1937-03-02 — Page 6

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DEATH

Stubbs Rd.

W

ONE NIGHT ON THE SPANISH FRONT

called it the.

white house, though it Was

really a cluster of houses

and farms. In the centre was the National Guard building, with a yard beyond leading to three small houses; on the left was a large farm with stables and Both cowsheds beyond.

IU KU-UN-On March 1, at his

Ku-un, ntter п short illness. Aged 59.

residence, 111 Robinson Road, Iu were joined by a long wall.

The

Hongkong Telegraph.

TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1937.

THE MUITSAI PROBLEM

Perhaps the most important consequence of the visit of the

Mui-Tsai Commission to Hong-

Fifty yards away on the right was a small brick building and next to it a fort. Behind the farm loomed the two towers of the University of Madrid-a Fascist stronghold. Facing it was a hen-house-and the hens

were still there though this is our precarious outpost.

These houses already partly ablaze from intensive artillery

bombardment were our objec-

tive. They had been taken and retaken twice before.

kong is that its voluminous re- port places -on-record, for all interested to see, a disinterested and unbinssed survey of the The Thaelmann battalion whole system of Chinese went into action at dawn, ad- domestic service. In particular, vancing in single file down

#

By

Esmond Romilly

Winston Churchill's nephew, who is back from fighting with the International Brigade. Three years ago, aged 15, he disappeared from Wellington College, reappeared in London, edited a students' anti-war magazine called "Out of Bounds," was then sent to Bedale's co-educational school. Last year he sudden- ly gave up a job in London.

Was next heard of in Spain

grenade settled all four of them. But on our right things had not gono so well. The Red fort was ideally built for defence, and enemy machine-guns had taken a heavy toll of the attackers.

Too weak to hold the stables while the National Guard house and fort were still unoccupied, we retired in the evening, taking our dead with us. All night the enemy kept up an incessant bombardment of the farm and raked it with machine-guns from their positions on the right. So we did not miss much.

The next day was quiet, but. the day after we attacked again. Having attained the wall with. We spent the rest of the day a dash for the cover of a cow- out many losses we had orders consolidating our positions, dig- shed. We then had the task of to make a line to the extreme ging ourselves in.

advancing from shed to shed to left. For a start five of us had the end of the farm, while to dash out with spades and dig another section did the same ourselves in behind trees.

The first All night the enemy raked the thing opposite us.

It was a miracle we got to our road behind us

with machine door was bolted.

trees with bullets whistling all' gun fire, but we were well pro-

As we crashed it down. with round us. Once there, I found tected and suffered no casualties. the butts of our rifles bullets the spade too heavy to use, and

annihilated.

-

A patrol of theirs, consisting of whistled over our heads. We tore up the earth with my hands, four men, was spotted by our hurled in four hand grenades. while the bullets' thudded into snipers in the henhouse and Advancing in this way, we came the trees in front.

across some 40 dead and wound- It serves to illustrate the ex-road that was under intermit-

The next morning we attacked Moors before we reached our treme difficulties of reform here tent machine-gun fire. By nine ed. Four of our tanks moved. objective.

題 o'clock, in Hongkong, by reason of our

fierce battle was down the road and we advanced, geographical link with China, raging on our right-from the stopping every ten yards to send

S. MOUTRIE & CO., LTD. where the mui-tsai system still Red fort there was complete over

York Building

ОТ ДРЕИНТИВИТ

Sincoln

trench mortars. Our machine-guns were dragged into position and we could see them take a heavy toll of the Moorish marksmen opposite. Their fr. ing ceased and we advanced to the wall with bayonets fixed.

Opposite, from the back of the farm, we could hear the crack of the enemy's rifles and the rat-tat-tat of their machine From our new positions we guns as they swept us with fire. could see clusters of the enemy One of us was killed outright, round a bend of the road. They but within an hour the rest of seemed to be in disorder and us had dug ourselves in to some. when we opened fire retreated kind of cover. More men joined rapidly. Suddenly one of our us, and we were able ourselves men dropped dead

a few to pick off many of the enemy. snipers were still holding out in Finally we advanced, at the

upper storey. One hand- same time as our forces made.

assault on the National Guard building.

The section I was with made an

flourishes, despite its supposed silence. Chater Road abolition-Well-meaning-but-A patrol of six men-in which misinformed people, both inside I was included-was sent for. the House of Commons and out-ward to investigate. We reach side, will no longer be able to ed the fort, expecting every make absurd" and sweeping al- moment to be our last, and legations of official connivance in entered. There was an eerie In system of child slavery, with-silence, broken suddenly by a

out running the risk of having splintering crash;

ye. were their charges exposed as being covered with dust and bricks fell contrary to the facts. So far as all round us. this Colony is concerned, the mul-tsal system has long since been abolished: mui-tsal in exis- was all too accurate, so we re- tence when the abolition law was turned to report. Returning, passed are kept under observa-we encountered withering To tion by the process of registra-burst of fire which took one fatal period of hostilities? The question tion; it is an offence to bring casualty.

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new ones into the Colony. Actu-

it

It was our own artillery, shelling the place. Their range

Mentality of War Babies

·

an

Here they fought their way. from room to room, and as the scattered remnants of the Moors

what extent, if any, did the War, concerned, was such as to cause me retreated from the yard at the affect intants born during the a moment's anxiety.

Not one of the tables was lost. Not one of the mothers developed a tem- perature. Many of the 1914-18 infants at whose birth I was present, I have watched growing up. Many of them are now on my panel.

back, they were an easy target for our rifles.

By six o'clock only the red fort was in their hands. The National houses beyond the If the circumstances in which they Guard building were No Man's 1914-18 children Land. That night we occupied were born make compare so unfavourably, as is

difficult to wipe out the system right through their lines and that were born or brought up during alleged, with children born in pre- the former, and all the next day

to

the war years—have, put it War years, how does it happen that as well. Every piece of furni- vulgarly, the "guts" which the young so few of my 18, 19, 29, and 21-ture was covered with blood years-old panel patients have occa people had 60 or 60 years ago.

sion to consult me, and that the aver- and the signs of violent struggle- age age of the big majority of the and the stairs were stacked younger patients on my list whom I see in profesional capacity is round with the bodies of the dead.

babies been

has been raised afresh by comments ally, of course, there is a con- What had happened was that made by the East Riding Coroner. stant inflow of mul-tsai, from our bombardment had made

Recording a verdict of "Suicide of unsound mind," Mr. T. China, and it is this circumstance them take up positions outside while which makes

the fort, and we had walked Holtby observed, "I do not think that extremely

the young people of to-day-those out again! entirely here. Such recommen- datons aя are made in the majority report are largely in dissenting Commissioner, Miss the nature of strengthening the Picton-Turbervill,

A well-known-Glasgow doctor who emphasises. had a large experience of maternlly existing laws for dealing with Hence her plea, which appears work at the time of the War-in the problem. This will involve well based, that all girl servants addition to his own practice he was about 277

looking after those of two of his a larger personnel in the inspec-under the age of twelve years colleagues who were on active per Changed Times torate, which certainly appears who are not in the control of vice and who has been able to keep in touch with many of the infants he to be necessary if a real grip is their parents, should come un-brought into the world during that to be kept on the evil. Other der the notice of the authorities.me, states that, in his opinion, the sensible proposals, are that there it is beyond dispute that the buses his ten much exagerated, should be greater publicity, in absence

.of any provision Panel Experience the form of posters and pamph-requiring registration · of lets, acquainting girl servants adopted daughters does leave We hear all sorts of fantastic stories of their real status In law; the a loophole which makes the observes) of children born be- payment of the servants' wages evasion

tween 1914 mld 1918 being excitable, the low rela-highly-strung, lacking self-control,

Miss easy

Picton and this, that, and the next thing. direct. to the Secretary for tively Chinese Affairs, on their behalf; Tubervill's main proposal would

This is supposed to be due to the certainly be of value in keeping strain under which their mothers and the introduction of women track of those who, whilst they were living at the time they were on the Committee of the Pomight not be numerous, are born. Bear in mind there was a Leung Kuk, an institution con-exploited under existing condi- specially trogle element in many of cerned with the protection of tions. Whatever the final out whose births--many of the mothers were widows; many weren't even women and children. Without come of the recommendations wives.

Inside the house-undamaged. question, the law as it at present put forward in the majority and

No one could have blamed thesd

through some miracle-was a exists has made a distinct, im- minority reports, the document women if, as their hour of travail ap- pression on the evil, and if still as a whole can be described as a proached, they had, in popular phrase, end of this "war-time baby mentality" modern radio sot. With trench more rigidly enforced, will even-model piece of work, character "gone all to pieces." And yet, in all twaddle. It is hanging like a mill-mortars occasionally falling in

the cases tually result in the total aboliised by an obvious aneloty on the

I had during those four stone round the neck of those who years (once I had soven on a Sun- were born in the War years, and pre- the yard outside, we heard the tion of the system in Hongkong part of the investigators to deal day), I do not recall a single one in judicing employers against them B.B.C. announcer tell us about But the process is necessarily fairly with all interests in which the condition of the mother, so when they apply for a job, ......

B.R...

the abdication of the King, a slow one, a point which the problem of immense compxity, for as the state of her nerves was

of

The corner on the right, in People, who, are inclined to hold that War-time children have not view of the Red fort, was con- the 'guts" which young people had 60 tinually under fire. During the or 40 years ago," are apt to forget day we dug holes and strengthen- how different are post-War from pre- War social conditions. Very few, one ed our positions at night we might almost put it, none of us, but kept up a continual vigil. Four have been affected by the change.

of us lay behind sandbags facing Our War babica have grown up under the new condtions. It is fair the right-hand corner to compare them, to their disadvan- sudden movement ahead and we tage, with the children and young blazed away. folks of half-a-century ago?

Here and there we may come The next morning we saw our across a boy or a girl with peculiari- victim, an old donkey that had ties which may be the result of the War-time strain from which his or taken a walk in the wrong" her mother was suffering at the time direction. they were born. But such cases tire the rare exception, not the common rule.

It is more than time there was an