — I N F L U E N C E O N T H E STANDARD O F W A G E S The most obvious result of such a glut of labour seeking employment at any price has been to depress the standard of wages ; and this has been particularly noticeable in the tobacco industry, where wages have recently been reduced on two occasions, by 15-20 per cent, in August, and by 5 per cent, in December, 1925. Workers find it quite impossible to resist this tendency, as they are entirely without adequate means of defence. The unions were greatly weakened by the secession of the Communists, and have not recovered their strength ; collective agreements are rare. Strikes would be of little use, since the places of strikers would immediately be filled by the numerous unemployed seeking work. The want of cohesion from which Bulgarian workers suffer is increased by the presence of the refugees. Russian refugees, mainly Cossacks, formerly belonging to Denikin's and Wrangel's armies and strong partisans of the Czarist regime, generally live apart in small groups, which have retained a certain military character ; and these refugees do not become members of workers' organisations. Armenian refugees generally endeavour to earn their living as artisans or small traders, setting up small workshops, or organising homework at very low rates ; and these refugees are, practically without exception, hostile to trade unionism. The Bulgarian refugees, who were mainly small peasant proprietors in Dobrudja, Macedonia, and Thrace, or village artisans, constitute a mass of proletarian workers who are entirely devoid of class consciousness, are quite ignorant of labour legislation, and are indifferent to the trade union movement. T H E INFLUENCE OF THE REFUGEES ON HOURS OF W O R K The Bulgarian Decree of 24 June 1919 establishing an 8-hour day is fairly effectively applied in the 1,400 or 1,500 large industrial establishments in which 55,000 to 60,000 workers are employed. We were able to visit a number of these, and found that regulations in conformity with the law were displayed on the premises ; while the workers whom we consulted stated that they did not work more than 8 hours. The individual wage — 21 — slips, in connection with the payment of wages, and the weekly pay sheets we examined proved that the cases in which 8 hours were exceeded were extremely rare, and that overtime is paid at twice the normal rates. Large industrial establishments are subject to regular quarterly visits of inspection ; and the inspectors' notebooks show that fairly numerous fines have been inflicted. At Gabrovo, in the textile industry, we noticed that 8y2 or 9 hours are worked fairly frequently at certain periods ; but the employers stated that these exceptions were justified by the special character of the labour employed in these establishments. These workers are mainly small peasant proprietors, cultivating their land during the summer, and only seeking industrial employment during the remainder of the year with a view to supplementing their income. They are therefore prepared to work 9 or 10 hours. Generally speaking, however, there was little evidence that the refugees had exercised any influence on hours of work, mainly no doubt owing to the unemployment crisis, which has compelled numerous undertakings to discharge a considerable proportion of their staff and to work less than 8 hours. In small industrial undertakings, among artisans and small traders, however, the position is entirely different. The supervision exercised by the labour inspectorate over thousands of small undertakings is more or less illusory ; and several trade union representatives declare that many of these undertakings work more than 8 hours, and that refugees (who are absolutely compelled to find work of any kind) have no objection to working long hours, provided they can find employment. INFLUENCE OF THE REFUGEES ON THE EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGE SYSTEM AND ON UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE The presence of the refugees will probably complicate the application of the Employment Exchange and Unemployment Insurance Act of 12 April 1925, the provisions of which came into force on 1 January 1926. A network of employment offices and local employment exchanges has been established by this Act ; it is to be feared,. however, that from the very beginning these will become congested by applications from thousands and tens of thousands of unemployed workers, for whom it will prove quite impossible to find work in view of the existing trade depression. In these — 22 — circumstances, it is to be feared that the majority of the workers will rapidly lose all faith in a system of official employment exchanges which commences operations under such unfavourable conditions. The provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act apply to all workers who have paid contributions for at least 52 weeks over a period of two years, entitling them to unemployment relief varying from 10 to 16 leva per day. The presence of the refugees will not affect the unemployment insurance system financially during its first year of working ; but, unless conditions improve, and if refugees continue to drift into the towns and (thanks to the support of refugee committees) to take the place of Bulgarian workers, the number of the latter who will have qualified for unemployment relief and who will probably be unemployed will, in 18 months or 2 years, be very considerable. The inadequate insurance funds which then exist will rapidly become depleted, and it will prove necessary either to raise workers' contributions (which would be difficult in view of the inadequate level of wages), to decrease the already inadequate daily allowance, or to call on the State for additional financial assistance ; which in view of the present budgetary position will probably not be forthcoming. The present unemployment crisis, due largely to the presence of the refugees, therefore threatens to wreck the unemployment insurance system almost at the outset. T H E INFLUENCE OF REFUGEES ON SOCIAL INSURANCE Social insurance was established in Bulgaria by the Act •of 3 June 1918, amended by that of 6 March 1924, whose provisions apply to all workers employed in industrial, commercial, or agricultural undertakings, and cover accident, sickness, invalidity, old age, death, and maternity risks. The contributions are paid in three equal parts by workers, employers, and the State. Great efforts have been made to enforce this. Act ; and the results of its first five or six years' working are excellent. The number of insured has increased from 35,000 in 1919, to 225,000 in 1923, and to 241,000 in 1925. In the factories and workshops we were able to visit, as well as in hotels, restaurants, shops, etc., we found all the workers in possession of insurance — 23 — cards, properly kept up to date ; nor has the application of this Act met with any opposition from employers or workers. There was every prospect, therefore, of a regular and normal development of the social insurance system ; but this is now threatened by the unemployment crisis, and by the presence of the refugees. It is well known that the cost of sickness insurance is always increased by an unemployment crisis ; while poverty and destitution naturally increase the cost of sickness and invalidity insurance. Nearly all the employers we saw stated that the death and morbidity rates among the refugees (who have suffered greatly from privation and underfeeding) are considerably above the average. It would have been interesting to quote figures in support of this contention, and the Social Insurance Office was requested to make an enquiry in this connection. This will, however, necessitate the examination of thousands of sickness sheets and the establishment of complicated comparative statistics. The results of this enquiry are not yet available ; but there can be little doubt that it will show a considerable increase in the cost of social insurance, largely dne to unemployment and the presence of the refugees ; an increase which threatens to wreck the whole system, unless a satisfactory solution of the problem of settling the refugees is speedily found. CONCLUSION The fears expressed by the Superior Labour and Social Insurance Council appear to be well-founded. Disappointed in their hope of obtaining the land and credits they require, numerous refugees have gravitated, and are still gravitating, to the towns and industrial centres in the hope of finding work. They constitute a large class of workers of agricultural origin, who compete with native workers, increase unemployment, lower the standard of wages, threaten the effective application and the future of social legislation, and cause serious friction between refugees and native workers, who compete for employment. The maintenance of social peace, and the preservation of social legislation, therefore call for a prompt solution of the refugee problem. CHAPTER III Solution of the Refugee P r o b l e m During our stay in Bulgaria several proposals for solving the refugee problem were made. The Government, the National Refugee Committees, and the workers' organisations, all agree in asking the League of Nations and the International Labour Office to organise the emigration of Russian and Armenian refugees to other countries as speedily as possible ; while the National Refugee Committees also want the League to take measures to ensure that Bulgarian minorities abroad receive adequate protection, and that Bulgarian refugees shall be repatriated as quickly as possible to Macedonia, to Thrace, and to the Dobrudja. Finally, there is general agreement in thinking that the refugees who cannot be evacuated or repatriated, and these constitute the great majority, must be settled on the land. We propose to examine the possibility of repatriating refugees to their former homes, or of settling them permanently on the land. § 1. — T h e Evacuation of Russian and Armenian Refugees and the Repatriation of Bulgarian Refugees EMIGRATION FOR ARMENIAN AND RUSSIAN REFUGEES The Bulgarian Government, the Bulgarian Refugee Committees, and the workers' organisations demand insistently that arrangements should be made for the emigration of Russian, and especially of Armenian refugees. This problem is at present being handled by the Refugee Service of the International Labour Office, the headquarters of whose Near Eastern Delegation is at Belgrade, with a cor- — 25 — respondent's office at Sofia. The emigration of 2,000 Russian refugees to various countries, particularly to France, during 1925, has been organised by this Service ; but as there are nearly 30,000 Russian refugees still left in Bulgaria much remains to be done in this connection, the greatest obstacle being the lack of necessary funds to meet the cost of transporting refugees after they have found employment. The Bulgarian Government, which has requested the Refugee Service to deal also with the emigration of Armenian refugees, offered, at the Sixth Assembly of the League of Nations, to provide the Refugee Service with an annual subsidy of £600 ; and it is intended, with these additional funds, to complete the census of Russian refugees which has been begun, and to carry out a census of Armenian refugees which will enable occupational statistics to be drawn up — an essential preliminary to any rational scheme of emigration. The emigration of Armenian and Russian refugees depends largely in the future on the results of an Inter-Governmental Conference organised by Dr. Nansen, where a scheme for providing the working capital necessary to facilitate the migration of refugees will be examined ; it will also depend on the future results of the recently established Brazilian and Argentine delegations of the Refugee Service ; and on the successful issue of the investigations and negotiations undertaken by the Special Committee appointed by the Council of the League of Nations in September 1925 for settling Armenian refugees in the Caucasus and elsewhere. We feel convinced that these efforts will produce some appreciable result ; but it is obvious that the various schemes projected will require time for their fulfilment, and that it is impossible, at present, to estimate the number of refugees who are likely to emigrate in the near future. It therefore appears probable that the Bulgarian labour market will remain, during the next two or three years, burdened with the presence of numerous Armenian and Russian refugees. T H E REPATRIATION OF REFUGEES TO THEIR OWN HOMES This is the principal demand formulated by the National Bulgarian Refugee Committees, in accordance with the refugees' own wishes, who naturally wish to return to their old — 26 — homes, and to have a chance of recovering their property. It is a solution which depends on certain political conditions, any allusion to which is beyond the scope of this report, and on certain practical and economic conditions, which will be briefly summarised. The problem differs for the Dobrudja and the territories ceded to the Serb-Croat-Slovene State, on the one hand, and for the Greek portions of Macedonia and Thrace, and Turkish Thrace, on the other. In the Dobrudja and the districts ceded to the Serb-CroatSlovene Kingdom, emigration has not taken place on a large scale. Most of the refugees have retained their property, which is at present in the hands of members of their family ; while the property confiscated by the State has not, in most cases, been either sold or seized by Roumanian or Serbian subjects. There are therefore no economic obstacles to the return of these refugees. The problem in Greek Thrace and Eastern Macedonia, on the other hand, is entirely different. Whether the refugees did or did not leave the country in virtue of the Greco-Bulgarian Emigration Convention, their lands and dwellings have been transferred to the hundreds of thousands of Greek refugees from Asia Minor ; and according to the information supplied by the representative of the Mixed Commission responsible for supervising emigration, there are scarcely any Bulgarians left in Thrace or Eastern Macedonia. The obstacle to the return of the refugees is, therefore, twofold : the presence of Greek refugees, and the reconstitution of a Bulgarian minority. However painful this conclusion may appear to the refugees, we are convinced that the problem cannot be solved in this case by their return to their old homes. What is possible, however, and what we strongly recommend, is that the operations necessary for valuing the property abandoned by these refugees should be completed as soon as possible, under the supervision of the Mixed Commission, and that the refugees should receive the compensation to which they are entitled without delay : this would enable them to make use of these resources to settle permanently in Bulgaria. The refugees from Turkish Thrace and Asia Minor are not covered by any emigration agreement ; and the land and property which they were compelled to abandon has to a great extent been occupied by Turkish emigrants from different parts of the Balkans. Negotiations between the Bulgarian and — 27 — Turkish Government for valuing and paying compensation have been without practical result ; and there is little use, in our opinion, in counting on the return of these refugees to Thrace, and particularly to Asia Minor, as a practical solution of the refugee problem. To sum up, the possibilities of repatriating Bulgarian refugees to their country of origin are strictly limited. The majority will be compelled to settle permanently in Bulgaria ; and the essential factor of the problem consists, therefore, in the possibilities of settlement on the land. § 2. — Settling Bulgarian Refugees on the Land Seventy-five per cent, of the Bulgarian refugees from Macedonia, Thrace, and the Dobrudja were agriculturists. It is impossible, as we have seen, for Bulgarian industry and commerce to absorb the great numbers of refugees who, for want of land, have swelled the ranks of the wage earners. The permanent settlement of Bulgarian refugees on the land is therefore not only the most suitable, but the only possible solution. The problem of finding employment for these refugees in agriculture is closely bound up with the whole agrarian problem, in view of the rural conditions prevailing in Bulgaria at present. We will therefore deal with the agrarian problem as a whole, with the agrarian reforms at present in process of realisation, with the possibility of settling refugees on the land, and the financial resources required for the purpose. T H E AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN BULGARIA In 1912 Bulgaria had an area of 96,345 sq. kms., with a population of 4,432,000, or 46 inhabitants to the sq. km. After the Treaty of Neuilly, its area was 103,146 sq. kms., while the population was estimated at 4,825,000 in 1920, at 4,916,000 in 1922, and at 5,057,000 in 1925 ; or a density of 46.8, 57.6 and 49 per sq. km. respectively. The cultivable area amounted in 1912 to 4,077,000 hectares (or 42.31 per cent, of the whole area), with a density of 108.7 per sq. km. ; in 1922, however, this had fallen to 3,653,000 hectares (or 35.42 per cent, of the total area), with a density of 134.5 per sq. km. These figures show that whereas the — 28 — general density of the population is not considerable, that of the cultivable area has increased rapidly since 1912, as a result of a natural increase of population and of the influx of refugees ; and also owing to the decrease of cultivable land due to the cession of fertile territory, particularly in the Dobrudja. These facts constitute the first elements required for producing an agrarian crisis. Land in Bulgaria is much split up, and small holdings (under 20 decares or not exceeding that figure) constitute nearty half the total number, as shown in the following table : D I S T R I B U T I O N O F AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS I N BULGARIA ACCORDING TO SIZE (Based on the Agricultural Census of 1908) Class jNumber of holdings Percentage of total area Total area Average size of holding Very small (not exceeding 20 decares) 424,898 45.2 1,200,000 15.0 Small (from 20 to 100 decares) 386,728 41.44 18,630,000 58.2 Average (100 to 300 decares) 111,632 11.96 13,300,000 147.8 9,173 0.98 2,030,000 415.1 936 0.10 850,000 1,888.8 933,367 100.00 36,010,000 72.9 Large (300 to 1000 decares) Very large (over 1000 decares) Total and average These figures show the great preponderance of small holdings in Bulgaria, and the gravity of the agrarian problem, on the assumption that a peasant requires at least 50 decares to maintain himself and his family. The agrarian problem cannot be solved, therefore, without a reform involving a strict limitation of the size of individual holdings, together with a vigorous effort to increase the total area of cultivable land by draining, clearing, deforestation, etc. And the influx of tens of thousands of agricultural refugees has naturally aggravated a position which was already serious. The number of Bulgarian refugees of agricultural origin in need of land amounts to approximately 30,000, according to the information supplied by the Directorate of Landed Property ; — 29 — and, if anything, these figures are below the truth, as there are 52,000 families of refugees in all, of whom 75 per cent, are agriculturists, which means that there are some 39,000 families to be settled. Even accepting the official figures as accurate, however, 30,000 families of agricultural refugees must be dealt with. Some 13,500 of these have already acquired a farmhouse and yard, with a few decares of land ; or in some cases a farmhouse and yard alone, purchased with their own funds. After taking into account this partial settlement, one may reckon that the 30,000 families require, on an average, 40 decares each, or 1,200,000 decares in all. Native agricultural families without land, or with inadequate holdings, number approximately 100,000, distributed as follows, according to the statistics supplied by the Directorate of Landed Property : Families with small holdings (15 decares on an average).. Families with a farmhouse and yard only Landless agricultural labourers 68,000 26,412 8,031 102,443 Assuming that each family requires 30 decares of land (allowing for the fact that some of them are partially settled), this means that some 3,000,000 decares are required to settle 100,000 families. 4,200,000 decares of land in all are therefore needed to settle both refugees and native workers. Such is the object which agrarian reform aims at. T H E AGRARIAN REFORM ACT Agrarian reform was dealt with by the Acts of 17 August 1920 and 9 May 1921, which were repealed and replaced by the "Landed Property Based on Work" Act of 1 August 1924. The main provisions of this Act, on which the system at present in force is based, are summarised below. The Object of the Reform (Section 1) This includes : (a) providing agricultural workers, landless peasants and those without sufficient land, and agricultural refugees, with land ; — 30 — (b) providing certain village schoolmasters, without land or with insufficient land at their disposal, with land ; certain classes of specialised agricultural workers are also covered by this section ; (c) providing various State institutions, e.g. stud farms, model farms, experimental stations, etc., with the land they require ; (d) setting aside land for co-operative societies, scientific bodies, and industrial undertakings engaged in improving agricultural production. The Creation of an "Agrarian Fund" (Section 2) To provide the necessary land for carrying out the reform, an "Agrarian Fund" will be constituted, including : (a) State lands not being used by the Ministry of Agriculture and State Lands for scientific or economic purposes ; (b) Land hitherto assigned to the National Bank and the Agricultural Bank of Bulgaria ; (c) certain state forests which have not been included in the general plan for the economic reorganisation of forests by the State ; (d) certain communal forests, not included in the State reorganisation plan, which would remain available as a result of the re-arrangement of communal lands, and the readjustment of their boundaries ; (e) portions of communal land which will remain available after the final delimitation and re-arrangement of these lands ; (/) State and communal swamps which have been declared malarial areas by the Directorate of Public Health, unless they .are drained within two years ; (g) surplus land belonging to monasteries, and for which no rational scheme of cultivation has been adopted, in agreement with the Ministry of Agriculture and State Lands ; (ft) lands belonging to agricultural workers who have emi-grated, or emigrate in the future ; (i) ownerless and unclaimed land ; (/) land purchased by the State at public sales ; — 31 — (k) communal lands seized by the local population since 1903; (Z) private estates expropriated under the provisions of the Act. The Expropriation of Privale Land (Sections 4, 5, and 7) The cultivable area, both arable and pasture, which a single family may hold is limited to 300 decares, on condition that it is cultivated by its owner. For families exceeding four persons the limit is increased by 50 decares per person. Owners who are not agricultural workers, and do not cultivate their own land, cannot own more than 50 decares, if single, 100 decares if married and childless, and 150 decares if married with children (section 5). Holdings exceeding the above limits shall be expropriated in favour of the Agrarian Fund (section 7). The Machinery for Applying the Act. Communal councils, district commissions, and the Directorate of Landed Property Based on Work 1 are responsible for applying the provisions of the Act. Communal Councils investigate what state, communal, or private land is available for expropriation in favour of the Agrarian Fund, determine the purchase price, and distribute the latter among those entitled to compensation (section 47). All decisions taken by Communal Councils are subject to the approval of the District Commissions (section 48) ; and the parties concerned can appeal from them to the District Commissions, not later than 14 days from the date of notification (section 10). The District Commissions. These consist of a Justice of the Peace as chairman, an agricultural engineer, the director of the local branch of the Agricultural Bank of Bulgaria, and a general councillor (section 38). They are responsible for verifying, approving, or annulling the decisions of Communal Councils ; for publishing the names of beneficiaries under the Act ; and for supervising the distribution of land assigned to the Agrarian Fund (section 44). 1 This department will be subsequently referred to as the D.L.P. — 32 — Their decisions must be submitted to the D.L.P. for approval, together with those of Communal Councils against which an appeal has been made to the D.L.P. within 14 days after the date of notification (sections 45 and 10). The Directorate of Landed Property. This Department is administered by a Director-General, appointed by Royal Decree, who cannot be dismissed without the previous approval of the Sobranje (section 39). The D.L.P. is responsible for the general enforcement of the provisions of the Act, for verifying, approving, or annulling the decisions of the District Commissions and Communal Councils, and for deciding appeals against them (section 40). Its decisions are subject to appeal to the Council of State (section 10). The Payment of Compensation for Expropriated Land Compensation is paid for land assigned to the Agrarian Fund on the basis of 50 per cent, of its real value in 1923 ; and a scale of compensation rates has been drawn up by the D.L.P. for each separate district and class of land (section 18). Compensation payments to private persons are subject to 5 per cent, deduction in favour of the Agrarian Fund. Payment of compensation for expropriated land, after the latter has been transferred to the Agrarian Fund, is effected by the Agricultural Bank of Bulgaria, partly in cash and partly in securities as follows : the first 20,000 leva in cash ; 75 per cent, of the subsequent 80,000 leva in cash, and the remainder in securities ; the next 400,000 leva, half in cash and half in securities ; and the succeeding 500,000 leva, 25 per cent. in cash and the remainder in securities. The securities take the form of mortgages effected by the Agricultural Bank, with whom the deeds are deposited ; they bear interest at 8 per cent., and are redeemable in twenty years (section 23). How Land is Assigned to New Owners and Paid for. The object of the reform is to assign a small agricultural holding, large enough for its maintenance, to each agricultural family (section 1). The quantity of land a beneficiary may receive, for the purpose of becoming an owner, or to complete his existing holding, depends partly on the nature of the soil, and partly — 33 — on local conditions ; but cannot, in any case, exceed 50 decares (section 13). Persons to whom land is assigned pay the purchase price to the Agrarian Fund on the basis of the value at the date of expropriation (i.e. 50 per cent, of the 1923 value). Beneficiaries must pay 10 per cent, of the purchase price before occupying their holding, the remainder being payable in twenty annual instalments. Payments in advance entitle the occupier to a substantial reduction : 30 per cent, in case of immediate payment, 20 per cent, for payment in one year, and 10 per cent. for payment in two years. The new occupiers must pay a further 2 per cent, of the total price to the Fund (section 28). New purchasers must also pay half the interest on the securities given in payment to the former owners, i.e. 4 per cent., the remaining 4 per cent, being paid by the State (section 26). T H E RESULTS OF AGRARIAN REFORM The execution of the scheme of agrarian reform has been extremely slow, and has met with numerous obstacles. It involves a variety of formalities : declarations, decisions of municipal councils, of District Commissions, and of the D.L.P., delimitation, survey and estimate of the value of the land, assignment to the new owners, etc., all of which entail complicated procedure, which may and does give rise to numerous appeals and disputes. The general opinion is that the Communal Councils, on whose activity the working of the whole system rests, have opposed a species of passive resistance to the reform : they only give decisions after months of delay, report only very few lots as available for expropriation, and select the worst and most scattered lots. That peasants should be reluctant to lose any part of their land, or of the communal land on which the village flocks graze, is quite natural ; and their reluctance is increased by the fact that the purchase price (half the 1923 value) is low, while a considerable percentage of the compensation is not paid in cash, but in securities. The District Commissions, the D.L.P., and the Government itself are powerless, as it is extremely difficult to inflict the penalties provided by the Act on hundreds of municipal councillors, whose electoral power is moreover considerable. — 34 — On 1 December 1925 expropriation had given the following results : Private land 229,456 decares Communal land 321,940 Public land • . . 106,866 State forests 40,460 Communal forests 50,000 Ownerless land 498,394 P . . Land belonging to Greek and Turkish emigrants. 177,206 Total 1,424,322 The above amounts received by the Agrarian Fund are to be distributed as follows : 697,050 decares to refugees, and 727,722 to native families. On 1 December 1925, 8,748 refugee families had been granted 272,221 decares ; and it was hoped to settle 10,620 families on the remaining 424,828, at 40 decares per family. Nearly 20,000 refugee families will then be settled, but 10,000 families still remain to be provided for, and at least 400,000 decares of land are required for this purpose. As regards native families, no information as to existing or proposed distribution is available. But on the assumption that each family receives 30 decares, the 727,272 decares available would only suffice for settling 25,000 families at most. This leaves 75,000 families, requiring 2,250,000 decares of land. In other words, 2,650,000 decares of land are required in all for settlement purposes. SCHEMES FOR ACQUIRING ADDITIONAL LAND Various schemes for acquiring 1,800,000 decares of fresh land, distributed as follows, have been suggested by the Directorate of Landed Property Based on Work : Marsh land : Danube Black Sea 137,000 decares 116,500 Total Forests : State Communal 253,500 250,530 decares 500,000 Total 750,530 Pasture land : Private pasture land 100,000 decares Grazing rights on common land . . 700,000 " Total . . . . . . . 800,000 Grand total 1,804,030 — 35 — The completion of this scheme will leave a deficit of some 800,000 decares ; and the D.L.P. stated, in reply to our questions, that it should be comparatively easy to find the remaining land required out of the 9,000,000 decares of communal grazing land, 3,000,000 decares of grazing and arable land managed by "school committees" and the 1,500,000 decares belonging to the Zootechnical Fund of the Ministry of Agriculture, which are available. - It should therefore be possible to settle all the existing landless refugee or native families without requisitioning additional private land ; thus avoiding the opposition which any further expropriation would certainly arouse. T H E FUNDS IMMEDIATELY REQUIRED FOR SETTLING REFUGEES ON THE LAND The funds immediately required for settling refugees on the land include the cost of draining marsh lands, clearing heaths, moors, and forests, and the first cost of installing refugees (including erection of dwellings, provision of stock, etc.). Colonel Procter has made an estimate of the total cost of settling refugees on the land, and his conclusions are summarised below. He estimates the cost of clearing heaths, moors, and forests at £100,000 ; and the sum required for draining marsh lands at about the same figure, according to estimates based on information supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture (Water Department). Settling refugees will involve the erection of dwellings, stables, barns, and pig-styes ; and the purchase of stock, agricultural implements, and seed, to which must be added the cost of maintaining refugees and their families during the first year. According to an estimate made by the D.L.P., the latter would amount to 130,000 leva per family ; but these figures relate to a model settlement scheme, considerably in excess of the ordinary needs of a Rulgarian peasant. After consulting various agricultural experts, Colonel Procter came to the conclusion that 50,000 • leva should be sufficient to provide for the essential needs of a family ; a sum which might even be reduced to 25,000 leva in the case of the 7,000 families who are already housed and partially settled. 50,000 leva are therefore required for 24,000 families, or 1,300,000,000 leva; plus 25,000 leva for 7,000 families, or 175,000,000 leva : a total of 1,375,000,000 leva, or ap- — 36 — proximately £22,065,000. To sum up, the total cost of settling refugees in agriculture would be £2,265,000,000 as follows : Clearing and deforestation Draining marsh land First cost of installation £ 100,000 100,000 2,065,000 £ 2,265,000 The above figures are exclusive of the amounts required for means of communication (roads and railways) which would have to be built in certain settlement areas, and of the cost of expropriation falling on the State ; both these items are considerable. Nor has any estimate been made of the cost of settling some 10,000 artisan families, who will also require dwellings, tools, etc. No attempt has been made to estimate the total cost of settling the refugees as a whole : it may be noted, however, that the lowest estimate made by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture amounts to £3,000,000. The financial effort thus required is a considerable one, and is, moreover, urgent. Is Bulgaria in a position to furnish the amounts required without outside assistance ? We are not in a position to express an opinion on this point, for it would require a detailed study of the financial and economic position of the country, beyond the scope of this report. Colonel Procter, however, made a personal study of the financial aspects of the refugee problem ; he concludes that Bulgaria is not at present in a position to provide the sums required out of her own resources ; and that the fulfilment of her obligations in connection with the refugees will necessitate recourse to an international loan. CONCLUSION The refugee problem in Bulgaria is dominated by three main considerations : (1) The existence of nearly 300,000 refugees, whom it has been impossible to settle, whose influence on Bulgarian national life is far-reaching, and whose presence is dangerous to social peace. (2) The fact that the present economic position of the country renders the absorption of the refugees in industry and commerce impossible, so that this large additional proletarian element constitutes an obstacle to the effective application of social legislation, and is a source of serious disturbance to the labour market. (3) The fact that the great majority of the refugees who remain in Bulgaria must be settled on the land, or enabled to set up as artisans. The refugee problem can, in our opinion, only be solved by adopting the following measures : (1) The adequate protection of Bulgarian minorities abroad, in accordance with the Minority Treaties and under the supervision and control of the League of Nations. Such protection must be guaranteed to prevent any further danger of immigration. (2) Both the League of Nations and the International Labour Office must make every effort to secure the emigration of Russian and Armenian refugees without delay. (3) The operations required for valuing the property of Bulgarian refugees from Thrace and Greek Macedonia, and paying compensation for it, must be pushed on with all speed ; so — 38 — t h a t the refugees can obtain the compensation to which they are entitled and use these funds to defray the cost of settlement. (4) The various Bulgarian services responsible for the relief and settlement of refugees must be reorganised on a basis ensuring proper co-ordination and increased officiency. (5) The Agrarian Reform Act must be rigorously enforced, to ensure that the land required for settling 30,000 refugee families of agricultural origin is obtained as quickly as possible. (6) Should Bulgaria be able to show that the funds necessary for settling the refugees without delay cannot be raised in the country, the question of raising an international loan must be examined. Imprimerie du « Journal de Genève »