1954-06-17 — Page 4

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1954.

TILES

TURKEY

PERSIA

SYRIA

ERAQ

"Remember, mon-my Grandma's Rommel and the rest of 'em are dangerous Jerry troops."

with

INSIDE RUSSIA RENE

MacCOLL

where moustaches

This is Georgia-where

make a man and it's an insult to sip brandy

Travelling reporter Rene MacColl is on his way through the heart of the Soviet land. This despatch comes from the colourful country where Stalin was born.

more

Merow is more than

1.500 inles away-arid seen: more. I ke It a whole lot better here Than did in Moscow. For une thing the people are exuberant. They seem to enjoy artel they ጊዮን" extremely picturesquN,

A m

TIFLIS (Caucas). a pretty good tan

after life the three {{a!༥ ---

and! some

M in Georgin

other Georgia.

the of the citizens sport panama

large

In the evening as the heat Every member of the wanes the town comes out for a orchestra hud peeled his jacket stioli. People amble and and was lieless. There they all down the main street, under

in their away. were, playing the plane trees, enjoying the brown and blue and pink and flowers: chattering, laughing, striped shirts, the double bass дет In arm; having a shop

with his sleeves rolled up, and shine on one of the high shoe-

the drummer who almost had to shine thrones; buying drink

move his moustache out of the of kvass, a sweet barley drink from a barrow boy with sweep way before he could get at his

instrument

proved to be chacha, a Georgian brandy of great potency ("I one drinks chacha the head con- Linues to feel nice, but the leg is not working." it was later explained to me). I sipped this but the swarthy one insisted on no heeltaps.

Learning that I was "Angli- whhot n mustache ski," he grinned and remarked: these prits ES OUT

"Ah, then I beat you" or may

handlebar moustache; but anyway it seemed meant in getting weighed on a kerbside a good spirit.

weighing machine: window- This is an old Georgian shopping.

the eustom of hospitality to stranger." explained my guide as we broke away. it is intended

ill-

hund thui produced hats and white vests worn

The lund of outside the trousers, Cuban "upped. Moustaches run right be it was "Then I bet you"-

Stalin.

me

Clark in from down the Cables to R.AF. Jobs. (One ancient shepherd I

way mountains the

had undergrowth of p so tangled that it made me feel

his account that ex

tobacco and tea plantations, style. vast vineyards which supply

Others prefer sheepskin ont Soviet wines to the whole

of shakos, dyed brown, and a piece Union, nund orchards plums, lemons, grapefruit, leggings. and tangerines.

here in Georgin

Sorry

Feminine clothes whiz all soup is one of Georgia's greatest the way from European- delicacies.)

Hlowered

summer

Thu

men

There is bright sunshine type

I've got dresses hanging straight 10 lustrous

the garish gipsy-like ros- s.deburns. tumes of the Kurdish who look women street cleaners,

Against

skin disease and itching

Mitigal

A GENUINE BAYER PRODUCT (BAYER

MANUFACTURED IN

LEVERKUSEN, GLEMANT

DON'T

WASTE

WATER

SOUTH

tains many

Lill

of

snowbound -

indred Arinenian

have

lend to Jiquld eyes And all those chaps like Armenians

Armenians

Soviet Socialist

publie being just next door.

are

the Re-

I must try to get used to the old Georgian customs, for as

restaurant

д

London Express Bervice

BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

SLOW BUT SURE STRANGULATION

S

By Ritchie McEwen

the Communist pins, leather footwear, cotton or noose draws tighter cotton fabrics, wool or woollen around the satellite fabrics, silk fabrics, fodder, seed, petroleum and petroleum pro- countries of the far-flung ducts, timber, paper, stationery. "Russian Empire," private or antiques. enterprise is slowly but surely being strangled out of existence.

more im-

Jut to make matters a trifle more difficult for your Rumanian

capitalist, he may not:

1. Lay In supplies exceeding his weekly requirements.

The larger and

2. Buy from the State-run portant undertakings, of course, have long since fallen under the

wholesale frins any articles for

wine re-sale other than:

and Hammer and Sickle, and now

tobacco, the full

cigarettes, weight of the Party spirits, machine is directed against the matches, stamps, sugar, bread, I found myself heaving with small-time shopkeepers and the

Bait, ready-made clothes, news- inward laughter, and my cum-one-man business,

papers, periodicals and posters Rumania what thooke

(the Danion

La pro- and a special licence Wos. But I couldn't explain gressive' of the subject terri- required to deal in even these

under that had just had a vision of tories

the Red Star items. Sir Thomas Beecham striding banner) is now getting a real: 3. Purchase agricultural pro- podium and glancing taste of Democracy-the People's ducts markels or other

And 10

himself

con- version

places where farmers Bell greatest ,port kis gigantle fronted with this wonderfu} To begin with, no Rumanian their products direct, to the

Stand there

Rustaveli Street (named after Georgin's

to the down

collection.

dominates one statue

end of the street) and in five minutes you will see perhaps a dozen different racial types go by... and half a hundred mixtures.

This La Georginand im mensely proud of it. You must not make the gaffe, as I did at first, of talking about Russia if

Russin you mean Georgia.

is somewhere else entirely. This is It means he the autonomous Georgian presence and S.S.R. which has been joined on

with Russia since the start of pastures. This guide possesses a brand the last century. of English which has me In

The Georgian language stitches. I was feeding a stray even harder to master than the cat some chicken bones after a Dienic and

the guide observed: Russian,

I went to the ballet at the "Ah, now the lucky cat is in

here, Opera House

a spirited the seventh sky.")"

affair, performed of course Georgian dancers.

Tilis lim in a narrow walked Intu the valley with towering moun- which soars on a mountain high them above the city-you reach it by

fumcular railway--a as a compliment. sleep round swarthy

man with a mighty did like your In shape the det Kazc tu and about.

him leaped character." eity is like High Wycombe to his feet and beckoned me in Buckinghamshire, only peremptorily to his table,

more

80, being 22

miles

long and only four wide. It

They were is also 1,500 years old and

A tough-looking clustered his friends 600.000 people live here, bunch

around, and one character was Included among them are fast asleep hend down on the

2

which

5,000 Moslems who have a table amid a junior forest of musque,

i boliles. And there is

The swarthy one held out Christian church, started

full glass of something in the fifth

century, but pillaged and wrecked and rebuilt and rewrecked many times in Georgia's turbulent history that you

80

have to use a microscope to find any of the fifth-century bits knocking around.

ORNING

“KONG & KOWLOON

You look down on Tills from this funicular restaurant and it

is nearly all red-coloured.

asiced

most

on his may carry on business own without a troding licence. As these licences have to be approved by the local Communist 'Co-op. which controls the

not

on

consumers.

4. Buy form produce in any areas other than those specially designated by the Ministry Home Trade.

of

5. Make more than 18 par- cent gross proft on each Item sold, or sell arileles at a lower or higher price than the local Slate "Co-op."

But let's get away from all State-owned 'competition' across this, drive out of town-and it's the street, they are hard to come a land of vast and compelling by,

and huge Once he has licence а beauty. Mountains

are Rumanian shopkeeper Is valleys, and rivers which always in a hurry. Cherry and allowed to give it up, retire, or peach and apple trees in loaded sell his business without special blossom. Great flocks of sheep permission from the Ministry of

their

The spring

To make sure he doesn't inter- fere with the profits of the New measures aimed at 'dis- And a

strolling State Co-op,' he is forbidden young man, and forget-me-nots, strumming along a road among buttercups to:

way

to

Trade.

1. Carry on a wholesale busi-

is

by

a chonguri to the singing of hisness, companions-a chonguri being

balalaika, B Georgian

only narrow, like the blade of an onr.

2.

What was he singing?

"Gcorgla

that

The orchestra gave me a bit A

pity that, because in this hot of a shock. True, the conductor be his equivalent of climate it ought really to be was in faultless evening dress favourite white, like the Riviera lowns, with white tie but his men! mind.”

DON

IDDON'S

DIARY

May-

Deal in second-hand goods.

3 Sell cereals, fish, oll, fard, bacon, cattle, horses, donkeys, pigs, sheep, goats, or their meat old or preparations made from this myment, hides of any kind, (includ- Įing dog pelis), sausages, thimbles,

THEY CALL IT THE ZANIEST TOWN

Jersey City, Tuesday.

T

IN

THE

the

UNITED STATES

with

couraging workers from be- coming ill are being introduced en a wide scale in the satellite 'exem- countries--modelled on plary' practice in Mother Russia.

A comrado who commits the 'crime' of falling sick and can-

to work not go

is regarded with the gravest suspicion and

treated accordingly.

For he is holding up the vital flow of armaments and other goods for the Soviet war

which machine,

is already bogged down with

enough quite headaches on

pt questions supply and production without being burdened with .tho additional problem of having to

one with copo

large numbers of seedy workers among the sub-

ject peoples.

for

their

and

Itors' certificates are ex amined by Party officials with the same care as a bank teller would serutialse a brand new bank note, and are then poured on to the sick man's foreman whose duty it is to make a lay investigation and report on the So far as I can see, Jersey being the days of Mayer some slight improvement." They takes long holidays in Florida in HE people of Jersey Hudson River from New York,

City, which Is just across the Hague's domination.

quote the fight promoter, the the winter and regularly attends "symptoms."

The foreman appointa a panel The present mayor is Bernard late Jack Jennings, who said: a sanatorium for rest cures and City have probably compares favourably with many Berry, an enemy of Hague, and "It isn't how the ballots go in check-ups.

of the patient's fellow workers had

specially picked moro ex- of our industrial towns in the the hand-picked succestor of the box that counts-it's how perience of power- Midlands and the North. Cor. John Kenny, Hague's fiercest, they come out."

According to newspapermen i patriotism to visit him every hungry politicians than the tainly it la as handsome as for, who helped to break the The present mayor is not talked to, ho has ambitions to day to offer 'moral help

make a comeback. It is his encouragement' and to make people of any other town in Wigan, Warrington, or Bolton. Hague machine.

news compared Kenny was elected mayor for

making much the United States. They

his predecessor. At the dream to replay his slar role as sure that the wretch Isn't Just The approach, once you have

shirking, time second

Last spring present time his administration a political master mind. have had a taste of dictator left the Jersey turnpikej, cuta after some busy campaigning, is under investigation-this is a ship.

Although he never carried through factories, wharves, de- but last December he abruptly great place for probes by more than $8,500 For 32 years

D year, his resigned os Mayor auddenly emerges into a wide (there caying warehouses, and then

city commissioner court-appointed Mr Samuel personal fortune is estimated at the are five commissioners Larner, a gifted lawyer.

unfortunato man-or Frank ("I am the law") tree-lined boulevard. which re in Jersey City) and mayor and

$4,000,000, and he himself has admilied to having $2,000,000 to go to hospital, he or she is woman-is seriously ill and has Hague ran Jersey City-its minded me of Harrogate or said: I have had just about

Ho lives in great style in a people, its politics, its in- Bath.

entugh. I am handing over to

Jersey City apartment building still not free from bomradely dustries, Its habits, and its

Berry. I can't tako it any more,

which he owns. He has a large mission', on whose diagnosis the allding attentions and the 'Lay Com- especially the antics of crack pots."

Jack treatment, or He tells his onllora: 12 you

it, into city spending under work hard and stay honest you Although all workers, in the Jersey City is famous for its Tamer investigation is summer house and fins cars.

ultimately depends. ESPITE Jersey City's lurid anties and Its crackpots. Many John Kenny and Bernard Berry can grow up like me."

He saye atellite countries make com- cide, I do, me" and the D

Americana call it the zaniest There are reputation there are not down in the whole United States have been wasto and oxirava stock market tips, from wealthy pulsory

charges that there his fortune came from hot

'National Health con people obeyed.

many gangsters and little vice. Even In Inst year's elections garice.

and bars flourish, there

friends, Whether he will ever were borrage Worth a visit

Jersey City is one of the biggest sky-writing, maratha parades, The man who was mayer for doubtful.

balkóns, Frank Hague must be smiling, climb back into power again is betting towns In the United

ted Arocrackers, brick and States, and 110 bookmaking tossing, dozens of street fights haps the biggest polical, bore Eg eight successive terms and per- THOUGHT that as the junior syndicates were

for years and bigger skirmishes, ono fatal America Benator from Wisconsin, protected racket,

shooting, and scores

hobbies. Hague was the

law.

Ho used to shout: "I de-

out so

A flutter

Bookmakers

THE

A..comeback?

in

(he delivered the * Ibel entire Slalo vote for Roosevelt) made Jersey City's tax rate the

hls

and

Jomph McCarthy, is now reach-. The streets are cleaner that suits for millions of dollars.

desperately for many of New York's; the personal power in the country as people more polite.

Getting better

of

tributions based on their wages and salarier, the benefits" "they receive when they are ill arbitrarily deelded by a "Com- mission of his (or her), follow worker. Woe betido a patient who is unpopular at the works! Hospital patients are treated Itumultuous city absorbed in Few hospitals have shoets;

Colourful

highest in the United States, you wild gather that this is with the contempi they deserve.

McCarthy,

It is inevitable and comforts are restricted to

Journal Square, 'where the

To bulld a whole, it might be an idea to

machine visit Jersey City and see how it Jersey Journal is printed and

mules it the smoothest-running politics, said with as much colour enough blankets. In the winter, getting along without Hague, where the outdoor politica

is the country Hague stacked a carnival. had always been told that meetings are held is about half TTS citizens are not too sen the city and comty stan with that it should be intensely in the irreducible minimum, In

Breksiard Jersey City, scarred and sollpe as big a Trafalgar Square,attive about criticism, they his political henchmen, In some ferested in Senator Joseph the

· hospital | near, by

binck with soot,

kukan, have had so much. wot, though not so Imposing Industry

They tell Instance" ha pald judges two

Budapest, for instance, inclce, and alume, wat ons of The mquare - hu bow quiet you openly that there has been salaries, he increased property. Some people in Jersey City patients are made to out theic theglast communities in during the couple of days good deed of corruption, but aastanamenta, "grid siphoned {have”, sild” tọ, tiec TRYta runs with their firigenti EA American

people have, have been here. My gilda told that things are getting betarti milikam : from the taxpayers) Somet even said: "Is Jersey City a city medyou mould have seen, Ita. They may: We see ka not- Today, at 17 Hague (Milliye

in the old daga kuthe old days looking for Utópia, but, just pur in

or e-dieesse?";

'got "the org

He know, fork and spoon would be he wealed on the feeble said, "whe