Caviar to the Webbs

Puckish little Baron Passfield of Passfield Corner is famed for his keen Socialist intellect. So is his wife who winces at being called Lady Passfield, insists she is Beatrice Webb. Lately these two leading Socialists, Laborites and economists set out on a junket to Moscow. If they thought they would receive a luxurious welcome such as was lavished last year on George Bernard Shaw (TIME, Aug. 10), they were right. The Soviet Government threw open its expensive "Guest House" for the Lord & Lady. With the discrimination of an epicure Lord Passfield ate and ate of caviar.

Toast after toast was downed in Soviet champagne. The Passfields were started out on a circular luxury tour of Russia, just such a tour as threw Mr. Shaw into panegyrics. Last week the circle was completed, the Lord & Lady returned to Moscow and tart-tongued Beatrice Webb spoke out.

"It is a shame that Soviet women, enjoying the same status as men, should make themselves worse than men by using cosmetics!" she blurted. "The practice is grossly immoral. . . . The use of rouge, powder and lipstick is characteristic of a decadent Capitalist civilization. Russian women have the most beautiful complexions in the world, and, although those who use cosmetics are far in the minority, none of them need to do it!" Whether plain, elderly Beatrice Webb knew it or not, the Soviet Powder, Perfume, Rouge & Lipstick Trust is managed by the young, pretty, blonde wife of Premier Molotov (TIME, June 13), close friend of young, brunette Mme Stalin. For good measure tart Beatrice Webb added: "Some of the young women I saw at Caucasian seaside resorts were dressed far too smartly." Shrewd Sidney Webb kept mum. The Soviet censor passed Beatrice Webb's blurt.

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