1938-10-04 — Page 18

TELE

THE HONGKONG Telegraphi, TueSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1938.

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ARIA

MORGAN knows all About frontiers. Bhe should, because she lives on

one. The Franco-German fron-

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STEWART.—At Kowloon Hospital, on 3rd. October, 1938, to Sylvla, wife of W. A. Stewart, a son.

The

Hongkong Telegraph.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1938.

APPEASEMENT

burg (Alance Lorraine), which is lier home town. It even cuts right through her-modest two- roomed house.

Marin's living room 15 in France, her bedroom in Ger- many. During the day she is Mademoiselle Morgan. At night she becomes Fraulein Morgan.

For Marin, life is n confusing business, the frontler apt to Cause any amount of trouble. Maybe you have noticed that frontiers are like that.

At Changkufeng the Japs and Russians inve been arguing over different readings of in- adequate frontier maps.

At Wal-Wal, you remember, the same sort of pretext was made the opportunity for armed invasion of Abyssinia. You never know just when a frontier "incident" is going to Bare up to major crisis,

S

OME frontiers you can understand. Every Schoolboy knows that the Ural Mountains are sup- posed to divide Europe and Asia, that Hengist and Horsa had novel ideas of their own about delineating boundaries.

And no one complains about those natural frontlers pro- duced by physical features and climatic conditions.

But since Napolcon at least, frontiers have largely been de- termined by three things: a war, a peace and a treaty. And too frequently the treaty con- tains the germs of the trouble that will in due course produce the next war, and the next peace, and the next treaty.

The treaty begins the bother. It lays down, roughly, the lines of demarcation between the States concerned. It is supposed to take into consideration eco- nomic factors and means of communication. And often nothing more happens until the trouble begins.

That is what happened aver Changkufeng.

TAY back in 1866 Tsarist

W Russia and Imperial

China signed a treaty that seemed clearly to delineate what is now the frontier between Manchukuo and Soviet Maritime Province territory.

That's what frontiers do

BY S. E. R. WYNNE

This pictura was taken when German troops crossed the Austrian frontier, marked by what looks like a barber's polo.

ing doubts concerning the frontier line should be cleared up. The clearing-up is being done now-belatedly, but by a supreme plece of good fortune (and because Japan happens to be otherwise engaged) without the major war that might have been.

That there should be any doubt at all concerning that particular frontier can be attri- buted to the fact that after the signing of the treaty which delineates it no boundary com- mission went out properly to establish it.

Diplomacy succeeded in re- moving the threat of a general European War over Czecho- Slovakia. But it is a depress- ing thought that quite a num- ber of countries are actively engaged in hostilities at the in present time. Spain, and Spain, Germany, Italy and Russia; Abyssinia (for hostili- ties have not ceased there), China, Japan, Palestine-the battlefields are fairly evenly dis- tributed over the surface of the globe. It is a bitter commen-: tury on the state of the world to-day that far more thought is: being given to the question of whether the number of battle- fields will increase rather thun how to restore peace in the lands that are being torn by conflicts.

Actually, the best way toarmies in North China, places stop war is to stop the wars Japan in an unenviable position and in mood for mediation. already in progress. There is

With Hankow allpping from her| only one possible way to do this,

China, too, must grasp and that is by collective action eager to end this disastrous war by the Powers desiring peace to that is retarding her advance to put an end to aggression. The adult nationhood. gravity of the international Modification of the announced situation created by the Czecho-intentions of both sides to fight Slovakian crisis removed the for their enuses to the bitter conflicts in Spain and China end is, however, inevitable if from "front page" news. In peace is to come quickly to the the former country the position, Far East. If Japan insista that SIDE GLANCES despite General Franco's boasts, the terms for peace

are dis-

Many times well-intentioned men suggested that some exist→

be

is more or less as it was two honourable ones-as insistence years ago.

that the gallant Generalissimo

can

There is more hope that a must go undoubtedly is-then peace formula can be found in China will fight and will con- the Sino-Japanese conflict if a tinue fighting. Japan cannot statesman of the calibre of Mr. hope to crush a nation with the Neville Chamberlain

be determination of China this side: found to tackle the problem. of 1941 or 1942. Her difficul Somewhere between the Irre-tics are just commencing. It concilable--the immovable de- took the Japanese army five |cision of Japan to crush Gen-months to reach Nanking; since cralissimo Chiang Kai-shek and then nine months have clapsed the present Government of and her armies are atill a hun China and the unbreakable de dred miles from Hankow. After, cision of the Chinese leader and Hapkow, Japan must push to his people to fight to the bitter chang, to Chungking, south- end-les a middle courag which, wards to Yunnanfu. There are if the two warring nations can Kwangsi and Kwangtung, un- only be guided to it by expert scathed by (neutral mediators, leads

pence.

war except for to bombings, which have harmed;

only civilians.

For Japan, the War is only

It is apparent that all is not starting. Her pace is becoming well with Japan. The Cabinet slower and slower. The Empire W crisis—the second within three can no longer afford to dictate months-and the acute financial unreasonable terms, and would position, coupled with carefully do well to meet China half way censored reports of Industrial and end this war that is drain-| funrost at home and guerilla ing both nations of their econo-

activities that are swamping the mic and Industrial reserves.

Commissions like that can help. Generally, they consist of geographers and militarists and perhaps a minor diplomat or two. With maps and compasses they spend months going over the disputed territory.

But even with the best will in

the world they may make mis- takes that in due course will produce still more trouble.

T

HEY

#

delineate frontier in the bed of a river, perhaps, divid- ing two areas by a mythical line in the centre of the stream. That's fine; until, with the years, the river changes its course and the map with it. Or, again, the boundary-fixers for- get that at a river's mouth there is a delta. And one day a citizen of A-land is aghast at the dis- covery that a family from B- land has laridel and is living on an island about which formerly no one cared tuppence.

Not that such a discovery need cause trouble. The classic example of the 3,000 miles of United States Canadian frontier, unguarded by a single

TOLERABLE SNOBS

fortress, proves that, Nor does any Swede or Norweglan appar- ently sleep less soundly at night because no guns are mounted along the 700 miles of land frontier between Norway and Sweden.

But it is the post-war fron- tlers that produce this mom- ing's head-aches: whole slices of Europe where now states have been carved out of arens pre- vlously dependent on other

states,

Change a frontler-and Im- mediately you change economic. social and political conditions Trouble on each sido of it.

again.

And that encourages the un- happy alternative to the com-

disarmament pleto frontler

of the United States-Canadian and Swedish Norwegian borders.

F

RANCE'S Maginot Line has been written about so often that people tend not to appreciate its immen- sity. When completed it will be 600 miles in length, long galleries being linked by underground for- tresses that out-Verne Juics Verne.

The miles of galleries are im- pressive enough in themselves. The strong points" are frighten- ingly formidable.

You must think of London's Underground system to get an iden of the thoroughness with which the late Andre Maginot planned these defences.

Then Imagine junctions such as Charing Cross or Piccadilly Circus strongly fortified and bombproot and capable of being hermetically. sealed to resist attack by poison gin.

Then conjure up what those sta- tions would be ifko equipped with food, water, telephones, radio, hospitals, kitchens, even baths and you can begin to see why Ger- many respects defences on which at least £100,000,000 has been spent.

B

UT mingled with that respect is envy. So Germany replies with the Biegfried Line of forts, an which tens of thousands of con- scripted Germans are now work- ing frantically along the Franco- German frontier.

To the Bouth, where Czecho- slovakia has its own defence line of concrete and steel, and to the East, Germany has more frontier fortifications.

And Russla in turn has fortified

Now

IF you are fond of watching and, We are all acquainted with the

studying humankind, make friends social snob. He is inclined to look its western frontier-1.000 miles with a snob. He will be a book in his years because ladder-climbing 1 from the Arctic to the Black Sea- hunself, and one which is, never a whole-time job. His manner is still not an inch of territory in the

19 vulnerable." closed; for the mind of the snob is to consequential, his expression smugurairie transparent to the man or woman According to him, Cabinet Ministers of penetration that all who run may hang on his lightest utterances, Soviet workmen are repeating the read. For this

reason he is very and the peerage lean on him, which performance in the Far East.

(Continued on Page 5.)

In Holland the garrisons by amusing.

strategic dyles and waterways are Czechoslovakia strengthened.

mans pill-boxes from which anti-

By George Clark tank guns poke their anub noses

Cope, 1938 by Tafted Feniors Ryndimia, Ing.

*It's the tenth left turn you've made in the last mile—I'm sure everybody in town has seen your new engagement ring."

towards Germany. Poland, Switz- erland. Finland-big Blates and ittle ones dig themselves in.

ONCRETE pill-boxes, barbed wire entangle- ments, underground fortresses, mines, even the thriller- writer's favourite infra-red rays, line the frontiers to separate sub- from suspicious picious people people. And every yard so forti- fed increases the prospects of another "Incident."

4

"It's all very well for the British to talk about frontlers. They have. the aca-the finest natural barrier Bo I heard an irate Ger- of ull." man say recently,

But who

11 wants natural barrier? If there were no fortified frontiers-and, while we are at it, no soldiers, no Customs or pasa- port Inspection, and, most blessed of all, no Babel of tongues to be undone-it is zafo bet that there would be fewer of those incidents that disturb the breakfast table.

It's looking a long way ahead, perhaps; but life for Maria Morgan, and the rest of us, would be much pleasanter then,

-To-day's Thought----- THERE are two worlds; the world that we can medaura with like and rule, alla th world that we feet with our hearts and imaginations.

**LAGH-HUNTA.