1939-12-01 — Page 24

Friday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

December 1, 1939,

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Hongkong Telegraph.

Friday, December 1, 1939.

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THE preûx "Bpecial to the Telegraph is used by the Hongkong Telegraph zo indicate news which Je strictly copyright under the provisions of the Telecommual- CALION ramaner, 1930. Such news ax bears the Indieation "UP", i■ received in Itongkong on the date of publication by the United Press Associations, who re- servo all rights and forbid republication, either wholly or in part willout previous Arrangement,

Red Light For Hitler

IT would serve no useful pur- pose at this stage to inquire how it comes about that Europe now finds itself committed to n second edition of the Great War. Suffice it to say at the moment that those shallow observers who throw the blame on Hitler and Nazi-lam completely over- look the terrible responsibility

CHEESE

PARER

KILL JOT

MONOTONY

BIGGER

AND

BRIGHTER RADIO

PROGRAMKES

B. B. C. BLACK-OUT

The Russian

Riddle Solved

E

VERY morning brings me letters about Russia. Many are hot with in- dignation against Stalin. Many are hot with indignation that anyone should doubt either his integrity or his supreme wisdom.

But most, I think, are puzzled.

How is it that the peace-loving Soviet Union, with no territorial ambitiono, pledged to the struggle against Nazism, pledged to aid all victims of aggression, should aud-

denly do this thing?

It does not seem to make sense.

S. MOUTRIE & CO., LTD. of those who allowed those bale-Not the most ingenious arguments

YORK BUILDING

TO-MORROW

AT

THE

CHATER ROAD.

KING'S

THE GREATEST ADVENTURE KNOWN TO MAN!

Filmed in the authentic

African localel Threo

years in the making!

"Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"i

An unforgettable moment... when Stanley speaks those, famous wordilə

Twentieth Century-Fox presents DÄRRYL F. ZANUCK'S Production of

STANLEY and LIVINGSTONE

with the most brilliant acting cast ever assembledi!

المسيلة

SPENCER TRACY

.

NANCY KELLY RICHARD GREENE

WALTER BRENNAN · CHARLES COBURN SIR CEDRIC HARDWICKE - HENRY HULL· HENRY TRAVERS.

Directed by Henry King).

Aiseduto Produtor Kannath Mangovan • Barum Plej by 150 Dunam Jilton Jeonghan » Hilarisal Raseini and Story Cuties by Kai Long and Van Halinan

SPENCER TRACY.. twice winner of the Acad mmy Award gives another masterful parð formance!

ful phenomena to arise.

in view of the assiduous pro- paganda already evident in some pseudo-high-brow quarters, how ever, it should be clearly stated that Hitlerism has not been due to the Versailles Peace Treaty, but, on the contrary, to the amazing failure, to enforce its

of Western Communists can make it make sense.

Clearly there is something wrong somewhere. Fact and theory Jar nonsensically. The evidence clashes with assumptions.

Since facts are facts, the as- We sumptions must be wIODE.

BY

unwilling to pay the price; for the meaning of these demands was only too clear. And on theso

deadlocked.

W. N. EWER crucial points the negotiations had

chance. Had there been war over

Russia would Czecho-Slovakia, -

have had pretest for breaking into Poland in order to bring aid to the Czechs.

She got so far as a menacing note over Teschen. But England and France went to Munici

The storm passed, and with it the opportunity, The spring brought a new one.

After the conquest of Czecho- Slovakia it was clear that a new crisis

Stalin's was impending. problem was how to turn it to his own advantage, how to snatch, with

minimum risk, territorial gain for Russia out of Europe's conillet.

That same price-recognition of Russla's sphere of influence" lu the Baltic States, agreement to her occupation of Eastern Poland in the event of war-Germany was ready to pay for Soviet neutrality and Soviet friendship.

The The bargain was struck. with Britain negotiation

and France was broken off. The pact with Germany was signed.

I do not think Stalin realised that this meant war. I think he expected a "second Munich," the abandonment of Poland by the Western Powers, and a "peaceful settlement" in which the Soviet Union would quietly take its share -as Hungary had taken its share of Czecho-Blovakin.

Lterms.All this talk_of_over- have to abandon the theory that he co-get them"as"price" of "Ido not think no expected either

throwing Hitlerlsm is beside the point, and curiously paradoxical under the guise of democratic action.

Neither we nor anybody else have any moral or historical right to dictate to the German people, or anybody else, under what form of government they must choose to exist. Our right is strictly limited to en- suring that the one European community that has disturbed the peace of our continent for the past century shall never again be permitted to make it- self an international nuisance.

Some of the military pundits have been explaining how we are now encountering an entire- ly new kind of war. This as- sertion is based on the fact that in these days war is no longer confined to actual fight- ing between the armed forces of belligerent nations, but that it brings right into the arena both the economic and political fac- tora.

Actually the only change be- tween modern and past warfare, however, io that up-to-date equipment to a certain extent intensifies the latter factors as ponderable issues.

Stalin's policy has been based on opposition to Nazism, aggression,

and war.

What then has it been? Is there an answer to that which will f with the facts, which will make sense instead of nonsense and mere melodramatic villainy out of this year's happenings?

I think there is. The answer is this:

That Josef Stalin (whatever he was in youth) is to-day an Im- perialist. His desire is not for the welfare of the Soviet peoples, but for the power, the aggrandise- ment, the expansion of the State over which he rules as Autocrat,

Look back and see how the theme of power has for some years run through the speech of the men around him. As the "old have passed, the new Bolshevics" Bolsticism has changed Ita lan- guage, its manners, its mode of thought: ke Jacobinism turning

into Bonapartism.

Stalin's hero--an official hero of the new Bolshevism-is Peter the Great: the Tsar who began Rus- sla's expansion westward, subdued the Ukraine and conquered the Ballle States,

For Stalin, disciple of Peter the Great rather than of Lenin, the recovery of Russia's lost provinces has been an increasing purpose. Little enough was said about it: for it was politie hot to reveal such ambitions while there was chance of fulaing them, and a possiblity that the revelation might unito Europe in opposition to them.

110

The economic and the political factors have always, since tho bloodshot dawn of human an- tagonisms, played their part in conflicts between peoples. Siege warfare is as old as stone walls,

Last September came the first and siege warfare is mainly This time they can do the economic and political in ita im- | frontal attacking. The MaginotĮ. pingement. In fact we may Line will welcome such efforts truly say that the more the with a terrible ovation. The dreary business of warfare Nazi theory of Blitzkrieg con- changes, the more it remains | demns them to face that music, the same. There is certainly or endure the economic and nothing nower than Ancient political hazards of a long-drawn Greece in an attempt to starva war. If they think of trying air an enemy into subfection, or frightfulness as a last desperate even in trying to upset his remedy, well, while their efforts morale by pamphlet propaganda.. must be divided between two

But an economic siege can be | objectives-Paris and London—” | terribly exhausting to a nation the Franco-British bombers will like Germany, and if the slow be concentrating on Berlin. attrition of economic warfare Hitlerlam already has its back does not suit Germany's mas- to the wall and Germany Itaclf tors, it will be up to them to try may yet supply the firing to break out of their cage. squads,

Two courses were open. Either he could join with Britain and France, and get his objectives as the price of Russian support. Or swing over to the Her side and neutrality favourable to Germany.

Very shrewdly, he played a double game, negotiating with both aldes simultaneously until he dis covered which would pay his price.

In the negotiation with Britain and France he insisted firmly and unshakably on two things:-

First, there must be a clause in the Treaty which would give Rus- sin the right to intervene in either Poland or the Baltic States when- ever she chose to consider herself monaced by "Indiccat

aggres- Elon."

Second, in the event of war Rus- sin must be allowed at once to take over full military occupation and control of Poland's Eastern pro- vinces from which the Polish army would be withdrawn.

Britain, France and.Poland were

war or the swift military collapse of Poland.

At the last moment he had to inove very quickly for fear lest his new ally might double-cross him. I suspect that there is a certain anxiety in the Kremlin at the way in which things have developed.

But that is another story. The point I want to put to my puzzled correspondents is this:

If you think of Stalin as a new Peter the Great whose guiding pur- pose is to restore to Russia the territory she lost after the Revo- lution, then all his actions make sense.

The whole thing becomes understandable.

But if you reject this explana don (and there is much subsidiary evidence for it which would take too long to expound) then you must find another one which will at the facts and not land you in contradictions and absurditles.

GRIN AND BEAR IT

By Lichty

—and lately, Doc, every time I do this I get sharp pains

In the joints!!!

Can The B. B. C. SURVIVE

By SPIKE HUGHES

THEN questions

WHEN

anu asked

Lu

Parliament, nut about B.B.C. policy, but about B.B.C. programmer, then I ask myself: Can the Corpora tion survive the war?

So long us the war continues the B.B.C. will contlue to extil, of course, as an instrument of national Informa tion and propaganda. But when the war ends the B.B.C. will have served its purpose in this capacity, and I am very doubtful whether anybody will have much use for it then.

For years the B.B.C. failed to court the theatre and the film industry. It vdopted a high-hat attitude instead of making every effort to co-operate, muttering that radio publicity more than made up for low fees,

If the B.B.C. had behaved bolter towards the other two branches of the entertainment business, the outbreak of war would have found the theatre... and the film offering everything they had to broadcasting.

For a week there were no cinemas open. The B.B.C. could have given the people the best Ersatz for the real thing that has yet been invented: the radlo version of Alms,

In its repertory the B.B.C. Variety Department has "Top Hat," "Alexan- dler's

Ragtime Bond." "Congress Dances," "Sunnyside Up," "Forly Second Street "Shall We Dance?" and "Gold Diggers of 1935"-enough to broadcast one every other day for a fortnight.

.

But the man who produces and adapted these shows is sitting at the B.B.C. in London twiddling his thumbs.

As long ago as last April the B.B.C. started to form a shadow repertory company for war-time broadcasting. Hitherto It has been the privilege of the critic to complain of the cliqueish- ness of the D.B.C., and one was re- proved by listeners for writing about purely Internal matters.

Now these internal matters hove come out into the open. The public has noticed that the repelery com- pany has all the appearance of having

not so much engaged invited" to join the happy B.B.C. family party "somewhere. jr Englund."

been

дв

Apart from suggesting that every regular broadenster could have been cross-examined months ago, I suppose that is why many unemployed "and not-yet-approved artists are now able to sit at home and hear their records being broadcast while they them- selves are borred.

There is every good reason for the part-evacuation of the BBC., bht that is no reason for closing Broad- casting House, with its deep basement studios and gas-proof doors, to those artists who were unlucky enough not to be invited to join the repertory company.

"If soldiers at the front can run the risk of being bombed," sald one artist to me yesterday, “ilen why I should we ask for special protection?" Meanwhile, I have learned the fol- lowing about the B.B.C.'s warlime manners:

A concern, which in peace-time puts out sponsored programmes, offered it the use of its recorded tron missions of all-star, programmes. This con- cern has not yet received a reply.

A well-known producer has been went back to London, his production this week taken over by a Juntor, The senior producer is now in "C" category-at liberty to find another. job if he can.

Sandy Macpherson, not long ago one of the most popular of all broad- casters, admits to me that be now re- ceives abusive letters because he has to broadcast so much.

The entertainment side of 'the Cor- |poration is so out of touch with publia : feeling that we are given memories. of 1914, and Jokes about Hitler. This attempt to build up Hitler - SEA PLEASE Turn To Pago 2.