1935-01-14 — Page 19

ENGLISH CULTURE

IN PROVINCES

MISTAKEN IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON'S DOMINANCE

BY R. B. WESTON

After an extensive tour of our (you sec, well-dressed people hurry- leading cities and towns, I have Ing to and from amusement centres. come to the conclusion that the Cafes are crowded. Dancing floors provincess are the real centres of culture and stability.

When I first went to London some years ago, I was envied by my friends in the country. I was told I was going to the centre of things. I would be at the head of the universe. I should be near the coro of life, and so on.

are full. Expensive cars flit past. The theatres are doing well. There la an air of prosperity, security: Wealth on every hand in noticeable. do not suggest that that is the whole picture, but it is a very vivid part of It-a part that impinges with great force on the mind.

In the provinces, whilst thero la no lack of most of the features of

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY, JANUARY '14, 1935.

BRITISH TRADE FIGURES

CONTINUING SATISFACTORY

BIG ADVERSE BALANCE

London.. Detalls, issued on Dec. 18 of the oversea trade returns for November how that their recent antisfactory trend still continues. British ex- parts were again larger than in the corresponding month of 1933. The Increase was £1,600,000, or 4.9 per cent. and took place mainly In I half belloved it. I infstock size

manufactured ́articles. Importe for sense, magnitude for signif-life to which the West End testifies with £63,720,000 last year, exports amounted to $64,687,000 compared cance. We all get that fading the other side of the picture, is about London. The hum of so inescapably present.

to £36,125,000, against £34,435,000, much activity must denote great On the visit to the provinces

re-exports to £4,008,000, things: and it takes some time to which has prompted me to write working day averages the totals for ngainst £3,610,000.. Reduced to be disillusioned.

these notions, I could not get away. We are

all fascinated by the from a sense of contact with the importa, exports and re-exports delights and the glittering pano-harah, the actual, the realities of compared na follows: rama of a big city, but when we flife, about which, in London, I am have become acclimatised we soon seldom moved or stimulated discover that noise can

suggest think at all. emptiness and banality, as well na productivity,

to

Importa Exports Re-exports

In an atmosphere of that kind insincerity has a short life. There urgent

I went about being amazed at are better things, more the curious things a city's popula- things, to do than exploit onda ego, tion can belleve in. I WRR Aurane's conceit. You do not talk prised to find how mediocrity could empty platitudes in an area which flourish on the stage. It is my has been devastated by the econ firm belief that it is easier to put jomic slump. over rubbish in London than In

the provinces.

MORE VITAL

Public taste in London fa, on the The mentality in the provinces, whole, low. You have your high-therefore, while it is slower in its brows on the one hand and your processes, is more vital. In the lowbrows on the other, in a more platform, and in books there is not theatre, the concert hall, on the cencentrated form than in the pro- vinces; and the tastes and ideas of the same toleration for stupidity either may be, and often

and the third-rate that you find in shockingly trivial.

London. The self-conscious artist,

MORE FOOLS

are.

my

not

In the concert world, so friends tell me, it is the Singers and players who ought to be heard at all come and go, scattering bad performances an prétentious art as they pans.

the poscur the flaneur, cannot

possibly get as much out of the provincini mind as he can out of the easy-going drifting mind common in great cities,

80

Oct, 1934 £2,656,000

1,301,000 148,000

Nov. 1934

£2,488,000

1.380,000 164,000

Nov, 1933 £2,461,000 1,324,000

139,000

A noteworthy change of trend is Indicated in importa of raw materials. There have shown ex- pansion over a considerable period. but the November total fa slightly lower than a year ago. For the 11 months, however, these Imports are nearly £30,000,000 larger. An- turns is that both imports and ex other interesting feature of the re- parts of manufactured articles show approximately the same increase, about £20,000,000 for the 11 months. The apparent adverse trade balance is now £200,047,000, an increase of £29,292,000 compared with the first 11 months of 1933.

BANKER LEAVES

.

£91,354

WIDOW AND CHILDREN BENEFICIARIES

London.

The suburb to which I go at nights, where I spend my Saturday afternoons and Sundays, is to me little more than a place to sleep in. It is not much different in the What happens to its "local affairs" realms of politics and literature does not appear to touch me any It is much easier to prate nonsense more Intimately than a revolution' in the Metropolis thin in the pro-in one of the South American Re- vincen. There are, for one thing. publics. Civic consciousness in more fools to take it in.

lacking, and I in apparently in- Blu-bla is not so heavily discount-evitable that it should be so.

Mr. Robin d'Erlanger, of West Wellow, Hampshire a director of ed in London as outside, and in That is why I say the provinces Erlangers, Lid, the bankers, and Landon the literary coteries and have tire better of the game. There, son of Baron Emile d'Erlanger, who, eliques, Iving by taking in each things matter. You feel you are alfed in October, has left 491.354 other's washing, manage to jabber part of the life around you. You In his will dated 1929, he bequeath- and write an amount of pestilential feel that it touches you closely and ed £2,500 to his wife absolutely pile that would be disowned and that you yourself influence it. It half the residue of the estate in damned by the slower but sounder-is in the provinces that balanced trust to her for life, with remainder thinking provinces.

to his children, and the other half

Away from London, people live judgment is more easily possible.

If sane Government is to pravallon trust for his children attaining closer to life and reality. There it is in the provinces that the issue majority, Mrs. d'Erlanger, formor- are fewer distractions. There are must be settled. If this or that y Miss Myrtle fewer anodynes to lull the mind.

Farquharson form of Government is to continue daughter of the chief of the Clan The average Londoner who comes it is the provinces that will decide. Farquharson of Invercauld, Aber- daily from a dormitory suburb to If I were a political leader, I should deenshire, was granted a decree his office or shop knows very little not warty two hosts about London.nini with the custody of the child about the condition of the country I should make myself strong in the of the marclage, a daughter, Inst to-day. Unemployment, poverty, provinces and, being strong there, May, misery do not hit-his consciousness 1-should provail. below the belt as they do in the. I am industrial arena.

not suggesting that the provinces are free from faults. that in the towns and cities men Far from it. They are often nar- and women are untouched by the row and cinnnish in outlook. That meretricious and flashy things of, is more or less Inevitable.

life as they are in London; that, they think slowly but surely; that they are close to earth and fact The real point is that you do feet and human issues; that you cannot

BEHIND THE FACADE London is largely a facade for the nation. You have to go else- where for the reality behind the facade. At night in the West End!

LIFE NOT A "SHOW"

wheedto them by flattery nor battle, them by bluster.

They do not shake you by the hand when they hate you, and do not let you down when it suits their) purpose. A simplicity and honesty still cling to them. Lifo is not a "show" as in London; it is a struggle.

an

They are, in the provinces, near to the idle pits and the closed works, The noises of prosperity to which they had become familiar

Alles fur Dentschland

Inscriptions on houses in the Saar appealing for a return to Germany were part of the campaign on the ers of the pleblecite

vote.

A view of the beautiful Saar River, near Serrig, one of the most picturesque apote of Europe.

ITALY'S CITIZEN

ARMY

GOVERNMENT'S AMBITION

subject to military training is con Jaiderably increased.

Very little information is given about the order, which is described as very important. This may be due to the new royal decree which. bans publicity concerning prising number of matters con- sidered of military interest.

sur-

The "forbidden list" includes In-

have stopped in many areas, and A now Italian mobilisation order forination about mobilisation of the new grim bidding silence can has been issued reducing conscrip. troops, army manoeuvres, railway be heard all the time. They do not tion service for certain forces, such lines, and even publication of the forget that their old world has been destroyed, and the new onelery, to twelve months instead of Government with regard to inter- as Bersaglieri, cavalry, and artil-"opinion and attitude of the Italian has not yet been bullt.

It is easy to forget in London. eighteen, and dealing with com national negotiations which have We did not hear the wheels go plication arising out of the not officially been made public." round in the old days. We do not Fascist Government's intention to.

"hear" that many of them have turn Italy into a "nation of citizen- Infringement is punishable by stopped, now. That is why I say soldiers."

from two to ten years' imprison. that the centre of gravity, and reality is in the provinces, every time-not in London.

While the period of conscription mest in peace time and by the Is reduced, the number of those death penalty during war time.

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A million jubilant Londoners lined the [stroots through which passed the carriage of the royal newlyweds, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, after their; brilliant; wedding in Westminster Abbey. Here crowds, press against the line of guard to glimpse the royal pale as their coach passes Marlborough Gates on the

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