1940-08-20 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST 20, 1940

CHINA MAIL D

WINDSOR HOUSE

INDO-CHINA BANQUETINGS

The exact meaning of Indo-China banquetings in which General Nishi- hara and high French of- ficials meet in outwardly amiable intercourse is not! easy to fathom in the ab- sence of any clear picture} of the progress of the more serious business of General Nishihara's mis- sión.

It seems probable, how- ever, that Admiral de Coux and his advisers are doing their best to make virtue of necessity and that there is nothing of greater significance in Hanoi's social gatherings.

Japan's decisions about Indo-China will not, after all, be governed to any im-| portant extent by events in the French Colony.] When France collapsed, a first-class power disap- peared from war and di- plomacy.

Both France and Bri- tain had been at a disad- vantage in the Far East since the war began, for they were absorbed in Europe. But now France! was "out of the war"; she

D'OUISLING: "Would yez like

To finish it in German?"

DRISH· ARGUMENT

DUBLIN

BELFAST

efence Iraland smpire

as bit of

(Copyright in All Countries.)

The Joke Of The

During the week-end heard from Somerset Maugham, famous story- was to be disarmed on duous journey that he teller, the story of the ar- land, on sea, and in the and some 700 other Bri- air; she had herself aban-

Cream

edly to watch, as if it had been a show-no thought of danger." ;* Maugham himself made friends with an

Australian who had knocked about the world a bit. "he could do things that I couldn't have done. For instance, he Imade a soup-can for us out of an old jam-tin, and a shovel for

tons lately made from the each other their cream and 16-80 years old, wife to the sexton lid."

"Never," he said. They lent over an unfortunate woman; over the dirt out. of a biscuit-tin

south of France.

We

tions, of which there was an ap- of an English church on -the-Ri-

-been like.

* *

doned her alliance with. Britain, and therefore, It took them 20 days, in a small parently inexhaustible supply. viera, She had been ill before; French Indo-China, the ship—a collier-ill-adapted for They cleaned their faces up as the journey was too much for WHEN I saw him, Maugham

best they could and put rouge on her.

still felt tired. "They" — the gateway into the China passengers.

"It was a bad experience. in one top."

Ministry of Information had that is resisting Japan, way," said. Maugham. "I'll tell

TO a prober of human nature kept him hard at it since his re- has to depend solely on enough.for... the crew of 38; and (you why: “we only had lifeboats

like. Maugham the study of turn. ASKED what the food had his fellows on such a trip could now," he said; "66%) But I doubt ("I'm an old gentleman its

own resources. Bri- there were no lifebelts-so that if

hardly have failed to be fascinatif he would wish that nightmare Bully beef and sweet biscuits Ing. tain also, with the whole anything had happened.

voyage unmade. "That was till Gibraltar.

had been the staple fare at first. At Gibraltar they took on stores said, "was

"What struck me most," he The British Vice-Consul at burden of the war thrown did take on a few rafts there.

how extraordinarily Nice travelled with them (the (Maugham bought two bottles of nice to each other people on her, was manifestly minded the danger without

"I think we wouldn't have whiskey, one of rum). From there There were a few grousers, but more comfortable route, going were, Consul having left France by a on their main meal, at midday, very few. more embarrassed than discomfort, or the discomfort consisted of an immensely Alliag

into Spain with the Duke of Wind- before. Hence, as a Tokyo once" he chuckled; I doubt if thing in it; it was really very the selfish ones became more sel- phasis that a slight hesitation

"On the whole, the unselfish sor). soup "meat, vegetables, everyones became more unselfish, and Maugham, with the curious em- "I was very glad," said newspaper declared, Ja-he showed, during the journey, good."

fish (and usually got the best of lends his speech, "I was very pan's "golden opportun-

Morning and evening they had it-lining up for a second ration glad when we reached home and ity." The embroilment of CERTAINLY the discomfort was

of food, for instance, and getting the Vice-Consul made us a little it!).

speech and told us--this sounds a "People were remarkably calm. bit jingoistic, but you mustn't When a submarine was sighted, mind--that he was proud that we and our people were laying depth-were British." charges, everyone lined up excit- I didn't mind."

without the danger; but both

that he minded either.

*

the

at

It must

4

the European Powers has dust begrimed them all.

bad enough. Penetrating coal- always given Japan her have contributed as much as their chance. It was so in 1915, common danger to the breaking- William

down of class divisions that

❤

✡

By William Hickey

D. H. Lawrence

when she launched her Maugham noted. Twenty-one Demands on said, "one no longer tried to wear also say that we had raw onions. "After the first day or two," he biscuits and jam-"ob, and I must China. It is so now, when a clean shirt. Of course, one's I had never eaten large onions raw before and, d'you know, I the collapse of France finger-nails were always black."

Maugham's novels have often got quite to like them.". and the absorption of Bri-enough dissected women-elegant They ate sitting about on deck;|

D. H. Lawrence and Susan His The quest is singularly vain, and Cow. By William York. Tin-it is made vainer by being tain and, temporarily, of women, silly women, animal wo- or, if the weather was bad, down

men. It interested him now

dall. Oxford University Press. harnessed to poor Susan, the to in the coal-dusty hold, where Russia enable her to see

Pp. xiv. 231, 18s. 6d. women looking as he had they slept. In rough seas there

comely cow at Lawrence's New, It is hard to discover any useful Mexican ranch, whose master strike out for her two never seen them look before was much illness.

with: fifthy hands and clothes; yet

Between meals Maugham play-purpose that can be served by this milked and tended her in his own aims, one of them imme-laden with pearl necklaces anded a good deal of patience, read lieved the author of his burden of be found sympathetic or absurd effort, unless indeed it has re-characteristic manner, which may. diate and the other more bus, they had nowhere else luggage allowed he had brought, diamond bracelets, worn constant-books. In his suit-case-all the

dislike of a number of things, according-to-taste-To-drag-in- remote:

to put them:-:

leaving an immense library to an chosen for his thesis. Professor worship of the crew gives no more particularly of the man he has Mme. Blavatsky and the Hindu Japan's policy is to set

unknown fate, three books; two Tindall starts by disposing of all significance to the fact that, in faces?" I asked, "Or did they mond" and "Villette," and Plato's tion of D. H. Lawrence-includ- rence

Trial and Death of Socrates.

allowed himself to - be Asia. The first step is to just give up the struggle?"

ing Aldous Huxley's and Profes- photographed with" Susan while, There are two schools of impose this order on the British Burma in the thought about reading in such either not scholarly enough" or was also photographed with his sor Paul de Reul's-as being in fact, milking her, Lawrence China that is ruled by south-west, and through classics, one thrillers. Maugham of notes on the state of the critic's wards animals, plants, and

emergencies. One favours the as too frequently taking "the form dog, and his special attitude to Chiang Kai-shek. It French Indo-China in the wanted something long to read; soul." We must therefore infer rest is sufficiently clear in his own means in practice that south-east. Japan has thrillers are too soon done, would that he claims immunity in both writings.

have taken too much space. In sorts for his own book. China is to form one now her opportunity, as that situation, too, he said,

Of Wordsworth's Lucy this au- For true scholarship most thor says she was so close to "block" with Japan and she believes, to stop that found the wisdom of the dying readers, one thinks, would find sun, shower, and the scenery that Socrates, his calm summing-up of Professor Tindall's violent wag-vital feelings of delight swelled Manchukuo, is to hand traffic. The moment is the values of life, the insigni gishness something of a stum-her bosom, beyond repair." Of over her northern pro-the more important to her fiance of death, "extraordinarily bling-block, and his detestation of Lawrence he states that "he was

poignant-quite different from all mysticism, vinces to Japanese con- because General Chiang reading it in your library."

or even re-given to boisterous levity, ligion, in poets from Wordsworth horseplay, and to pranks such as trol, and is everywhere has been hard at work found this, also, soothing. onwards reveals him as a soul painting flowers and serpents... else to submit to Japanese developing munitions out-

with a sneering cast-which is not Where do we find either Words- were clergymen THERE tutelage and exploitation. put in China, itself, and if

on the best disposition for the under-worth or Lawrence In ́such, curi- "boord," bolh RC and C of E. taking he has set himself, He ex-lous, inexact observations? - And China has derived a cer- he can hold out for a cer-Maugham doesn't seem to have presses surprise that so, few why “pranks?"

had much contact with them. He scholars and historians have paid: When it comes to social obser- tain amount of war sup-tain time he might be did not notice any praying going attention to Lawrence, and he tries vations the same odd twist oc-

north, by the road from plies from abroad.

up a new order” in East DID they still make-up their classic "novels of the 1850s, "Es-other attempts towards an evalua-Professor Tindall's phrase, "Law.

4

✡

he

He

the

to

"

plies from Russia in the come independent of sup-The C of E clergyman read the what Lawrence read, especially in with tubular furniture

to remedy thin by discovering curs. Venetian blinds are coupled

I burial service once, at midnight, bypaths of religious philosophy. Victorian.

as non-