Under the first Turkish five-year plan, 1934 to 1939 (Herschlag (1960) pp. 104-5) factories had been deliberately sited in the hinterland in order to spread the social effects of industry as widely as possible. In I950 the Russian-built textile mill at Kayseri was still the largest in Turkey, though larger ones were by then under construction. The factory employed about three thousand workers. Wages increased with length of service and included a number of special benefits: childrens' allowances, marriage bounties, barracks for village men who had left their families behind, and free medical services and amusements. Five men worked in this factory. The wages paid were much less than those of casual skilled work, but the steady income year in and year out made it attractive. The men normally returned to the village on Saturday and left again on Sunday evening or Monday morning. The discipline and the severe limitation of family life were the main drawbacks. Wages varied from about T.L.60 a month for a floor sweeper, barely a living wage even for a villager, to T.L.150 for a machine operator with long service.
This external income had several effects on the village economy. Primarily it injected a large quantity of cash. People said that money had formerly been rare in the villages, and most economic exchange was carried on in kind. Now a considerable number of households prefer to meet their obligations with cash. Secondly, some of the money earned outside is spent in the village on employing labour for housing, or buying food from neighbours. Thirdly, it may in some instances provide capital for new types of enterprise (p. 70). Fourthly, the