ROYALTIES IN RUSSIA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 68, 21 March 1935, Page 6

ROYALTIES IN RUSSIA.

Vassily Vassilovich Slikvarkin is reputed to be the richest man in Moscow to-day, and lie is neither a banker nor an industrialist (says the Moscow correspondent of the "Observer"). He is a dramatist who until recently was relatively unknown. So popular has-his rollicking farce, "Another Man's Child," become that he is reputed to have earned approximately one million roubles in less than a year. Authors of plays are by law entitled to 0 per cent of the box-oflice receipts from each presentation of four-act plays. With the Government tax 011 such incomes amounting to only 0 per cent, there are now a number of playwrights in Russia who are- relatively wealthy. That they constitute no menace as the nucleus of a new capitalist class in the making is explained "by the fact that they cannot set their accumulated capital at work to create more capital for them. They may, of course, spend thoir money on whatever purchases are available or invest it in Government bonds. 011 which they receive (> per cent interest. They are, however, precluded from engaging in any enterprise which would involve their employing other people. Although inventors are barred from collecting more than 100,000 roubles for any one of their inventions, no such limitation is sot upon authors and scenario writers. The generous attitude 1 toward literary people is attributed to the desire of the Government to stimulate artistic creativeness of the type acceptable to the Bolshevik mode of thought. Nor is the practice of ( paying royalties limited to Soviet dramatists only. Foreigners, too. have been known to colloct handsome sums of paper roubles on plays produced hero. These payments, however, are in roubles which cannot be exported and are only available for the author's use when he is in the country. Should Mr. Shaw come here on another visit ho will probably find quite a sum of roubles waiting for him in the Gossbank.