1938-03-23 — Page 6

THE HONGKONG Telegraph, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 1988.

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 1030.

LESSON IN ECONOMICS

There is a story told of four farmers in the Canadian North- west who gambled the best years of their lives and all their

nssets on wheat-growing. They were middle-aged men at the

RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL?

Snsure

"I think unless something can be done to meet this air menace, in the latter part of this century the people of this world are going to live like troglodytes, un they did in the days of the cave dwellers."

said Mr. Eden in the House of Commons, -Strube in London "Daily Express"

'PLANES Over

The PACIFIC

A

COMPACT fleet of American Aleutian Islands, which stretch for 1,500 miles like a necklace across the throat of the Behring aircraft, eighteen strong, recently Sea, in the north of the Pacific. The United covered the 2,500 miles from San States already has an air base in the islands at

Dutch Harbour. Diego, California, to Honolulu in little The Japanese are exposed to grave danger more than 20 hours.

of aerial attack from Siberia. Vladivostok is a Developments in flying technique are pistol pointed at the heart of Japan, for the thousand aeroplanes which the Soviet Govern- throwing an aerial bridge across the 7,000 ment is believed to maintain there have only 600 miles width of the Pacific. That ocean, or 700 miles to cover before reaching Japanese big as all the rest of the seas of the world territory,

At the same time, Japan is actively develop together, will soon be crossed in every ing air lines on her side of the Pacific.

The Peace Conference gave her all the island direction by great aircraft droning over

possessions of Germany north of the Equator in its vast empty spaces.

that ocean. The Washington Agreement pre- This would be a matter for rejoicing were it vented her from using them as naval stations, not that, in a world so full of international hosti- but she is finding them of great value as air bases. I remember the dalighted laughter which lity, increased accessibility promotes the chances

broke out in Paris 19 years ago when the Allied of conflict as much as purposes of peace.

The intensive aerial developments in progress Peace delegates discovered that one of these on every horizon of the Pacific are of a strategic insignificant possessions was called the Island of character. It is preparation for potential war Yap.

them.

that inspires the energy with which hitherto un- That comically named pin-prick on the map inhabited and nameless coral islands are being of the Pacific Ocean is now the key-point of a converted into refuelling stations, provided with Japanese system of air routes which cuts right barracks, store-houses, repair plants, wireless across the transoceanic air lines of the United stations, and defences for the men who staff States.

...The Japanese have also recently occupied-à- If the Pacific Ocean, whose emptiness has so small island called Pratas, between Formosa and long kept it n No Man's Sea, one day forfeits that the Philippines, which might serve as an air base title in the political sense, it will be the petrol to menace shipping in the South China Seas. The first air conference between the Japanese Govern- engine that has made this possible.

ment and its colonial administrations is now be Key Islands

ing held in Tokyo.

"THE VERY IDEA”,

RAMBLING FROM A SICK-BED

By Eddie "Rheumatica" Kelly

HELLO, children.

Here we are, back again, ready to resume work, after having just risen from a bed of pain and escaping the clutching hands of the Grim Reaper.

We decided to get well again after our bottle of rum gave out.

Flu, we had. Our mind 'wan- dered at times. However, we are not sane much on that sub- ject,

We thought up lots of learned crevices (learned crevice———viso crack, Sae it? Ha! Ha! Ha!.. Oh, well!) for the "Very Iden" while we lay there dying.

Wo were awfully worried about the chaps on the "Tolograph," wondering whether they'd be able to produce the paper without our assistance. As a matter of fact, they were forced to temporarily ceuse publication on March 20. They resumed again on Monday.

We think we caught flu out at Repulse Bay, whore wo met Mary.

Mary is non-explosive, You know, dynamite but Mary wouldn't. Dynamite was the breed of drink she Introduced us to, Mint julep. aho called it, and told us it was what everyone drank in 'the south- fern sister,

Aint Julep is what caused the American civil war. The war col- lapsed when the Yankees captured the mint.

We collapsed after the boy at the Repulse Bay Hotel captured $4 of our mint, which was the price of four Juleps.

We can feel our sciatica coming. on again. It catches us something terrible, right at the back of the throat.

We were reading in the paper yesterday that a chap's flesh is slowly turning to leather. Wo

suspect the same is happening to

UB-you

should have seen tongue this morning.

our

We are now going to drink with asallora tough old salt named Expeom.

Hoping you are the same.

don't know if that's what a present- day crooner or croonette is supposed to do, but it's what is done by most of the modern singers whom I hear, on the pictures and elsewhere. Espe- cially the croonettes,

The Worst Offence

to admit I'm perfectly prepared the skill of those who play and sing the modern stuff: It can't be very. easy to produce the sort of sounds they do. Especially for the instru mental players who have to bounce up and down as they play.

time the story opens, and bitter and weary, and bowed under a weight of repeated defeats. If it were not rust that ruined their crops, it was early frosts, or one of the other enemies of the wheat farmer. One fall they met on a Government road project for all of them were in need of some ready money to buy seed and equipment and they fell to talking hoarsely and a little disgustedly of their pros- pects. One of them happened to mention that so-and-so had grown a fair crop of barley, and someone else had had a decent yield of corn, and still another had had a paying crop of oats and alfalfa. And they pondered these things and talked about them at length and finally came to a decision. They decided to pool their resources. Each of

of the Pacific has begun, and all the Powers with them would concentrate on one interests there are engaged in a scramble to

THOUGH Britain has not such a direct interest in the Pacific as the two

But there is a third source of an- crop either wheat or corn or establish air routes across an ocean the control of Powers whose mainlands confront it on east and

noyance which, so far, does not even oats or barley, and do a little which will have incalculable importance in the west, the defence of Australia and New Zealand

possess a name, far less a character.

It is a parasitic growth, battening general farming to keep their future.

and of British interests in the Far East is leading upon the living musical compositions of former times. We all hear it con- households supplied with essen- Last year four-engined American Clippers to the tardy development of our aerial forces

tinually. I refer to that orchestral tials. They thought that at flow 36 times to and fro the journey of 7,000 there.

Ju-jitsu by which some well-known and painfully, Singapore is the main British air base on

tune is slowly, least one of these crops would miles from San Francisco to Manila, in the Philip-

into unre- warped pines, making stops on route at Hawali, two coral the fringe of the Pacific, and steps are being be profitable and must succeed: atolls fitted up as

systematically

unconsciousness refuelling stations, and the taken to develop the triangle between Singapore,

cognisable and they were right. Scarcely island of Guam.

all Now, Hongkong, and Port Darwin, in North Australlo, it is time somebody did something jokes on one side, setting a year goes by, now, but more From Hawaii another air line branches off, into an area where British air forces can operato about this. We may be pursuing Complete descriptive catalogue sont on request. than one of them have a good via a lonely rock called Kingman Reef and Samoa, within reasonable reach of refuelling and repair- Progress, but we are that Wo cart

sure of our bearings yield; sometimes all of them to Auckland, New Zealand, and from Kingman ing stations. haye bumper crops, and they Reef again services will soon be opened up to Thus the Pacific Ocean already resembles a MOUTRIE & CO., LTD. divide the profits and are just the branch island in nd, Australia and to Tahiti, great chess-board, on either side of which con-

Lawrence Tibbett

Kirsten Flagstad

Tito Schipa

Karl Erb

Ernest Lough, etc.

S.

York. Building

COPIES OF

WITH air fleets crossing the empty ocean British Interests

at 200 miles an hour a rapid shrinkage

the South Pacific. about ready to retire.

testants are pushing forward pawna in the form And the Americans are developing another of isolated aerial units. Soon these will be fol- There should be a lesson for Pacific air route which causes more anxiety to lowed up by mighty air flects. Then the game Chater Road.nations in this experience of Japan than any of these. It will run along the will grow critical.

PHOTOGRAPHS

by "Staff Photographer” appearing in the

"SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST"

and

"THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH"

may be purchased

at the Business Office of "The Hongkong Telegraph” Morning Post Building, Wyndham Street.

simple men, not very wise in the; complicated subject of econo-

mics. This was no more than price, the labourer a reason- an experiment in community able wage and the consumer farming, of course. And it has obtain full value for his money? been practised elsewhere. But

a

A good many capable people

MURDERED MELODIES

there is anything more

tragic

Modern life is generally admitted to be rather feverish, aimless, and seems to confused. Modern musle me to express very well those attri- butes of the age in which it has taken form. In that sense, at least, it has perhaps some claim to be considered music.

afford to obliterate our tracks as we

go.

Sabotage

An ordinary plece of music, like "The Blue Danube," "Colonel Bogey, or the tune of "John Peel," "Annie Laurie," or "Killarney" is just as complete, coherent, and inevitable a sequence as a verbal sentence from Shakespeare or Burns. In fact, if there is a difference between a ver- bal and a musical expression of ideas, it is that the musical version is the more sensitive and the more in- tolerant of innovation.

We all know the tune of John Peel.

it is a mystery to the unexpert mind why the system cannot be

of possibility. If it can be anything more harrowing than either, perfected and applied on

worked out on a small scale, it it is the auricular evidence wider scale. The United States will work in a larger way. The wholesale massacre of melody, Government has tried crop con- trouble probably is that govern-highbrow

hasten to say that I nm not a

believe that such a system is not than a lost chord it is the slaughter By One who Prefers it is a ne one. If anyone doubts t by any means beyond the limits of an inoffensive one; and if there is

musician. I don't

of a

Them Alive

I

care Mendlesohn's "Spring Song," Be- not trol and made a success of it. ments are so very preoccupied much for musle that

I cannot go. I do I have to beyond that The producing nations have got with political matters that they the waltzes of Strauss, and could merely repeat that I do not care fur

"educated up to. I can appreciate presume to criticise good music. down to a working arrangement have not the time to consider sten indefinitely to a picco like it. In the rubber and tin fields, and economic affairs. And it is

But I'm afraid I care even less for are doing well for themselves. possible, too, that they are

modern popular music. Perhaps I Where wheat and sugar and afraid they may lose something League of Nations might suc dances now and then, but I haven't don't understand it either. I go to ten, rice and dairy and general in revenue by restricting proceed. And there is no doubt yet learnt what "rhythm" means, nor farm produce, metals, timber duction in any form; or that of this--a plan which would "swing" is. I'm not sure if I even and fish, in fact the whole list there will always be "price cut-open the way to free commercial know a crooner when i see one. of marketable commodities are ters" who will undersell them. Intercourse between nations, to "Croon, kroon, V.t. (Scot)" means, dictionary, informs me that concerned, why should it not be They prefer, then, to take a the abolition of tariffs, to the to ulter a low, monotonous possible to regulate production chance in open competition, reduction of freight rates by articulate sound like a baby: to sing according to the estimated never realising that this is not land, and so, would go far to- or hum in an undertone." "Croon- needs of the world always the safe and most profitable way wards removing the causes of Ing is a low murmuring sound. leaving a safe margin in case to do business.

strife which to-day have

(CL. Dut. kreunen, to groan.) of crop failure so that the Perhaps with aims of the brought the world close to Groaning is the word. Monotonously thmic the Dutch have it right. producer will receive a fair sort outlined here an Economic cataclysm:

Hord with an American accent;

of

let them try to compose one with half its amazingly, effective simplicity. The first period of the air consists of ten sound syllables. These sounds are immutable in tone, and for all practical purposes in value also. The in tune can, of course, be expressed different keys, or by different chords, and it can be played, sa a whole, elther fast or slow. But the notes which it is composed must stand.

Some people may prefer music of that less bold school, that specialises in half tones. That is simply a mat- ter af faste. A minor key is no less musical than a major onė. But to substitute a half tone for an original full one in an existing and inevitable composition is neither

taste

music."

It is a common practice among players Just now, to start un some well known and well-tried air, and after following the original tune for bar or two, to wander da into halt tones and minor, keys, or even to