1959-09-23 — Page 4

Office cleaner

Natasha

goes

to the pillory.....

Another report on life in Russia by John Griffiths

DESPITE the fact that it was her first pay day

Natasha woke late. In a few minutes she was hurrying to the Metro station where she bought a ticket for '50 kopeks (31⁄2d.) which would take her anywhere on the large Moscow network:

Changing to a crowded bus she bought another 45 kopeks and a copy of "Pravda" from the con- ductress, whose name was written up by the door.

The bus raced through the chaos of Moscow's traffic, but she was still a few minutes late for the third time that week when she clocked in at "Calire," instrument factory, precision where she worked as a cleaner.

Natasha was no meclinate so could not Judge the quality of the Brm's products, which was Kood but not outstanding by Western standards,

place The first

the la com. clean was the director's

Victor fortable after, where Afantsevich Kloklooshin war expecting group of Western visitors.

4

em-

Next she leaned out the fae- tory's polyetinie, where a doctor and use were always available to treat any of the 750 ployees. The factory's own am- bukhce was also always stand- ing by.

The clinic was very dirty that had bevo day, as the doctor throat-praying all the workers from to prevent a du outbreak spricing.

The night sanatorium, where workers u puor health can spend

night tire

and have special diet, was empty. Bast paileat had

ร

The

1

to a convalescent home in the Crimea ana free pass for three months. Natasha huet herend 1but as he had been injured at work he would receive full pay, although for ordinary sickness he would have had a diminish in proportion.

Cheap

that he and knew holiday would be paid his average earnings during the phevious three months.

Natasha thought of her own Tie for distant holiday, only minimum 12 days, though de- partment chiefs, polishers and others with arduous work had

Inany as 24.

Her holiday, she knew. would be organiset down to the last physical jerk at the tourist base Shre attached to, the Ioctory. was quite free to go off on her own, but very few people ever did. The herd Instinet had been trilled in too thoroughly.

you were Besides, unless

ilke E department to 2,000 regeiving chief romene roubles a month you couldn't usually afford a private holiday.

Drama

After she had beet puid Natasha went alung to the factory's well-equipped, club to Juin in the evening classes in of her which the majority fellow-workers participated.

look to Some

painting, drama, singing and many other The more cultural activities. energetic went out on to the sports held for exercise.

Natasha chose to attend lecture

(1

the on automation in

THE CHINA MAIL,

BUS CHEF

Cummings

Sulking

Sh! Not inten

Not all millionaires aro Somo take-over tycoons. load quiet, almost anony-

mous

livos. Their noigh- bours think they are merely Their "comfortably off."

ranks are growing.

London. TN the back rooms of Somerset IN

House, where the financial secrets of Britain's income tax payers are kept, statisticians are assembling material for u sombre volume to be published at the end of the year.

The book will bear the for- bidding title of "The 102nd

factory. As they made the con-Report of the Board of Inland trol system for the

Moscow ball-bearing plant this aroused

much interest.

The lecturer explained

how

After a quick, cheap' funch in iz capitalist countries automa- the rather drab canicen Natasha tion was either introduced at wrat with her fellow-workers to the expense of the workers or a workers' meeting, only to find held back

herself involved plessant experience,

ta

an

for fear of over-

un production. These handicaps, he

rol exist under salt, di planned economy.

器

One after another half-o-

There were questions after fellow-workers rose to dinzen their feet and crittelsat her fur wards but no one cared to ask being Intes to work too often. The important one about over- parasite, and fullment of the pinn, workers They called her nectised her of undermining the having to change jobs and the Suviel economy and the reptn. log in the laws of supply and

deinand, ilon of the factory,

What was the point, for of herself lying in bed at home far as they knew and had been and these

She was shown a carkanure

10 repeatedly danbing wiltily work This was pinned to the economy

1

Rs

fold

planned never went wrong-- were sometimes

works noticeboard beside the even if there production figures for all to see unexplained shortages of certain

goods.

and mock.

they

When the evening classes Shaken by the personal bitter. ness of the attack, Natasha hard. Were over most of the workers had went home to flats that had been ly noticed that Ivanovan exceeded her norm for the 15th Speelally built for them by the Although some sul week in succession and that her company. photograph was being put on the had no new fats according to

Infallible plan board in the entrance hall where the the portraits of the current best would all be housed with eight and a half square metres for 20 workers always hung.

every person at the end of the Slic

notice again, seven years. dit take however, wire the discussion ankl Keneral became more workers from different actions began to discuss ways of in- creasing productivity,

Energetic

Revenue."

But

Few people will bother with the mass of figures in It. lucked away among them will be one item which will seize the attention of everyone interested

In other people's money.

This insignificant line of lype will reveal the number of people in Britain who have an annual Income of £100,000 or more.

And, because we lack more Information about preelse

this has come us Britain's people's wealth,

of list"-though. to be regarded "millionaire course, no names are given.

Four fewer

At the last count 45 men and women qualled for inclusion in the millionaire group-four few- er than in the previous year.

How many will there be this time?

Cautiously a Somerset House spokesman said: "Incomes have been going up with rising pros perity. At a sheer guess there may now be 50 in the list."

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1959.

BEADS FOR THE NATIVES

Bernard Harris INVESTIGATION.

THE BOARDROOM FAMILY: The Showerings-Francis, Keith, Herbert, and Ralph -no one would have guessed they were in the millionaire class.

Who are the hidden

millionaires in Britain today?

have Included her in his list, started as an apprentice plaster- the Babychan business, way into a master worked their Ic

have er pl 11 and became would no! even heard of her, Yet when she builder. He kept his money in millionaire class. died this year her estate bricks and mortar and his will

shows

he Lhust mostly in shares was proved now at £1,200,000,

Then there

was

Jeft

M

MAYFLOWER 2

over £20,000,000 and that Mr Harold Samuel; despite big gifts than to charities, still has more £5,000,000 left.

And there is the golden cas- radle of commercial TV pronis which has created its own little group of now millionaires-in- cluding the brothers Sidney and Cecil Bernstein.

Far more

had

The

So If, around Christmas, Somerset House reports that the number of people in Britain with has comes of over £100,000 risen to 50, do not delude your- self that they are only million- alres.

deal showed Another City that Dr Daniel McDonald, maker of automatic gramophone record changers, was also one of Bri lain's "unknown" millionaires.

£1,313,000

How about those who are still the quiet, bachelor Stock Exchange dealer alive and enjoying their wealth? Alexander Nivison, who Lived

And a steep rise in his com- Here the richest mine of in- unostentatiously in Hampstead.

formation is the small type in pany's shares has since raised complimented prospectuses issued when family. Dr McDonald's 17-year-old son

into to millionaire status. converted with the description, businesses nee

A rash of property share offers millionaire." But his will this public companies.-

of this sort has unclunked the identity of a deal It was which revealed, example, several other unsuspected mil- that three

The lionaires--apart from confirming members of Showering family, who created that Mr Charles Clare is worth

No one

But is this figure a reliable guide to the number of Britain's him real millionaires-those who can put their hands on £1,000,000 of capital?

Much of the money for the One worker even told them factary's energette housing and booming stock markets-and,

ever

showed

he had left

year

£1,001,086. I suggest that after years of

An elderly spinster, Miss more recently, a tremendous rise Gertrude Hue, put much of

the values-it is no

money she inherited from her father into British Petro- at guide at all.

leum shares.

properly

Scattered over Britain arc people who live quiet lives, have never figured in the news, and are regarded by their neighbours merely as "comfortably ofT"

about a machine he had invent- sorial schemes come from the ed himself and for which the factory fund. This fund is built in central patent offer had deckled up by savings on the cost 10 pay him welt. This was cer• producing goods. tainly one way of lightening the drudgery of repetitive manical The proft motive, in fact, is Jabour.

used as a stimulus for 'cheap for however much Nevertheless, back at work in production,

zaved 01 the budgeted the allemoon, Natasha logitod is with a rather Jaundiced eye at amount for an item is put into fund. This sometimes the poster over Ivanovna's the machine claiming that this group leads to skimpy work. was a brindo of Communist

"Calibre" span 1 million labour" the new pame roubles on this in 1958 and for Stakhanovites. Those tell-

another million or financial aid Ing her "to study Marxist- Leninism" and not to forget to workers in economic difficul her Arab brothers under the ties because of sickness or some yoke of Imperialism" she had other unavoidable cause. Jong ago grown used to.

Pay day

Paradoxically,

at the same time the complexities and bureaucracy of State plan- ning makce it difficult to get replacement machinery The end of the day and pay and Tow materials which Iistributed centrally time came round at last and are Natushe found that she had according to overall demand. earned 675 roubles for her The factory Roelf is still dark first eath's work. "It's not and in a poor male of repair. much for a 41-hour week," she thought, "but I suppose I do get a great many welfare ser- the vices completely free."

For all He rumpeted virtues planned existence of the factory breeda a rigidity which

matco any Western

At the same time she could would

not help casting an cuvious mar go nearly mad at the

difficulties ot getting things

Still alive

She held them through good but who in fact may well be in times and bad. She even shrug- the millionaire class because of red off the Abadan crisis, refus

the big rise in the value of their ing to be frightened out of a investments.

:. single shture.

to

Consider, for example, the

Then British Petroleum shares case of Mrs Enid Mary Arch- dele-Porter, a widow who lived rocketed-and at her death the in a modest house in the village quiet Miss Hue was found of Gresford, in, North Wales, be worth £1,132,000. where ste spent most of her time tendlag her gardens.

Now in the lust few days "AR- the name of yet another Would anybody trying to known' millionairo has been who identify Britain's millionaires revealed-William Wisc,

Just Fancy That!

TRS ALICE PEARCE, Liberal candidate in Bristol

glance at the sister foremon done, I can, well believe the presents to go towards my £150 deposit.” pald after her who got 1.300 details about skulduggery bo roubles and a 20 per cent hind the scenes as the only bonus for exceeding fils nor outlet for managerial initiative. by 12 per cent.

It is not hard to see that in Russia today

every factory

He seemed pleased, too, for

ho was just off on 18 days manager goes all out to see that

his workers are efficient produc-

It is hard to calculate the tivo units and that his plant at A

real value of the rouble due to least keeps up to the pace t

**

London.

tuy wedding

London.

GREYHOUND called Faster, due to run in the 3

the artifelat erchange rate. 35 for it. Admirable as this in in stung by a wasp while parading with, the Geld before

to £1 is a fair working its way I had the impresion the race and had to be withdrawn. The race for the hypothesis, but I prefer to relate that it was more for the sake wages to costs generally. རྩྭ་

of the work iltan the worker. other five dogs was put back to the end of the meeting.

for

There are far, for more with nssets worth £1,000,000-though their incomes may fall consider- ably short of £100,000.

In fact, the number of million- nires in booming Britain today is probably nearer 500 than 50.

of the And when you think handsome dividends he collects from them, that must surely re- joice the heart of the Chancel- ior of the Exchequer.

-London Express Service,

MEET YOUR CANDIDATE

厨具

KISS THAT LOT I'D RATHER THE LIBERALS. GOT" IN."

London Exprema Service.

QUOTE

by Mr R C. Bellary. High Ancient

Chlef Ranger of the

Order

dela:

of Forester, In Aber-

WHATEVER

the

shape of things to come may be in

11t of

social Improvements welfare services, and particu Tarly the payment of cash benefits, it should follow that it Can never be accepted for a person to be as well off not working as when fully employ-

cd.

--by Mr 7. 1. Castleman, defending an American who was fined 25 at Uxbridge. Middlesex, for careless driving which caused a colliston.

PERHAPS

this

left-hand-drive

should be banned in WHA country. My client driving big American CzTwus veritable house-with left-hand drive. He had to pull out a con

whether siderable way' is see

It was exfe to overtake a loterí

TALKING

POINTS

Friend-one who knows all about you, and loves you just the same..

-ELBERT HUBBARD.

* ***** Don't trust first impulses. They are not always good.

--TALLEYRAND.

*

he con. He alone can sidered the true man who having subjected his pas- alons, becomes perfectly self-restrained.

**

-GANDHI.

A boy is an appetite with a skin pulled over it.

-ANON.