THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, Thursday, OCTOBER 22 1936.
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BIRTH.
SIMPSON-AL Kowloon Hospital, October 22, 3036, to Deatrice, wife of E. W. Simpson, Hongkong Polier, a daughter,
The
Hongkong Telegraph.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1936.
OVERCROWDING
1
WIREL
Delegates of nearly forty nations
oro now conferring of Conova in on endeavour mutually to ban brood. casting likely to load to international conflict
T
THE family, anxiously awalling news on a day of crisia, site round the wireless set. The volce
of the Announcer-surely an unfamiliar volee this evening? -at last speaks.
"London" it anys, "has been occupied without zerlous opposi- tion by the forces of X-Land. Ils Majesty'a Government
re-
signed, and the Supreme Military Command of X-Land has formed Provisional Directorate to take over control.
** All
resistance bar bern crushed, and they are complete Perfect masters of the situation. order Now reigns in London. The Provisional Directorate en- joins all citizens to remain calmn and in the interest of their own safety to stay indoors after 0 p.m.
*The usuni train, bus, and
resume postal services will
to- It is the duty of all morrow. eltizens to listen-in to-morrow morning at ten. when further de- crees will be broadcast.
"London National is now closing down. Good-night."
4
HUNDREDS of thou1- sands of homes, fac- torles, offices, ships at sca, and even military units walt-
ing in vain for orders, hear this voice.
It gives the first official news for twenty-four hours. A gas-bomb the midst of the bursting' in
steners could hardly demoralise them more effectively.
No doubt the picture seems fan- ciful. Such a thing could never happen in England? Perhaps not. But it has happened-and is hap- other pening even to-day-in countries.
The most recent example comes While the Govern- from Spain. ment stations of Madrid and Barcelona have called and re- assured the population, the rebels in Seville have done their utmost. to demoralise it,
"Government control is main-
tained over most of the country,” broadcasts Madrid. "The military rising in Barcelona is completely dominated. The Workers' Militia maintains order in the capital. The Navy remains loyal and is. guarding the Straits. Long live the Republici "
"The Government forces are in full fight," General Queipo de Llano announces simultaneously from Sevilic. "Troops from Morocco are passing freely into Spain. The whole of Andalusia, as well as the Northern Provinces, 13 In our hands. Our columns are converging from both sides on Madrid, where the situation of the
-by- Geoffrey BRERETON
Government is desperate. live Spain!",
Long
Some months ago I was staying in the town of Avlin. The morning papera arrived at 10.30 am.. the evening papers not at all. Every. night we gathered in the lounge of the little commercial hotel- guests, proprietor, walter, and bool-10 hear the news on the wireless.
The boots could not read, but all of us. In different degreca, relled on that set for our knowledge of the outside world.
Avila is the capital of 'pro- vince. It is only seventy miles from Madrid. When you get into the reu Spanish country, the scaltered hamlets of the South and West, the mountain villages of Asturing, you are still more de- pendent on wireless.
L
SOME of these villages are half-a-day's jour- ney from the nearest Fullway. Their malls and news- papers are still delivered by horse. Fitty per cent, of the population The have never learnt to read, other fifty per cent., with the ex- ception of the priest, have for- gotten how.
In these places a
cheap, out-of-date wireless set is ail-powerful as the only bringer of news.
In October, 1934, a revolution broke out in Spain to shake off the yoke of a Government which was rapidly becoming Fascist. The desperate struggle of the Asturian miners against the trained troops of the Right-including the Foreign Legion from Morocco-is now a matter of history.
LESS well known is the fact that the move- ment in the mining and industrial centres was to have been seconded by a general rising of the peasants.
But in hardly a single village did the peasants stir. The voice of authority, speaking from Madrid, renched them long before the orders of their leaders. They did not hear of the success of the minern in Asturias,
They were told that fe in Madrid was normal, and never nug- pected that the Government dare not use the CivB) Guard for fear it might not obey.
The Spanish countryfolk crossed their arms, muttered in various tones, Nothing doing!" and went home to supper. Had they known it the fate of the reactionary Government was hanging by n thread. A rising of the peasants would probably have turned thie scale.
SCIENCE has put Into the hands of whoever is in a position to use it
a weapon more potent than ginnt howitzers or 30,000-ton battleships. It is ten times surer than a shell, Incalculably swifter than an acro- plane.
If you want to put a city out of action by the old method, you assemble at tremendous cost a fleet of bombers, send them off on a three, five, or ten hours' journey -and wait for their return with the sure knowledge, that they can only have partly accomplished their object.
By the new method you speak for three minutes into a micro- phone, and at the end of that time you have peacefully and instan- taneously quelled the resistance of three-quarters of the population.
The weapon of wireless has not yet been used in a war between States: Obviously--It-requires-an Invasion to gain control of the enemy's broudcasting stations-or else the erection of transmitting stations considerably more power-
THE ALLOTTED SPAN
The most striking fact re- vealed in the official report on overcrowding in Hongkong is that, by reason of bad times, there is a marked drift of ten- anta from the better-class dis- tricts into the already over crowded slum areas. It is con- ceded in the report that the magnitude of the existing pro- blem is largely due to the absence of town planning in former times and to the undue concessions made in regard to old property in 1903. Hostility of landlords towards measures for improving property has also been a factor, but it is stated that the spirit of obstruction is less evident now than formerly. None the less, the view is ex- pressed that if large-scale slum clearance were attempted, con- siderable opposition would have to be overcome., At Home, the authorities appear less tender- hearted towards landlords than been here; compulsion has freely used in England in deal- ing with the problem. Some improvement is apparently being effceted by the rebuilding of properties which are from timer is something of an event in life
when to time condemned for reasons
we reach our reventieth birthday. How does it feel then to of structural defects. An even reach this limit milestone, and what bigger impression would be are one's reflections looking back-
ward and forward? made if property were more freely condemned by reason of unfitness for human habitation. In any event, DS is acknowl- edged, the process of elimina- tion of bad property by present means must be very slow. It is satisfactory to note that provi- sion has been made for drastic improvement in the conditions of lighting and ventilation of old properties, but the new inw will be of no avail unless it is Much of rigorously enforced. the overcrowding would dis- appear if the authorities went no further than to compel observance of the laws. already on the Statute Book before the new Ordinance was passed this It is useless to bring in year. new enactments unless there is
Use of Leisure a determination to see that they
But one must beware of idle hours arc, obeyed. This Colony has
and want of purpose; our langed- far too many laws which are
for leisure must not become a miser's never enforced. There was a hoard, golden hours left to rust and hope that the Housing Commis-moulder, but a new investment well the spiritual sion, appointed last May, would, placed which shall bring in com-
pound Interest (in without undue delay, succeed in sense) year by year.
To meet and pass the ceventieth producing practical measures for a planned attack on the slum milestone fit to carry on, we must keep both body and mind alert and evil; surprise and regret will be with something in reserve for emer- felt at the newa that it has, gencies. thus far, only held one meeting. The reason given is the absence of members of the Commission from the Colony, and changes in Government personnel. For
*
ment and skill of the "short holes those blessings, we must have a true game have a tonic effect; and on the philosophy of life. The best philo
is one founded on religion, bowling green one finds that com-sophy
he in those things which are radeship which means so much in
unseen but eternal, the true realities later life.
in the providence of Then the garden has is devotees, of life, and First of all, there is that well-though I sometimes think the gar God and His graciousness towards
not men. Can dener, like the poet, is born, known sensation of unreality.
Such a faith we shall find in our that long tale of years really belong mude; and if none of those appen to me, or has there been some mis- there is always walking, especially Bibles, and the "daily reading," in the country, an exercise which especiall, of the Psalms, will en- forward and take about the birth certificate?
source us sul's almost everybody.
Bighten our path.
The years have brought so many that old age bas almösl
It is sometimes said we are just as old as we feel, and it feelings go for anything then we must just be middle-aged, but not old surely! But "facts are chiels," and we must face the reality; it will make all the dif- ference in the world if we do so in the right spirit.
Many workers, especially in bank- int, tcaching, and the Civil Service, must retire at 60 or 65, and their attitude to life at seventy will really depend on how they have spent the previous years of leisure.
If the personal note may be par- doned, my own experience has been almost ten years freedom from off- cial work (Civil Service), and those years have been among the happiest in life's experience.
wolk
4
such
to
Ko
Country Walka What is plearonter than a lany changes
to the hills and burns or ceased to be a current term, while through the woods and by the hedge- in history and public life we may their rows with a choice companion, or, remember those, like W. E. Glad- an azlitt would have it, alone ex-storic, who made history in
eighties. cept for a book in the pocket?
"Health means so much that we But the mind is its own place'; how glorious it is to have long spells should guard it as our richest trea- true means of living": at favourite authors; course of sure, the Trollepe, or Meredith, or Hardy, and, which enables us to carry on, While return to the great essayists, Lamb, it is our privilege to remember and Hazlitt, and Leigh Hunt, with their fook back on our life's experience successors, E. V. Lucas, II. Bellos, let us belleve in our future, und say Robert Lynd, and others; or a win-with Browning, "The best is yet to ter study of Boswell's Johnson or be
But all this concerns ourselves Lockhart's Scoli preparatory to go What of others? Nothing will bring lag ence more through the Waverley
pleasure and happiness Into novels.
As for poetry, we are just begin our declining years as the endeavour ning to discover what a splendid to help others and to brighten their tonle it is for the mind. The lives, 11 make our journey west- majesty of Milton and Wordsworth, ward a pilgrimage made bright by Edinburgh is specially endowed the glory of Shakespeare, the quiet the glory of the sunset.
of Matthew Arnold, reflectiveness
bracing virility of Robert with open doors of opportunity for those who are wilting to help. It refresh our Browning-all those minds and make us feel young again. We are at and active we shall be Then let us keep in touch with made very welcome, and be able to ness. Such work brings its own rc- the news of the day and take a keen give more time than those in busi- interest in the world's happenings. ward in fellowship and friendship. Our newspapers now are se com- in the company of young people in prehensive that all aspects of life are many cases, and the assurance Veterans have their golf and bow-touched upon, and high polities, in- gives that, though "retired, we are Jing, and both are splendid youth- ternational affairs, and local occur- still of rome, lase in world which
the long ronces should all claim our often- de sympathy and help. keepers, for even when
tion. course grows too trying, the excite-
Let us then say "Forward is our Even if we are not actually foot watchword, Service our objective," ball "tans," we may be interested in and sten out from its end-of-the- who will win the Rugby champlan-cond milestone with courage and
the or whethe a task of this magnitude, calling siderable period of time. Un-lo.
Part of th. So shall we sill make pro- for prolonged study, the wiseless there is some prospect of Midlothian will last bring the res ice these pilgrims of old who turn vouchsafed Ume and again on
glimpses of the Journey plan would have been to confide greater expedition, would it not "Cup" to Edinburgh,
Pence of mind and aulet content their appointments to persona likely be wise to delegate the work toment are greatly to be desired in our Celestial City. Geo. W. Cooper. to be in the Colony for a con- an entirely new Commission?
and
later years, and if we are to enjoy!
E
ful than his, which even then could be jammed,
But within States, to crush or further rebellion, or to suppor: authority, the radio has already proved its worth.
Not only in a country of great distances and little education, auch as Spain. In Austria, where the inhabitants are more consoly grouped, it has twice played an im- portant part.
The Viennese Bncinitate, who made their great bid
against Fascism in February, 1934, were isolated in the buildings which the workers occupied, and gradually reduced by Government troops and artillery.
THAT
isolation was
the result of wireless Hour by hour the Gov- ernment issued its bulletins: "The rising is confined to one quarter of Vienna. The rest of the The Socialists country is quiet. are on the point of surrender.”
Thousands who might Joined the movement were-pre- vented from doing so. by being convinced that the situation was hopeless.
DAVC
In the following year, the Naz! murderers of Dr. Dollfuss madr straight for the broadcasting station. It was only when they were driven out of it that their coup can be said to have definitely Tand
ankind is as easy as it ever was to nove in the mass. The fact that
it has grown more critical in small things seems to have made it more eralulous in largo.
It must have something in which it can trust, and the voles from the loud-speaker has replaced the voice of the ancient, infallible high-priests. How many who dis- ms with a sceptical smile that ex- citing rumour that Smith told us, who weigh the probabilit'es of the facts that our newspapers report, nevertheless listen to an announcer without a suspicion that he might be wrong?
Thousands of people were led to believe, because of a broadcast ten years ago, that revolution had broken out in Britain.
FATHER RONALD KNOX, in a talk from Edinburgh, gavo ex- tracts from Imerry.news bulle- tina. describing a Red 'riot in Lorton. Bound effects inter- 60d his remarks, and steners thought that a sortoun industrial utval was in progress,
When the history of this ago comes to be written, several sefen- tine discoveries will have to be judged, their sum of good and evil assessed.
Towering above them all-far more powerful than the aeroplane, than long-range artillery or poison gas--I believe that this new art of propaganda, allied to the radio, will stand supreme.
!
To-day's Thought- THE Aving rumours pather'd
as they rou Scarce any ta'c was sooner
heard than told;
And all who told it added some-
thing new, And all toho heard it made en-
largements, Ing.
........
-POPE.