1941-09-04 — Page 23

THE CHINA MAIL, SEPTEMBER 4, 1941.

CHINA MAIL

WINDSOR HOUSE SE

COMPLACENCY AND THE FACTS

The tone of both British and American official comment as we enter upon the third year of the war is worthy of careful note. In his Labour Day speech, President Roose- velt did more than issue a stirring call to the peo- ple of the United States to put their shoulder tol the wheel and to exert the united strength of the nation. He was also very urgent in stressing the utter folly of supposing that the violence of the campaign on the eastern! front has lifted the menace from the west. Mr. Brendan Bracken, the new Minister of Informa- tion, was equally empha- tic in his talk with journalists. Hitler, he said, was Britain's Enemy No. 1, Enemy No. 2, also as yet undefeated, was Complacency.

"The fact is that in both with. the British Empire and learned. the United States there is

a very large section of the public which does not

It is time they

TREASURE LOST

1940

V

11941)

THE UPPER GRADIENT

"Germans" In Captivity

FOR the first time for a partial account has reached outer world of conditions in Prague, the Czech capital.

the

long, for Czechs guarded by Germans; while an authentic and Im-but in truth the Germans are' liv="i

ing in a spiritual concentration camp there,dgetting and fret- ting under the boycott of the Czechs.

It gives an extraordinary pic- ture-for it shows that the con-

realise how heavy and The Hunterian Collec- bitter is likely to be the tion, most of which has fight that still lies ahead been lost by enemy action A great part of Britain is-another ""honour" for still too unaware of the the Luftwaffe, is said to perils of the Battle of the have cost John Hunter Atlantic and the narrow five times the sum of margin by which we re-£15,000 for which the

For an ineradicable: trait of the tain the upper hand. In Government bought it for part arising from censor- the nation in 1799. So it

German is his longing to be lovedi after he has conquered, by his ship designed to keep in- is not surprising to learn

The Hradschin, the great palace victims; he yearns to be popular formation from the that while Hunter's in- of the Kings of Bohemia on the with the inferior people he has is the emblem and enslaved and cannot understand enemy and in part from a¦,

come rose at one period to hill which

symbol of Czech patriotism, is in it when this affection is withheld: censorship which tends to £6,000, he was kept poor mournful plight; from its gigantle keep unpleasant facts in by his lavish buying. In-flagstaffs and windows, on great the background, this cuts deed, he had no fondness

Too long have the Americans been

people. They are wonderful,"

we

is true that they are wonderful; but

querors and captors are in course of becoming, spiritually, the con- quered and captives.

By Douglas Reed

occasions, flies the Swastika, and within it sits the aged and ailing puppet-president, Hacha.

both ways.

for actual practice, pre- The "New Republic" (of ferring the dissecting- New York) said the other

room and the study, and week:

would attend to the ordin- hiding complacently behind the ad-ary details of his con- mittedly tough fibre of the British sultations and so forth say "They will never give up." only because it afforded it is not true that they can hold out him means of purchasing for ever 1 their position greally curiosities. "Well, I must We also have been rather go and earn that damned guilty of the same kind guinea or I shall be sure of complacency, and some to want it to-morrow.” the more expensive hotels, res- speakers both in England It did not do to be taurants and and in the United States squeamish about methods have encouraged it. There of getting what he want-

worsens.

from him.

But the Czechs, as all will know who read the story of the good soldier Schwejk and the disservices he fendered to his Germanic masters (then in Aus- trian guise) in the last war, is a pastmaster in the art of passive resistance, and he is endlessly fertile in inventing new ways to confound and confuse his gaolers.

I remember, when the Germans invaded Prague, seeing 'a carload officers drive of overbearing SS. up to a Czech policeman and ask way to the Wenceslas the him the

Place: without blinking an eye- lid'he politely waved them in the wrong direction,

The real headquarters of Prague to-day is the Deutsches Haus, the great town.

Bierhalle

in down

The Deutsches Haus, and all

The cafes in Prague thousands of whom have been sit beside them swarm with Germans, scores of that trick by

to displace sent-but brought to Prague

Germans later thwarted, forcing Czechs to on the driver's the Czech knows a ways that cannot be

is no need to overstate, ed, and it was by bribing Czechs in the better-paid posts; thousand

on any of the innumerable Nazi punished, of making his "captors

+

chase of these flags, at 28 marks

For instance, the Germans re- that a great

"Prague is German!" That was deserted

י,י

but we have to impress the undertaker that he festivals every Czech house has feel ridiculous.

skeleton of to fly the swastika, and the pur-, 'the Americans as well as our got own people of the truth of ŎBrien, the Irish giant,each, is compulsory; the streets cently announced the fact that the war will in defiance of the order eternally resound to the music military concert would be held of German military bands and in the Wenceslas Place at 2 o'clock; be lost or won according that the coffin was to be the tramp of marching German at 1.30 the streets cleared as if German band began to blare to our own joint efforts, sunk in deep water. It is soldiers, Storm Troops, Hitler by magic, and at 2 o'clock the

Youths and Hitler girls.

brassily and self-consciously in a If this were properly un- not surprising that he derstood, and properly ex- was well thought of by the always the Nazi, cry and claim.

for he plained in the United resurrection men," i

To-day Prague Is German-in States there would be no paid high prices for special external things, in flags, lan- room for members of Con- mens, up to £500 for guage, music, and festivals; Dr.

Goebbels sees-to-that gress to argue that no O'Brien. All of which, more naval aid is needed perhaps, gives an addi, because nearly all the tional touch of gruesomerations of food and clothing In sation or female friendship other munitions are coming ness to Buckland's search what until March 15, 1839, was than that which they find at the

the most abundant city in Europe, Deutsches Haus.*** through." This means no through more than 3,000 have withdrawn, shabby and doubt a livelier sense of coffins for Hunter's re- hungry, into their homes. the importance of letting mains in St. Martin-in-And yet so the story tells the public, British and the Fields, where he was which has now reached the outer world-all, this is a hollow sham American, know the facts buried because the fees

and mockery! than most Government for Westminster Abbey departments are blessed were too high.

Thus the German conquerors, lacking the excitement of military adventure, are growing bored and of uneasy in an atmosphere ostracism, scorn and hatred; they may take all the money and all But its soul remains Czech, and the food, but they cannot have.l the Czechs, reduced to the barost human society, friendly convers

And at the back of each Ger

man mind is the lurking dues tlon, how will all this hatred ex- pond itself upon the Germans it Germuny, should rafter all, loso the war.

Prague, like all Czechoslovakia, Meanwhile the Czechs quietly hing become a concentration camp and patiently bido their time.