1936-01-25 — Page 6

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, Saturday, JanUARY 25, 1986.

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"BEDFORD

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overseas conditions at first hand,

Robert Burns

the POET

—and a Sorvicò worthy of it ! EVERY month big shipments of Bedford trucks leave Eng. land for every part of the world, And the rising export figures and many hundreds of enthusiastic fattors from Bedford owners, all over the world have shown that the Bedford is popular wherever It goes. Why this success ? For, in designing the Bedford ONG. ago Jeffrey expressed. He was the poet, too, of our range, Vauxhall experts studied fools who thought they were us its greatness and its frailties. angry annoyance at those common humanity, showing to They learnt what was wanted in applauding the poetry of Burn And he was the reformer, flash- when they pointed out that it, trucks from the very men who was the work of an Ayrshire' ing the lamp of his satire into were going to use them.

many dark and foul corners. ploughman. And there is D world-wido

But it was not because of his organisation to make Bodford That, he declared, was na silly service and gonuine spares avail-as to admire it "ns if it had been national, humanitarian, and de- able everywhere.

written with his toes." Mrs. mocratic spirit-all excellent Catherine Carswell, a recent things-that Burns won immor- biographer, offends far more tality. deeply, for this "up-to-date

Other poets have had all these Burns worshipper," as she styles herself, fancies that she is and are forgotten. The secret illuminating the poetry of Burns of his power, a power that has when she emphasises, with a spread far beyond Scotland and wealth of undocumented chatter the Empire till the whole world' about Highland Mary, that it famorous and demonstrably in that he was a great artist. was the work of a frankly acknowledges it, lies in the fact

sincere ploughman...

Creeds and philosophies change, but perfect art endures with the strength of bills.

Tested, at every stage in the famous Luton works in England, proved sound and reliable on the roughest work in the world, the Bedford is a first-class invest. ment whatever the nature of work !

There's a Bedford Model for every business.

For Particulars and Terms apply HONGKONG HOTEL

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The

Hongkong Telegraph.

SATURDAY, JAN. 25, 1936.

THE BANISHEE PROBLEM

The true approach to Burns at this time of day surely is not by that sordid rond, but by May of his poetry:

cxcc88,

Hurns is indeed a classic in the sense that Sappho,

Not ours to gauge the more or Theocritus, and Catullus are

icar,

classics. He

possesses the The will's defect, the blood's sovereign qualities of univer

of form. He followed no school sality of appeal and perfection

or literary fashion. There is no "turbid mixture of contempor- aneousness" about his poetry, nothing that is merely topical or transitory.

The earthly humours that oppress

The radiant mind, Ha greatness, not his littleness,

Conecins manīcind.

**

*

THERE are, of course, many

aspects of Burns's genius. The farce of re-arresting re-

He was the poet of Scotland, turned banishecs and commit-gathering up in his single heart ting them to gaol, there to be the troubled history and the maintained for lengthy periods diverse loyalties and traditions

at the public expense, was fur- of his country. ther illustrated this week by a

case in which a man who had

been deported for a period of

Like

Shakespeare, Burns reached with superb case the heights towards which others struggle, and because we are amazed at the exquisite insight and balance of his mind we per-

ten years came back two days NOTES OF THE DAY force call it the inspiration of

after his expulsion, was appre-

genius.

hended and again sent to prison. | PETROL FROM COAL

Yet we can trace some of the The case is one of many of a

influences that moulded the mind like kind, made more pointed The grave dispute in the coal from the fact that the man con- industry bas intensified public in- of Burns, even if there is some- cerned made such a hasty re- terest in the subject of coal thing unique and unaccountable turn to the Colony. The Crim-hydrogenation. Particular notice in the quality of the lyrics inal Sessions has also been oe- was therefore taken of the recent shaped by that fervent brain.

Ramsay. Mac- cupied this week in dealing with opening by Mr. quite a number of these banish-Donald of the new plant for the production of petrol from coal, at

tory.

1

Of Immortal Memory

TO-DAY, 177 years ago, was born the greatest of all Scottish poets

Robert Burns. His father, an Ayrshire farmer, died when Robert was twenty-five years old, and left him the farm. But Burns' husbandry went wrong and ruin faced him. Out of his poverty, his despair and his passion (for in the year of his father's death he met and fell in love with Jean Armour) came his first extraordinary poetic harvest.

If we only had the verses of the year following his father's death, Burns would still remain the greatest of known popular poots. Elin topics of 1785 were topics at which, probably, dozena of other rural rhymes were hammering.

The next year found Burns still busy, but it was also the year of much trouble with Jean Armour. Looking about him for money that he might emigrate to Jamaica, Burns published the famous Kilmarnock edition of his poems. They netted him a few pounds, his fame spread, and he went to Edinburgh, where he was lionised On returning, to the country, ho was made much of and “fell to kis old love again," Jean Armour, whom he married in 1778 after taking up farning again. Like all Burns' worldly enterprises, it again however, proved a failure and he left his farm, withdrawing to Dumfries an Excise officer, drinking, writing songs, expressing opinions than thought Radical and making himself unpomiar with the local lairds.

He died on July 21, 1706 at Dumfries, and there is buried.

For one thing, Burns was heir the living thought, the inevit- age, and makes it for all time,

was

an

Burns knew them all, under-

of them. He effected no com- ex-fortable compromises. He was conservative than the

ecs, who received terms varying Billingham. This plant is the to all the treasures of Scottish able word, with no fambling or is its independence. from two to three years; and property of Imperial Chemical In- ballad and song, which, because frayed edges. Hence the abso here, again, we have an illus-dustries, who, after eight years. they were the songs of the com- lute power of his descriptive The Scotland of his day was tration of the futility of hand-] research work and an expenditure ling this problem on present of £4,000,000, are now producing mon, people, had a dramatic passages, such, for example, as rent by bitter political and reli lines. It is quite clear that gaol petrol on a commercial basis. The directness and simplicity of their the spate in "The Briga o Ayr," gious fouds and factions. There sentences have no terror for significance of the venture may be own, unaffected by any artificial keen observation, hurries us on Patriots and Jacobins, Moderates where every line, the result of were Torles and Reformers," these people, who, by the fre- judged from the fact that, of the

literary modes. quency with which they return,

ward to the next, and all to the and High-Flyers. There were enormous amount of petrol con- are only making a mockery of ham already produces four per Bumed in Great Britain, Billing-

For another thing. Burns, of tive directness as an artist to be reverse, and even the historic climax. No less is his instine- traditions of piety and of its the process of the law. Statis-

cont. A new industrial technique stern necessity, had the closest seen in those picces which he loyalties were divided betwixt tics of the number of banshees has been developed. Already it kinship with the soil, for his sent to Johnson's "Muscum," Covenanter and Jacobite. returning, and of the number of has provided ધ much-needed feet were in its furrows in all old songs and old airs reshaped times on which they come back, stimulus to the coal industry. do not tell the whole story, be- The immediate effect of the work-sorts of wind and weather, and and recreated by his selective stood them all, and as a poet cause such figures only relate to ing of the now plant will be to his back was bent to the swing

genius.

discovered his sympathy with those who happen to be re- give work 2,000 miners and to of scythe and flail.

It was thus that he made out what was noble in them all- arrcated. There must be in the bring about the re-opening of

of a bit of old doggerel "Auld dour Covenanter or gay Cavalier, Colony to-day hundreds of men minca which have been closed for and women against whom de- years. Two thousand men will be smell of the earth and not of the valedictory song.

For this reason his songs Lang Syne," the world's greatest die-hard Tory or Revolutionst.

Yet he dipped his flag to none. portation orders have been permanently employed at the fac-

Nor

Burns The vastness of the concern lamp. jestlerl, Admittedly. they are is indicated by the fact

In the same manner he that it illiterate peasant, for, thanks to tracted from a patchwork of more not all dangerous characters; covers 800 acres of ground, that.it his father's Scottish love of rude old rhymes that flawless Tory; more radical than the indeed, it is known that a big has a self-contained railway sys- proportion have been guilty of tem of seventy miles, and that its learning, both he and his brother and poignant Jacobite song: Reformer. nothing more serious than re- annual output will be about Gilbert had been taught by "It was afor our Rightfu' venue offences. But this very 45,000,000 gallons. The consump young Murdoch to admire all other Jacobite ditties, to John- this dedication of himself to all King," sending it, like all his It was this freedom of spirit, fact serves to strengthen the tion of coal will probably amount that was best in 18th century son without his initinis. We that was beautiful, kindly, and argument against their being to about 600,000 tons year; clapped into an already over-roughly four tons of coal will be writing the urbane grace of know how it fascinated Scott, human wherever found, that crowded prison, where they live required to produce one ton, or Addison, and the classic balance who not only used the third made him socially suspected, but at the public expense under con- The cost of the coil alone will and incisive power of Pope.

three hundred gallons, - of petrol. ditions which are by no means

stanza in "The Antiquary," but kept him a great poet, though arduous. As we have on more

incorporated it in his "Rokeby." the tension of it drove him to

drink and seulduddery. than one occasion pointed out, of the petrol produced belog SUCH was his threefold train- TT is not to be denied that Yet, for all this recklessness there is not only the matter of variously estimated at from seven- the maintenance of these people pence to ninepence a gallon.

ing, and though the poet is sometimes, though rarely, that speeded him on his way to to be taken into account; there

born, not made, it brought at the poet's inspiration failed him, death, the poetry of Burns is is all the time and expense of

mosphere and colour to his lyric when the 18th century was for fundamentally joyous, flow that rose like a foundtain in a moment too strong for him." the dreary desert of correctness:

Man was made to mourn, but Take, for example, that ex-cheerfulness was ever breaking For, mid an age of dust and where all the cadences of love a joy in his heart that the world quisite song, "Ac Fond Kiss," through, for the great artist had

dearth,

and sorrow are to be heard in could neither give nor take, the Once more had bloomed immorta throbbing-intensity. How could live joy that had nested-

Burns thrust this leaven couplet delight-from even the grim ad- of stilted English into so perfect versities of life.

probably work out at a littlo under twopence a gallon; the total cost

*

worth..

*

*

*.

There in the strong splenetic Scots poem;

North

A spring degan;

*

*

the Police Court, and, in case of takenly imposed a sentence one committal, the Criminal Sessions year heavier than the law per trials to be borne in mind. It mitted. The error was made by is agreed that account has to be reason of the fact that the pri- taken of breaches of the deporta- soner had an especially bad tion laws, but at least in the case criminal record, and the Judge of the yon criminals the necess under the impression that sities would be met by automatic he was a life banishec, and, re-banishment, without the cost therefore, was liable to a heavy and trouble of a Court hearing, penalty. It appears from what when a magistrate is satisfied of was said during the appeal that the identity of the person in- man, once banished for a cer- volved. Whilst such a proce- tain period, is usually only given dure would not in any way rule the same term of deportation on out the possibility of a further re-arrest, irrespective of his return, the folly of sending such criminal record in the meantime. people to gnol would not be re- This practice seems to need peated. A further point of in- modification, and it is to be pro-

No poet has ever excelled Ebinburgh music-seller to "Of a’- And it is because of these terest relating to the more sumed that it will receive the Robert Burns in directness of the Airts the Wind can Blaw," things this rare and glorious serious cases arose recently attention of the law officers of vision, sanity of spirit, and sim- we at once hit the pathos of directness, freedom, and cheer- when a prisoner successfully the Crown. But in the mean- plicity of utterance.

which Burns was eternally froe. fulness-that the man who was appealed against a term of im- time, the whole question of deal- prisonment, in which it was ing with returned banishers re-

born in the Alloway clay-biggin', In his best Scots verse we have

one hundred and seventy seven shown that the Judge had mis- quires serious reconsideration. the ultimate felicities of poetry ANOTHER quality which lifts years ago today is secure in the

Burna's poetry out of its immortality of his fame,

A mighty mother had brought

forth

A mighly man.

It is because of his triumphant I'll ueter blame my partíai fancy, gladness that Burns has gained "Nothing could resist my Nancy? for himself the passionate de- But when he does lapse into and friends who go blithely down votion of all true lovers, soldiers, polite English his instinct is un- this value of tears with singing: orring. When others have tag- hearts,

ged on their verses to his, as an