THE HONGKONG Telegraph, Wednesday, January 26, 1939.
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The
Hongkong Telegraph.
Wyndham St., Hongkong 'Phone 26615 January 25, 1939
Dictator's Privilege HOW TIMES change.
Five years ago, Italy was
EPITAPH
by a BARD
Is there a whim-inspired fual,
Owre fast for thought, owre lot for rule, Owore blate to seck, otre proud to snool?
Let him draw near;.
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear,
•
*
Is there a bard of rustle song, Who, noteless, steals the crowds among, That weekly this area throng?
O, me not by!
Dut, with ཐ fraier-feeling strong,
Here, heave a sigh.
.
Is there a man, whose judgment clear
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life's mad carcer
Wild as the wave?
Here pause and, thro' the starting tear,
Survey this grave,
The poor tuhabitant below,
Was quick to learn, and tolse to know. And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer fleme,
But thoughtless fottles told him low,
And stain's his name!
*
Reader, attend--tchether the sout Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, Or darkding gruba this earthly hole,
In low pursuit;
Knoum, prudent, cautious self-control
Is wisdom's root.
W
THEN ROBERT BURNS was a very he young man, strolled into an inn one day, and found that a hot dispute was in progress about the merits of the different creeds.
.........it se
On another occasion when Burns was at a dinner party in Edinburgh, the Honourable. Henry Erskine and a certain Lord Swinton were of the com- pany. As usual, Mr. Erskine kept the company in an uproar with his shafts of wit, but these were lost on Lord Swinton, who was so deaf that he could not. hear a word that was passing. But when he noticed the others. convulsed with laughter, he' would ask anxiously, "Is that my friend Harry 7" and, being as- sured that it was, would laugh heartily with the rest.
A lady present romarked to Burns that 11 man who was. acting BO ab- surdly had no business to sit ak judge on his fellowmen.
"But madam," Burns protest- ed, "you wrong the honest man! He acts exactly as a good judge ought. He does not decide be- fore he has heard the evidence." Sabbath Latitude
scon
Burns was sometimes with a secular book in his hands- on the Sabbath day, a fact which caused some disquiet to his faith- ful Jean, who attempted to show him the enormity of this sin.
"Indeed, Jean," said her hus- band laughingly, "you'll no think mę so good a man as Nance Kelly is a woman?"
"Indeed no""" she returned frankly.
"Then I'll tell you what hap- pened this morn- ing. When I took a walk by the banks of the Nith, I heard Nancy Kelly praying long be fore I came till her. I walked
on, and before I returned I anw "Kimmers, ye are a' for let- sharp rebuke to some awkward her helping herself to an arm- Episcopalians were pre- ting folks hae but ac road to learner, "ye're no for young ful of my fitches for her cow."
In striking contrast to the to the forefront in the agitation sent, not to speak of mem- Heaven. It's a pair place that folk."
Another characteristic tale poet's tolerant view of the Sab- ae gait til't. There's
the story of the against Japanese encroach-bers of the Auld and New bas but
ilka concerns a meeting which took bathis
the Kilmarnock edition of ments on the mainland in Asia. Lichts. With such inflam- mair than four gates to
street in lands, and it's no canny to say country friend in a Signor Mussolini wrote an mable material at hand the bothy in Highlands and Low- place between Burns and an old Cameronian elergyman who lent grew hotter and there's but ae gait to the man- Leith. The two were enjoying Burns's poem to a friend. With article for the Hearst Press in debate
a long drawn out "crack" when the volume, he gave this solemn injunction: "Keep it out of the America, urging the organisa-hotter, and the disputants sions of the blessed."
were about to resort to fists The argument was irresistible. a dandified acquaintance hap- tion of Western Powers to meet when Burns intervened. The theologians
were silenced, pened to stroll by. "I am sur- way of your children, John, lest the "Yellow Peril" of Japanese
"Gentlemen," he said, it has and, for the remainder of the prised," he afterwards remon- ye catch them as I caught mine,
a shabbily Imperialism.
now been twice my hap to see evening the fun waxed loud and strated, "that you should take reading it on the Sabbath day."
dressed fellow." Italy's controlled Press, which the doctrines of peace made a furious while the company sur- any notice of such
"Do you suppose it was the cause of contention. I must tell rendered to the charm of Burns. to-day is so eloquently silent you how the matter was settled The Man Within man's clothes I was speaking to?" Burns retorted sharply, about the East and so filled with among half-a-dozen of honest
The story is typical of the "his hat, his coat, his boots? vituperations against France, women over a cup of caudic after
baptism. They were 38 dif- poet.
He was always kindly and No! It was the man within, and, has unanimously challenged Japan's ferent in opinion, and each as tolerant to the people he worked let me tell you that man
he was more sense and worth in him claim to be the corner-stone of tough in disputation, as you are, amongst. "Oh, man,"
till a wife that had said net n accustomed to say to Gilbert than nine out of ten of my city peace in East Asia,
word spoke up.
when he overheard him giving a friends." Lesson They Teach THE LESSON that totalitarian
States can teach democra- cics is that of national service. They provide the illustration of an intensified organised patriot- ism, whether it is deep-seated or not. Germany, for instance, is mustered to the last man and woman for defence-or offence. A similar condition prevails in Italy, either country en- gages in war, all within its bounds will be trained in what to do, all will know what sacri- fices to make, the man power and the woman power will be thrown into the scale with pre- knowledge of what is expected. I No democratic country is or- ganised to this extent, and yet if it is to meet a challenge from dictatorship, it is essential that there should be a broadened con- ception of what national service implics.
Chamberlain Neville Mr. hinted at this yesterday when he
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of voluntary national service, that it was a scheme to make Britain ready for war. "We will never begiu a war," he said, "but we might be forced to par- war begun by ticipate in others, or we might be attacked ourselves if the Government of to some other country were think that we could not defend ourselves effectively. The better prepared we are to defend our- selves and to resist attack, the less likely is it that any aggres- sor will try an adventure in which the chances of success would be so unpromising. If we wish to protect our civillan [population in war-time, wo must prepare the necessary organisa tion in peace-time."
Afghanistan Europe
"B
EFORE the World War," said the Muka- cevo doctor, "this land was known as the Afghanistan of Europe."
He sat in his shining modern consulting room in Mukacevo. second town of Ruthenia, lying at the valley mouth where the plain of Hungary meets the outermost spurs of the Carpa- thians.
Through his window I could see some of Mukacevo's 26,000-odd people-to Imo very odd. There were fiercely orthodox Jews with fur trimmed caps and side curis, walking to or from one or other of Mukacevo's twenty synagogues. There were long-haired Ruthenes from the hills, walking in cross- gartered rags and humped sheep- skins.
ex-
And there were the less distin- gulshabio mixture of Czechs, Elovaks, Hungarians, Poles.
This mountain province Ruthenia was, the doctor plained, called the Afghanistan of Europe before the War because on Its Carpathian ranges the Austro- Hungarian Empire and Tarist Russia rubbed uncasily together. Bpics and agitators found ways across its high passes. Hunted men found refuge in ita unknown forests.
W
HEN the War came tho two Empires faced each other in tronches blasted out of its topmost ridges. You can see them there to-day.
Now, when they are fighting agala in Ruthenia, I remember the doctor's words, Hungarian terror- ista are trying 'to make sure by force that Hungary · regains as
by A. B. AUSTIN
MAGYARS
*Bmo
SLOVAKIA Bratislava
Budapest
.SLOVA
H USN GARY
RUTHENIANS
OLAND
RUMANIA
The tall of Czechoslovakia, where the neto trouble is centred.
much of her old territory as pos- sible. Demands and offers are shuttlecocking back and forth be- tween the Hungarian and Czecho- slovak Governments.
H
common
UNGARY would like to swallow Ruthenia again. She would like to have a frontier with Poland along the Carpathian ridges. Horr Hitler is not so sure. Now that dominates Czechoslo- Germany vakia ho feels that it would be an well to have an eastern route open Ruthenia, Czechoslo- through vakia's castern-most province.
Why? Because. as ho said in "Mein Kampf," he is convinced that Germany's expansion must bo dastward, at the expense of the fat gratalands of the Russian Ukraine. Thero is only a Hitle wedge of Rumania between The Ruthonia and the Ukraine, Rulhones themacivas oro Ukrainian or Little Russian people. Ruthenia's mountains might once again become an uncomfort-
*
able jostling ground, this time of Nazi Germany and Saviot Russia. The people and valleys and forests and high pastures of Ruthenia probably form the least known part of Europe. Most of us have a clearer notion of the habits of the Australian bushman than of the Ruthenian Highlander. Somo half million of his race live in Ruthenia, which is little biggeT than Wales. Another 3,000,000 live across the mountains, in Poland. Its hills are said to be the cradle, the first settling place, of the Russian race in Europe. His the language is thought to bo oldest form of Russian,
The Ruthene remains & herds- man, or a foraster, On SundayS and feast days he goes to his Greck Catholle church, its roof like squnt
pagoda
covered with weathered wooden slates,
Onco, at Jasine, near the Polish froutier, I stood in a Ruthenian church on & anint's day. In the contre of the chureli was a wooden washing-tub full of water. At the
-To-day's Thought- SHALL I be left forgotten in
the dust,
When Fate, relenting, lets
the flowers revivo; Shall Nature's voice, to man
alone unjust,
Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live?
wero
~BURNS.
of
end of the service the bearded priest blessed it. As he lowered his hand medicine bottles and mugs
brought from
sheepskin jackets. Men and women dipped them into the tub. Some drank there and then. Some carried a bottleful away against future ills.
do
FTER church, in the evening, the Rutbeno l dance to fiddles. It is a good dance, for anyone can it, and it can be adapted to youth or age. Two can dance it together. or four, or alx, or a great circle of men and women. If you danes it two by two, your partner puts her hands on your shoulders, facing you,
and you hold her walat. Ac- cording to the music, you circle in a slow shume, or a fast whiri, and that is all.
LIVC3,
These are the people who de- clared a fortnight ago, through their Parliamentary representa- that they wished to remain an autonomous part of Czechoslo- vakia. Up to 1010 they were ruled by Hungary. Most Ruthenes were illiterate. Teaching was given as much as possible in, the Magyar Ianguage.
e then, under Czechoslovakia number of stration, the schools, has doubled.
Over 500 of them give instruction in Rutho- nlan.
Uzhorod,
formerly a small,
slummy, muddy town, has paved streets and sanitation. On the high pasturea thero are State dairies and cheese factories. Down the rivers log rafts float from the State forestry campa.
N the foroat ridges, up which the allmy log -tracks climb to the old mountain trenches, you can stay in stoutly built, clean log chalets, If you carry your own food and don't mind a Hard bed.
Ruthenia is asili tho most un- touched corner of Europe, the most primitive, if you like. There are still mean dwellings, and poverty and dirt. But a civilising job has been well bogun. The Ruthenda have said that they would like it ta no on.
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