Commings-
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1953,
It's a stupid and crippling strike
BUT THE FRENCH JUST
DON'T CARE
By SYDNEY, SMITH
Paris,
Whose typist uses
Cado
RECOGNISE CHINA?
NO!
BIG FOUR CONFERENCE
NO!
HOW TO
"It's just impossible having to deal with a statesman who can only say' No! No!'...."
London Express Service
H
"Mon-
E waited to telephone, his home for 24 houra - 48 hours -72 hours. Then his call came
through, is all well?" ho asked. "Oh, no, monsieur," said a distraught nursemaid. sleur's home was burgled and wrecked last night."
Said the dazed, stupeflod, hungry, and thirsty caller; phoning the day before, yesterday."
“That's all right, Marie, I am
That's the kind of joke which is all the French get for £50,000,000 the so-far-calculated price of one of the stupidest, and most crippling of many another strike..
Beginning with postal workers, 4,000,000 men and women were eventually called out on strike. during August to protest against economy decrets worth £70,000,000 a year,
If the decrees go through-and they have not yet--they will pay for the strike and leave only £20,000,000.
So more decrees are on the way-more negotiations-maybe more, strikes--more cash will be wasted, and on again with the old spiral-cost of living up and up, purchasing power down and
down,
France, oven with American aid, has been in the red for years.
Cripp, Firo-te letters are taken for granted by the best whose
typlat uses a Hermet Ambarsadar
semi-automatic typewriter.
Its many labour saving devices
With tempers, pay cheques, and price tags as they are tódny; she is faced with more years of prosperous bankruptcy.
This seems to do no more to the average Frenchman than provide a source of rough humour keep her tireless ait dây over the best-filled menus and bottles in the world,
from
JOHN GORDON just back Moscow makes his assessment of the main Russian problem today....
BEHIND MALENKOV'S SPEECH-you can hear the growls
RISK the suggestion tax arrears; and his pledge that that what has happen- more money would be spent on
agriculture
which in recent
ed
the Supreme years bas been adly neglected At "Soviet meeting in the to let the money flow to the Kremlin recently is of the heavy industries, Importance most immenне to us.
What does that stem to in- dicate? That there has
hern trouble
the agricutural jonda,
In
For here, it seems to me, we have the light we have
Marty rumours of serious dis- so long sought thrown upon content have been seeping the internal conditions of through the Iron Curtain in re Russin. In consequence we cent months. Now here,
from the Kremlin itself, is the first able to mesure
clear Indication that they may with some confidence, and
be true. for the first time, whether Russia intends a war or
are now
genuinely seeks peace.
Grave
Put all this beside facts that are known, and the picture be- comes significant.
The richest of the Soviet republies is the Ukraine. As re- really as the beginning of July
We
know. from
of the
peasants
Were the French really wor- this time--no borrientes in the. ried by their mid-sume street, no marches against the strike? No, they were not, So police, in fact, very few police. little, in fact, that they were plqued by what they describe as the foreign tourists' "panie" 10 get home.
THEY JOKE THEY had the good grace to Jake abzut that tos. "This is a dark plot by the landladies of Brighton, Blackpool, and Southend-sur-Mer to steal our tourists," they cracked.
That is another Joko in the £50,000,000 clans-and dear at the price.
Technically, the strike unionistically, if one may so call -ended last Saturday.
It has taken more than a full week for most of the strikers to drift back, and there are still a few score thousands out from
industries.
On any day during the height of it all you could stroll around Paris, take w taxi or a military bus, eat, drink, and sun yourself, and wonder what the fuss was all about.
Especially if you read the newspapers.
There
was a picture of a bronze Aly Khan, stripped to the waist, playing tentils with Gene Berney.
There were photographs of a magnificent parade of manne- quins in winter furs, enrrying skins worth £1,000,000.
PARADOXICAL
MIERE was news from over. heated Vichy to say that the mayor had authorised thou- sands of gallons of sparkling
example, he ordered a cut in resentful of Moscow's policy of the nationalised admit that water to be sprayed on the roofi
retail prices it April. That secme to indiente a coalition of plenty.
Part of the cheapening was a eut in the price of flour, which It was proudly claimed was on free sale. That seemed to in- diente that the bread situation was reasonably easy.
But, in fact, there Woo that time very little flour Moscow for Muscovites to buy.
Pretty grim
reducing life in all the varied and differing nations that com- bine in the Soviet Union to one dead level.
In fairness I
I must the post and telephone workers tops to cool them, when a bottle who began the strike are the of Vichy costs 2s. In Paris.
The There was In France.
Zsa Zsa Gabor worst paid minor, tho electrical worker, here and Zsa Zsa Gabor there, course, the engine driver, are all far, with browner skin and brighter
strong far better paid than the sweet lamonds every time. a greater but harassed telephone girl who. degree of Independence. Mo.- cuts you off with Galile charm body won something, from sun cow will find it difcuit 10 when she has tane for the
With nationalism, of
Develop may well movement towards
CE
at
in
countenance that trend though for the moment the policy cajaley rather than repression very wise policy in the circumstances.
cbarm.
ta
BONUS DELAY HER money,
It is a fair assumption that disclosures If favoured Moscow could not made by the Ukraine Commu- get sufficient flour, the
situa- nist Central Committee that lon in less-favoured places gelm. the republle was suffering from must have been pretty severe shortages of food and How grim in most areas can-
We have, in fact, the answers
to the two most vital questions perplexing essential goods, and that there not be ascertained with the world. And they are, I had been breakdowns in essen~ exactitude. think, comforting and re- tial services." assuring answers, For in my reading, those answers
are:-
New plan
when the
That wis the paradoxical strike month in France. Every-
ten to a million at, coulette. -It looks as though the only losers were M. Laniel and his Govern- ment who threw everything on Black
and Carme
came out Red. Government income, lost
But
'Is
there, by taxes to the Govern- ment, is incalculable.
A large part of the peasant cheapest lodgings and food calculated at £50,000,000, discontent arises from the col-and social security contributions the loss on me ride, among lective farming system,
have been paid for, leaves her private Industry: and from on average enough to buy one cheap, ready-made cotton dress a month; or one pair of poorly sewn shoes; or six really good meals.
When the greal estates were were broken up, the peasants
their teld, und believed, that days of serfdom were endod.
But the collective- farming
Yet, for her and thousands of system *has changed any viewe
their the other striking civil servants They see themselves an annual £20 bonus was pro- serf again, merely. under Government managers
posed two years ago, and they instead of nobles. And they thirst for have still not got the freedom which they have been
assured the revolution ill-feeling against had brought to them...
be
But. It is possible to get some idea of conditions In the rich
and therefore, il may assumed, rather more fortunate
Ukraine. For these were dis closed by the Communist Cen- situation was serious tral Committee in the report
In conditions in many parts enough to make the new rulers that seems to have shaken the
1
A deterioration of some gravity is taking place
The
of Russia.
in the Kremin anxious. Kremlin, alalenkot himself cems to have swung Immediately action.
It is known now,
now hold power in Russia fear war above all else, knowing'
2 Those who
Anxious
DOW
Into Mary of the towns it Was
That movement-which Stalin reported were without water or electricity. Supplies had broken held in check with characteris-
tie ruthlessness - may
well although down. The production of con-
impetus, it was not announcer at the swner goods was falling with gather greater
that he is dead.
There is certainly in these facts plenty of evidence to in- dicate that the peasants budget
two
well that in the circum time, that the Council of Minis disturbing rapidity. In one pro- stances war would probably lers under his chairmanship vince output was only two- bring about the complete swiftly changed the five-year thirds what it had been plate disintegration of the plan as it was then operating. years ago. Soviet Union.
Mr Malenkov's significant speech, in spite of its tone of confidence and its hydro- gen bomb disclosure (if true), is as much evidence of that as the earlier Bud- get speech of the Finance Minister.
Real
clues
waste time and thought on the Bud- get figures
before set
the Supreme Soviet. The Budget of
dictator-ruled
There is no need to
a
coititty
18
shaped and product not as a statement of facts but as a pro- paganda pleture.
The same may be salt for the glowing stories about rising production. It la as tasy
to
"cook" production figures as it is to "cook" financial Agures.
That plan gave, priority to Food was becoming a serious the production of inachines and problem. The production of war material. Agriculture took sugar, in which the Ukraine is second place. Perhaps a place normally rich, fell 50 percent even lower than second.
Malenkov at once changed the emphasis.
He ordered fewer machines,
less war material; more food, more essential consumer goods, He cot himself to create the picture of a happy people re- velling in abundance.
Meat scarce
He filled the shops, of Mos-
cow and a few other large towns with food and a variety of goods such as the younger Russians had never scon
fore in their lives.
be-
But that seems to have been a shop-window picture created
the ut
expenso aresis.
of
below the quota.
Poor tools
So there has been hardly any the strikes
Moonshine. Becomes A Racket
From HENRY LOWRIE
Washington.
are just accepted by the Supreme THE "moonshine boys" Soviet is not an indication of back in Americs and mak- Ing fortunes out of illici! drink. plenty or of strength, but necessary and urgent insurance just as in the wild days of Pro- against catastrophe.
What does this revelation mean to the outside world? It means, I should say, that Rus sla Is desperately anxious nvold war..
to
hibition.
Just how "big-time" the business is was revealed to a Congressional committee inves- tigating America's excise tax situation.
taxen
RE. Joyce, of New York, one The farmers were declaring I sense a feeling that, be of the liquor industry bosses, angrily that they could not buy cause the Kremlin continues to said the present liquor essential farming tools, clothing, demand that Communist China were responsible for the return boots, or urgently needed house must be brought Into any Big of the moonshining Industry, hold goods. And they added, Power talks, her peace over-which robs the Federal and as Russlank in all areas were turcs are not to be trusted. State treasuries of tens also saying, that what could be
millions of dollars, and bought was of intolerably poor quality...
• Against that I set a different steadily growing." thought. In Moscow this Inst
Joyce added that, by furnish- month I have seen Chinese
organised And ng an incentive to everywhere. In July, we know also, there Helegations
and gangsters and racketeers, these was much the
fine, Intelligent, of very same sort trouble in Russia's border re- vigorous young people they are. taxes were imposing a social pabiles-Latvia, Lithuania, and Moldavia,
"con- Charges of siderable mismanagement" were reported in the flussion nows- papers.
They
Best way
aro
swarming
In Latvia, maladministration remoter
of the Collective Farm system Ruda ord are shown resulted in the dismissal of the warmest friendship..
Why is the Kremlin so
was similar
even
blight on the nation that may prove difficult to crose.
20,000 Still,
Last your
more than
20,000
illegal stills were seized by the Over Government. They had a com- the bined daily producing capacity
aa-
Indeed, the "cooking" of Outside Moscow and the few party secretary. In Lithuania, quota figures is now a national visitor-favoured towns there is there
farming industry in Russia, as Russians not much evidence, if indeed trouble, on an
xious to pose as their greater will tell you frankly.
friend? any, of an improvement in the scale, which must have caused
loss in food Because the rulers of conditions of the people.
are not very cortain China. The Chinese In both republics atress was very pliable allies, They cult. For example, meat, which laid on the urgent necessity proud and Independent. They
In pinces the food situation appears to be desperately did-
a considerable production.
art
of 604,000 gallons, representing
Tederal -tax-loss of over $7,000,000 to Government alone only the
for every day they operatet.
During the past 18 months 20 Russia atills were selred near New If we carfhot accept Budget figures where then do we find
about York, and they could produce the real clues to Russia's con
not up to 2,000 gallons of illegal I suggest in Malenkov's
are liquor every day. dition?
is abundant in Moscow, is not for dealing with "political de Bro certainly not satellites, and operated by well financed, well declaration that there is to be
The stuwen
"Bulit and tremendous stimulation in
easily obtainable-If indeed it is viations," from ..which it can Russia knows they will go their organised criminal gangs which, production of consumer goods, obtainable at all-in the smaller, reasonably be assumed that way whenever it suits them.
havo and in the sweeping concessions
ostabliskand A town,
places of The Finance Minister malle 10.
That would be a terrible blow storage, 'drops for the bottling the peasant population the
to Russia.
|bf,- moonshine, and well urgency with which he stress-
In the Aston republics the
orgaldeed channels of distribut forment oppents to -be rising Wouldn't our wisest course beton. The stils cost up to from other causes than econo- to adil to Russia's worries by $100,000 dollars onch.
tho
of
The peninis still endure liv- ed his intention to raise their ing standards below those living standards; the lowering any civilised bountry,
of their taxation by 49 per.
some hostility to the political system was developing."
were
Evon In Moscow the plcture mic mes. Chiefly a market pulling China out of Russia's. The big-time cily racketeer, cent, with a promise of moto was not quite as bright as résirgotice of nationalisin krmk, röther than continuing epid Joych, a has moved in on to follow; the fuüübolldildi. Of Malmkby tříņi to paint it. For Thioed people are bécoming to publi Iter into thom?
the moonshinó business.
But if you can find any traco
of all that In depression, worry,
or concern among average well- un-scorched Parisian today (and I exclude the telephone operator handling this call) then please have a yast Brief- steak, cooked-in foie gras, on
It is on the menu-price, 10s.
me.
prevent fatigue mistakes.
Seò it in action at:
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