10
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY, JULY 1, 1938.
Bellahouston
-GREATER THAN WEMBLEY
COTLAND'S Empire Exhi- bition has been planned as a British contribution to the progress of democ- racy and the cause of inter- national peace.
That is why Socialists have been enthusiastic workers for its success and were associated with the enterprise even before it
was made known to the public.
The exhibition has been planned and constructed on communal principles, and the 700 members of the committee who have shaped it and infused It with fe have been inspired throughout by good will All men and all nations.
Scotland could not by itself havo organised this exhibition, which is on a grander, and certainly greater, scale than the Wembley Show of 1924.
I richer exhibition beralise the world is older and wiser than was four- teen years ago.
Seatland therefore asked all the other countries comprising the Beth Commonwealth to assist, and they have responded gener- ously to the request
In monetary terma the show is yued at £10.000.000, M1 11 18 Tuttle to discuss an exhibition: on this basis.
There {F over
460,000,000 persona In the British Commonwealth which represents The Toits of centuries of struggle to promote democratic culture.
The
exhibition portraya the results of these centuries because Its majestic pavilions and their marvellous contents would have Been lipo is!bie without the ideas and sacrifices of the men and Wontra who preceded us
Peatland, thanks to the friend-
The 30041 Pitgl
Tewer of Fire.
-and the Men behind it
BY RITCHIE CALDER
THEN those who helped
W to
create the Empire Exhibition were presented to the King and Queen at Glasgow there was a notable absentee- The Man Who First Thought of. It.
He probably would be there i they could find him, but no one knows who it was. It was just the wish of a nation which became concrete-and stecl.
One might imagine. from the speed and thoroughness with which tlla 10,000,000 enterprise took its present elegant shape, that one morning, eighteen months ago, all Scotland woke up and, spontane- Qualy and simultaneously. said "Let's have an exhibition?"
There are lots of other - knowns whose ideas and inspire- tious gave this exhibition 11% character.
My own pet unknown is the Min Who Thought of The Paving Stones. He exists somewhere in Caithness, up by John a' Groats.
When other local authorities, the great and the small, decided to give the yield of a farthing rate to the Scottish Pavillon, Caithness, with its sparse population, lamented that 'Its contribution would scarcely be water in the brose. And then someone thought of PAVING STONES-a gift in kind from rocks of the Pentland Firth.
►
NATURALLY most of the
credit should go to those who did the organising and gave the exhibition its slapa.
As for its shape-and, in its de- sign and lay-out, the exhibition is a wonder--the credit should go to Mr. Thomas S. Tait, the chlor architect,
The Exhibition
Tower, allm Anger beckonlig the millions' from all over the world, is already hin monument. To the Beets it has become" "Tait's "Tower" 'na cor- tainly as the Paris tower became Clustuvo Eiffel's.
One Büriday afternoon, eighteen
months ago. Talt sat down with a pad in the house of one of the committee and sketched the exhi- billon.
And on the crest of the hill of Bellahouston Golf Course he pro- posed a tower nearly 300 (not high,
Why? Because from the galleries at the top visitors would be able to look 100 miles over the beauties of Scotland? Or was it because a few miles away in the town of Paisley there lived an old lady of over 802
For Thomas Talt, one of the buslest and wealthiest architects In the work, came from a humble home in The Town of Thread. His mother intended, as so many Scottish mothers have done for generations, that he should “wag his pow in the poopit " and qualify for the ministry.
But one night she heard him say his prayers and decided that maybe he'd better be an architect after all.
the Little Minister
Suecame a great architect,
not only of the exhibition, but of the new Government buildings on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, and many other famous modern bulidings,
He might have been tempted, as an avid town-planner, by an invi- tation to replan Moscow, if it had not been for that old lady in Palalcy.
Instead, he raised a tower which could be seen from Paisley....But his mother never saw the pinnacle of her son's achievement. Bedrid- den Invalid, she died a fortnight ngo.
"Tommy" Tait 18, one of the invat charmingly diffident mon 1 have over mot.
Hu points out tho towar. "Wouldn't like to be the mon who built it," he says admiringly of the "Suicide Squad" who reared it in winter gales which made the massive motal sheets fap like canvas when they tried to "rig 19.” Then there is The Man with The Brille That Works Miracica-Mr. Cecil Weir, Chairman of the Ad-
by
P. J. Dollan
ship and co-operation of the slater nations, is therofore able to stage an exhibition which will be an in- dication of constitutional progress in industry, commerce, the arts, the sciences, and politics,
The crafts are recognised as of equal importance with the arts.
Also, the miner, the steel worker, the foundryman, and the ship- builder are as much honoured in the exhibits of their trades as the artist or literary man.
Recalling rural life of three con- turies ago, the Highland clachan nesties near the great pavilion of the United Kingdom to remind us how brief is a century in the life of a nation.
The exhibition was promoted at a time when Scotland was being scheduled s A distressed
area. The country was overrun with pessimism, and the preachers of decadence and bankruptcy attrac- ted the largest audiences.
GREAT effort
Was
Anreded to lift the peop
out of the slough of despond, and the exhibition has succeeded in Riving Sentland renewed conf- dence and courage to overcome its economic and Industrial diMcul- tles.
Last July Bellahouston
site was as bare us Hampstead Heath, The workers
tur months mate it a wonderland.
Scotland is a population of less 5,000,000, In organising
than
Lord Elgin
Mr. T. S. Talt Capt. S. J. Graham Mr. Cecil Weir
And, it
ministrative.committee. you can imagine a committon full of dour Scotsmen all with their own Ideas, you will appreciate how miraculous that smile is which has kept harmony through all those months of mental cabor-tossing.
Cecil Woir is a leather merchant whoso main use for leather during the last year has been in wearing it out showing people round the Dxhibition.
Maybe after this is all over he will return gratefully to his leather and to wrlung "foy" plays **Earthbound," of which he was. part-author.!
ke
Going up the senje in "inches
an
exhibition for the British Common- wealth she has tackled a mighty Job.
Execution of this task has enabled her to find her strength and has revealed to her the vast resources of friendship which sho onjoys with the other 400,000,000 who make up the Commonwealth.
The Scotland that has made this exhibition is capable of greater achievements, than ever her poets or politicians dreamed.
Pessimisto scoffed and encored when tho scheme
Orst mooted. When a guarantee fund of almost £800,000 was raised they modifed their opposition, but still murmured that the exhibition would be a failure.
Working people were asked to support the enterprise by sub- scribing in advance for season tickets and have been paying six- pences and shillings weekly, repre- senting a total now of almost £100,000.
[EVER before has there
NEVER
been such a manifesta- tion of working class good will in any exhibition. This, more than anything else, has inspired the rest of the people.
People in the south will be amazed when they see Bellahous- ton in all its variety and majesty. I have seen all the European ex- hibitions of the post-war period, and that of Scotland is better than Its predecessors. So it should be. Wo have learned something from what has gone before, and we hope the next Empire Exhibition In England will be superior to that of Scotland this year.
dt.
Only justification for an ex- hibition is that it should be an advance on the one that went before.
We, who have been associatest with the scheme since the start, are ourselves amazed at the pro- gress made in such a short period. The setting for the exhibition is one of the most beautiful in the United Kingdom.
From the Tower of the Empire it is possible to survey R 100-mile panorama of the lovellest scenery, including several mountains, locks and glens. The countles of Dum- barton, Renfrew, Ayr, Lanark and Stirling can be seen in all their glory,
I stood on the top platform of the tower the other Sunday, and was inscinated by the beauty of my own countryside. Germany, Aus- tria, Italy or any other land in Europe, has nothing finer in scenie value than Scotland gives to the visitor to Bellahouston.
P
(for Weir is not so big either) we come the tall, burly mill- tary figure of Caplain Grahain, the
genemi manager, whose has the thrust of a pile driver.
He is on loan to the exhibition from the Department of Overseas Trade He gained experience t Wembley, at the British Govern- ment Pavillon, at the South Sens Exhibition in New Zealand, at the British Exhibition in Copenhagen, In British Week in Finland, at the Vienna Industrial Fair, at the BLF. and at exhibitions all over the world.
At first they were scared of a Civil servant, but he has long banished that. He is a Whitehall expert on "Schedules, keeping up to."
IF the web of Bella- houston manages to attract those 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 visitors, Bruce's spider has helped to spin it.
For the president, Lord Elgin, is a direct descendant of Bruce, Like his ancestor's spider, he never gives up trying,
For months he practically lived on the train between Glasgow and London, completing the negotia- tions with Whitehall and the Court. He has given himself un- sparingly to the job because he wants to prove, like The Bruce, that the Scots are still bonnie fechters and can beat the English
or anyone else at their own game. He wants the English to como, ste, and be conquered once again.
What Lord Elgin has done in high society, Mr. P. J. Dollan-the "Daily Herald's" Scottish Editor -has dono among the working people. He has insisted all the way through that it is their ex- hibition; that if there are any privileges going they should be for the ordinary folk,
It was "P. J." who put through the hire-purchaso season ticket scheme which will enable 110,000 workers to "have the run of the exhibition." It is mainly due to him that the ordinary folk will be at the opening core- mony.
Scotland's lions are rampant to- day. :
To-day's Thought No matter how hard, how often or how long you look Pil wapar you don't see every- thing
P, FILANT
By Paul F
HOW IT BEGAN Berdanier
ROAD MARKERS THE ROMANS, BUILDERS OF THE FINEST ROADS THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN, ERECTED MILESTONES BEAR- ING THE NAMES OF TOWNS BUT ALSO OF THE CONSULS OR EMPERORS UNDER WHOM THE THE ROADS WERE BUILT BEGINNING OF AUTHENTIC ROAD MARKING..
ALI CAEQ METEL {CXIX ROMA
MOSSBACK.
IN POPULAR VERNACULAR AN OLD SNAPPING-TURTLE, WHOSE SHELL HAS BECOME COVERED WITH MOSS-LIKE VEGETATION BECAUSE OF ITS LONG LIFE IN STAGNANT WATER, IS CALLED A MOS5– BACK. HENCE THE NAME FOR ANY PERSON WHO LIVES G IN THE PAST, REFUSING TO MOVE WITH THE TIMES.
THIS CURIOUS WORLD By William
AT A SPEED OF 62 MILES PER, HOUR, AN AUTOMOBILE USES ABOUT 60 PER CENT OF ITS POWER,, IN OVER- COMING AIR, RESISTANCE.
RABBITS SHOULD NOT BE LIFTED BY THEIR EARS!
ALLEY OOP
AIN'T THIS GREAT? GEE, I SAY-WE'RE "MONARCHS OF ALL
WE SURVEYI
WELL, LET'S GO SEE OF, WHAT WE CAN BOAST. IN OUR COUNTRY, INLAND FROM TH' COAST
The
Ferguson
LACE BUG...
A SAMPLE OF ANOTHER NATURE'S FANCY WORK
COPE, URIE DYNIA SERVICEING.
IT IS BEST TO CARRY “THÊM BY THE SKİN, JUST BEHIND THE SHOULDERS,
WE SURE ARE,
FOOZY, BUT SWELL AS IS, IT'S KINDA LONESOME!
THAT'S AN IDEA-MEBOG WE MIGHT FIND SOME PEOPLE,
સન
STOCK MARKET REPORT
The Hongkong Stock Exchange weekly report, lasued yesterday, says:
On the whole the market during · the short week ruled quiet, but prices have been maintained generally. Demand continues for Trams, Elec- teles, Lights (Old), and Telephones (Old).
Business done during the week ending 30th June,
Hongkong Banks 11.457. $1.400
Canton Insurance $240
Hongkong Fires. 3220
Wharves $123, 125
Docks (Old) $20
Docks (New) #1035, 319% Ilotole $4.45, 58.40, $0.30 Lands $3435
Humphrey $9.33
Reallion $35
Tramways $17,. $13.95, $17 Star Ferries $34
Ching Lights (Old) $10.70, 811 Electrica $5015, 150%, $50 Macao Electrica $10.10 Telephones (Old) $27
Pintions $0.20 $0
Farms $24
3.15, p.m. Changer, Closing, Quotations.
Realties
Buyors
Sellers
Providents (Now), $3.20 Providents (Old) $3,00 Ferries $34
H.K. Banks $1450
Reallion $34
Train $17
Forrics 624A
Satos
China Lights (Old) $11
Cadets Lose Mr. Lee
+
WEST POINT, N. Y. Mr. Lee is dead. He was destroy- ed when he suffered a fractured leg in an accident. Mr. Lee was one of à pair of mules which gained fame as muscuts of the Army's football teams.
By Vincent Hamlin
WELL, WE CAN GO AND EXPLORE ALL OUR SWELL CAVES AND
MORE
| AW, SHUX,IAIN'T
SAY, OOP-I'M SURPRISED AT YOU! I BELIEVE YOU'RE
HOMESICK
FOR MOO!
SOPA, 1933
YEH, BUT WHAT'S TH'
USE? THERE'S
NOBODY
IN 'EM!
NEITHER ---- BUT I CAN'T.
HELP WONDERIN' WHAT OUR OLD FRIENDS ARE DOIN!!
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