MANY TONS OF MONEY

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2346, 16 January 1926, Page 4

MANY TONS OF MONEY

A GENEROUS MILLIONAIRE. THE PLEASURE OF GIVING. "When you are young it’s fun to make money. When you are old it’s fun to give it away. When, you are young: you think of the pleasure that you can buyifor yourself. 'When you are old you think of the pleasure you can buv for others.”

That is the philosophy of Mr. Bernhard Baron, of the watering-place of Hove, who, in London, is the millionaire head of a cigarette concern. His career in some ways ran parallel! to that of the late Mr. Samuel Gompers, Mr. Gompers, born in, England, and Mr. Baron, bom in Russia, went to America to carve their fortunes. They did not find the streets payed with gold at the start. Mr. Gompers became a, cigarmakor. Mr. Baron got his first ,job in a tobacconist’s shop. He earned four dollars a week, and saved one and ahalf dollars. Later, he too, became a cigarmaker, and worked at tho bench alongside Mr. Gompers. Then he invented a cigarette-making machine, took it to England, and became head of a great business.

Mr. Gompers lived and died comparatively poor, Mr. Baron, also, will probably die a poor man, as he is giving his riches away as fast as he can. His fortune has never alienated him from the working class. Messrs. Ramsay MacDonald and Arthur Henderson, leaders of the British Labour Tarty, are his intimate friends. And at the last election, -when the Labour Party made ready to appeal to working men for their pennies. Mr. Baron started things going by a gift of £6OOO.

Mr. Baron is a widower, 74 years old, and, before starting on his campaign of giving, bestowed £3 00,000 upon his relatives. “1 have made tons of money in my time," says Mr. Baron. *T am still making money.' But money as such gets me very little. 1 am not a sporting man. I never cared a rap for high society. I havt no desire for honours and titles.

”1 am finding out that one of the supremo joys of life is giving. And especially to charity. Charity has no religion, no nationality, no race. It springs from something higher than ourselves. For Instance, when I see a sick man in a hospital getting well again, and know that I have enabled that hospital to serve him well, that gives me a glow. I feel a personal Interest In that man. Ho Is my brothel', So I Intend to go on giving until I die."

Mr. Baron’s gifts have included tho following: For tho building of the Middlesex Hospital, London, ,£IO,OOO. For , a new Vying to the HoveHospltal, £BOOO. To clear the debt of the Hutchison House Club for working lads in Aldgate, London, £BOO. To the Leman Street Girls’ Club,, of Alcigate, £OOO. For the new Jewish University In Jerusalem, £IO.OOO. For the Liberal Jewish Synagogue Building Fund £ll,ootfi 'For the London Jewish Maternity Hospital, the LondOn Jewish Maternity Home, £25,000. For tho London Jewish Hospital, £IO,OOO,