Glory Has a Bitter taste, but
At last, La Patrie Stirs Again
By
SYDNEY SMITH
THE CHINA 'MAIL, TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1954.
permissible in
Paris. Its seven years of war, dis made it
cover suddenly that a battle France 1. this moment, has been lost. And now after 14 years, to think they wonder whether a war about indefinable great has been lost too.
France-La Partie,
FRENCHWOMAN in a crowd around the Un- *„nown Sokker's Tomb and the Eternal Flame of the Arc de Triomphe said to me: "I'm sick of my coun- try. The men who want to help and fight for it- have to die. The others only rule it."
I have met more French men and women in France This week than I have seen for many a year.
And I neun Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, like the one who spoke to me.
They are not Communists, Socialists
Radicals,
nowspaperA
المع
it sinister
We have just seen and French heard a moving witness to "Tage and shame at & the new spirit at the Are de adventure-criminal failings and
unheard of lack of foresight." Triomphe.
frank commentator General Charles de Gaulle adinita: "We have lied to bur
We have not known wont there as Free French selves. leader to stand alone by the her inrw to light this war or
how to refuse to fight it." Eternal Flame for his own two minutes' silence.
The public self-examination that is now going on in France were is pretty usual. No one can say things more expertly
They Hay there 60,000 people there. Per- worse
about the French than French haps there were. But not themselves. more than a quarter of the Was de Gaullist. crowd Popular Republícians,
Another quarter was 114
men. The other Gaulista, splinter de Gaul Service
ex-
fists, independent. Moderate half was made up just of or Extreme and This and the people who went they Thats. No, they are really did not quite know why.
French.
They are men and women who have suddenly awaken- ed to the fact that, after the moral and political bank- ruptcy of successive govern
ments
pottering through brief power by the grace of unstable party deals, the best thing is to be French
frat.
Days Of Agony
21
Long Time Since
A
Not The Usual
Since 1944 they have become breast-beaters. Bul practised this thre It is not Just the usual literary display,
although reached
that the French So much Government has been afraid to allow the Moscow ballet to open ite much-necluimext season at But it is a long time since the
Орега Paris French crowd
Tickets binckmarket at non-political demonstration nearly £1 tee, and queues
were mif a mile long. drowned Republican Guards band to
sing the
The Government feured anti- Marseillaise in the way the Communist demonstrations, crowds did-with tears and sincerity.
It is a long time since I have seen ordinary rubber-
crowds necked
Three syllables that once French ceremony stood for a tiny, peacefully their eyes-they
the know why, rice-howl village in
In the face of the new Dien Bien Phu mood, It is true that the
Cominunista French
lying very low.
ure
Any pubile boast at this t ANY
moment about "r glorious dabbing Red allies" would be worth did not well-wrung neck, And it might
not ven
and a be possible 10 And that goes
poletman in time to protect Tonkin Hills Dien Bien for paratroopers, too.
any over-enthusiastic
"com~ Phu-have done more
rade."
The Government won a vole
111 these last years the snap France back Into the
kings on fine old sense of that World cynies have been War I spirit of "La Patrie" such occasions. The funny of confidence on the strength of than anything that has hap- thing to say has been the ing Dien Bien pened since 1940.
rule.
Phu by negotiating crusetre. or at lenst the evacuation of more than 2,000 wounded,
The tragedy of Indo- The 56-day agony of
That telling nepesi was mouch suspense while the Govern China, crystalised in the weakened by the fall of Dien words of Ban Phu and the long sad trial ment dithered and discussed fighting farewell
and the shock of defeat General de Castries, in the of prisoners going north. has awakened millions of French consciences,
stories of
the long,
louk Now Laniel has this chuice, trail of prisoners winding He could challenge another vote through the jungle towards of conndence and stay in It has the Chinese border, in the power if there is not an absolute lot of apathetic 4,000 dead and wounded, majority, ut 334 votes against [f there is. he could who had hardly and the unreality of the threaten to dissolve Parliament heard of Indo-China during Geneva Peace talks, has and call general elections.
It has done more. made Frouch,
$1
CHINESE
CREEDS
and
CUSTOMS
by
V. R. BURKHARDT ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR
HONGKONG
IDEAL GIP*T*
FOR FILENDS ABROAD
~ FOURTH IMPRESSION
$18.00
-5. C. M. POST OFFICES.
KOWLOON
T
Good Frenchman
ย
NYE
* WALK BE BLOWED! I'M VERY HAPPY WHERE I AM, THANKS"
DISOBLIGING MUTINEER
World Copyright by arrangemant with the Manchester Guardian
WHO CALLED?
A stranger
is seeking Tony too
THE STORY D told by Superintendent Stanley
of Scotland Yard, tuvestigating the murder of a woman at Earls Court. Her husband is under arrest, but a vital witness is missing-their son, Tony Rowe. If he is not found in time he wil die, for he is suffering from an illness which calls for regular Infections. And if he is not found, his father will hang. The boy has Red. The first clues lead to Manchester....
MANCHESTER. TT was early morning when I walked out of London Road Station, Man- chester, and looked for the police car that was coming to meet me. Though the morning was bright and sunny, I was worried and unsure of my- self. My nerves were on edge. Had I been right in following my hunch and coming to Man- chester? Should I find Tony Rowe here-or the clue to his whereabouts?
It would be before I knew.
"I tell
I haven't seen tho boy."
YUD
some hours and conflicting reasons I don't
And I was want him to die,
Mustration by ROBB
i
looked after Tony whenever her young sister in London wanted to get rid of him for a time.
there were suppose moments when she didn't want to have her son around the AL
what I m
mean, Mrr Brown said. "Diana was never the fond-muthur type, anyway.
think
she only clung on to Tony hist to annoy her husband,
"We
I
доб под
George.
Looking
for 200
I'm not generous
didn't
KEEP AN EYE ON THE BEE
By
LES ARMOUR
man going to the
I boes?
That sounds like a silly question. But it might not be.
Years of meticulous study have revealed that bees aro -alarmingly-like modern
man,
Like man, they possess remarkable technical skill. They construct vast cities so complex that some human efforts (if converted to the proper acale) would look puny by comparison. They can control temperature, make plans against natural hazards and smooth out the ups and down of ordinary everyday life. But again unlike us-they tra flummoxed by their own technology. They can't ses beyond it.
not
WORK DIVIDED
have a
Like man, they complicated division of labour. Some bees are builders, other gather food. Some look after young bees, and some process raw foodstuffs into usable foods, and raw building matter into essential synthetic stuffs.
And, like
modern man,
after the kill, so long as it wasn'i becs are interdependent. A And, of course, | singie bee would last hardly a day on its own. Even part of a community might have a very tough time of it.
More surprising, have a language and, to some degree, they can "learn" and "memorise."
SU
long. saying that Diana wasn't to 11 whenever Tony was here. Such a well-
.ས behaved ittle chap, too, and so fond of my husband. Do you know, one night Tony put his arns around my husband and said: 'I think you're the nicest man in the world! Just because he brought him home a model aeroplane set,"
I said: "But what about Tony"
coming here on Thursday, Mrs
Brown?"
"Oh, yes. Well, my husband was away at Scunthorpe on a
bees
The alarming part of the story it seems, from Karl von Frisch's new book on the subject, ("The Dancing job-he's an electric filter and Bees, Methuen, 168.) is that often has to go away. So I wont bees are in the grip of the
to to Sheffield
see my "group mind." mother-in-law and stayed until Saturday morning. On Satur day afternoon the police came to see me, asking whether I had seen Tony. I said I hadn't. And I was telling the truth."
over
the
if he has never smiled in his She paused and looked, life, never licked an ice cream, little
wistfully, out of Impatient, for precious time I don't want him to die, to be nover jumped a brook or sailed window into the sunshine.
a bout or bathed in the sea. Nar and practical about it, because he is
"And then, this morning,"
was drifting away, every hour wasted was
the
threat to the life of a amali of witness to the murder ever had a loving arm around the went on, "I took up the mat
#
was suddenly
in court and was remanded this developing morning.
soinc-
more
Enst
Best of all, he
could resign
In
favour af
FIND coalition
government of national
unity.
marched
good up
THIS BOY!
putting asido the
dodועת
muddled Intrigues of parties.
Marian
Mrg Only some new evidence from
Brown his son Tony can save him from ed the door herself
the
Each bee has his life cut out for him by the com- munity. He changes his be haviour only to meet the slight daily shifts of com- munal need.
night did it say?" I asked. pressed.
+
open-
say he was in trouble,”
NO CHANGE
In "bee language" - He has all the procedural cards in his hand for asking for
his inother, I have arrested him. I don't want Tony Rowe to give it a shake, and I saw combination of dances and a vote of confidence, or pulting
his father,
the to die until he has had a chance George Bowe, for
the note Tony must have sniffs, all of them highly France
killing and the evidence is black to experience the joys, as well pushed under in a position of drastic boy.
front door elaborate and complex — ncompetence, at a moment ut What had begun for me as against him. Even George Rowe as the sorrows, of being a boy. when he came on Thursday International crisis on the Fara sordid but routine murder case to the reports, when he appeared seamed aware of it, according
nothing new is ever ex- From the dance, Again she looked astonished the bee learns from a fellow "Only a few words. You don't bee that there is food in into thing
write long letters when you're when I 10 years old. He said he was the neighbourhood and per potentially the hangman now. My con- rang the bell of her house on sorry he'd missed us. He didn't haps in what general área urogle
than science will never be easy again the corporation estate in awe said: "But didn't he tell you learns just what kind of ities. From the scent, she anything
I fall to give George Rowe a field, four miles from the centro 1 had tackled chance of calling his con
and as a of Manchester
not far in the note belore. The witness
his defence.
food it la and what kind of going?" the from where, this afternoon, Manchester City
crowds were
Of tourse he did," she said.plant she should seek. cheering on
side against "But how should I know better or their Chelsca.
(I saw later, in the than you what he meant? You've ed me. In
way one notices such things in seen the note, haven't you?"
that the game was It is not simply to case my passing,
"No," I told her, “but I'd like w days' time, unless a doubts, though, or even to drawn 1-1).
to see it now. May I have it
+ Mrs Brown was youngish and please?" we find him help George Rowe that I am so first
desperately anxious to find Tony still protly, but her face looked She looked at me as if I were
drown and harassed.
riad: "You're elther dhit, or rush him to in time. the doctor A funny thing, I have never
Joseph Lantel is Frenchman.
He
the Champs Elyses on Liberi. tion Day 10 years ago beslut General de Gaulle. But he is no longer, in
the eyes
of the Frenchmen in the bistros, a free man He is a politician.
Whatever he does and who. ever may follow him, they had both better reallse
thing: there are still-and more than ever-people of France who are Just plainly French.
one
And their sadness is only the salt that sharpens their ange and their impatience at the
disaster of Indo-China.
Second Day
face of Q lonely and frightened child haunt-
a
and
where
he was
But the language has never developed any further and no other kind of in- formation
can be municated.
com-
She took one look at me and inefficient, or you're being an- Nor can bee behaviour be for & vital met the kid, only seen his photo- said: "It's no use you bothering noying," she said.
changed. The lofig-stand- injection, 10 graph and heard about him me again. I can see you're 8,
like Tony's would still
ing rules of the community year old second-hand. But already I feel policeman, and I've told every- note," Tony
Rowe about him as if he were my own thing I know. I'm sorry that "But I gave it to the police are so much a part of bec will die. And son.
my sister's been murdered, and this morning," she shouted, rising nature that nothing new can for a variety His end, little face won't go become of Tony, her son. Poor around and. I told him every teach bees new tricks have only wish I did know what's to her feet, The mm came be learned. All attempts to o ! urgent out of my mind. He looks as bairn, he must be in a dreadful thing. Then he asked for the
state. But if I've said it once, note, and I gave it to him." met with dismal failure.
The Swiss Don't Like It
From John Pearson
Geneva, slan
I've said it a dozen times. DON'T KNOW WHERE TONY
IS
said, as gently as I could:
"You know he'll die very soon
we don't and him?"
"A policemm?" I asked. "Who else but a policeman?"
I saw her eyes wklen. "You she said. "He said he'd come mean all that stuff in the news- specially from London to see popers erui, the radio-it's true me, and
that he had to, and what they say about Tony? The security officers with "You are not allowed
Oh, why Tory. It was a matter of lle to poor little chap!
and tooth, he said, And he Tdelegation
THE 200-strong Russian holsters packing pistols. knock. Only the hall sentry is wasn't I here when he came ou took the bote with him
at the
allowed to do this, The door Thursday?”
sat looking at her in dismay, Doors are locked on the hotel opent. Out comes A hand. "Buy you told the Manchester
startled wits. "No such thing." she replies
Voy inte indignantly.
the door slams to again.
ALLELS.
is not eno example of an in- Indead, Feisen reports: "There telligent action having been performed by a honey bee."
A boo whe tried something rew-oven It he had the intelligence would almost cer- tainly be killed instantly, or
Geneva conference has run staff, and each servant has his grabs the glass of water, and police he didn't come," I salg sad then I started collecting my thrust from the hive. into a diplomatic difficulty own room-guard following him.
Important, Mys that even the Kremlin can-
Perhaps man can learn a lot maid I didn't wn." 1 cald. "Pisase. help
Brown," One of the kitchen staff'said: "A nudge on the elbow from see Tony and I moant it.
from the example of the bee. I'd not settle. For the Franco- This sort of existence is in the guard and downstairs you never have known the boy had What did Tony say he was hearted and intimate, account of
me all
you can by remembering. At any rate, von Frisch's light- Swiss staff at the hotel tolerable. If I want to go for a go again, still followed," Boen here at all if I hadn's
to do in his nota?”
life among the bees / makes- Metropole, taken over by wash 1, have those two thugs the Russians, is threatening our step behind me.
morning And there was his really a policeman I spoke to planant persilele." ** to leave.
ed in the outsize kitchens in-bote he wrote me."
this morning?" They wait until I come out stalled to cope with the dologa- "You'd better dot matc
"No, Mrs Brown. It was not. and then follow me back to the Lion, guards watch everything inside" -T sud, “and tell me all ris After 24 days the kitchen offer. They never speak and that is put into the saucepans about
It was, almost certainly someone | staff, the chambermaids, and never shile,
trying to do. Tony Rowe harm She looked astonished. the cleaners have had thölr AD
They become extra suspicious all over again asker low Nour please try to remember to
-gravar, harm * fatal de harmn: of Russian mothods, 20
"If one of these Commler on if more salt is needed. ..., the fourth....... floor phones, down!
But she led me into Her front No one is allowed to move, for a glass of water than up you And to top it all, the hotel parkun, and make me down, and around the hotel without the go with plus the two, workers must, now have identity; told me: What she knew. Yer, attendance of two-heity-Russ' shadow, A
DOG SEWN WRA, the sint, who had
when the food is being cook, aken die mat up to shako this day" she asked, "wasn't it platy, that, there - Aromomo “lin-`
come
Maybe it is only because he is an excellent story-teller as well as a scientist that his ac- Sount carries the render into speculativa vrealms while the himself, manages", "to" keeg) both. feet off the grotzaida z
But it will do no harm raad his book," anyhow,
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.