1940-11-11 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAIL, NOVEMBER 11, 1940.

CHINA MAIL War Time Reflections

WINDSOR HOUSE.

WAR SUPPLIES

•

It no

The culterion of worth will be

THERE is emerging from this avoidable, but followed from the We have been governed by cer- based on worldly possessions. It

areas from which tain principles up to now. war a strong feeling that pri- very limited

We was thought in this direction hap- vate property and personal wealth men and women were recruited. have believed in progress, especi- piness lay: Satisfaction perhaps Soon after war was de- will not play such a prominent Intelligence is not a monopoly of ally in the material world. Re- did for a few but it was the kind part in the social life of British any one class, and wherever it is search, discovery and invention of satisfaction that exists because clared against Germany a people in the future as it did in found it must be used. That is the all pointed to a better and bright-of the contemplation of the con-

first lesson which the war has er world.

trast with other less favourably. system of regulation for the past.

There are several reasons for taught us.

What was and is was nothing circumstanced and, from the re- this. In the first place the heavy Our lives will be altered in other compared with what would be sulting sense of superiority which the control of both ex-demand which we have imposed ways tor. Less reliance will be This concentration on the future naturally followed. But this illu-- ports and imports was in-upon ourselves for the prosecu- placed on property, since the air made us very discontented with sinn has been shattered.

It is more tien of the war means that private warfare has shown how rapidly the present. It made us critical of longer governs life.

We tried than probable that mere wealth troduced in all parts of fortunes will be consumed in the the most solid and valuable build- everything around us.

larger and more important aim, ings and their contents can beto grumble our way to perfection. will be the distinguishing mark of the British Empire.

the undesirable member of society It namely the preservation of the utterly destroyed in a few min- We had a quick eye for the rather than a claim to respect.

Empire.

utes.

defects in our surroundings and the was designed to make

It will be futile then to estab-result was a continual state of Everything has been subordin- available adequate stocks ated to that end. All the wealth ish urge houses, or great mercan-irritation and an inability to en- the possession of those qualities

we possess must be converted into tile premises if the modern wea-joy what good there was.

which make the person accept- of essential commodities the weapons and instruments by pons of war can render them so This attitude of mind was al-jable in society. A capacity for

which the ideals of our civilisa-rapidly useless.

ways forward looking. It regarded friendship, a trained intelligence, in each country and also tion may be preserved. The spiri- They take a long time to build the imperfect present as a step- skill in some of the arts, a high tual and moral values have be-are very costly and only a briefing stone to the perfect future, moral tone based on a deep re- to ensure the flow of goods come far more important than the moment to destroy. So for the since both religion encourages as ligious conviction that there is a is no real serious antidote for the to believe that heaven is our re- divine order in the universe. We necessary for war pur- No one is really poor who is free night bomber. Men and women ward for the trials and surro, have definitely come to the end

here below.

of that period that was ushered poses to Great Britain. By and no one is rich who is enslaved in mind, if not in body. We shall

Science, however, always pro-in by our Victorian parents, who restricting luxury goods case to be possessed by our pos-

mises us better things in the laboured long and sincerely at a' sessions and will cultivate those

ture too, but on earth. This year's task which they believed in, and the regulations also had interests which are more abiding

motor-car will be replaced by thereby benefited by the great in view the strengthening. Sir Ronald Cross has said a and more satisfying and less cost-

something better next year.

struggle they made. The succeed- The Western world then has got

Ing generation who inherited the into the habit

the product and were excused the of the credit facilities of new spirit now prevails in Bri-

of living in tain and this hus been brought

future and not in the present with struggle, was corrupted by the the Empire and the con-about by the common danger,

this community of interest, and In "St. John's Review" the result that we lose much that former, and enfeebled by the lat

we ought to enjoy. centration of all produc- their new found fellowship is to

As Keats says: persist after the war, when the tive efforts on the supply threat has passed then the great will seek not so much to lay up of vital needs. The East- differences in wealth and educa-treasures on earth, where bomb tional standards will have to dis- and long range gun can play havoc Group Conference appear. Social solidarity depends with them, but they will lay up

treasures of another kind. brotherhood

ern

enjoyment of material comfort;

ол equality and

suffered

ΣΕ

1

By Professor

L. FORSTER

It is a flaw in human happiness, To see beyond our bourn;

It forces us in summer skies tɔj

mouth,

It spoils the singing of the

nightingale.

not

ter.

The war has thrown into relief as never before, the fact that man cannot live by bread alone.

Fortunately the moral and phy- sical qualities requisite for this terrible ordeal through which we are passing were latent and only required the occasion to call them forth. Hitler has set the Empire

"Rupture Cordiale"

Dr. George Glasgow a leading the democratic principle in gov-| authority on foreign affairs, ernment. She became in effect an tells the story of the collapse of Axis Power, a totalitarian State. France, In the "Contemporary Rovlew," and gives his views on the reasons for tragedy. writes:

He

each other.

now meeting at Delhi is to which can only be attained by j The terrible menace of war will

Instead then of placing such equal educational opportunities be ever present and will make emphasis on the accumulation of draw up a joint war policy for all and by a more reasonable people fearful about the future, material wealth. to be enjoyed in aflame as never before with a pas- on the lines already indi-distribution of wealth. The Ca- but their fear will be less if they a distant and problematical future, sionate determination to main- tures which distinguish the pro-have little material wealth to lose there will be a tendency to cul-tain those basic principles for cated, but more compre- duct of one type of school from than if they have much. No antivate those arts which afford im- which the Empire stands. Danger

now Immune from that prevailing in another will have is

attack. mediate pleasure. Music, poetry, always clarifies the vision, sets hensive in scope and more to disappear together with

the Formerly the mediaeval castle it-drama, und gardening.

every factor in true perspective privileges which accompany them. 'self was a stronghold and a guar- effective in operation.

These and such arts will

and enables us to concentrate on The criterion of worth will bejantee of safety of life and pru- trained intelligence and high perty, whereas now it merely of-only be appreciated but practical the problems at hand.

The trivial which had usurped The

Conference in-moral character. The country has fers a bigger and better target for and they will be creative too. A

more resultful and tranquil mood the place of the important dis- too much from well- the aerial torpedo.

Instead then of looking forward will descend upon us. After the appears, and the essential occupies cludes representatives meaning but incompetent people,

who have concealed their, lack of to enjoy the accumulated wealth bitterness of suffering there will its rightful place in the contre. from Australia, New Zea-ability, by a veneer of culture. of a life time and adding. to our come the joy of victory not only This is no small gain. It means The dangerous position in which possessions in order that the fami- over the enemy but of ourselves, purification by the fire of war, of the land, South Africa, Sou- the country found itself in this iy may inherit larger estates, The pre-war ideal of life was through the destruction

war, was due to this dearth of there will be a tendency to seek based on the assumption that the shoddy and the disappearance of thern Rhodesia, Burma, ability. Its absence was not un- for happiness in the present. right goal of struggle was security the dross, Hong Kong, Malaya and the territories covered by the East African Gover- nors' Conference, in addi- tion to India and Ceylon, and the composition of the Hong Kong delegation is an indication of the most useful material con-

Nor would either Government Fiance and dominate first Europe tribution this Colony can'

raise loans or credits abroad ex- cept jointly or in agreement with and then the world" would be met make. It is to be hoped

"measures There would be no by

which yesterday that the policy adopted by

As an electric lamp flickers with new import restrictions, either for might have appeared revolution- an unnatural brightness just be-purpose of exchange or protection, ory." He added that "our lives the Conference will make

The fore its filament breaks down, so between the two countries.

six count for nothing," and prophesied Anglo-Franch collaboration just agreement was to hold for the participating coun-

Those who have had a long before the break had worked with months after the signing of the that the following two months tries as far as possible self-

peace treaty.

"would forge future centuries." enough experience of interna- an exaggerated unity. sufficing for war supply tional affairs have noticed certain

It is one of the features of the The revolution not the one' purposes, the deficiencies crude and vulgar truths, such as

politics of our time that written presumably he foresaw came that there is no smoke without

agreements between Governments, from one country Being aire. Franco-British unity was a

whether from deliberate

one dls-within

month, as did made good from the avail-thing we were always telling our- At the beginning of last Novem-

selves was one of the immutableber we were given the spectacle of honesty on one part or the other, events that may forge future cen- turies. Those events in their able or potential sources and impregnable things of the a meeting of what was called the or from "force majeure," seldom of the others. Australian | afraid that if it had been true, we attended by M. Daladier, General per they were written Un.. What main impact were concentrated earth. The suspicious people were Supreme War Council in London, prove to have been worth the pa- steel for Hong Kong ship- should not have talked so much Gamelin, Admiral Darlan, and in a more modest measure might within a single week. Their swift- building, for instance about it nor done so much to for-General Vuillemin for France and have seemed the irony of events ly moving ramifications penetrated.

tify it.

by Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Hali-hus been accumulated so thickly. Any surplus production

fax, Lord Chatfield and Sir. King-that the sense of irony itself, a with startling effect from the West ·· would also be available for The small boy who writes to his sley Wood for Great Britain: per- somewhat delicate thing. has been to the East of Europe and across

erushed into Insensibility:

the Atlantic. On the night mother from his first boarding forming a united function such as

June, 16-17 France, asked Ger- the general war effort of school to assure her that he is it had taken three

years in the

M. Reynaud at the beginning of many, for an armistice. On the the Empire. India, of "very, very happy" is thereby former war to achieve.

shown to be very, very unhappy, very outbreak

April was cheered to the echo, by of war the two

the French Senate when he de- On that decisive day, Sunday, course, will loom large at because a healthy happy boy Governments had pooled their reclared that France would not cease June 16, M. Reynaud's Cabinet the Conference, in view of would never think of assuring sources.

fighting until Norway had been met three times in Bordeaux un- anybody that such was the case.

restored to full independence: Onder the Presidency of M. Lebrun. the important share of

On December 12 last Sir John April 19 the Chamber of Deputies Just before midnight it was an- The outwarfi frame-work of the responsibility she will Anglo-French unity during the

Simon announced to the House of voted confidence in M. Reynaud nounced by the French wireless. Commons the conclusion of anby 604 votes to nil. When the that M. Reynaud had resigned, be called upon to shoul- first nine months of the war was agreement with the French Gov normal French taste for political and that Marshal Petain had form der. The Roger mission a massive and an impressive si crnment of so comprehensive controversy is so totally waived. ed a new Government. During

tacle: Long before Mr. Churchill's has already explored In-eleventh-hour offer to Marshal scope that history had not known either the country is moved to its the night that fellowed Marshal dia's actual and potential Petain of a constitutionally united anything even approximately like depths, or is rendered speechless Petain made contact with Herr Franco-British nation (June 16) it in all its former records. M. by an extreme form of political Hitler through the Spanish Am- industrial capacity, parti- there had been a series of econo Finance in the Daladier Cabinet,

Paul Reynaud, then Minister of disease. cularly in regard to the mic, nancial and political me in a speech to the Chamber of

Within the space of one famous Sunday, France had done a thing supply of munitions. It two countries together in a way Deputies delivered on December

that resounded, and will continue is unfortunate that a full never before known in the history 18, called it an instrument with-

to resound, throughout the world. of any two countries in the world: out precedent.""

There was something fanatical measure of cooperation is

The structure proved to be so

At least one thing was clear: . The two currencies in effect in Mr. Reynaud's protestations

broken adrift about total war, something occa- that France had dia at a stage when it is Franca" lasted only cleven days, ensured of its need of the other's sionally invested with, an almost from a half-century's association double with Britain in the now firmly dis- vital for every unit to at the end of which France threw currency without the use of gold, mystically unconscious

over Great Britain and the whole The scope embraced the whole meaning such as only later events credited politics of the balance of make every possible con- tradition that had held sway since empire of both countries, so that were destined to clarify! On May power, and was embarked upon tribution for the defeat of 1904, and Instituted a Continental the pound and the Trane would 16, for instance, addressing the an uncharted sea, seeking, as Gen- over Chomber, he declared that the at-eral Weygand sold, her soul's re- anti-British policy of incalculable circulate interchangeab Hitlerism.

tempt of Germany "to beat down 'demption through suffering. consequence. She also 'abandoned, half the globe.

sures which seemed to bind the

not forthcoming from In- precarious that the "Battle for were made one. Each country was

bassador.

the

of