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THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, · DECEMBER 5, 1953.

66

"Just let one of 'em say they've seen a flying saucer"

-London Express Service)

THE BIG NAMES

OF OUR

TIMES.

A PIERCING

LIGHT SHINES IN THE

DARK

́A

CORNERS

Em-

GREAT pire -und little minds go ill to- gether," wrote Edmund Burke. And more than a century later the Tory Party, impelled by the ex-Radical Joe Chamberlain, Look up a policy of Inter- Empire Trade Protection as the best way of welding the rest of the Empire to- gether.

At least, they took it up

. peroration

to

in phrase. Not in fact. It maté 21 fine, resounding many an otherwise fat, uninspiring address. Now another half century has gone by, n lurge part of it under pre dominantly Tory rule in Britain. The faithful are still waiting for the policy. And still getting only the peroration.

THE

MISCHIEF

THE AUTHOR

The Rt. Hon. Leo Amery, P.C., C.H.

ONE MAN

CAN DO

by Frank Owen

Why? Perhaps Stanley Bald- make no "tundamental change wh, the

new book.

bad broken up,

Stormy Session

4

Parilament.

in the new it.

01

UD an official negative attitude

towards Empire Protection.

Following Your Nose Το Paradise

By Yorke Henderson

TXOR

OR the last few miles to

Zanzibar you follow Mr Baldwin had apparently your nose. Long before the decided that though Protection Indian Ocean island. looms alone could

cure unemploy- low, and blue on the horizon, ment it could not win elections.th soft tang of cloves on

In the event, Labour's blund

ers did the necessary. and in tho, monggon air wafts a 1924 the Zinoviev "Red Letterrelcome,

scare brought Mr Baldwin back

10

for a second term with a huge The clove call has for con- majority. And then, Mr turies brought Arab dhows and Churchill's own utter surprise even Chinese junks into the The he had only first rejoined the island's historie harbour. Tory Party after 20 years opdhows still como under

their posing them-Mr Baldwin matle eagle-nosed captains, richly- him Chancellor of the Ex-encrusted daggers In

their chequer,

sashes, although It is a long Mr Amery says frankly that time since the Island saw Mr Baldwin's main motive was exotic shape of a junk. the fear that if Churchill Jeft out of office he might renew the association between himself, L.G., Austen Chamberlain and

-Mr-Baldwin's authority.

So this

Was

Birkenhead, to the detriment of Protectionist Prime Minister put a convinced Free Trader into a key financial and cecnomic position in his Tory

Government.

ment,

A Barrier

io

the

Is Modern civilisation

mly beginning to

on catch up Zanzibar. And unobtrusively at that. Even the new. airport buildings smack of the Arablan Nights, with their-cool-ver- andahs behind Moorish arches; and the dally one-hour pro- gramme by the Zanzibar Broadcasting Service begins with a ten-minute reading from the Koran.

For Zanzibar is still ruled by profectorate under omcially the wing of Britain's Colonial Office. The Sultan, 74-year-old Seyyid Sir Khalifa Bin Harub.

"It was a disastrous appoint- of the Tory Party as we knew talked so in fiscal policy" man who

"Dis-* says Amery. much about the Tory cure of

"Now Protection, and was three times

the first thing to be said astrous from the national point Tory Prime Minister

So Amery was thrilled when about this story, that Baldwin of view; even more disastrousa Sultan, although the island is of Bri-

Pro- for the Conservative Party." tain, nover belleved in it at all.

evening the new Prime believed L.G. was going

the lectionist and meant to jump

Mr Amery agrees that, later The amazing tale is told in Mr Minister rang him up

on, Churchill

was to become, Leopold Amery's fascinating Admiralty

(he was then First in ahead of him, is that there

"by circumstances by his Lord of the Admiralty)

whatever

And no evidence and exists In October 1922

Lloyd asked him to drop in to see him that L.G. meant to do anything own genius, the greatest states man of his age," but in Bald- George's Coalition Government at Downing Street; when Amery of the kind.

win's Tory had

of Government planted arrived Baldwin told

But somebody him that

muspicion in

1921-29 Churchill at the he had come to the conclusion the

the ever-

chequer was a barrier that nothing but Protection suspicious mind of this politician After dramatic, stormy could measure up to the prob- who played as a lifelong actor effective application of the Session at the Carlton Club the lem of Britain's unemployment, the part (there are

Amery's positive and consiructive Tory MPs voted

-polley, c. Protection. "What Baldwin did not toll words) of:- secede

With all his from the Coalition. The same me," rays Amery, "and what "A typleal Suxon, bluffy and

cloquence afternoon Lloyd George re never occurred to my innocent phlegmhtle, tolerant and always signed the Premiership,

other man's ...was that what, had, ready to see the "Does lile, Boldwin think, really prompted so sutiden a point of view but under- he can turn us out?" the Prime decision was the report which neath the strong Celtle strain- Minister had naked "his"

secretive col had reached" him

Lloyd emotional, impulsive, that leagues contemptuously a few George was coming home from and intensely personal in its days before, when he learned his visit to the United States loca, dislikes and moral judg- that Mr Stanley Baldwin was and Canada full of ideas of a menis."

BALDWIN

SUB.0.00 Was

* 191 a animating CAS

to

mind

one of the lead-l

bold Empire policy with Jumped Gun

ing dissidents

Imperial Preference well in the within the Min forefront.

But

the

was

the

10

istry

"Far from welcoming a con- Carlton Club vent Baldwin only saw the little Baldwin danger of Lloyd George con- axe solidating his hold over the old man who chopped Coalition Unioniste and so re down the doom asserting his influence over the ed Coalition. Tory Party as a whole."

A few months later Bonar Law's frall health broke down, and he quit the Premiership,

· CHURCHILL

The gay-att

La later..

any

coral

is a devout and strict Moslem despite his affability and re- Ex-putation for tolerance,

His 1,250-square-mile

is a Paradise Island only kingdom' Tory in a

tension-fraught modern world. The latest annual report on Zanzibar, published by the and

Colonial Omice in London, is in

deminating per- startling contrast to the reports

Christmas

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1953 GILES ANNUAL

stock will be limited.

Bookings accepted at

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST LTD., HONG KONG & KOWLOON;"

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(Round-Trip tickets available for 30 days)

HONG KONG to

SINGAPORE

Via BANGKOK or SAIGON

EVERY TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY & FRIDAY

of

ho re- on other colonies. Here is no presented these

strife, no terrorism, no smould- 184h century

ering nationalism or incipient political and Communism; It's like reading economic habits Jane Austen after a diet of thought whose Steinbeck.. dead hand had weighed

Actually at the period when heavily against such a policy, Mr Baldwin professes to have and was to continue to frustrate received

that it." information

United States.

ot

and

Lloyd George was about to em- So, Amery says, Churchill by brace Protection, L.G. was "sheer pertinacity and vche-

onc-month whirl- monce," engaged in

Baldwin by wind tour of Canada and the "evasive inertia defeated all real efforts to fulfi Baldwin's On his landing South- own election pledge to safe- Getting In Quick amplon L.G. at ance dezounced guard any efficient Dräishin-

unfelr Then Mr Amery quotes the Baldwin's policy to the journal- dustry against

foreign statement Mr Baldwin made to isis who met him

as: competition. "An in- Deflation and free imports, Dr Tom Jones many years later, "Unutterable folly,"

and bitter industrial strife, and without Not unfair. For acting on his made the workers turn to

pure Socialism.

had-

there

Little Baldwin, a person of the utmost Insignificance," as "Rightly or wrongly, I was sult to an intelligent but stary says, Amery, brought wage cuts Gurzon described him, stepped convinced you could not deal up.

with

ing ptople."

unemployment

one

issue

It I felt

was which would

The General Election of 1022 a tarif resulted in a Tory victory, but tho

it divided the Tory Party. It pull the party. needed a new General Election together,

10-

the

to bring the strays back into cluding the fold.

Lloyd Goorgo But was there my adequate - ranícontents. public reason for holding

an-

Goat was in Autumn of 19237 Well, unem- America, Ho 'ployment was rising dangerous

on the

other. General Election in the the

Was

ly once more. What could be --- water when I done to tackle.it?

If you weren devoted Tory speech and the

madó

the

conce

M

mero suspicion (or "hunch")

Baldwin jumped the gun. Overnight and

Mr

in the event, quite fatally for

More Serious:

Mr Churchill, he believes,

his party and their true policy, staled his fato in 1945 by his

ho had decided to commit-folly kv 1924-29 da pade

His "errors" at that time Mr them, all unprepared, to a Pro-

Amery attdbutes to lack of tectionist Election

"

Has

an-

The only sensational fact in the entire report is the nouncement that islanders in the capital demonstrated when a were handful of cattle overs convicted of falling to inoculate their enttle against anthrax.

Otherwise the report tells of smooth progress. The "national debt" stood at £65,000, bor- rowed from the National Bank of India to finance an electrici- ty scheme. The cost of living showed little change there were actually several decreases. Clove sales were down; but then copra sales were up. The health report was satisfactory and the medical officers were able to say ita record of staying free from at the island had maintained serious diseases.

Not to be outdone, the labour He suddenly unloaded it up, knowledge and to possession of on his Cabinet according to resolute, not to say obstinate, officers reported "no, Industrial .BUL. For Stanley disputes," Even the crime figures Amity as a complete bomb character.

Ainery

a looked good, to most of them." Mr Baldwin Me

With a fine sense of under- Baldwin then hurried into a harsher judgment. He was idle General Election.

and politically unprincipled, statement, the report, after com- of the Empire school, as Leo Liberals did not know what The Tory Government lost 88 though personally, a man of mending a type of native hous they sull high honour. Mr Amery no- ing as Inexpensive and conven and though Amery certainly was and ever to say. I had information that has been you would say "Im ho was going Protectionist, and outnumbered either the Labour pears to accept Churchill's own tent, admits, that one of its

Opposition

reunited crimate of Baldwin as that of chier defects is a tendency pose the Tory policy of Em- I had to get in quick. piro Trade Protection." But Dished the Goalss otherwise, Liberals, they had to resign and, no statesmans but an adroit the roof to collages.

all over. Baner Law, had pledged to he would have got the party make way for a minority Labour, and relentless pontician," LAYAR But that's Zanzibar a

Perhaps i mire, senique than There are lots moro. palm frondis wh Austen and F. [Cham-Administration,

another' root ***Mu" Politien). Life bublain and Hirkenhead] and As a result the Tory Party, llus minds, Great Ampires to make,

there would have been, an and under Baldwin in futurs took and luxy,minds go ill together: Paradipo, Taland.

Amery,

War, He

the For

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ERY WEDNESDAY

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HK$775.

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Freight, call 58948 BUTTERFIELD & SWIRE (HK) LTD. and major tourist, agents.

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