1938-09-05 — Page 10

H

You can't carry

a good thing too far!

Wherever in the world men toil and thirst, there goes Whitbread's Beer. Sometimes it travels by elephant, sometimes by camel, sometimes by dhow or by ox cart, but it always arrives in perfect Whitbread condition.

And wherever it is kept, it keeps the last of the dozen as fresh as the first.

WHITBREAD'S

SUPERB PALE ALES

SOLE AGENTS:-

A. S. WATSON & CO., LTD.

You find it difficult

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CHANGSHA, HANKOW, KWEIYANG,

CHUNGKING, KUNMING, ETC.

Consult

社運聯國中

CHINA UNITED

TRANSPORTATION

CO.

96, Connaught Road, C. Telephone 34357.

Branches at

Canton, Hankow, Wuchow, Kunming, Kweiyang, I-Chang, Chungking,

Shanghai, etc.

THE KAILAN MINING ADMINISTRATION

Prices per metric ton delivered, as follows:

-Peak District

$31.00

Bowen Road & Lower Levels

Kowloon

29.00 28.00

Repulse Bay

Pokfulum

Shek-O & Stanley

Clients are hereby informed tho

32.00 31.00 32.00 deliveries

THE CHINA MAIL, SEPTEMBER 5, 1988,

that, indeed, in the language

The China Mail

Ninety-Third Year of Publication

8A Wyndham Street, Hong Kong.

Telephone 20022

London Office:

17, Garrick Street, London, W.C.2. calamity of 1914.

Notice To Contributors.

All communications intended for publication should be addressed to the Editor, and be accompanied by

the Writer's Name and Address,

the Federation of British Indus. tries, "the second great war of this century has already been in progress for two years.

Warn are inevitable only in the sense that human fear and folly and greed make them so. Historians probably will continue to dispute whether greater courage and bet- ter management up to the very last could not have avoided the Controversy still centres in particular, around the attitude of Great Britain in those fateful days of July. Would Germany have drawn back if Britain had said resolutely and clearly that she would stand by France? Or if Germany had in truth plotted the war for which she was so eminently prepared, would she not merely have wait- el for a more favourable occa- sion to strike? There are no

not necessarily for insertion, but as certain answers to these ques-

a guarantee of good faith.

Subscription Rates,

3 Months

H.K.$ 9.00

6 Months ...... H.K.$18.00

One Year

A

H.K.$36.00

Postage Abroad Extra

+

tions. But, looking back, it is at least curious to recall how Brit- ish indecision persisted until and after Europe was actually at war As late as July 28, 1914, Mr. Asquith was informing the King that "Germany says to us, "If you will say at St. Petersburg that in no circumstances will you come in and help, Russia will draw back and there will be no war"-though Germany herself, as her Ambassador in London bit- terly lamented to Grey, omitted to restrain her Austrian ally. And' on the night of August: 2, As-

Hong Kong, Monday, September 5, 1938 quith was still recording that

TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AFTER

"we have no obligation of any kind either to France or Russia to give them military or naval help," though he foresaw that Britain must be involved in cer- "One way to help in-ascertain-tain circumstances. The most ing where we are,'

vital of those circumstances was Grey of Falloden, "is to look back the invasion of Belgium. It oc- on the road by which we have curred, and British doubts were travelled." To look back to-day instantly resolved. ...

wrote Lord

to 1914, across the abyss of the Among the parallels which it war, the broken hopes of the is ominously easy to draw be- peace settlement, and the years tween the European position in of post-war unrest and violence, 1914 and 1988 is that Britain is to be oppressed by a sense of now, as then, is the nearally of a frustration and tragedy. All too France which has definite Con- clearly we see where we are, and tinental commitments to another whither we are being drawn. The small and menaced country promise of perpetual peace which Czechoslovakia. There is, how- blossomed after the agony and ever, this important, perhaps ruin of 1914-18 has long since vital, difference: that Germany reasonable withered; the world is caught up to-day can have no once more in the fatal trammels doubts as to where Britain stands. which bound it in the years be Mr. Chamberlain's statement in remin- fore Armageddon; the road from March, repeated lest Versailles has led us, not away der should be necessary by Sir from chaos and despair, but back John Simon in his Lanark speech, to the very edge of the pit into the firm Franco-British attitude which humanity was plunged during the Czech-German crisis` twenty-four years ago.

"Aug-in May, and the frank streng- ust 2-Things are pretty black," thening of the Entente Cordiale, Mr. Asquith noted in his diary have made it abundantly clear on that decisive Sunday when that Nazi aggression would en- Germany was already at war counter a united front. Yet the with Russia and France, and hopes of averting war might still Britain, shuddering and dis-te slender, if they rested on no traught, was yet nerving herself sounder basis than British read- for, the signal-the invasion of iness to fight in a just cause. The Belgium-which was to call her Chamberlain Government's policy irrevocably to their aid. If As- of avoiding provocation while the quith's "pretty black" was an nation is rearming on an unpre odd under-statement of the posi- cedented scale is being associat tion on that day of doom, ited with active steps to remove would certainly be no over-state- both the immediate and the ulti- ment of the international outlook mate causes of war. If it has to-day. The world, it is true, been unduly patient with outrage with the grim exceptions of à in Spain, it has striven for a real major war in China and what in agreement with Italy, and it is Spain looks like a rehearsal for seeking an honest settlement of another European war, is at the Sudeten-Czech problem. Dark peace; whereas at the beginning as the European outlook appears, of August, 1914, it was already at British strength and goodwill are

of Household Coal can only be made if cheque or death-grips. But the peace of still potent forces for peace.

cash for the supply is sent with the order.

DODWELL & CO., LTD.

Agents.

September, 1988, is a peace so It remains for Herr Hitler, who heavily armed and so precarious-chiefly holds the keys to perce or ly poised that only supreme good war, to avoid the tragic errors fortune or a supreme effort of for which he has blamed Imper- goodwill appears likely to avertial Germany of 1914, and to as- eventual disaster.

sist Europe in finding a peaceful There are those who hold that solution of the difficulties and another world war is "Inevitable"; dangers which now encompass it.