1941-08-11 — Page 23

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THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST 11, 1941.

CHINA MAIL

-WINDSOR HOUSE

THE SUPREME IMPERTINENCE

Since the Nazis have launched their "crusade"| against Russia there has been an increasing ten- dency on the part of official and semi-official sources in Berlin to iden- tify the Reich with Europe: "Europe will

the

resent" this, that or other act directed against Germany; "Europe" is fighting Communism, and so on. A Berlin spokes- man, referring to the American occupation of Iceland, said: "President Roosevelt is attacking Europe'. This cannot be dismissed as mere mega- lomania-it is all a part of the desperate German| attempt to convey to the world at large the impres sion that Hitler has creat- ed a substantial new or- der and that whatever England may do, or the! United States or, presum- ably, Russia, represents only the "periphery" of the Continent.

It would appear to be inconceivable that, after. all that has passed in|

Mater

HOIST WITH HIS OWN PETARD

"BRENNER" NERVES.

Spain & Ireland

upon the

language

English.

whole use

Europe in the last few THE great world which depends: Irish National tradition and the did not come till the Nineteenth years, any one could be

Another almost equally Century. Spanish

in It was

part the important factor of confusion in taken in by this supreme would do well to particularise

Nationalist Movement under the foreigner's estimate of Ireland

Daniel O'Connell, but much more impertinence. It would somewhat

the upon

story and and all things Irish is the dis- the great famine and the scatter- character of Ireland. 1 remark in persion of the Irish people. They seem superfluous to recite again the stark fact about my travels that of all the ambi-are the only people of our Wes. 1ng of the race which left Ireland tern Christian culture which has without a national language of guities, confusions and misunder-been scattered at large and driven its own) and made the Irish peo- this new order, to point standings which arise from the into exile. We are used to this ple as a

the English out that Austria, Czecho- hopeless sub-division of Christen-phenomenon in the case of the tongue. When two populations of Slovakia, Denmark and dom to-day none are more subtle Jews and in the small but highly very different characters use the Interesting exceptional case of the same language you have a situa- tion which breeds infinite mis- Rumania were added to (and therefore more difficult to

gypsies. But we forget how

understanding in every detail of problems characteristic it is of the Irish. the Hitlerian structure by understand) than

character and

The huge religious quarrel of the human life, and that is the lingual armies of occupation and

Sixteenth and Seventeenth Cen-situation of the Irish people to- Of all lingual, turies in Britain led to the driving day. Not only in their own coun- try, but throughout the world. groups, all of Irish families overseas on such

They are English speaking, all

arising from the history of Ireland.

the

than the

-By-

that Bulgaria's adherence racial and religious to the Axis pact was con-provinces into which the babel of a scale that there has been nothing but a small remnant who still use. firmed in the same man-jour civilisation has fallen, not one, ner; that Poland, Norway,, is less understood or gives rise to Belgium, Holland, France, Greece and Yugoslavia fought bitterly to avoid incorporation into the Nazi system; that Britain by far is the violent contrast in

more misinterpretation matter of Ireland.

There are many reasons for this. The most important reason

between the

religion and therefore in all the and Russia are now bat-texture in Society tling to avoid the same

stifling fate. What does

the ancestral language in the extreme North-west of the island. Every effort has been made to restore the National language to daily use. but custom has proved too strong. It has not yet been

will be.

Hilaire Belloc established and probably never

I