1950-04-25 — Page 6

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THE CHINÁ MAIL, TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 1950,

THE SYDNEY CONFERENCE

-The Economic Conference- on South Asia to be held now at Sydney Instead of Canberra-ls to meet in Mày.

There is regret here that the British Government, because |

By "Windrush" Special Correspondent

On the whole,

Complex, more subtle economic organisation of the West.

In the Western system the guiding hand is less apparent. The system may therefore appear less attractive:

It is certainly possible to makej

-

On

this special day, let

Us

it cannot afford to release thought, pad the liberty of the cal difficulty. ministers for foreign travel subject against arbitrary arrest. Eastern peoples are still rather out a very good case for saying extend Anzacross the sea to our

They are willing to pay this price faternalist in their ideas about that in fact the superior wealth good friends Down Under. while its fate is still uncertain, for economic advance. is sending a relatively un-

Main task known leader of the British

the Delegation. But

Civil

If the Sydney Conference keeps Service composition of the Delegation will be

very it must draw up a scheme which how impressive the apparatus of Western lands.

ns the Communist State seems to strong.

what

this in mind it will realise that

résulta

government

today is They like to feel of the Western world that there is a strong hand at the due to the freer political ́and: helm, that their affairs are being economic life of Western, coun-

What are Wordsworth? Myrtle purposefully directed. Here the trios. After all, there was not a thinks the ode to the cuckoo was Communists have the advantage. very great difference in the orl a nice gesture to inmtes of

Few people in the West reallee ginal resources of Eastern and mental homeD,

But the West has not been able

it can honestly recommend

18 the average Easterners. At the likely to produce

as yet to state this persuasively Jabber wacky.

I admit I don't like there jabs, Information in Britain is taking spectacular and as rapid as any top is a Dictator and the Polit- clearer shape about

the scheme which Communists could Buro. Below is the hierarchy to the intelligentsia of Asia. The

Conference cari only but on the other hand I'd hate to conference can do. It is fairly sponsor. This is the measure of to carry out obediently their Sydney

policies. The waste and con succeed if the public opinion of cholera dose of the bugs said to generally agreed that the main the task which confronts the fusion and inefficiency of the South Asia is convinced that be floating around, interest must be directed towards Conterence.

Russian bureaucracy is not obvi- Western ways of economic organ- the economic condition of India, If that can be radically improved, there will be an economie up swing through all of South Asia, It is agreed too that a plan for South Asia would scarcely be adequate if it were based only upon the resources available within the Commonwealth,

in Asla.

It is

detailed

The Delegations will be wise ous to the ordinary Ensterner. Jaation can bring more substan- to bear in mind that they have Instead, it appears to him much tial and faster results than Com- also to overcome one psychologi- more purposeful than the more munit ways,

North African

Journey--No. 1:

The desert has forgotten

round them. Even these plaques they do they like to do the job' the desert is softly trying to correctly. absorb.

A few miles further on Bardia

י

allent, Hles, a white mirage- deserted, half-ruined ghost town. Then there is nothing till Tobruk.

Strangely enough, the Colony's citizens can help to remedy the water shortage, but not by èloan living.

·

Following India, Burma, Ceylon etc., Scotland is now demanding independence. Certain loud Wales mo coming from Cardiff make

have the think other colonies sume idea..

•

It rather seems, too, that the

Sea

chicts island South

Fijiting for home ruip.

*

•

aro

COLD COMFORT The Chinese Government troops made the conquest of

In the last two or three years Hainan Island look exceed Britain has sent to South Asia an ingly simple. They apparent- enormous quantity of supplies, ly didn't bother about secur- Mr. Bevin has estimated their

value at £750 million.

The way out from Alexan- ing either Naval or air sup doubtful if Britain can continue port, but sailed across in its aid at this rate. The backing dria is just the same. It still junks at night, landed at of American capital is essential

The useful tin several beaches, sent detach- if the Sydney plan is really to ripples up and down over of thousands of that tens

No, Myrtle, it would only be ments inland, linked up with affect the manel of great events the desert surface in the way

There are only two things the

At Tobruk, for the first time, confusing to refer to steamers the Communist guèrillas in

Eighth Army drivers knew

desert has not been able to shake you get a faint, anemic echo of coming from Liverpool as Mersey the hills overlooking the In getting down to

examining the and cursed.

off. First, the mines still buried the past. For there still are Brl ships. planning-in beaches, and then marched on needs of Indin, Pakistan, and

withers beneath its surface, and, second, lish uniforms in the streets, there Fertility gradually

four-gallon is a Neafl functioning, there is an Hoihow. How much effort Ceylon, the resources of Austra

Palms give up, then the the non-returnable

army petrol point, there is British the Nationalist Navy and a. the supply of technicians in stunted fig trees, then the casual, petrol tins we used.

activity in the harbour. air force put into it is difficult the Commonwealth and to tell. Vivid descriptions of is necessary that the Delegations hopeful little plots of barley.

should never forget certain key Whitewashed Arab hovels thin violent activity are not facts,

out till they are replaced by necessarily accurate. They

The distressing and overwhel-patched black bedouin tents, and, can be written up, like theming fact in South Asia is finally, by nothing famous descriptions of battles | poverty. The national incomes

You have the amaranthine sea much bluer which used to pour out of are too pitifully small.

on your right-so Nationalist Nanking, in the are too many people living in than memory had thought possible quiet seclusion of an office life is deplorably low. The in- and the blinding white sand miles from the scene of in- fant mortality rate is very high dunes. action.

There is too much disease, too much literacy, too much indeb- tedness, too much exploitation.

on-lt

There

slum villages.The expectation

Humiliation

Dway,

all.

And everywhere else the fami- bisected by the black road.

liat tussock-packed dust-scape tarmac

*

No again, Myrtic, MacMahon Ball is not a ritzy dance event in Australia.

Another item reprinted in its entirety from our most helpful contemporary:

They have given birth to a

But it is the slow, dull rhythm minor school of architecture among, the bedouins, who make of a small peace-time garrison. ramshackle huts from them, and, Its streets are shabby. but tidy

and tame.

And outside the town the desert "Fulton, Miss.(UP)—Lewis M. has returned. Those chronolo- Sheffield walted for the local crossing. gical layers

ruined of

war freight train to pass a material which fay like geological Suddenly a shot rang out and the strata over the land have been train stopped." fined down to a faint patina off old, iron.

By Alexander Clifford

apparently, to a school of sculp- ture, for here and there along the roadside you And piles of them arranged in grotesquely impres sionistle shapes.

Just a name

A hundred whales have been washed ashore in the Orkneys,

making a very orkward situation.

Sidi Rezegh is merely a map reference. Knightsbridge is a Halhow did it happent. featureless slab of desert sketchi- If only the Commos could bo- These rusted tins are a con-ly framed in bedraggled barbed brought to beileve these mighty

But stant, then

Eighth wire and surrounded by a mine- Nationalist victories splashed in some of the Hong Kong papers...... Army's speclic landmarks are held. gone. It

But what does seem certain is that the very considerable ground forces on Hainan tople little or no part in the pro- |

It is all exactly as it used to The Eastern peoples, ceedings. It was not a mere

from be. And it all means absolutely matter of being afraid to fight. Aden to the for East corner of nothing.

become aware The Nationalist troops clearly that, they are poorer

Indonesia, have didn't want to. And in any West. They are humiliated by case it is generally possible to this, and they believe that their To be remedied. make preliminary peace ar-

position can reduce their poverty they

are rangements so as to avoid un- ready to make almost any sacri- necessary trouble and blood-fice of tradition, privilege, rell- shed. In these matters gion, and so on. And they want? Improvement to be quick. They the Chinese military are

will not wait. eminently sane. There were

then the Perhaps it is always dangerous to revisit places where something important happened to you. never looks quite as it should. But the desert does not look like anything at all.

An empty stage

excitement and

the

+

The desert, in fact, has revert- Now the landscape is so un-ed to the simplicity of a boxing varying that it is telescoped in ring or operating table. your mind into one stock image, and only your speedometer gives

over

•

"The Marine Court yesterday denied a vernacular report."

This sounds to me like a departmental departure.

Looking at its emptiness, it a sense of progress. You pass seems extraordinarily easy to be place after place that ought to be wise after the event: How could

Seems as if the Labour Party ever have used those petrol tins? How could she ever will have to get another vale of To anyone who knew it when familiar but now doesn't even Britain

have started out on a campaign confidence. a variety of reports about This is what the Western Dele-it was filled with danger and dis- seem to be there.

I thought there was a law in Yet sometimes some subtle con-with tanks inferior to those of the

How could Hitler have Britain against these confidence strong air and naval rein- gation at Sydney must bear in comfort and

mind. It is no use at all for human experience its emptiness forcements from Taiwan after them to say, "You must not be today is shocking and baffling. It tour or a bend in the road presses enemy? the first landings. Certainly too ambitious,

You must learn is nakedness. It is the deadness a forgejten button of recognition failed to see the value of sending tricks.

In your mind and produces a Rommel another armoured divi- this seemed the obvious thing to walk before you run. Resour-of a stage when the play is over memory you never knew you had sion and winning Egypt?.

You are limited.

cannot and the actors have gone and the kept. And you look almost with

But the desert is not much use to do, if only for the sake of ces

have in India or Paklatan or In- scenery has been taken down.

awe at some blank spot and say:i

Aghting old battles Nationalist prestige. But one donesia great projects like the

"I once slept here," or "Here we for the No echo remains. You standi gets the impression that the Tennessee Valley scheme or

West. on the ridge at Alamein and look were dive-bombed," or simply again. There is too little there "This used to be a ration dump. to suggest any reorientation of place had

history. virtually been spectacular works of the written off in Taiwan, where You must do here a little, there a down across one of history's great unapectacular battlefields, and you simply can't little. A modest,

Aid to memory The sheer size of it makes one they probably knew the state programme may do much. In 50 conceive that any battle ever took

wonder whether Wavell is not of mind of the defenders. The years you will have raised your place. there.

And the smell. That is what given too much credit for that appreciably,

If you fest brilliant campaign against the picture of the airfield throng-standard of living

The desert--calm and indiffer- really evokes the past. ent-has-won.--You get an im- sniff into the wind and get the Italians. His army galloped away ed-with-Nationalist-soldiers and you can then consider further clamouring to get away from

pression of a blind, gentle, irre- right mixture of dust and petrol out of his control after the open- the Communists, and of the

sistible force at work, healing its fumes and the tang of the camel- ing phase and made up its own

scrub,

surge of undisciplined plans as it went along. scars and reclaiming its own."

memories floods into your mind. early escape of the command- ing officers, is one only too familar.

advance.

'Modest

It is no use taking this line, even if orthodox economics and rational thinking suggest it is the right and proper one. and unspectacular programme

these are the kind of words which are a red rag to the East In its present frame of mind.

Leaning over the shoulders of

Blit All those innumerable trenches have been reabsorbed.

into the general monotony.

And the emptiness of Alamein For a vivid second you can be suggests that Montgomery won in Those deep-rutted tracks which back in the desert of eight or nine a straight fight merely through fear and discomfort and longing-which no British general had seamed the plain have faded back years ago and feel its emotions having a bigger and better army

to be elsewhere, but at the same had before.

resort Scrapped airfields are tussock-time adventure and comradeship the Sydney Conference, will be ed over again. You can't find the and a blessedly uncomplicated Auchinleck's year-the year of

in camp sites. of eight years ago or directness of purpose. the Russian propagandists. making its

appeal

to Asian the gunplts or any signposts or peoples Russia starts

with

one any Indication of where anything enormous advantage. It is very was. much like an Asian country.

The episode does not fortify confidence in the ability of the Nationalists to hold their positions in the Chusan Is- lands, if and when the Com- munists decide to attack them. Nor will, it make much dif- ference, we fear, whether these positions are or are not soon reduced. The bombings Russia in 1917 was in some grouped in neat row on the left

ways extraordinarily

Eight thousand white crosses, Ilko, say, of the road, are the only things of Shanghai have come to an end. The blockade remains, India in 1947. It had too much there to help you whip up any

literacy. emotion about Alamein, Partly by propaganda it has con-

but during the past few months economic policy has moved so swiftly that some are doubting whether there will be much sea trade left to carry on even if the blockade passes, like the bombings unless Russian ships begin to call at Shangha!!

poverty, disease, and

vinced much of the outside world Men died here, and here they that it has done wonders in the lie to prove that the great battle last 30 years in removing these was fought. blights..

Perhaps in the last

struggle and development was the really difficult and important Every hundred miles or so as phase. And probably one must you follow that single strand of resign oneself to admitting that roadway which was the Eighth Rommel was the real hero of the Army's lifeline you come across whole desert drama. a real landmark.

But that is a matter for history Alamein Mersa Matruh, for instance, has books and text books and per-

and sonal inemories thrown off the war almost as dinners.

None of it seems re- easily as the desert. Once again levant here. The desert has

To the Springboks || "

No

one

ne passes

it is a haphazard criss-cross of sandy streets lined with tumble- already forgotten.. down bungalows where Arabs sell one another sardines and

under- But even the dead in a way are sized eggs and Turkish coffee.

Sidi Barrant has been sketchily It is, for this reason that the losing their desert character. For Chinese Communist leaders talk a wall is being built round them, repaired. with petrol tins and its one side there is an dozen flyblown shacks are in- so often of "walking the Russian and on

od Many Asian peoples be- elaborate entrance with lodges habited again. Bugbug, as usual, Heve that it has shown them the and a visitors' book. Their white does not exist. Policy is more and more road to follow. It has produced crosses are going to be replaced tied up with economic ar- quick results, and, most people in by permanent headstones.

Water has been told on, and rangements with Russia and the East do not regard it as a

The Eighth Army's rocky, ser free green things are to be made to pentine track sul winds down with the theory that, another rave demerit that Russia has

abolished free voting,

grow. It will be more like their Haifaya Pass, but no one uses it. world war is inescapable-a

homes, perhaps, but much less

Whole nations onco waited theory that the Russians ap

ilke the desert.

breathless for news of it, but pear to have imposed on the at the conference of Foreign

now it is meaningless. Chinese leaders in Moscow: Ministers in Paris last sum-

Near its foot there is another Indeed, the latest Reuter des mer-nearly a year ago!--|

The South Africans have got British cemetery, with its walls patch from London, on the that China would need for- plight of British firms in eign trade outlets, elsewhere, ahead of the rest of the Empire and lodges and visitors book Shanghai, suggests that the as Russia could not meet all and put up a monument to them- already in place.

selves on the main road at

At Sollum they stamp your Alamein. Communists are divided. be-needs. Lawd-a-mercy!

There is nothing to tween two schools. One be- The prop seems singularly recall that this sector was really passport and examine your lug- lieves that war is not far off pathetic. Much has happen- held by the Australians, with the gage. Opposite the and that trade links with the ed in the months between, New Zealanders on their left house a hopeful Arab is languidly

England at all. West are therefore not worth and maybe the Russians are There is nothing yet to recall daubing "Hotel of Happiness" on bothering about. The other no longer so consideratel Even believes that the cold war, will about the very active trade But here, is characteristically? Sollura's other tourist attraction -an Italian memorial, the biggest besides the cemetery Rommel's last long enough to justify that has been going on be and most impressive of all put Cave, in heavily booby trapped for hola where the German general working relationships with tween Hong Kong and Tien-up by the Italian Consul the Western Power The tain pessisism is now the Alexandria.dakpage is alleged to have made his headi

Quarters. despatch is cold comfort and vogue. But the trade figures Someone has put up a plaque seems to be in the nature of a for March are still high, and to mark the forward Brillah Up on the escarpment beside plea for the postponement of the situation is not yet any minefold and another to mark the ruins of Fort Capuzzo Wayos sentence, but without much where near so bad as it was the forward enemy minefield, the brand-new national flag of confidence in its being heed in the period before Pearl Lizards' bask on top of them in the State of Cyrenaica. Anxious the spring mitshine, and wome- oficiale, go painstakingly through ed. It is apparently based on Harbour, when the Japanese ume Stand Indiferent bodouin your passport and luggaTO SESİN. grazus his little herds of monts. They get taw travellers, but waen statement by the Russlans, - monopòlised everything.

his hovely

Customs

"It's either a flying saucer or the food going up!"

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