1953-09-12 — Page 11

-RAM-

WHO KNOCKS FIRST?

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1958.

Metrialet by arrangement van ine Manchester Guardar

THE ATTLEES'

Nthe main rond out-

side Edenbridge, Kent. stands શ

modern

Tudor house with

nere of town. roselreds and

vegetable patch behind it.

is

11

you

The

knocker door Horatio Nelson in brass, breathing defiance from rocky shore. When knock there are frolicsome scampers and barkings within.

As likely as not Laurence Gillespie Attiec himsen

comes to the door, tallish. grizzled and pipe-smoking, attended by the household's joyous dogs. In

the

ODD

MAN

OUT

hallway Brother Laurence

swings a hand-

some inn sign.

The Attlee

Arms. It was a cool view of the

painted as A

lark by friends

who had enjoy-

cd the Attleen'

hospitality.

does a good deal of driving for the hospital car service, carrying disabled patients between their homo and treatment centres. This gives him an insight.

"We've got to do our bli for "But the hospitals,” he says. they aren't what they were be- fore nationalisation. In the old days the patient was Now he's a number,

person.

JOHN GORDON:

The Everyday

The

sixth despatch

on

Moscow

Life of a Girl

FF you

Τ

in Russia

were

an a pubile park.

average girl. in an very often,

have to pay office in Russia -- or, she is there.

which will be but sho

are kept indoctrinated at exactly the level the Kremlin wishes

them to be at any moment,

I would like to have been ablo to attend one of these meetings. They sound faxinoting: They are certainly effective,

From Dickons

ONE wall-educated, intelli-

that

gent young woman told me will not that the whites in Africa doll- for a seat when berately allowed the blacks to eat each other. When I dia-. for that matter, a Cigarettes cost her half

mented, stic retorted that she shop assistant, B taxi- rouble (2d.) for ten. They are knew it was true because she

book. driver, or what we call avory thin, and have no more had read it in a skilled manual worker, man bacce.

than an inch and a half of to- She wds

The rest is cardboard Dickens' description of Britain or woman — what would holder.

with its slums and poverty and you earn?

The cheapest theatre seat is child cruelty wad a perfect picture. Most I could,

(2x)-Russians are present-day of course, make a six roubles

cond

of the theatre a book fit fans think that. comparison by taking Russian

costs and wages

expenditures

Ave to 15 roubles (that is i

Dickens in fact is poured into roubles, translating the amounts 5s, at the dearest), a radio set them at school because his books into steriing at the current rate 300 to 1,000 (£5 to £17), and a are such admirable and power- of exchange and setting them tolevision set 1,000 roubles also. ful propaganda.

State does Its utmost to

ogoinam pure.

The

ле

But that would

Some

things about us, bale give a fantastic and false pie- make television cheap because of them completely, being outside turo.

the control it gives over viewers' the range of their minds. They minds.

cannot understand why people go on strike or why they are

lewed to strike.

For the Soviet Government insists that the exchange rate of the rouble shall be 11% to the £. All visitors must accept that rate. But a more accurate

roubles

If she has a telephone in her apartment our giri can have un- mited local calls for 25 roubles month. (about Bs.)

Safe jobs

valuation would be 30 rouble to the £ which makes the rouble worth about fourpence. Therefore let us make our com- parison at that rate.

CHE has another advantage The office girl gets 700 to 800 over British girls. She can't a month-slightly more be secked. Nobody in Russia than 213. The shop assistant need be out of work. But the about the same. The taxi- Paradise

upparently driver, roughly 100 roubles less, The stilled tradesman, exclud- ing, of course, the pace-setters, sightly more.

not

FO

They have been brought up to the idea that people should work hard for their country without bothering about par or condi tions. And they certainly do so themselves.

under- can be an Or

They are puzzled to stand how there Opposition in Parliament."

should be why

пешерарега allowed to express views that are not the Government's views. perfect as Russia's clever pro- All their life they have been paganda suggests. Out-

taught that the Government Is For I saw with interest while above all criticism.

pleasant garden sitting in the

How can you argue with such square in front of the Bolshoi blankness of mind? Theatre one

sunny afternoon, three different beggars approach within everyone in the square half an hour.

"The other day I went into o hospital walting-room, Out-of- date notices on the walls, of-date, dog-eared magazines on the tables. I got the impression nobody cared twopence.

When you "Another; thing. want to mend matters it's in-

possible to Auch out who's respon-

You referred from committee to com- mittee, official to

le

takes

State

melal

that Clement built

are

Brother Bereard

among

I went to see Laurence next year just to even things would have sympathised.

tzp?" Clement, then Prime Minister, obliged.

out of curlosity about the Attlee brothers. Originally there were five (two of them

Bernard died 10 years ago, aged 70. He had been in turn an

End On the way nut to the bonfire East

curate, a Gallipoli

But in the burequerat class what they call the adminis- trators-the boys and girls who rim everybody's lives for them, seem to rise to 1,500 roubles (£26) a month with fair case.

That's the class you want to got into in Russia,

Rise--and fall

you can mix politics with your job and become

the

And I must report that they had quite a prosperous reund. Russians aru kind-hearted to each other.

For

Savod `us! VOU can measure what we

have to cope with, in trying to reach e-common-understand- ing, from this jolly bit of history which I extracted from a leader Our girl gols a health service, In Pravda, kuisia's most widely

which of course,

costs her road newspaper- for which

"In fierce single combat the her nothing but

It

Sovica poople defeated the | employer is specially taxed. eldest but one of great mind moulder among those is a good service,

German Fascial war machine, by Russian

the armed forces of Imperialist the brothers and with whom you work, there is alandards, even if these may, st

Japan, defended the freedom the only Tory no limit, to the dizzy helight to times. seem strange to u

them, which you may rise,

their Motherland, liberated in the example, Or, of

war,

the peoples of Europe and casualties running course, to the depth of the fall, when with

Asia from Fascist tyranny." 'high Russia found herself short if that should come.

look As if we had It doesn't cope with them, The test of a salary is what it of doctors to will

buy. In some things the young men and women were put been in the war, does it? And, Russians do not Russian girl has an advantage through special medical courses indeed, most

to enable them to deal solely know that we played any effec- over the British girl.

with battle wounds.

tive part in it at all,- For example,

she does not

In fact they have been taught have to pay an extortionate rent In less than a year, these for her apartment. It is fixed tratates were given expert in that they saved u.

all rents are fixed instruction In that one ΠΑΣΤΟΥ Russia-in proportion to her field of medicine and drafted to

battlefields. salary. Not more than five per- cent and more likely only three percent, which would be less than Bs. a montb.

explain

that by British standards it would not be a very satisfactory apart- ment, but I will say more about that when 1 come to deal with the housing situation.

he crossed the River Eden by padre and an Oxford rural dean. Liberals, two Socialista, one the town's historie trust bridge. Tory), ex-Preniler Clement Laurence is a bridge frustre

bristle. Pacifism made him (now 70) being next to the himself and highly pleased with "Some wer books I read with

ornamental lamps which loathing," he said. "They repre youngest and Laurence (89) the

un- the babe of the family, have been fixed on its parapets ment the Great War as an

to mark Coronation year.

Con this necessary dog fight." Following the death of

have been a dig at Brother Robert Bravery Titlee (81), "What d'you think of our Tom?

he asked Clement retired solicitor. whose bridge?"

when the fireworks were over, £40,000 will was in

After coming out of Wands- the

I should worth Gaol, where he served his think it

be bught to papers recently. there re. - "I

nationalised," teased Clement in co, sentence, Brother Tom wratu main three.

a book ostensibly about architee- his dry way. Upon which

ture which mystifyingly described Laurence earnestly shatited:

the Great War as an effort by **Hands off!"

the "old order in all countries

Cross-bench

In telling me of this incident to slave off social break-up and

revolution. "From 1940 to 1045 I served in Whitehall my-

POLITICALLY Laurence is he commented,

the better,"

Laurence

and

the

Our doclors would have told us no doubt that such a system could not work. But it did work. And work most success- fully.

Child grants

the offles girl marries

and

Her income tax will not look very heavy to us. The highest has children, the state, of Lax deduction is 13 percent of course, takes most of the burdon

ordinary girl of rearing them salary, and the would not touch anything like that,

that

On 'loan' TO Brother Laurence, Bernard left the Attlee family tree,

trouble engrossed on sheepskin

In his HER chief

every year she is expected there arc

mony own crabbed hand.

to make a loan to the Govern common. They have

proportionate Bernard traced the Atlees ment

the same wide-set check-bones,

ly between a bust of Dante Just a number and the old-fashioned type- writer

on which he taps

out good-cause letters. We NETHER

business ambition, After a speil

to

to

да

the odd man out. Brother self as liaison officer between On sheepskin

off her. IL Tom (74), a retired architect the War Offee and Naan. Those

her with admirable provides creches and kindergartens, in who lives in Cornwall and five years taught me that the

which she leave them while

may sits on innumerable church fewer things Whitehall controls

she is at work. And all educa- committees is as confirmed a

tion is free and good. Socialist as brother Clement. Between

Our office girl will not

receive any special allowance for her Laurence, on the other hand, Clement

first child or, as she would in is an unattached Liberal. " points in

her Britain,

even for her second, have one of

those cross the same clipped, genteel speech. back to one Edward at-the-Lee, salary. It can be a heavy pro But with the

will third sho Inst year it begin to draw bench minds which the big

born in 1133. "Got it from a portion, although

a State grant. Both are happily domesticated, gravestone

says was light, somewhere," parties hate with an especial with grown-up families. As pre- Laurence sceptically. "All my

And if the proceeds to have I is, of course, quite hatred. But when it comes 1914 youngsters they both set eye, if you ask me."

voluntary. She need not give many as ten-not at all excop- tionel In Russia-the tenth will to leaders, I support up boys' clubs, Clement's being

anything if she doesn't want to bring her an immediate payment Churchill if I support any- in Stepney, Laurence's in Isling The sheepskin has the Attlee But she might find life a Atte of 2,500 roubles (43) and 160

ton where he rented shop, coat-of-arms illuminated upon dimcult it she didn't.

10.) a month until body,"

turned it into a games room, it-two lions back to back. About For her salary the office girl It is 12 years old.

roubles (£210 In Laurence Attlee's lived and cooked

cheerfully for himself this too, Laurence

works from 10 am to 7 pm, She may decide to employ a 40 boys and irreverent, He calls the lions with a break of 45 minutes for domestic servant. Not so long study, Churchill's war his- upstairs, drilling

cats. "I don't teaching them rife-shooting.

suppose there's

meal six days a week ago that would have been re- a midday tory is stacked conspicuous-

any authority for them if you that is the length of a work garded almost as a crime agalnat ask the Heralds," he chuckles.

ing day and week for everyone. Holy Writ. But now, in Moscow not Which does

prevent his

And like everyone cisc in and other large towns, domestic wearing the cata engraved on his

will have at acrvants are cosy Russin, our girl

get, and was ravaged by signet ring.

feast two weeks paid holiday very cheap.

But, you may ask, if families oach year, A. mixed bag, City merchanting firm But Lourence and Tom, as well

If she has behaved herself, have to crush up in two rooms, flelds. Laurence pointed Laurence become secretary of

ahe may receive a free train pass as most of them do, where does as the late Barnard and the late with his stick to a distant a taxicab company ("an amus

delightful holiday resorts of the little cupboard behind ridge and, with possessive ing job-until the company went Robert, do help explain the per- for a three days joumey to the the domestic sleep? Usually in

then departmental somality of Brother Clement, bust")

Caucamus or the Crimea.

In Russia nobody made Brother Clement has

In a hostel there, which was bothers much about overcrowd-

the home of a much of the proletariat, He probably once

have lack of sanitation, or lack noble, abo can give the Loudini

of privacy. Now relired, ho busies himself has been known

accommodation and food at the

The offleo girl in Russia does local causes; clenched fist salute. But he re-

to 400 One November Fifth, lesely with

rate of 800

roubles not gossip feminine trivialities parish church council, British mains snugly middle-eless under

(under £7) a month.

like the girls at home, but in- Churchill, then in Opposi Legion boy scoute, diocesan the skin.

Hor food in Moscow through stead falks economies and world tion, drove down from finance, hospital comforts, and

Like his brothers he was sent the your will cost her about 150 pou

politics in a most territsing way, Chartwell to see the fam- so on. Whereas Brother Tom

by father to Haileybury and roubles (£7, 108.) a month spouting opinions about other so fantastic Que Edenbridge bonfire in was gooled a field at the far end of the objector, Laurence, like Clement, Oxford, father was a por- quite a whack out of her salary.

If she dines out or takes a that they stagger you. tentous City solicitor with a long volunteered for the 1914 war and white beard who made a good taxicab she hoo

no tipping Our girl will meet those with town. Edenbridge Was was quickly ctnmissioned, serve thing out of estate administru- | problem to worry her.

whom she works, regularly on flattered and exuberant. Ing with the RASC in France tion in South London at a ume

certain evenings 10. diaevas London when South But, said the organisers the and Sakedka.

affairs. They go over office think, there, I morning after, our celebra-. But

the furiously rebuilding itself.

business. They praise or criticise and No man

a seat in cinema sho each other, and their bosses TOR cosily discard tion must never become a parallel ends. Laurence looks

upon the Wolfare State which origins DÍ this kind Why will pay one rouble by day the running of the office with party affair.

his brother built with a tepid should he try?.

and at night up to six roubles quite astonishing froedorn, gende (28.) which by our standards is No one is allowed to get out! They went to Laurence and eye. brother Clement to, come down bought it for £28 in 1940") he

rouble every time sha, goos into each group sees that all minda

went for a stroll across the with

pride, said, "Churchill's manager in a big Indiarubber

house, Chartwell, is just arm. over the top there."

conscientious

сап

these Altices.

was

Cinema? 2s.

curtain.

A

asked, "Could you persuade your In his 1934 · Vauxhall ("K Francis Martin cheap. She will have to pay of step. The political leader of

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