10

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH,

FRIDAY,

OCTOBER 14,

-1938.

Where Were

Were They TWENTY YEARS AGO?

THE War was nearly over,

but nobody seemed to think so. Mr. Bonar Law was saying that the Allies would certainly have lost if it ever became possible for a man or group of men to plunge the world into such à conflict again.

at

Mr. Neville Chamberlain had just stopped being Minister of National Service with his own St. Ermin's department Hotel, Mr. Charles Chaplin had Just started his own company in Hollywood because "Shoulder Arms" had been so successful.

Sir Thomas Hordér had got his knighthood (it was in the New Year's Honours List) for his work at the Royal Cancer Hospital in Fulham and man- who wondering agers were would replace Leslie Henson, drafted to the Flying Corps to do clerical work..

IVOR NOVELLO had made his name as an actor in "The Yellow Jacket" and as a composer by writing a pantomime hit, "Keep the Home He had a Fires Burning."

musical comedy running called "Arlette," but he could not do very much about that because he was in the War Office (after two aeroplane crashes) working under the keen eye of Winston Churchill's Military Secretary, a young Lifeguardsman called Sir Archibald Sinclair.

Corporal Hitler, of the 16th Bavarian (Reserve) Infantry

MUSSOLINI

ANTHONY EDEN

PROF. EINSTEIN

Battalion, raved about traitors Lieutenant Beverley Nichols officer in the Spanish Army list, in a Berlin suburban hospital was driving about the Middle had just got himself engaged in while recovering from the West as military representative Oviedo, where he commanded effects of mustard gas (but if it on the British Universities Mis- the 3rd Infantry and the men was mustard gas, why was he sion to America. discharged after three weeks?). The men in his ward would not be taught how to win the war by "someone who had wangled

HE

By George Edinger

HOW LITTLE YOU KNOW

DECENTLY, I found myself wilting I in the crape-like gloom of a remote Scottish village, the victim of one of the periodle eruptions of the family conscience over its solitary maiden aunt. Inspection of the

room bookcase having revealed

more brightly entertaining "Ministering Children," "Chris- ty's Old Organ, "Jessica's First Prayer." # well-spent, youth de other such cherished prizes of A

and made slipped furtively out desperate tracks for the High Street. There, to the tune of ninepence for Lieutenant Raymond Massey of half-a-dozen weeklies, I encouraged the Counting depravity of the local the Canadian Infantry asked

it who, appeared, the sale himself if there really was confectioner

coveted the proceeds from much point in backing up Ad-of Sunday papers more than he miral Koltchak,

feared the Judgment his scandalised

predicted. neighbours sternly

IN the tumbling ruins of to-day some men and women worked hopefully for to

worst morrow. Through the straits of War the Imperial German Government did not withdraw the grant that en- abled Albert Einstein to pursue his theories of Relativity.

Sir J. Henry Wood, that year, decided that British music held sufficient future for him to turn

I returned home with my booty,

while and settled down with it in happy hours. However, the Judgment must have decided to descend that day, and, for my brief share in the un- hallowed transactions, to include me In its sphere of operations, for I had only read as far as page two of my first paper when the trouble began. And, like all other tragedies, it be dan simply enough with a dear old- Indy,

away the next few

The Old Lady's Fascism

it seemed, according

to a para-

graph on page two, that this innocent

and

CONCERNING

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SCRUBB'S

ook for the Tignature

down an offer to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra. originator of my subsequent humilla- Eat at Ronald Colman, just invalided|tion had much mystified and dis- out of the Service, was back tressed her family by stoutly declar- touring in a play called Thing herself to be a firm believer in

Fascism; which mystification Bubble," and Gracie Fields, at distress were happily lightened by the discovery that she imagined Long Eaton, sang "Sheikh of Alabam" in a revue called "Mr. Fascism to be something for maklog

trains run on tline. Tower of London," which was not, they said, a patch on the Byng Boya.

smiled a little smile of tenderly indulgent superiority, and was about three when the to go on to page And to tell to-morrow what it movement of my head was arrested was all like, John Masefield was 'as it with the jerk of instantaneous recording his Impressions of brakes, and my smile became sud-

that I Gallipoli and Augustus John, denly fixed and glassy. What was with grey hair tumbling in-naking, " congruously over the collar of Fascism?" his major's uniform, went round the Western front to paint its horrors and its humours.

MOR-tainly

wretched thing at least ten

I cer-

I had heard? A plaintive voice "Well, then, wint exactly is dwelt uncomfortably with my few the for

next imagination minutes, hearing myself trying to answer the question with due reter- ence to that ominous "exactly."

know!! After all, I ought to

read or heard about the Lira.es MR. WILLIAM

RIS, busy turning every day. But why was it called used to complain that he treated

a heroic shot at an had them like Moorish levies he had out munitions in his Cowley Fascism and what exactly did it con- eld explanation, but and luck

muddled grown accustomed to ordering workshop, had not forgotten the note? possibilities of a cheap car when exact

sndly realised that my E may or may not around Tetuan.

the war should be over. Already achievement of Dictators and Total!- have met the dark,

tarian States was like defining a poor Through a

street in a new city, livelier than the tar a cushy job in the battalion silent Scot called John Reith

placing American contracts for Stockholm a flaxen headed 12- empty Oxford over the river, spade in terms of agricultural imple- nervous when I got to the orderly room.".

British munitions (the payment year-old schoolgirl called Greta where Aldous Huxley had been ments. Moreover, I became dis-

Totalitarian State! is still an awkward question), Garbo was wondering how she almost the only undergraduate tinctly A RECRUIT in the but in one of the recepions given was going to enjoy the job in the past four years, had shot

'However, the old lady had given Artists' Rifles, Rifle at Washington he must have waiting for her in a soap factory up round the suburb, hitherto The Two "Thirds"

enforced jeisure. of my man Coward, had just gone into seen the energetic chief of that and in the counting house of a tenanted only by scouts, Angli-

sheet of hospital at Gidea Park, Rom- department in the United States Welsh mining company an office can fathers and recruits from me an idea for the prontable employ-

Quickly I hunted out

ceeded #pencil, and ford, where the battalion was Navy Office which was in charge boy named Gordon Richards the depot of the Oxford and

Women conducted buses and paper and training, because he broke his of the Fleet in European waters, was seriously considering whe Bucks Light Infantry.

trams along the Thames gally to set myself a newspaper general knowledge test. In other my head slipping on a soapy duck- most promising of all President ther he might be better at

where the Wilson's young men, Franklin something else.

lamp words. I proposed to dig out of board.

Captain (acting Major actual bankment,

collection of newspapers terms which com- globes were painted black on end in them day in and day out, Eden Benito Mussolini had come Roosevelt.

Brigadier General Mustafa minor) Anthony out of hospital at Milan and was writing angry newspaper Kemal had returned sulkily to manded at 20 a battalion of the river side to stop enemy transplant them to my nice, clean no clocks down exact and comprehensive ex- articles, "his eyes popping out his commund in Palestine after the King's Royal Rifle Corps in pilots seeing their reflection in white paper, and see if I could write of his head" with emotion, over a violent quarrel with the Ger- the worst part of the line, did the Thames, and

man high command (he could not look like coming out of it. struck the hour day or night for planations.

Attlee was fear of waking weary munition Caporetto.

Major Hore-Belisha was fit- not stand the Germans) about Major Clement

All that was twenty years ting round the Near East in the the strategy of the campaign taking a tank over the top, and makers. green-tabbed uniform of the against Allenby. Major Fran- in a mournful waste at the

Franco youngest field wrong end of Russia Second- ago, Intelligence Service, and 2nd cisco

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Hitler's

1

Crucial

By IAN G. COLVIN

Harvest

"There are

some farms where THE

HE harvest is coming home in I took train recently to a fertile land, bloomed wheat, barley, rye, sugar intense black ng dusk followed.

Germany. A bad harvest could the Uckermark, fifty miles north of beet. cripple the Four Year Plan. This Berlin, to visit friends. The terminus

told mc. Poles and Germans worked side they reap by lanthorn light unt! the tiny village, built EL year, thanked be Wotan. there is a was

their lantborns winking record crop. Wheat, rye, oats, bar- settlement plans of Frederick the by side. In spite of their theory midnight," the Junker

the dusty that Germany is suffocating for lack "You see ley, their ears are full to bursting. Great. Ilens pecked in

in,

the street, bees hummed in the village of room, the Government must per- in the darkness." 18 harvest

loaded the air mit Poles, who are paid in foreign pessimists, then we shall see what lime grove, which

with perfuine. Not u radio to be currency, to come and help the Ger

man harvest home. is afoot!

Even as we drive down the coun- heard! try roads, between poppyspeckled cornfields, the question of Marcellus

Which

-accura

Fay

to me. (Hamlet, Act

1.,

Scene L):

-tell me, he that knows, athlet and Why this

observant watch

A mad world, and a mad land! may I say. So much nonsense. Ed- The lads who would like to be ward Lear's Dong with the Luminous Here I was met by my friend with piling the bristly barley on the wain Nose would receive a medal from would be a horse trap-delightful surprise. I are all under arms, unooping around the State, and his nose

the Czech tronller. The had expected an armoured car.

soldiers patented for nocturnal "shock work." This horse trap, of antique pattern, used to help the reapers in brightly varnished, was drawn by years for about 1s. Bd. a day. This We would have regiments of Dongs

to year they have only been allowed with a brand-new uniform. two horses. It once belonged So nightly tolls the subject of the Marshal Goering, who lives nearby to in exceptional cases. The Labour In the Scherfheide, my friend told service youths are mostly occupied And why such daily cast of brazen me. I was suitably impressed by the in the Westem Front fortifications.

cannon, And foreign 'mart for implements of

tanu

war?

same

whose sore task

most

honour.

pro-

ment

Alas! I have not yet finished my sad clambering out of the Slough of

Horrified Humiliation!

I made a ghastly start with "The Certainly I Third International." knew two facts about it which were authentic and indisputable, but ng had some connection one was that with Russia, and the other that it had no connection with Rugby, I was not really very proud of them.

postponed the Third Tactfully International for further considera- tion, and immediately, in the neigh- bouring columa, encountered "The Third Reich" with an arch leer on its exasperating features. Relch, I remembered, was the German word for an empire, but why the third Reich? What had happened to the other two?

Now distinctly uneasy, I decided to postpone the Third Reich along with its International contemporary, childishly revenging myself with the at contemplation of their horror finding themselves abandoned in the same boat.

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I think it must have been the dis- approving spirits of my Presbyterian ancestors, desirous of helping the Judgment to bring their wandering descendant back to the fold, which led me to pick up next a Conserva- tive organ of the most dignified pro- to the therein priety, and to turn columns devoted to economics and finance. At ten o'clock the rape seed was

There could really be no other 竊 all threshed, und trim stack explanations of why the first parn- towered · above ur. Tho seed in graph to hold my casually roving Later, a groom told me how I

"Do the Poles and the Germans sacks was piled into carts. The eye should be entitled "Gilt-edged Presbyterian ancestors insisted In- when its miseries are shared would have since tried my little test on Why such impress of shipwrights; came so high. The Great Man, so get on well?" I asked my host, a thoughtful estate-factor thens Securities' Reluctantly and with exorably that I must play fair, so apply to poverty of the intellect, I

was driving over the legend ran,

"Saving the franel How often various unsuspicious friends, and it consolingly remarkable how Jow the Third Reich; Had this Does not divide the Sunday from Tough lanes to the chase when he genial Prussian gentleman falls duced "forty bottles of Ring-Bo- foreboding I wrote them down be-down it had to go.

went through the seat. The carriage He told me that the Poles Boneumes Ree" and the labourers drank their

been on inteligence test I would had I not read the phrase! Was it was the week? What might be toward, that this quarrelled among themselves, over

doubtless have scored on my derisive possible that with all my reading Ifew passed with any degree of refusal to believe that "gilt-edged" had still only an airily vague general honour, It was still more remark sweaty haste

was here a literal description. But idea instead of a clear Intelligent able how few of thera wers be

comingly grateful for having their Doth make the night joint labourer quired it for a song.

deficiencies brought to their noticel alas! it was a knowledge test, and conception of what that meani? with the day?

wits did not help.

Trying It On Others

All the same, it was an excellent Who is't, that can inform me?

Deciding defiantly that, after all,

This time the Judgment got me plan, and one whose beneficent effect

the mind and soul I can. ance was Anance

highly specialised

down, and with the reckless abandon upon

recommend. It really branch of knowledge, which could

of those who, having plumbed the thoroughly not reasonably be expected to have

depths, have ceased to care. I ad- extraordinary (and distinctly chas bad any place in my humble life, I

milted that it was more than portening), once you begin, to discover turned firmly over to the political ible. How much more I was not how many familiar names and terris' pages, which I conscientiously scan-

have no absolutely accurate know- ned, trying all the while not to see yet callous enough completely to there are of whose significance you

RSSCSS! the pushing headlines acclaiming M.

Wondering hopefully if the axiom ledge, Try it and seel

May Your Daladler's noble efforts to "save the

about poverly never seeming so bad! franc." But it was no uso. My

or their

three million

border.

their lunch sandwiches

Innthorn light, women, and the German harvesters had their little disputes among them- It would be nice to see the Lender come into the fields and bind a sheaf, In the stubble Relds the thresher selves.

Bul Poles and Germans were care- as Mussolini does, I thought; but he deafening din. It was making a

Germans across the when the ful to avold "internecine" brawls, is too obsessed with the fate of his The question of continued until evening, Who Indeed? Marcellus has been put to the Ger- roebuck came stealing out of the for they knew that such quarrels

The ahcaves come Ingging in man Government by envoys extra die woods into the water meadows. might become bloody and draw in

slowly, in spite of night labour. ordinary and simple journalists. That Three Polish women, square-shoul- all hands. A lesson for ministern of

But, the dered Slavs, their heads bound in Statel oracle of German intentions,

come what may, it is a good up

aloft Foreign Ministry, smiles and smiles, bright kerchiefs, stood

The thresher droned on as dark- sight for tired eyes, this allen corn round the steel jaws of the thresher.

the and gives the reassuring answer.

and piled bundles of rape seed into ness fall. The tireless Poles handled in golden biliows, and the sturdy

chaff, the straw; horses drogging it towards

with Weltpolitik, them. The rape seed harvest is the sheaves, the So let us quit disgusting politics twice as good as last year, the Ger- and the straw tack grew immense, granary. Down

told me. Around rosy and golden in the sunset, and and Hall Harvesti for a day and see the harvest home, man foreinun

д

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