1940-09-24 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, SEPTEMBER 24, 1940.

CHINA MAIL

WINDSOR HOUSE

THE PRICE OF NAZISM

,

Nazi Germany claims to have done great things for the German people, ir- respective of the con- quests which are written for the moment on the map of Europe. In. "Hei! Hunger" an English translation of a little book written by Dr. Martin Gumpert, now a refugee in the United States, the claim is examined in the light of statistics which have been carefully ex- tracted from scientific and official publications issu- ed in Germany itself. It is "hunger" in the larger sense that they show, a general lowering of vital capacity which in no way supports the Nazi claim that so much has been done for the German youth and the German] family. Comparing 1923, as the worst year of econo- mic misery for Germany, with 1937, marriages, births, and excess of births over deaths all show a decrease (2.9 per thousand in the case of births). Summarising his conclusions, Dr. Gumpert writes:

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Here are the positive achievements of six years

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STICK NO

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NEW

TALIAN LAKE

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death-rate, a falling birthings That Go Bump

of Nazi rule: an increased

thus

The Choices

Great Britain is. in a difeult position. The economic system - which grew up here in Englanti In the so-called Industrial Re- volution between 1760 and 1840, |and which had as its motto the words "laissez-faire;" having spread all over the world, is now dying or dead. ́ ́No nation wishes to maintain it except ourselves and the Americans. The rest of the world has sought an escape rom it in some form of totall- arianism, Fascist, Communist, jor Nazi. Two things in England have helped to keep it in being. Ona

s our greater wealth, and the other is that its cracks have been caulked and its blemishes partly concealed by Government inter- |'erence and "municipal Socialisin.. t has been falsely identified with 'lemocracy, but it is just the working of democratic govern- nent that has allowed the ap ›lication of these semi-Socialist balliatives, which are really op posed to its very essence. It was, of course, not due to any deep- eated selfishness that the men of .he old laissez-faire school oppos- d Government regulation of Jours and conditions of working. such things were and are opposed o the fundamental: doctrines of hat faith, and men who believed n it, even if as noble and un- elfish as John Bright, were cons trained to resist them. But after

By Artifex

this war, whatever happens, we hall not be for many generations he wealthy nation we were. In-

·lustrialism as we have known “it for two centuries will have to go.

But what is the alternative? What have we to put in its place? There are, of course, men who hink that when peace -comes we hall be able to settle back into our old ways. They are wrong. Unless we have something better to offer to our people and to the world, we may have wan the fight, but we shall have lost all that we fought for. Democracy, linked to a decrepit and paralysed industrialism, will go down be- fore Fascism or Communism. And it does not matter which, for at root they are indistinguishable.

What, then, have we to offer in its place? A truly Christian so- [cial order is, I am sure, the only

rate, a declining fecun- There are hard times for ghosts,{stantial acts of arson. On the us to happy forecasts of the life to alternative. I have no desire for dity, an increase in ric-certainly for those of the Folter-whole, he, she, or it may be said come, but he countered this dis-anything like the formation of a geist kind, whose special office is to behave like a tiny air raid, and mal reflection with the hope that, "Christian," still less of a kets, the physical incap-to rap, rattle, shift the furniture, we who live in a period of air while the debased and unhappy "Church," party in politics. After

are und generally make things go raids not so tiny may pardonably spirits acity of the youth, 90 per bump in the night. (The more dismiss the Poltergeist as

tumultuously Waterloo there was the Holy the earth-bound, the purer and nobler Alliance, by which the sovereigns cent. flat feet, a growing assiduous Poltergeists will keep it small beer of nocturnal persecu- have a tranquil existence none the of Russia, Austria, and Prussia

up in daytime too - and that for tion and domestic upheaval. Our less real, if more remote. criminality, an increase

bound themselves to "govern their years). There are now at large flesh-and-blood Homo Normalis At any rate it would be absurd subjects as

parents; to maintain in drunkenness, a doubl-on cath and sea and in the sky of 1940, can teach any ghost a to deny different qualities and religion, peace, and justice; to ing of mental diseases, an agents which are capable of doing night. Those of us who survive different individuals or to say ab-bers of one and the same Chris- countless human and mechanical thing or two about bumps in the powers of spirit, as of mind, to consider themselves but as mem- Ancrease in venereal dis-this job so much more thoroughly this war are not going to be solutely that things usually called tian family commissioned by eases, a rise in tuberculo-that the spirits are drastically put greatly alarmed by a waltzing magical have never been perform-Providence to govern the branches in the shade. The spook who wardrobe or a series of unplea-led by the kind of human being of one family." But the outcome sis for man and beast, an makes moans and weird music in sant noises round about and up deemed to be possessed. It is not was a period of black reaction in increase in epidemics, twenty-second

the air must play second or even aloft. We have had all that and impossible that certain, folk in an every sphere of life. Nor is the

fiddle to the rather more. puerperal fever, an in-shrieking bomb which follows the creasing mortality rate in monitory siren.

the hospitals

a de- Accordingly one may feel sorry!

for Mr. Sacheverell Sitwell,

cline in working capacity, whose book on Poltergeists has new occupational dis-jjust appeared, with its witches and warlocks · considerably out- distanced by the diablere af mno- dern war. He has documented

'eases.

bolas through the. nurseries of".

By

IVOR BROWN

sometimes in the. West?

abnormal stats of passion or hy-history of so-called "clerical", sterical excitement can so trans-parties on the Continent“ en- mit their fiery thoughts and long-couraging. As a thoughtful work- ings as to acquire some unusual ing man said to me recently, “We power over material objects, If want Christian politicians, but we such strange things happen fre-do not want a Christian political quently in the East, why not party." What, I ask again, is the alternative? Of one thing I am Many of the Poltergeists' "in-certain. God's purpose and aim civilities," to use Mr. Procter's in creation are the production of charming and most civil word for noble character. No social order, It is a charge supported and examined a series of the best-

their persecutions, may be dis- therefore, which is not based on known cases of this kind :-of| and argued in detail from hunting, and his book echoes thenticated with testimony of may also be the tricks of one who will stand. How can we work to The Poltergeist stories are au covered to be trickery, but they the goodness of the individual figures that escaped cen-abundantly with tappings and various value, but there is far too finding himself or herself strange-secure that that shall be one of

tappings on the bedstead and with much evidence of queer goings-ly empowered at first, then feels the results of the war? soring because no doubt the heavy trend of spectral but on to dismiss them altogether as the "fluence" weaken and resorts the Nazis were so busy well-shod feet upstairs. Through the hallucinations of people who in angry despair to decelt in or

his pages pots and pans.go hurt!-are naturally victims of what welder to keep up the reputation for planning their war efforting under goblin pressure as once nowadays call the jitters, the strange mastery of magic. That, with ghostly music and many that they overlooked the they exocuted their curious para-wplies, or the heeby jeebies. Mr. Sitwell suggests, was what beastly “incivilities" the house of possibility of someone persecuted children and the kit Some of these experienced happened to Emma Davies, of his enemy. tracking such statistics chens of terrifled wives and might be attributed by the scep- Wem, in Shropshire, whose boots, maids. But there is at least this tical to acute alcoholism coupled said amazed spectators, kept fly- down in their official re-to be said for the Foltergeist: his with violent indigestion, and ing off, while crockery leapt from but Mr. Procter's choice of the of the liver cupboards and flew slantwise. All word "incivilities" is frequently cesses. It would be sheer-anties are very odd and they may doubtless the state

certainly affright the soul; but must be taken into account when the phenomena. in her oase cannot apt. Once gone, too, the thing est folly for us to draw they rarely, if ever, do material, assessing the evidence of spectral be accounted for by trickery; later never in any case returns. "This, manifestations. But the attestors on, finding herself the object of last cannot be said of the up-to- from any of this signs of harm.

to the Poltergeist stories collected attention but failing in her magic, date, air raid. No doubt it was a German collapse in the In case after case neople are by Mr. Sitwell are often most she took to conjuring.

uncommonly annoying for the field. But that the Ger-struck by heavy, solid objects solid and sober, creatures. like the Very often there seems to be people who swelled up and were

which have suddenly acquired a Quaker Mr. Edmund Procter, alsome sexual basis for the activi-pinched and heard drums and saw. man people are healthier, miraculous gift of night, out these strict tectotaller, who in 1892 de- ties of the Poltergeist. The hy-their ewers fly across the room. happier, or better fitted objects when they touch the scribed "the gibberings, the pre-steria of the over-emotional, But they lived in a happier year: for prolonged resistance lode of lamb's wool.

human body become as light as a posterous incivilities, and the un-fercoly jealous-type is mixed with than ours. When such things hap

The per-wholesome uproar" created by brooding over 'revenge. The ngelpen now one has to send for the as a result of the Nazi formance often starts, it socms, spooks "for ten unforgettable of puberty and soon-aftor is most embulance, the fire engine, and the drive for war appears to apparent sound thereof.

with pebbles on the roof or the years" in his family home of Wil-commonly. "Poltergeistic." But hearse instead of calling in the lington Mill on Tyneside. Mr. the famous Drummer of Tedworth Society for. Psychical Research. If be a legend which only Dr. Furthermore, the Poltergeist ins Procter sonably pointed out that Poltergeist was nunely cerne suffer we must, let the world have Goebbels could embrace incendiary powers, drops lighted "auch questionable intimations of with property and the pride of an more visitation of the "geist" anci

matches, and even commits sub- Immortality" will hardly reconcila artist, Deprived of nis instrumentless of the Gorman,

There have been worse offences,