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February 16, 1940.
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The
Hongkong Telegraph.
Friday, February 16, 1940.
Wyndham St., Hongkong
Telephone: 26015
THE prefix "special to the Telegraph" Ja used by the "Hongkong Telegraph to Indicate news which is strictly copyright under the providons of the Telecommuni cations Ordinance. 1016. Such new AN bears the indication "UP" is received in Bangkong on the date of publication by the United Press Associations, who r serve all rights and forbid republication. rither "wholly or in part without previous Arrangement
Rights Of Shipping
Neutral reactions to Germany's campaign of murder by U-Boat on the seaways are swiftly becoming clear. The real issue. was again im- pressed upon all the maritime nations this week by the mining of the Dutch steamship Berjerdijk. That crime adds point to the earlier comment that they are heavy sacrifices which neutrals have to bear. By the crip- pling of the Berjerdijk the Nether- lands becomes the heaviest sufferer
of all the neutral countries,
It must be gall and wormwood to Hitlerism that neutral--- countries should resent his piracy. The duty enjoined upon them by the diatribes now foaming from Berlin is to forget the Injuries and Insults he has in- Aicted and protest against the re- prisals which the Allies are taking in defence of the rights of shipping. At the outset of the last war the United States was the most energetic champion of the complete freedom of neutrals. The American people are not Jess intent upon maintaining their neutrality now. Nevertheless, we read that little criticism of the blockade of German exports is to be heard and no more to be expected. Indiscriminate minelaying, i1 is recognised, compelled retaliation. Though some American importera may be annoyed, sympathy will not nwalt those who wish to go on doing In the business with Hitlerism. Scandinavian countries it is recognis- ed that though the reprisals will restrict the work of their merchant
marino we were bound to take action. From Berlin comes the characteris- the threat that neutrals may be ne- cused of violating their neutrality if they are unable to carry Germun exports. We have to acknowledge that the earning power of the stilp- ping of neutral countries may be diminished for a time by the loss of cargoes 'from Germany. The block- ade thus far has been operated with a conspicuous lack of friction and delay and protest. In its Intensifica- tion the same fairness and desire to avold hardship' will be shown. But neutrals must ask themselves what is the alternative to the blockade. It is that Germany should continue her destruction of their acumen and their shipping as long as 'sho has a sub- marine and a mine to put in the sen. Iler declared objective is to frighten Into uselessness all their ships which sho cannot destroy. "Routes which touch England toad to death," Is tho brog, of Berlin. It is a suicidal policy.
NATIONAL
CERT
QUER
DEFENCE
BONDS
SAVE POUNDS! SAVE SHILLINGS! SAVE PENCE!
Agitated Adolf: "I'll be lucky if I can SAVE my SKIN!"
IT'S NO JOKE
G
says 50,
in Germany Now!
REY days, these, for Germany. And they are becoming greyer and greyer." Dr. Goebbels
So the Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Cul- ture and What-Not is trying to put a smile back on the face of Germany.
He won't And it easy. For years It has been dangerous. even if it were
to *laugh possible,
Germany.
In
I
I have been listening to Nazi jokes on the German radio. have scoured the Nazi Press and magazines for something to smile at, I haven't heard or seen one yet,
Here are two jokes that are sup- posed to make Berliners roar with laughter:
A man says: "I have just been to a furniture sale and they kicked
OBL,"
-mo-
it
Why did they kick you out?" 常务 Because it was no sale at all;
Just a removal."
WAS Funny, isn't it?
Or this one: Mother: "Why did you not for-" bid that Swede to kiss you?"
Daughter: "Sorry, mother, but I cannot speak Swedish."
Can you see anything funny in that story? Nor can the Ger- man people. They really have nothing to laugh about these days.
What would you do if your song writers were determined to popu- larise a song with a refrain like this: "I tear out one of your eye- lashes and stab you in the back with it"?
*
I am not surprised that the German people are gloomy and dreary. But Goebbels will have a tough job trying to make a nation laugh. Even the idea of a man like Goebbels attempting to do it won't raise a German smile.
The Germans who could make jokes have long been confined in concentration camps. Fink, Ber- lin's greatest (Aryan) entertainer, is now in a labour gang in the Westwall.
The last time he appeared before the German public he brought a big wooden case on the stage. In it he packed, one after another, pictures of Hitler, Goering and Goebbels and other members of the Nazi Government.
Then he produced a huge inbel and stuck it on the case: DON'T UPSET.
Next day he was under arrest.
*
*
Valentin, the Munich comedian. came on the stage with his hand upraised (as for the Nazi salute):
"That high lles the snow in the Bavarian mountains," he said.
The Gestapo warned him not to
make jokes about the Nazi salute. On another occasion Valentin told his audience:
"Last night I saw a marvellous, huge limousine. Out stepped, ta my great surprise, an S.8. lender." Again the Gestapo warned him not to accuse the 5.6, leaders of extravagant Ilfe. So he decided to tell his story differently,
4
Last night," Valentin said.." I saw a marvellous, huge limousine. Out stepped, to my great surprise -no 8.8. leader."
The German doesn't hear jokes like that now.
* *
But the Nazis reveticd-long be- foro the war started-in jokes about Englishmen. For instance:
Two Englishmen are travelling One together in a compartment,
of them, looking out of the win- dow, points to the green and says, "There is a cow,"
An hour passen, after which the other_Englishman_says, "It was
An ox."
After another hour the first Englishman gets up and leaves,
With a man the compartment. who always quarrels," he saya, "I do not care to travel."
It is a joke designed to make fun of the monosyllability of British. people.
This is an example of non-poll. tical Nazi humour: I found it the best known humorous column in the Berlin Press.
"The young girls of to-day do not look as young as twenty years ago.
Quite true-some of them are almost ten years older now."
That's all. It is a joke in Ger- many,
★
Political jokes predominate, of They course, in the Nazi Press. show you, for instance, a British officer taking off his braces (and losing his trousers) because the WATs need them now.
Cartoonists and professional en- tertainers favour Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Churchill, the British lon and John Bull. They dare not lock nearer home.
☆
Perhaps the best Gorman joke is one that was not made in Ger- many, but merely came out of it.
It was brought from Berlin by
American journalist.
пл
"They told me in Germany." he said, "that 00 per cent. of the Ger- man people are behind their Fuch- rer. Fancy my bad luck-eeting only the remaining one per cent.1 "
Can you imagine the German. Minister for Mirth laughing at that one?
John Nichol
THE ODD SPOT
Scale of miles
A THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD Swansea schoolboy kickéd a Rugby football and it did not touch the ground for five. miles. It dropped into a motor-lorry passing along a main road by the field, and the game was abandoned while the players on cycles chased the lorry.
They stopped it at Mumbies, five miles away.
SNAP - BECOND AIR RAID WARNING IN SHETLANDS
THIS AFFH. ALL CLEAR AFTER 42 MINS.
Hermits
in the
Limelight
By STUART FLETCHER
HE Shetlands seem an odd place to choose for bomb-dropping. So odd
that when I read that Shetlands schoolchildren were scurrying into shelters while German planes roared abové I decided to look into the matter. I failed to find any particular reason for the German visitations -even if I had I am sure the censor would have suppressed my discovery; but I found
out
great deal that was interesting.
You see, I had never taken ad- vantage of the dally air service which, until the war broke out, would deliver a Londoner starling from his home at ten in the morn-- ing to the Shetland Islands by early evening.
Indeed, I had never visited the Shetlands at all. All I knew about was Shetland ponies at the sea- side. Fair Isle Jumpers scintillating on the manly chests of my friends, and a dear old Indy of 00 with n hand-loom at Olympla, who had a face which combined a Rembrandt- esque wisdom with the complexion of a three-year-old. So I made a voyage to the Ghetlands with the ald of galde-books, history books, The maps, and encyclopedias. weather being what it is, it was a very comfortable journey.
The Arst thing that I learnt about these one hundred Islands in the sixtieth latitude-they are actually 60 miles north of Green- land's most southerly point-was that they are mortgaged to Britain. 600-King Years ago—nearly Christian I of Norway married off his daughter. Margaret, to James
of Scotland. III
The dowry amounted to 00,000 florins.
But poor Christian couldn't raise all this money, so he gave James the Orkneys and the Shet- lands as a surety.
By the time Margaret actually left Copenhagen for Scotland Christian had found only 2,000 florins of the required total, and when by 1472-four years after the wedding-day he still hadn't' pald up, the islands wore annexed by the Scottish Crown,
To this day, however, they may bo got out of pawn by Norway on payment of Margaret's, dowry.
The steadily decreasing popu- lation of the 29 inhabited Shetland Islands amounts to some 25,000 people. The long straggle of islands extends northwards for about 50 miles, and there is no point any- whore on them more than threa miles from the soa.
At midsummer there is brilliant light at midnight, and it is possible but no guide-book can even hint at the exciting beauty of this-to watch the paling sunset mergo into the rosy glow of early dawn and the darting gleams of sunciso,
The inhabitants of the Shetlands are what are often described by city dwellers na simple folk. That fe to say, they have for centuries
lived a life uninfluenced by the march of civilisation. Who is to say that they have not been for- tunate?
At last, however, civilisation has caught them up, announcing its arrival with bombs.
The islanders earn their. livings as crofters or shermen-very often as both. At Lerwick in June The there is herring-madness. town's population awells to more than ten thousarid, and the sea is black with hundreds of drifters arriving back from their all-night fishing excursions.
Peat-is-the main fuel in the. islands. It 19 cut. in rectangular blocks by means of a special spade called a tuskar (Icelandic for furt- cutter).
You can still see women carrying the dried peats to their homesteads over the moors in straw baskets on their backs the women knitting as they go! And often-though lorries are now taking their place-the little Shetland ponies bear home the peats in panniers slung acruss them.
The
Peat moorland gives way at times to sheep pasture, Shetland sheep, like the Shetland pony.
is diminutive, and is said to bo identical with the wild sheep. of Siberia.
Shetland wool is not shorn but plucked direct from the necks of these sheep. Fair Isle, where they make the jumpers, is a typical Shetland islet, two and three- quarter miles long by one broad. One hundred peoplo Hving in sturdy, clean, white-washed cot- tages, each dotted on its croft. A church, a couple of light-houses, a school-house, pasture and moor- land, and a quiet life.
Twico
Weck B mail-boat crosses a stretch of open Atlantic. to this island which has been made famous by a trick its in- tho- habitanta
from ., learnt
Spaniards.
In the sixteenth century one of the retreating galleons of the Spanish Armada was wrecked on. Fair Islo.
Two hundred men came ashore and caused a faming on the tiny island. But when they went away a year later they left behind them many reasons for the present-day. Fair Iale crofter having a dark- skinned handsomeness which con- trasts strikingly with the usual Shetland blonde complexion.
The Spaniards also repaid the Fair fale women for their hospit ality by teaching them how to knit the Moorish patterns which have made Fair Isle jumpers famous.
Natural beauty, abundant food, peasant the antiarying rhythm of life, and a seasoning of mechanical tho guide-books progress scom nro to be belloved) to have pro-- duced something approaching a northern paradiso in the sixtieth. Iatitudo.
I think I must go thoro· Motte--
bomba time when the stopped dropping,
PLATOL