1959-10-17 — Page 12

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1959.

visit China's Communes

Peking.

VISITED one of China's controversial com- By CHRISTOPHER

munes recently the first reporter from the West to see what goes on in these ultimates of Communism.

DOBSON

"There are three categories:

those who have been accepto

The as members of the commune, those whip are probationary

They are virtually City States with their own land, militia, courts, schools, and factories. Chinese pin the whole future of their country on the success of the communes, and are developing them with fanaticism.

of

58 far there are 27,000

China them throughout

and

egricultural, fabluk.

to

They wil forestry communes. become China's basic unit government.

is

The commune I visited called a Tien and consists of 15,000 people living and working in the shadow of the old emperor's summer palace,

They raise rice, wheat and the vegetables, breed Ash and special and very

delectable Peking duck and run 21 email factories to serve the com- mune's needs.

The director, handsome 27- year old I Shi-chen, told me

about his work with a kind of motional fervour as we talked 10 his office over cups Jasmine-scented green tea, walked round paddy fields.

Elected

He was a peasant himself, the son of a family who worked dor Inndieris in the old days. Now he is the elected head of a concern covering 3,500 acres which expects a gross income of £800,000 this year.

I asked him what had hap-

for to the landlords pened whom the peasants had worked, "Most of them work for the commune now," he said.

members, and those who are not members but have to work for

the commune.”

I asked him about stories that families were being split up by communes, with husbands siccp- ing in one dormitory and wives in another,

with all children being looked after in hurséries. He laughed the stories out of ecurt. Everybody Ilves In their own homes cancily as they did before," he said.

with

BY THE WAY

by Beachcomber

A

TUOSE who are outside the bills for horses, cloft sticks, and "Every male between 15 and are raised 45, except former landlords and I had one for difiner the mysterious world of con- tray-handla rich peamnts who are not other day. It is succulent temporary "music" com take it Pitter-palter trusted, is a member of the meal. The bird la filed with from me that I have just read. A CENTIPEDE found in a people's millia Women join water and cooked over a fire of a stratospheric trumpeter A., basket of Bah ́hop evidently

sot of 10 100-

puzzled of special date wood, being who plays a

Ashmonger. "The trouble with centipedes is that basted all the time with burnt tappers."

This lud of mazotto is for they put all their legy in 000 sugar sauce.

the moogles who no longer dig basket," overred a tab-inspector, wazzle-numbers, and aro

"There is no musie. like the more andk more manding

patter of millions of ding: fost,” stroight machuchu, with a fong-

mused a matronly centipedo, as bent and plenty of mizz-matoz

she urged her youngest to put The old stackpipe buzz stuff, his best foot forward, thereby with its contra-harmony, in as

confusing the little fellows дл Fippio Rivolvo's City notes ·

on à voluntary basis.

They have mortars, barookas, and machine guns and are formed, says,L! Shi-chen, fog commune the security of the and China.

Graded

.

Gorged

While it is cooking, the first COUTRE, consisting of the skin off, its feet and the boned tips of its wings tried in deep bat. ter, is served as hors d'oeuvres, Well, I saw how those ducks lived this afternoon

Children from three to six are picked up from their homes at six in the morning, and cared for throughout the day

dend meals and organised three games until they are returned al seven in the evening.

Liberated

Li Shi-chen told me proudly that 1,100

Women had been liberaled from household work by the conteen and nurseries. They have been liberated, of course, to work in the fields.

Everybody I saw, children to old people, Acemed, well fed. And that is change in China,

People are paid partly on the Russian system, "Each accord ing to his work." and partly on the system Communists regard na Ideal "Each according to his nerds."

de-

of

hoparco bingo-beat. This may They are kept in special pens surprise some, but I know what the premium on dollars sold in Brussels · wenkens stil and at feeding time ate caught I am talking about.

further, the equity markets will - A mom gets paid 70 per cent end huge pellets of fattening | All above board

be forced to drew in their of his wages in cash and 30 food are rammed down their

FORESTALLING any inquiry homa. They will probably raiso per cent on a silding scale, ac-throats one afler the other.

Into his activities, Captain their contango or ralo cording to the number of Then their throats aro stroked Foulenough, has revealed that interest, to bridge the gap, Sinço children,

Actual until, the food swallowed, they grain.

the companies he is connected speculative securities depend wages are extremely low. A waddle heavily away, gorged, with include those dealing with on "open" accounts, ant aro

house-hold will only It

was a

fascinating after-ball-bearing distribution, knitted independent of the commodity in cash about £90

noon, an insight into the way carpets, melted fee, glant mar- jobbers, there is no reason why country of 650 million people rows, dogs, false teeth, clergy- commission, brokers should not But,

IA says

fund Shi-chen: is planning to order its life. men's trousers, railings for 2003, make use of the sinkclsug "There is no unemployment in

balls, I obviously has many very canoe-shapod

kalfe- to bolster a proferred dividend China now and nobody, starves," great advantages over the ter- grinders' equipment, part-holes without depleting the bonded

We walked past a Geld of ribic abuses of the old days. for toy speed-boats, zlne flower- reserves, lotus plant as the sun was

And yet, the whole thing pots, tarred twine, lacrosse so- Vergilion motto over the setting

Summer scemed symbolised for me by ing books, liquid lard, esbestos (for young Kinilan) Palace and made our way into the sight of those ducks having lining for

chimneys, VTT-

Vespa adest. farm where Peking ducks food rammed-down their necks. fabricated wasps' nests, rubber

Other Europenus here

whole say living occurs

draw that dormitory

RWAY

year.

only when people go from their homes to work for a month or two on special pro- Jects,

tremendous

There is a maternity hospital All that the people in the in the commune a woman gets communes, have to do in work 45 days' paid leave to have Hat Tien has 59 canteens where baby two clinics, 15 primary schools, four secondary schools, everyone gets free food.

There are 20 nurseries. and a broadcasting station,

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the end

I say, this is of the Labour

Party-as we know it...

- London (By Airmail). W

JHATEVER else it proved the General Election demonstrated finally and indisputably that man, the political animal, is not a statistical cipher.

The discredited men of the Election were not the Socialists who fought gamely for what they believed, but the calculating men with their abracadabra of formulas and their presumption to compute consciences, the pollsters and the pundits.

Oh,

the explaining we're

going to have to endure by the Imoral mathematicians.

But if you swieep aside, their voluble vindications you will find this diamond-hard" fact - that the electors of Britain, the ordinary, anonymous men' and women, rehimed to conform to the convenient stereotypes the

K dreamed up

brainy-boys

them.

-Peter Burgoyne's.

NEWS FROM BRITAIN

Socialism is medicinal. As a political cynic once observed: we know it, it was concocted as "While power corrupts, being

a prescription to cure the ills of out of power comupts ab- More than a decade ago the inequality and poverty which solutely," Americans confounded the polls. decades aro plagued a large ters who had neatly parceled part of the population. them up and dumped them in the lap of Presidential condi date Tom Dowey. But it was

are

But I cannot believe that the days of the Labour Party Time passed and the patient numbered. For, remember that progressed, but the prescription the men and women who vote remained the same, the doctors Secialist are every bit as British Harry Truman the people convinced still of its need and as the Conservatives. And the

its efficacy,

British are a race who thrive In fufness to the

on adversity. opinion After the crisis of w the polls, however, I must say that patient gave the medicine e fair

| picked

No, I do not think we have

Party.

I believe the heat they generated trial, but found it unpalatable seen the end of the Labour helped to drive to the polling and made this clear.

booths many voters who might otherwise have remained cosily. at home.

Why?

Sull the doctors thought they But I do belleve that we háve know best even wieTE the seen the end of the Labour patient strode about in defiantly Party as we have known it. good health. But when Lever I believe that for Labour has flown, a febrifuge becomes there las ahead a testing and merely an invitant. And this turbulent time. There will be time when the doctors tried to heartburning and soul-search- WHY did it happen? thrust it down the patient's ing, dissensions and disruptions. WH

throat he turned around and There might even be an Why was Labour re docisively told them what they reparable cleavage when the jected and the Conserva- could do with their medicine. proud doctrinaire traditionalists

tives sent back for that almost inconceivable successive term?

third

Like everyone else I can only guess and assess. But I offer my escarpent with sincerity,

The answer, I believe, can be found in the very esstaco of Socializmitiah-type Social- ism, that is,

Compared to Conservatism, Socialism is rigid and doctrin aire. But worec; it is out of date.

1-

com-

of the party turn away from the In that rather

who would protracted moderates metaphor, I think, lies the promise with changiog

cumstances

answer.

And ahead?

DEFEAT At this

A General Election, it has

the

For it Labour is to survive as a political force in Britain it must come to terms with the times. No longer can it afford to tilt at windmills.

•

It could be that five years from now there will exist be- been said, could mean

tween the mujor British parties end of the Labour Party.

a relationship, akin to that be- Certainly too long a spell in twee the Republicans and the wilderness can be fatal. As Democrats of the United States..

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