Believe me,
Royal Train, South Africa. THE White Train, as it is
Teniled, is the longest and
perhaps the most opulent machine you ever saw. From the now of the foremost Garratt locomotive to the antennae of the radio car at the end, from the pilot train crawling ahead to the maintenance squads rum- bling behind, it is about five miles of insulated, nir-condition- ed comfort, created for Africa just as the Africa through which › it passes was created for it.
For days HOW The Royal Family have been travelling, slowly and with increasingly frequent stops, on the first stage of their two-month 10,000-mile tour of the Union.
They have, with experienced and industrious grace, been ful- illing a great number of almost identical engagements in practi- cally indistinguishable places.
If this were, on has been suggested, the King and of giving a mean Queen a rest and a change then they are working extraordinarily hard for their holiday.
If the tour was organised to con- firm the offeleney of the regime, then it might be sald that the butter was laid on a bit thickly.
if the intention was to show fox the King and Queen the manner of their Ekiminjon's life, then i suggest the jealo is not being done thoroughly as it might be.
PIPELINE
ኒ
WE are all of us right now being
trundled through the Union in the costest way, in what has come to be known as The Pipeline.
It is magnilleent but is not the Africa. "Veet Lawaal," says ponderous Afrikander. "Maar welale tool." which means "plenty of noise but no wool."
At nights we usually stop. Once we stayed in the middle of a spread- Ing: dusk vineyard, through which a vast swathe had been cut to lay a special rail track. The ground was lovely with flowers, but they had not Once nce been there the day before. we stopped out a smooth island of
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1947.
this tour
is no holiday
What life is like
on the royal train -first report from JAMES CAMERON
21
Į is superbly organized. The It is easy enough, therefore, to be ain has only to holt to refresh its begulled by all this into the feeling mines and the wire goes up, the that here is South Africa, a country police cordons appear magically and of interminable vast spacca and in- hem un jealously in, traffic is stop- uxhaustibly profligate resources, ped for miles around, while platoons land of glimpses of breath-taking of cleaners hurt themselves all over beauty cursed with a tradition of the train with huses and brushes, corrugated from architecture, a land polishing the gleaming rides troom- most literally of milic and honey and in her like a racehorse.
the
And the White Trains-or more. 'properly die Wil Tralu tainer in this country is obligatory that every thing be duplicated bilingually)—is a beautiful thing.
She sweeps through ochre platos like an ivory arrow, then the tolls round bends and curves so fan- tastically tortuous that quite literally the guard at the rear could throw a bun into the driver's cabin,
LIKE DEVON.
come places, on the baked and arid karoo, on the enormous use. less veld of dust and scrub. the walt-a-bit them and the grotesque - prickly pear, the train is the only
beautiful thing.
sunburned knees,
Certainly this is a country where one can buy anything, or could if one were ever allowed in a shop; by virtue of this pipeilue system every town one reaches Immediately de- clares a publfe holiday and shuts up every store.
Nevertheless they are human, and one wonder whether or not it might be possible for the sake of their good. natures to vary this experience.
The Queen. knows the art of cap tivating her people, better, perhaps, than any other. She will give the sume smile and approach to any of the poor coloured schoolmasters who
conduct the soft Bantu choirs, though she may not know of the edict that prohibits*any photograph of her sợ doing to be published.
CONTRASTS
THE King showed interest at It tremendous show of Union Jacks and Union Tricolours at one town. Nobody thought to show him the 12- bed maternity hospital without elez- tricity that has to serve
munity of 30,000 people.
on,
# NOM-
Meanwhile the White Train moves It has many thousands of miles to no yet. Its telephones ring its radios hum, on the parallel ronds the convoys of supporting cars stir up a long drifting cloud of African dusí, brown and heavy in the sun.
The other night, as though to
Publicise
All Road
Offences
BY
“CANDIDUS”
RANKLY, I am not at
all impressed with the Traffic Department's activi- ties as described in last Saturday's "Telegraph" under the grim illustrations of wrecked vehicles sur- mounted with a skull.
Furthermore, 1 make 10 upology for reverting to what I consider to be one of the Colony's most serious problems.
Last week's report stated that 177 persons were either killed. outright or died from their in- juries; 230 maimed......and 1646 suffered minor injuries, All within the short period of one year.
+
I lost my laundry in Cape Town and with all the resources of South Afrlen at my hand I have been utter showed ly unable to buy so much as a shirt. thot minuscule spot so far away from The simplest thing would be to the sunshine, the fruit and the plenty accept these daily miles of redBritain freezing, troublesome, and carpet as the highroad through South inanitely desirable. Afrien, since it is considered poor form 10 reflect on problems, though South Africa's while herren-, folk, outnumbered four to one by eight million natives, have got one of the world's choicest problems knocking at their door.
point some intangible moral. they
newsreel from Britain, held?
even
In others, when the land breaks into its rich, rolling charm, when
te day seems to be in a more than The stranger is told with some is own business life-sized Devon, the next in a wild vigour lo mind
when he mentions such obvious mut enlargement of Argyll, the White
s
ters as racial hatred, bitterness and Trala complements it wonderfully.
It takes every inch of these two exploitation, even though the evi. 14-coach trains to accommodate this dence of these things is before his
with its portable palace
intricate eyes. division of functions.
The inference is, not that the The King and the Queen and the whites have an unanswerable cose, Princesses are the hub around which t
buzzes a complex domestic hierarchy that of secretarleg and assistant secre-
ཝ
rnized,
that it is
impertinence The question should be And perhaps, after all, this taries, equerries, ladies-in-waiting, is not the moment to raise it, though valets and footmen, cypher offleers I should have thought no better ino- and advisers, community of some ment could exist. 200 people protected by specialised
The Royal Family are not, as
Laughing
at
Shortages
BY ED CREAGH
London, "The nian's here with the coal, Madam. Where
turf, like a green island on the bar. Groups of detectives and ministered might be suggested, drifting through shall I tell him to put it?"
Ten veld, brought 200 miles to be Jald for ten minutes' use.
Wherever the train is scheduled to pull up drains are lak, water piped, drame blocked, grass Gown, roads rebuilt, groves of aloes planted, euctus mown, bush cleared and tags flown.
to by technicians on transport, tele.". communications and foodi.
On this last, no complaint could possibly be found; this is the apo- thesis of railway eating.
NOR
A DANGER
JOR can it be forgotten that this is, after all, a wine country, and Nights ago we stayed at a siding surrounded by a belt of pines, like I one has to reorientate oneself to coppice on the Surrey, hillside, names like W Constantian, Voortre Only when you looked closely did ke, Zonnebloem Moulenberg and that the trees had no fa Gratitude, it is worth finding out
that South African
you notice roots, had been embedded in the ground to screen the royal caravan from the tedious desert around.
Why
wines are
ather different thing when drunk in South Africn.
a quiet and inconsequential holiday; they are working extremely hard at what is the peak task of their post- tion.
and the
It seems unreasonable and a poor compliment to them that they should be insulated from other things with a genuine meaning.
f
King may be that the
to Queen are now immune mumbing effect of Identical triumphai arches over identical red carpets, of two national anthems repeated and reduplicated day by day and hour by hour, of banks and avenues of faces rigidly divided into those that ore white and those that are not.
we must end
juries
special
by M. TURNER-SAMUELS, K.C., M.P.
Tis high time that we abolished the Special Jury, which is a palpable ana- chronism. No one attempts to defend its retention in our legal system.
Thirty years ago a Departmental Committee was appointed to inquire into the question of juries generally,
"Oh, tell him to dump it straight on the fire."
Loud and prolonged laughter fol- lowed-although three of the four men present when the story was told had not a lump of coal in their own
homes.
How many inquests were I doubt whether the odd seven could be deducted from the total number of deaths- and again I ask why it is that inquests, in Hongkong are the exception rather than the rule. Departmental inquiries in camera are not enough, and it surely is advisable in the public interest that.
constitutional methods should be adopted. Breaches of traille' regulations should be dealt with in the same manner as they are at Home, and licences endorsed whether there is a conviction or not. It is to be presumed that warnings are given, but by whom?
4
an
A
excuse.
SINCE the war, prosecutions for traffic offences have been few and far between, and it is unsatisfactory that the shortage of staff should be plended as
Any day, the observer can witness cars passing and re-passing each other on Garden Road at nothing less than reck- less speeds. The same applies in the Wanchai district and the city zones.
As they did when the German rocket bombs were falling, the Bri-
It was stated that three radio ish people laugh hardest at their cars are in use. Quite recently own tribulations during the postwar I caught up with one of these struggle for reconstruction.
vehicles proceeding up Stubbs Shortages are the No. 1 tople of Road. My taxi was compelled comedians, both amateur and pro- to slow down for a few hundred fessional A joke, however feeble, yards until given the signal to that hangs on the lack of food, fuel pass (the police car), and as and houses gels on instantaneous soon as it turned the next bend laugh.
the driver made up for having heen delayed a few seconds.
This one is from the muste hall
stage:
"What do you feed your
cat
"Cal's ment, if we can ret
it.
nowadays?"
If
that radio car had followed up, clear-cut' case of speeding would have been secured,
3
Strong action is needed and needed quickly if the toll of death is to be reduced, and an
Otherwise he has to make do with important factor of that action must be public prosecutions and not departmental inquiries. what we eat ourselves."
to
of
The Common Jury conforms to He concluded by saying "the dis- the democratic pattern of our politi- tinction" (between Special and Com col system. The Special Jury is an mon Juries) "is based on a quall- intrusion on the original jury system, deation which is hard to support." No one knows how it "gute-crashed" It is equally hard to support the in civil actions for a fury our legal system, but it is the fact demond that in 1825 Parliament suddenly, "from a certain social class," it is recognised this obscure and dubious administering justice in terms
of rateable value." branch of the administration
doing that it merely Justice. By
The essence of trial by jury is added suspleton to doubt.
1 destroyed if it is not by equuls drawn from no one class of individuals and
of terests.
✡
*
Cabinet Ministers such as John (Food) and Emanuel Strachey Shinwell (Fuel) are a close second)
the shortages us targets for THE petition by the Hongkong and
who
Chinese Kowloon
Anti-Direct humour. even among those strongly support the Labour Govern-Tax Introduction Commission lacked, unfortunately, any constructive sug- Gestions: It is true that the repre- sentatives of the Commission offered to help Government to solve the
ment.
"Who would be saved If the Frame and Shinwell Minister, Strachey jumped out of an airplane at 30,000
I decided on the evidence heard The period was one of political with no fixed preconceptions or in- that the retention of Special Juries commercial and industrial panic and
feet without parachutes?" was "hardly defended by anyone disorder. The headlong spirit
**Enginud!" It was the lack of this essential except for commercial cases," which private enterprise threw the coun were, and are, largely tried by judges try on the rocks through an orgy of conditions which, in the Laski case,
"overtrading.”
speculation. ned "wildest" business flotations. Strikes raised in the minds of a large sec- tion of the public the apprehension
alone.
dimeult problem, but something more concrete than a vague promise of advice
needed. It !# ត In be hoped that having formed such
the representative body, will Sponsors
explore thoroughly the ways and means of raising the A strong minority report went and acts of violence in which "munnu- the
that the defendants might perhaps
Most Englishmen are fascinated necessary revenue, so that every re- farther and said that the abolition of facturers" were threatened ensued. Have secured some advantage of a the Special Jury was urgently need-
nature by having a Special by the United States, and the Yanksident, regardless of race, will con-
tribute his quota. ed.
soldier flgures in many a quip. Contemporaneously, two statutes reared their ugly heads; one drag- Jury, taken from "a certain social
class." tically restricted the right of com- sination (ie, Trade Unionism) to That the slightest doubt could the settlement of wages only, and arise Is serious enough, for the gave power to magistrates to ael machinery of justice should be such against "all misuses of disputes."
to give unquestionable impar tiality and integrity to its decisions.)
The difference between the Special Jury and the Common Jury is that the Special Jury is deliberately -selected on a class basis and by rea- son of the wealth of its members. Esquires, persons of higher degree, bankers and merchants, and also, in The other Act recognised the ques- more recent times, people owning tion legality of the Special Jury.
"rateable property with a certain value," are entitled to sit on them.
DEMOCRATIC
O the other hand, the Common Jury is a democratie institution drawn indiscriminately from Bl} -classes, of a representative character, and free from the suspicion of class blas.
The Common Jury is a great safe guard for justice. Its foundation is that common horsesense in which the people of this, country are par- ticularly rich..
Parliament was not then a demo-
class
ILE
an
"PREJUDICE"
cratically elected 'Institution. There How is this to be got in an action was no working middle class vote between say a trade union and or representation,
industrialist, if there is a Special Today our Institutions can only Jury to decide between them? The was given to the Depart- stand by the test of whether they mental Committee in 1913. by the are democratic or not. By that test Senior Master of the Supreme Court, the Special Jury, falls,
answer
Special Juries, he said, “ure pre- ferred in certain cases....because on
There are no Special Juries in the whole they give, either in verdicts criminal cases where often the issue or in damagess, some advantage to is one of life or death. If a Com a particular class." mon Jury can protect the Individual should It require a Special Jury if
'To' the same. Cominiites the re- the case is one concerning his pro presentative of the then Trade Union perty, money claims, or character? Parliamentary Committee speaking This question has been substan- for the organised workers said: "The answered in the now Com- prejudice" (of Special Jurica) "is so
It is the handpicked product of a pantes Bill. The Cohen Committee great against organised labour
The Special Jury is very different.. hol-house of class prejudice superiority.
on
no
and recommended prosecutions for "the the part of manufacturers and pro- more serious company frauds" to be fessional men....that we have heard by "a City of London Special chance/ The facts proved that the
grievance was a real one. Jury."
This distinction is vital. Two hundred years ago, charges preferred against members of the non-privileged, classes, appearing in the courts usually dealt with such things as petty thieving, Today an
DISTINCTION
It is right to preserve the jury system as a powerful democratic safeguard for. Justice. This criables
ordinary citizen can find himself this proposal the Lord. Chan- the ordinary citizen to take" his
In cellor, Lord Jowitt gave the accustomed share in the administra- court involved in all sorts of indus- only possible stawen, and waded Lion of Justice.. trisk and political, cases. Ajury be "class legislation,” and made up of "bankers, merchants and that he would find it dificult "to That, however, cannot be so unili esquires" exclusively is quite clearly justify having a special type of jury the jury system is freed from all not what is desirable in such clrcum- to try in special type of criminal' suspicion of class blás-by the aboll- ptances.
offence.
·Hon of Special Juries,
"Did you hear about the woman
Government has granted a breath- in the North Country who was al-ing space, and it is to be hoped that this gesture will galvanise the lead- tacked by wolves?"
ing members of the Chinese cott- "Really? I thought all the G's munity Into wholehearted co-opera- had gone home."
tion with the authorities in the matter of securing ample funds re some-quired for the rehabilitation and
administration, of the Colony.
Other countries-Russin times excepted-play a relatively small port in British postwar
A solution must be found, and humour, but Big Three jokes have a solid following, especially it they what more Atting than a solution point to rivalry between the US. propounded by the leaders of the and the Soviet Union.-Assoclated overwhelming majority of the popu- Press.
luflon?
"I can't hear a word ba's saying.”
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ATOM BOMB WARNING NOTE
DROPPED
hours before the bombing. and addressed. to Professor R. Sagane, a Japanese researcher who once had worked in the United States.
It asked Sogone to warn Japanese General Staff that Japanese faced "total
tho
the Annihilation 'of all your'elties" If war, continued and that "unless Japan surrenders of atomic bombs A letter written by three at once this rain
will continue manifold in fury American scientists, and dropped A year later Alvarez learned that with the atomic bomb on Naga the letter had been delivered to Baki in the hope of persunding Sagane on October 1; · 1945-éix Japan to surrender, has been lon.
weeks after
the Japanese
capitula- returned to its authors, reports A Japanese admiral had fold
Sagone about it, me bella,
Whether the letter. hastened The letter was composed on the Japan's submission or not was never: spur of the moment by Dr Luis W. dotermined but the capitulation offer Álvarez-ane of the atom-bomb was proclaimed a week after the scientists-on Tinfan island, a few Nagasaki blast.
| Associated Press.