1940-12-27 — Page 7

CHINA MAIL "Thoughts Of An

WINDSOR HOUSE

GERMANY'S OIL

SUPPLY

That warlike nations without an adequate supply of oil must base their strategy on Its acquisi- tion amounts to a truism and Germany, having failed to deliver a quick, knockout blow against Britain while her oil supplies were at their height, is now forced to turn her attention and energy to- wards ensuring an adequate and continuous flow of this essential commodity. German intrigue in Rumania, culminating in the sub- mission of that country to Nazi rule, was largely undertaken for the purpose of obtaining the en- control of Rumania's 2,231 oil wells. These wells unfortun- utely from Hitler's point of view, do not completely fill the gap be- tween supply and expenditure. This continued lact can give the

tire

Englishman"

One of the curses of the modern in the wilderness, Mankind is by was either a ramp or a dead ort, they distrust foreign innovations, age is narrow nationalism. Coun history and geography and other and literature was snowed under But they do try to be fair. I have self-sufficiency, of national aims leading a corporate life. And just trash. tries tend to think in terms of natural forces divided into units by cartloads of murder or escapist often been surprised and amused. that take no account of the well-as cells must adhere to the body,

to see Englishmen --- middle-class being of mankind as a whole. The to one of these organisms called

Englishmen, that is, the kind that tendericy has been growing

I am sorry to harp on these un-you meet in P. & O's striving to for nations we must belong. We popular subjects but to me they consider with dispassion the fero- about three hundred years and must have a country to which we symbolise the worst side of Eng-clous views of some rebel or other now found its extreme expression owe allegiance. Whether we like it land. in Nazi Germany.

or not we are units of some nation.

who would dynamite the whole nation of 1 may sound a little un-English Amongst the citizens of

them-or so he says. To the Nazis, Germany is the beginning and the end of every-am an Englishman. And claiming English scene.

And, for better or for worse, I in my critical approach

atrnost thing; nothing that is not German my rights as

But I think that any other nation such a rebel an Englishman, is worthy of consideration,

1 for this very reason I am able to the door, or overboard, at the very would have been thrown out of To would ask you to bear with me see the virtues of Englishman in bolster up this recrudescence of while I give you my mere per-plainer colours than

least. the

But not with the English. They are almost inhumanly toler- interests that exploit them." But fairness of mind is not a virtue to be despised.

to the

more

primitive tribal prejudice, Gersonal views as to where England typical Englishnan with his ready ant, both to their enemies and the man science has been turned into stands to-day. And by you 1 acceptances and his irinate mo- a harlot. She is forced to prosti- mean not only the British over- desty is able to do. Let me then tute her integrity, to repudiate the seas, but those who are local presume. truths she has helped to reveal, in born and yet share the British Paying lip-service to the spurious

theory of Blood and Race.

key to the German Fuehrer's next step in his war campaign,

Now Morality herself, nothing The only remaining source of if not universal, has been shown the door. Her spirit had long been exiled from Nazi Germany, but up to a late hour she was in theury countenanced if not

reach Ger-

would

re-

heritage and belong to the British

tradition.

I find that there is much to lament in the state of modern England. We fought a grim war a quarter of a century go for our survival and after the sacrifice of

we won. a million of our youth, this war But we did not fully (A talk by

VICTOR

PURCELL

broadcast from Singapore)

us.

I have travelled in many coun- tries and have received much Tied up with these qualities is kindness and hospitality, but English humour. It is unique in nowhere have I found a country the world. It is a compost of where kindness and good manners benevolence and sardonic realism. supply which could

are so much the fabric of the com- It is the lubricant that olls all many without the need of cross-

bus conductors and policemen, for sacred and the profane. There is mon nature as in England, London life. It makes equal capital of the ing large expanses of water lies in Iraq and Iran and it is not difvered. Now even that pretence is

instance, and railwaymen through- a philosophy tied up with it too ficult to assume that Mussolini's dropped.

out the country, blunt and direct of which at least one ingredient is She is banished by African campaign was intended official edict and a Gorgon with

as they may be on rare occasions, humility. Examples of this hun- not only as a preliminary step the face of hell, the new German

seem to me as a class to be in the our are enshrined in our literature fowards the Suez Canal but also Morality, desecrates her abandon-

finest tradition of chivalry. They from Chaucer to WW. Jacobs, and are, considering the trials of their it is still towards these much coveted wells, ed altar. "Good is what is good

vital amongst

It for Germany," The conquest of Greece

proclaims that

calling, almost incredibly helpful helps us along. I remember in the have also simplified the Axis move Dr. Ley.

well-named Priest of Falsehood,

and polite. Fools might call them trenches in 1916 asking a sergeant "Bad is what does not

servile, but I know better. You I had not seen for some time what eastward. Iran alone produces suit Germany's end."

will find the same spirit through- he thought of the war. "They do some 10 million tons a year while

out the length and breadth of Eng-say, sir," he replied, "that the first the Iraq wells are at present only

Iand. This is the guiding spirit of the

You may enquire your way seven years is the worst.” That limited by the carrying capacity hordes that have

to Wiltshire from a yokel trimis what I call sardonic realism. over-run the of the pipe-line to the Mediter-greater part of continental Europe, realise the responsibilities of our ming a hedge, you may beg a tow ranean through Syria and Pales- a Europe where

for your victory. We did not play the part

becalmed sailing boat' tine which handles two

These qualities stand out in high million wandered freely

we might have played in erecting from a Yorkshire fisherman, you relief whenever to spread his

a new international order.

I think of Eng- tons annually. Italy's failure to liberal doctrines. where Pascal,

Other may knock at nations were indeed at fault but when benighted on the Devonshire tute no inventory of the good that a cottage window lishmen, and though they consti- defeat either Greece or the Im-Diderot and Voltaire were once

we fell back after honoured from the Baltic to the perial Forces

feeble а moors. Allowing for time and can be found in them, they may necessitates some Mediterranean, and where stud- Struggle on the old rough and place, for the precaution of self-stand as symbols on which I build ection by Hitler. Whether he will

ents once Journeyed from the ready idea of the balance of power. preservation, you

will meet with my patriotism. give Italy the fequisite aid or Carpathians to Paris, from Brit-Nor did we recognise that the in- the most astonishing kindness and ternal structure of England was helpfulness. Nor are these just

ull of timbers rotted by age and specious qualities-they

Then there is the country itself; we were called upon by our sense down into the nature of the Eng-working on the gifts of a bountiful

go deep

the product of the English spirit build our English social order. We charitable when you are wealthy earth, I love the rolling uplands of security. if nothing else, to re-lish people. It is easy to be

nature. I love the rich brown game of party politics. I[relapsed too readily into the old but among the poor of England

you will find the pure generosity fertile plains, I love the woods of of ploughland or pasture and the of sacrifiée, ef mutual help, and the silent and willing sharing of common suffering to a degree you would not have imagined possible. The greatest of the cardinal vir- tues is at home in England.

The

once

Erasmus

tany to Bonn, to imbibe the uni- | versal learning.

those countries in East Europe countries may enjoy their which normally consumed 26 mil- method of life in prosperity lion tons annually. This latter | peace, figure will, of course, be ruthless-

I

be

reli

O WII and

land.

too

more

stage another direct attack Britain remains to be seen but it is not surprising under the cir- cumstances that German troops When this is what patriotism inre reported to be massing near gone mad has brought about. the Yugo-Slavian and Hungarian shall be understood when I say borders and that they are already that I am not a patriol. But in Italy.

have deeper reasons for knowing that even sane patriotism is "not

This was partly the result of our

comely trees carpeted with prim- Germany's oil needs are

cal-enough." I do not believe that a

English tradition of compromise.

I love the moorland and the fakes. roses, cowslips, and anemones, culated by the Britannica Year man is necessarily a better man

We have always been opposed to

The music of English birds is to Book to amount to around 13 mil- because he is an Englishman, an

violent change, and it has been lion tons annually but some American, a Dutchman, a Chinese, our remarkable faculty to accept

me beyond all other natural music: American military and economic or a Malay. I do not believe that so much change as will avert re-

the smell of the earth, the hedg- experts place the amount as high any one country produces a convolution. This was our tolerance,

gerow, the haystack, and the byre, Then there But our tolerance, resistent at the stant standard of human beings. as 25 to 37 million tons of oil a¦

is reliability. We renew the desire to live in me in or can claim that its political sys- same time to new ideas, has in may grumble and scheme, and all its fullness. An English cot- year to win the Axis war. tem or method of life approaches have been too much inclined to I read that a foreign air expert had ed with a garden of roses, pansies some respects led us astray. We

even backbite-but we trust one tage, deep gabled and of brick discrepancy between these two

perfection, that any one country

another as a whole. The other day of opulent ancient red, surround- estimates is large and is an illus-can claim to impose its way of

laissez faire. Thus we allowed tration of the difficulties experi- thought or its institutions on the the worst forces of the industrial prophesied that when the German and stocks, of potatoes, onions, enced in assessing with some de-rest of the world. We are under revolution to range with little

Luftwaffe came down on England, lettuce, mint, and sage is to me, gree of accuracy the size

and the moral obligation of taking the check over the fair face of Eng course they did not crumple up, abroad, the setting for the ideal

the R.A.F. would crumple up. Of as to many other Englishmen.. equipment of Hitler's army. It is, soud where the good is to

I need refer only to the but on what could this air expert autumn of life. Can there be any- however,

clear that his supply found, irrespective of nation, and things that strike the eye. The falls far short of his needs. These We are under the moral obligation do us no credit: Our tolerance of prophecy?

slums of our great industrial cities

have based such a strange thing grander than the cathedrals of sharing those material

I cannot think. All I of England with their high-arched are now increased by Italy's sources of the world necessary to

ribbon development-ugly tenta- know is that during the dark days dim interiors broken by variegated requirements, not to mention all nations, So

cles of jerry-built hutches unfit of May, June and after, I took light and their that Individual

for man-has placed the ancient stock quite

aspiring towETS calmly of every and pinnarles, anything beauty of our countryside in jea calamity that might befall Eng-comely and dignified than the pardy; our reluctance to plan has land. But it deprived our

never occurred to eighteenth-century houses that towns of unity. me or to any other English-grace our older city squares? And ly cut down but nevertheless, if I firmly stand by the idea of architectural form is now a jum-the Navy, or the civilian popula- the weather that brings out all the Where once was an approach to man-that the R.A.F., the Army, the weather of England? That is industry is not to collapse com- universality. We must refuse to ble of pseudostyles. pletely their oil reserves must be accept a man as a man or a wo been content to become citizens under the most terrifle onslaughts,, the caressing and serene, the bois- We have tion would "crumple up" "even sprigs of our character. Not only. lapped, however reluctantly. The man as a woman by the mere fact of mean cities.

that they carry a British passport.

Was the omission to think of this terous and the bracing, but the In the same way we should refuse

possibility due to patriotism or wet and chilling, when icicles lin- to reject a man or a woman on

more obvious blind faith? No, it was due to ger in the wagon ruts, and sleep- these requirements the mere ground of their nation-signs of decline since the Great solid experience. I had the honouring nature is seen as through Germany is said to have a reality. They must be judged in War. But the decline had started. of commanding English troops Inveil, is the weather that breathes serve of 6 million tons to which the light of universal values as long before then. We can trace it the last war and I know their life. The soll, the hills and valleys, approximately 3 million tons of men and women. These are the with the English defection from mettle.

They grouse and make the weather, the circumam- oil pro-standards which I know

the arts. There was a time when cynical remarks about everything | bient decent duced annually in the country Englishmen accept. Precautions in England was a musical country; it and everybody but they do not that sea · are the forces

have formed Rua war emergency are beside the had its folk ballads, its madrigals "crumple up. They do not ture of England, The manian output of roughly 9 mil-point. It is only when fear or in- There was a time when an Eng-what they are going to do to the ance, her humour, and her fair-

and dances on the village green.swagger and swashbuckle and say which her rich language, her toler lion tons is now entirely in Ger-terest appeal to the tribal spirit lishman who claimed to be edu enemy, and then when the time ness have sprung man control as well as any ex-latent in all of us that we are cated had to be able to sing a comes shout for their mothers: I ports that Russia is willing to tempted to depart from them.

catch or play an air on his flute have seen them in the Ypres From lament I have passed to spare. This extent of the latter's

or guitar. It is only the basest amongst us typical Englishman and civil ser- of mud, every tree was shattered, consistent. help is, however, very problema who would have us believe that vant used, we may remember, to and the so-called trenches

Pepys, that very Salient when the place was a sea rhapsody, and the two are not in- tical. According to a recent an- mere nationality is enough. Our play the flageolet on the leads of through a charnel house, I have

We are often most nouncement by the Soviet Com-affection, and our admiration must his house in the cool of the even-seen them going over the top at

ron critical of the things we love. missar of the Oil Industry, Rus-stand free to be claimed by those ing.

It is England I have spoken of sla's oil production though better who merit it by the standards of and early nineteenth centuries dawn, I have seen them as pri- rather than Britain, partly be

England in the eighteenth than in 1939 "is not yet sufficient," humanity. We must be free to had its schools of painting that soners of war in Germany, ragged cause the word Briton for a Russia also needs oil in increas criticise the community to which were full of promise. There was and without food. I would trust denizen of these isles still sounds ing quantities herself and it is we belong and to adopt what is a time when the Englishman did them anywhere. As for the civilian stilbed, and partly because it is known that her reserves, are be found good from outside, Pre-not despise literature and learn population in this war, we have England 1 belong to and which I ing jealously guarded. Germany's ly escape from but they are notions for the classics he would not to see how they are "taking it understood that I ignore the judices we have and cannot whol-ing. If he canvassed his affec-only to read our letters from home best know But would not have position, while not yet acute, is guide to judgment and, if we are be socially damned as "highbrow." have just received a cable from a virtues of Scotland, Ireland and thus seen to be far from satisfac- to retain our integrity, they must It has been epigrammatically said seventy-seven year old father tell Wales. As you will see, I hope. tory and Hitler's most urgent be kept in their place. need, if he hopes to win the wai,

that a battle was fought in the ing me to "keep my tall up If he this love of sing for England, is is to procure a steady flow of this

nineteenth century between the can keep his tall up in the midst at variance with the Interna This is the extent to which I am barbarians and the philistines, of the bombing area Iran su li timalism of which i have spɔkend "liquid gold." But where? Per-an internationalist. But I am The philistines won. Be this as an keep mine up among tbs the willingness to accept the best haps it will be found that oil, or aware that in the present state of it may, it is true to say that in the fleshinots of Singapore. rather the lack of it will be as the world's development we are age between the two great wars the English, and I say so because willingness to apply standard

trust where the best is to be fosi The great a determining factor as food far from the position when we can except for a few freaks or poseurs I know.

partially, und the willingme and morale in the final outcome citizens of the world. As indivi- síc. ready made from the trand- stand alone as Individuals, sEnglishmen accepted their mu

tive in peace and understandin #hezwo

Then there is fairness of mind a basis of equality with the duals we pre Leeble voices crying oceanic jazz factories, painting Englishmen distrust new ideasinations of the earth.

British Blockade prevents further importation.

To off-set

synthetic and natural

can be

added,

These are the

the

a

na..

and from