HONGKONG DAILY PRESS
"
CHINESE
MARITIME CUSTOMS'
REPORT FOR 1938
Shanghai Export Figures Show Big Decline
SHANGHAI, Jan. 25 (T/Ocean:-The report of the Chinese Mari- thne Customs for 1938, which has just been published, shows that Chinese imports in 1938, had a total value of 886 milion Chinese dollars compared with 853 million dollars in 1937. The exports in 1938 amounted to 762 million dollars while 1938 Agures showed a total of 838 millions.
WEAK POLICY BRINGS WAR
NEARER
The figures for 1938, it must be stressed. do not include the National Government's imports since early last summer as well us the Japanese imports of military supplies.
Of the various) Chinese ports, Tientsin suffered the largest de-] crease of imports while the export gures showed a condiderable de-
Viscount Cranborne cline in Shanghai and Tientsin.
Issues Warning
Tsingtao likewise suffered a con- siderable decrease in foreign trade.
per cent.
(Reuter) LONDON, Jan. 25 “Feebleness at the present time on the part of England will only bring war declared the former Under- Secretary for Foreign Affairs; Viscount Cranborne, speak- ing at Wermouth yesterday. He said that he saw little sign of response to Mr. Chamber-tively.
CHAMBERLAIN
MENTIONED FOR
PEACE PRIZE
STOCKHOLM, Jan. 25 T/Oceani -A group of members of the Swedish Parliament have resolved
British to propose the
Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamber- lain, as candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, according to the paper. "Sydsvenska Dagbladet,"
CABLES
ITALIAN
RESERVISTS
CALLED UP
ROME, Jan. 25 (Renter)—A small number of Italian army specialists have been called up for a period of training, ac- cording to semi-offefal circles. Official quarters, however, profess complete ignorance of the report that 200,000 resor- vists have been called to the colours.
BURNS NIGHT DINNER
COLONIAL SECRETARY PROPOSES TOAST TO IMMORTAL MEMORY
THE COLONIAL SECRETARY, HON, MR. N. L. SMITH, ' proposed the toast to the Immortal Memory of Robert Burns at the Burns' Night Dinner which was held at the Peninsula Hotel Rose Room last night, when His Excellency the Gov- ernor, Sir Geoffry Nortcote, was present as the guest of honour.
The National Government-con- Mr. W. Kay, Chieftain of the trolled Customs stations cleared St Andrew's Society, presided and 23 per cent. of China's total ex- the principal guests were the ports but only rather less than 10 chief Justice. nearer."
Sly Atholl Mac of China's imports. Gregor. Mr. Justice R. E. Lindsell, Shanghai maintained Arst place Hon. Mr. N. L. Smith. Hon. Mr. among the ports of China, clear-T. H. King, Hon. Mr. Stanley H. ing 45 per cent, of China's foreign Dodwell, Prof. L. R. Shore, Rev. K trade. Tientsin and Tsingtao Mackenzie Dow, Dr. G. D. R. Black, ranked second and third. respec- Messrs, E. S. Carter, P. S. Cassidy. F. A. Joseph, K. S. Morrison, J. A. plummer. C. G. Sollis and Wylle...
anxiety, possibly a
crisis.
B
· IMMORTAL: BURNS
Rising to propose the principal toast, the Hon. Mr. N. L. Smith sald:-
lain's policy of appeasement The imports decreased in prac either from Germany or Italy. tically all classes of commodities He was not 50 optimistic as while, with regard to the ex- the Premier, and added: "I think porta, the most marked decline we are in for a year of great occurred in the volume or imports
of textile Abres and piecegoods, "These dictators have tasted
*** Immense quantities of Jap-| blood. They have applied forge anese goods are being taken into and have had some success, as a China by the Japanese without Having heard this evening's result.
dustoms dues being paid. Figures toast proposed last year and the "Why should they abandon a for these commodities, therefore, year before by two successive policy which seems to have work are naturally not included in the Governors, 1 feel rather over ed so well?
official Ust.
"It we want to preserve the ilberties of "our .country and European civilization, we shall have to make this country an Impregnable fortress ever cost."
at what-
GERMAN-CZÉCH
EXCHANGE OF
Since I am myself my own fever and pain."
Very beautiful and very elegant.
as a cross-word puzzle, no doubt; but about as passionate
very
Burns on the other hand wisely starts by falling violently in love... and then when he can restrain himself no longer he bursts ont:-
"As fair art thou, my bonnie 1a35,
So deep in luve am I.
And I wil; luve thee still, m dear.
Till at the seas gang dry.
י
Ti a' the seas gang dry, my dear.
And the rocks melt wi the sun.
34
And I will juve thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run."
awed by the gravity of the 'task that has been imposed upon me to-night. I must confess how- ever, that I accepted the Chief- tain's invitation without much
It is true that he did not always real hesitation, as I admit thatwalt. for the rocks to melt before I have been for the best part of transferring his eternal devotion my te something of what' would
be
д called Burns "fan."
JAPANESE
RETREAT TO
KAOTANG nowadays
WAR SUPPLIES Delav In "Hiranuma gest that I have
PRAGUE, Jan. 35 (Reuter)-A mission of German military experts
Offensive"
By this I do not mean to sug
read all his poems, and I frequently stall my engine over his broader examples of the Darie. But in my schoo days. I came under the influence or Thomas Carlyle's little book about Heroes and Hero-Worship and so naturally grew up with something like an ingrained belle. Canton retreated southward that Robert Burns has certain It is officially explained that as Kiotang on January 20." The bulk claims to be included among th the Munich Agreement has de-of the Japanese forecs retired to prived Czechoslovakia of practi-Canton on January 21.
bas concluded an arrangement for (From Our Own Correspondent)" Czesluslovakia to supply Germany! CHUNGSHAN, Jan. 25. Accord with high performance aero en-ing to a communique received her gines and agroplane parts in ex-last night, the Japanese units at change for lignite from pits in Su-Sunkai, about 35 miles north of deten regions.
to some other bonnie lass, but one can have little doubt that when he wrote those lines he meant and felt every word of them.
J
NEW TRIAL
dia.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 1939. --PAGE ·
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silence and solitude. It is an undoubted fact that many of Burns' early poems were com- posed actually at the tall of the plough and throughout his life we can surely see the traces of that early appren- ticeship."
You all know his weaknesses. He drank too much, especially to- wards the end of his life. He let his head be turned too easily by his sudden rise to fame. And he no more attempted to resist any of the "lassies o" than he tried to interfere with the green growth of the "rashes 0.“
what I'am tempted to quote another poet wrote about yet an-" other poet:-
*Buch stálns there are-as when a Grace
Sprinkles another's laughing
face
1
THE
HONG KONG
PENINSULA HOTEL;
HONGKONG HOTEL; REPULSE BAY HƠTIL;
&
SHANGHAI
ALTOR HOUSE; PALACE HOTEL:
HOTELS
LIMITED.
In association with the Grand Hotel den Wagons 1its, Peking.
With nectar and runs on.” IN THE
Very Improper to splash another
lady's face-but after all she was
a Grace, and after all it was nec- tar. So, may one not say-after
WORLD'S NEWS
all it was Robbie Burns, and after BRITAIN all we did get the nectar of these heavenly love-songs of his?
BURNS' POPULARITY
.
{JAPAN
It is understood that the, Jap- Show is falling in almost the whole of Britain. The rain which anese Government is making re- began to fall on Tuesday night presentation to the British Gov- It is not altogether easy at this changed to snow yesterday mor-ernment regarding the detention distance of time understand ning when the temperature drop-of a number of Japanese in Sing
espionage. the reasons for the Immense and ped and three feet of snow is re-pore on suspicion of
Similar immediate "rage" for his simpll-ported in the lake district.
representation will be city and his hatred of hypocrisy
made to the Singapore authori- Ities.
to
It was Wordsworth who sald that the best poetry should consist in "emotion recollected in tranquillity," and it'was, I think, just in this respect that Burns and the other Romantics blazed a completely new trail. Becondly, Burns was lucky in
what being brought up in
WAS. world's great men.
until the days of wireless and Now you may say that a person cheap newspapers, probably the cally the entire lignite supplies. Sunkal is located in Fahsien dis-
who was born and bred, most cultured peasantry that the drastic measures are now necestrict. hence the report that Fa-
in a
place called world has ever seen. We may sary to prevent a serious shortage. hsien district was captured by the Carlyle was,
There is no confirma-Ecclefechan would be liable to laugh at their interminable Japanese. tion of this report. The enemy certain amount of racial, prejudice putations about predestination and were something quite new in those units there have also withdrawn or even local prejudice. But the free-will CHINESE SILVER
days. Those Duchesses in Edin-
FLEET AT GIBRALTAR 4 is not at all borne dut by the should not do well, I think. tburgh had never come across just EGYPT
LONDON, Jan. 25 (T/Ocean)-- DEPOSITED IN U.S.
There is no change in the west other names
Ist of laugh at that picture of low living that sort of plough-boy before and
The North Sea feet led by the SHANGHAI, Jan. 25 T/Occans River front at Sanshil. which is "Heroes" Cromwell and Napoleon, and high thinking which is por- they naturally tumbled like nine-
Hassaneln Abdel Hald, who Hagship, Nelson, has arrived at pins. And at the other end of the
was alleged to have been knocked Gibraltar. According to the official Dante and Shakespeare and Night." here the total amount of silver and some artillery units.
from Swatow | Samuel Johnson-and of course
sidelight in
remark deposited in the United States by
tenced to two years for unlawful made by Lockhart, the blographer possession of a revolver and laying manoeuvres.
to take part in the usual spring China amounts now to $2,200,000. stated that 12 Japanese warships Robert Burns himself.
of Scott, who says that when a false report against a student:ance is to be attached to the ap-.
No special signif- 000 which means that there has passed through there in a westerly at once impelled to ask on what schoolmaster who had taught
A Chinese military re- grounds could it be right to select Robble and was a good friend of inn at night it was usual for even
Burns on his travels came to an named Jean Aster. been no decrease in the Chinese direction.
pearance of the fleet in Gibraltar. sliver stores in America, in spite port stated to-day that only three this Scottish peasant for a place the family was enabled, near the the, waiters and ostlers to jump
in the in such a team of stars. · of the long duration of the Sino-Japanese warships are Japanese conflict.
...A PARADOX
to Sunkal
hig
and so forth. But
WC
-According to Chinese quarters garrisoned by 3.000 Japanese troops Martin Luther and John Knox trayed in the "Cottar's Saturday ! social scale there is an interesting down with a pistol, has been sen-statements. the Fleet is only there
ཟ1
Chinese reports
southern districts at Hsuwen.
It seems that the much herald- ed "Hiranuma offensive" is delay- The coffins of two former Pre-ed owing to lack of sufficient miers of Austria, Doifuss and Bel-troops or gradual exhaustion of pels, were removed from the Methe enemy. Reports from the morial church which was built in North do not indicate any serious their honour and taken to ordinary advance towards the northwest. cemeteries by other of the author- tles The removal secretly and without religious ser- vice.
WEATHER
done
REPORT
HONGKONG ROYAL
OBSERVATORY
7
10 a.m., January 25.
Barometer (at sea level), 30.11 Ins.
Temperature, 66 F.."
Humidity, 71 per cent.
Wind Direction, E/S.
Wind Force (Beaufort), 4.-
GENERALISSIMO ADDRESSES SESSION
(Contlued from Page 1)
Against the conceited, buckling, disunited and top-heavy
ness
swash-
There is a true story And one is illustrates this point.
I suppose, it would at first sight seem paradoxical to apply the word "lucky" to a man who was born to grind. Ing poverty and hard manual tell; who suffered all his life from grievous l-health; who spent his days dodging credi- tors and duas and baillffs: and who finally died quite some time before his fortieth birthday. Bat I think it la Justifiable to say that in cer- tain respects Barns was lucky --or perhaps it would be more proper, to say that the world was lucky in certain of Burns' circumstances.
which
The
old
Д
chance
out of bed and dress hurriedly so as to miss nothing of his wonder- ful conversation:
much poets 2.5 fim-stars and aviators and the like. "But how. are we to explain a personality which manageą, to survive after death?
end of his life, to visit London in order to meet the intellectuals of that city. Now if you know your | Boswell yaü. will realize that "there
was some good conversation in Well we are used to something London about then-Goldsmith of this sort nowadays—not so and Burke and Gärrick and Adam Smith and Reynolds and the rest besides Johnson and Boswel |themselves. It lo not recorded which if any of these intellectua' gaints the old dominie met; bat it is recorded that when he go back to his Lowland home he gave his considered opinion that Lon- don had nothing to offer compare; with the talk that he had years been hearing in the Burns farmhouse.
sven
obscure If you go to certain club-houses in Scotland you will still find preserved there a cleek or a putter or even a ball that has had the privilege of being used by another young Scot who, died too soon. Freddie Tait was not the greatest golfer of all time
Is it to be wondered at that any more than Robble Burns was the outstanding figure of such a the greatest poet of all time, but In the first place, it was luck peasantry, when his ploughshare they both seem to have had that Japanese, China will show nity that Burns flourished (if that is turned up a feld-mouse, Instead ittle something that lasts beyond and harmony; against the weak-the appropriate word) right on the or letting out an expletive like the grave. It is barely forty years of industrial Japan, China crest of that amazing tidal wave an ordinary yokel, should go home since Freddie Tat was killed in will develop her agricultural stabl- that we call the "New Romance and immortalize that. 'sleekit South Africa and Robbie Burns is lity and spirit of thirty: into the which started, I suppose, with beastie" in fines that have runs already about a hundred years Temperature: minimum last night, dangers of Japan's impending so Rousseau and a few others and through the civilized world?
ahead of that. clal collapse China will add alswept clean though Europe in the Rainfall for 24 hrs. ending 10th catalysis by hastening her own; last years of the eighteenth cen
to-day, nil.
Temperature; maximum yesterday,
62 F.
59 F.
Total rainfall since January
0.86 ins.
Against an average of 0.65 in. Sunset to-night, 6.08 p.m. Sunrise to-morrow, 7.04 a.m.
Principles. 4 p.m., January 25.
Barometer (at sea level), 30.00. Temperature, 08. Humidity, 76.
Wind Direction, Weat. Wind Force (Beaufort), 2.
· Maximum temperature, 71. Minimum temperature, 59. Rainfall, nil.
war-time reconstruction, utilizing tury. In literaturé, in music' and 1, her climatic and geographical ad-above all, in polities, men 10" vantages; and as a contrast to the some reason suddenly started to brutal mlitarism of Japan, China throw out their chests. anc will enforce faithfully the late breathe the pure alr of reality Party Leader's Three People's and simplicity and sincerity after i
centuries of imprisonment in the Concluding, the Generalissimo chain of the classical tradition. said every member should clearly
Take a simple process like fall- realize the tremendous task of the ing in love. Here is how Dryden. Party as a whole and the mem- only a few years earlier, would bers as Individuals, and fight to the last for the achievement of the supreme and final goal of the re- volution.
manage it:
"I attempt from love's sick nees to fly in-vain
EARLY EMPLOYMENT
the And that leads me to third point in which I think Burne was lucky-I mean his carly employment. Joseph Conrad in one of his novels talks of the effect on a man's mind of living in a sailing ship-"the inestimable benefits of silence and" solltude" his words; and I should think that ploughing a field on an early spring morning is the nearest equivalent that the dry land can offer in the way of
are
*Immortal" is a big word to ase, but I have personally Uttle doubt that a” cứntury hence, unless some Totalitarian has meanwhile put all persons of Scottish race into intern- ment camps, men will still be gathering all over the world as we are to-night to celebrate this twenty-Bfth of January, And that is about as far ahead as most of us dare to look these days.
Gentlemen, I give you the Im- ́mortal, Memory of Robert Burns.
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