A FINANCIAL MYSTERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 163, 12 July 1928, Page 21

A FINANCIAL MYSTERY.

COMMUNIST CLUB EXTENDS. TKOM PENCRT TO AFFLUENCE NEW HOME WORTH *32,000. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 6. Intense, interest has been aroused in Sydney by the. sudden rise to apparent affluence of tnose in control of the Sydney International Seamen's Club, which started a few months ago in a dingv floor of a building in George Street, Sydney, and has now just purchased a whole building for £32,000. Incidentally, the name of the organisation has bo en changed to tile Marine Transport Workers' Club, and the building is fitted up in the best style with all club conveniences. The club is reported to be a Communist organisation and efforts have Ix-en made to develop in other States • long the same lines. Inquiries regarding the source of the financing of the new undertaking elicited an amazing series of statements from a gentleman who claimed his name was Marlen, contrived from the names Marx and Lenin. Through Trades Hall sources it was stated that the new club did not cost a penny in actual cash, and that the total funds of Mr. Marlen, who is back of the vent .ire, did not exceed £10. If that is so he is not only a proletarian but a financier of the tint water. It is explained that there is a mortgage of £26,000 on the property, and that the other £6000 has to b« found in six months. The furniture was bought, without deposit, from a city warehouse, on the time payment principle, as were also the fittings of the cafeteria. The property originally belonged to Sir John Vicars, but. he sold it last year to Mr. S. M. Becher, of Martin Place, Sydney. Structural alterations in the cafe and upstairs in the cubicles, which are to be let at 10/ a week, and the lecture room, where "Red" propaganda is to be disseminated, hare also been arranged on the time payment principle, it is announced. Cooking utensils and croekery, the •wireless set and the gramophone and. other fixtures are all obtained on the same scheme, without any deposit.. X'' rent is to be peid for the first two months, while the £6000 is to be raised by spiling bonds t<*> the workers who patronise the clu?». Mr. Marlen is an Interesting personality. He says he is a Russian and a Communist and that his christian name i.« Brodski. "I know the conditions of the working das* in Russia," he says, "and I know I can do big things for the workers out here. And I am going to do them." Incidentally, he proposes to send both his sons to the Sydney University. Most Sydneysider? are recalling the rcmNrks of Mr. John Bailey, president of the A.W.U., before the recent Sea< Buying Commission. He declared that £700,000 of Russian money was bein;distributed throughout the British Empi— i»nd t hat-some of ifc- finding-it - way to Australia.