1939-12-01 — Page 4

Friday,

HÓNGKONG TELEGRAPH

December 1, 1939.

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Hongkong Telegraph.

Friday, December 1, 1939.

Wyndham St., Hongkong

Telephone: 26615

THE preux "spectul to the Telegraph" is used by the "longkong Telegraph" "to indicate news which is strictly copyright under the provisions of the Telecommu!. cations Ordinance, 1935. Such now t Dear the Indication "UP" in received in Hongkong on she date of publication by the United Press Associations, who re serve all rights and forbid republication, either wholly or in part without previati 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 a 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

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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 ambitions, pledged to the struggle against Nazion, pledged to ald all vicilms of aggression, should sud- 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

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ful phenomena to arise.

of Western Communists can 1; make sense.

The

evidence

In view of the assiduous pro-

Clearly there is something wrong paganda already evident in some somewhere. Fact and theory jar pseudo-high-brow quarters, how-nonsensically. ever, it should be clearly stated clashes with assumptions. that Hitlerism has not been due to the Versailles Peace Treaty, but, on the contrary, to the amazing failure to enforce its terms. All this talk of over- throwing Hitlerism is beside the point, and curiously paradoxicul under the guise of democratic: action.

I

Since facts are facts, the as- We sumptions must be wrong. have to abandon the theory that 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 fit

cense instead of nonsense and mere melodramatic villainy out of this year's happenings?

I think there is. The answer is this:

Neither we nor anybody else with the facts, which will make 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 pence 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- tors.

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

That Josef Stalin (whatever he was in youth is to-day an Im- perialist. His desire is nol for the welfare of the Soviet peoples. but for the power, the aggrandisc- ment, the expansion of the State over which he rules as Autocrat.

Look back and see how the theme of power has for sume years run through the speech at the men around him. As the "old Belsheviks" have passed, the new Bolshevism has changed its lan- guage, its manners, its mode of thought: like Jacobinism turning

fito Bonapartism.

Stalin's hero-an official hero of the new Bolshevism-is Pater the

BY

W. N. EWER

chance. Had there been war over Czecho-Slovakia, Russia would

have had pretext for urenking Into Poland in order to bring aid to the Czechs.

menacing

She got so far as a note over Teachen. But England and France went to Munich.

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

minimum withi

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

Two courses were open. Either he could join with Britain and France, and get his objectives as the price of Russian support, Or he could swing over to the Hitler side and get them as price of a neutrality favourable to Germany,” Very shrewdly, he played a double game, negotiating with both sides simultaneously until he dis- covered which would pay itis 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- sla

the right to Intervene in either. Poland or the Baltic States when- ever she chose to consider herself menaced by "Indirect aggres- alon."

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

Britain, France and Poland were

:

unwilling to pay the price; for the meaning of these demands was only too elcar. And on theso crucial points the negotiations had

• deadlocked.

That same price-recognition of Russia's

sphere of influence" in the Baltic States, agreement to her nccupation of Eastern Poland in the event of war-Germany was ready to pay for Boviet neutrality and Boviet friendship,

The bargain was struck. The negotiation with Britain nnel France was broken off. The pact with Germany was signed.

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

I do not think ne expected either war or the swift_niliitary collapse of Poland.

At the last moment he had to move very quickly for fear leat 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 gulding pur- is to restore to Russia the poar territory she lost, after the Revo- lution, then at his actions make sense. The whole thing becomes understandable.

But if you refect this explana- tion (and there is much subsidiary evidence for it which would take loo long to expound) then you must find another one which will At the facts and not land you in contradictions and absurdities.

Great: the Tsar who began Rus- GRIN AND BEAR IT

sia's expansion westward, subdued the Ukraine and conquered the Baltic States,

For Stalin, disciple of Pater 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 politic not to reveal such ambitions while there was chance of fulailing them, and a possibility that the revelation might unite Europe in opposition to them.

no

The economic and the political factors have always, since the bloodshot dawn of human an- tagonisms, played their part in conflicts between peoples. Siege

Last Septembar came the first warfare is as old as stone walls,

This time they can do the and slege warfare is mainly economic and political in its im- frontal attacking. The Maginot pingement.. In fact we may Line will welcome such efforts. truly say that the more the with a torrible ovation. The dreary business of warfare Nazl 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 newer than Ancient political hazards of a long-drawni Greece in an attempt to starve war. If they think of trying air an enemy into subjection, 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 alege 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 Hitlerism already has its back does not suit Germany's mas- to the wall--and Germany itself tere, it will be up to them to try may yet supply the firing to break out of their cage: squads,"

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

WHEN questions are asked In WI

Parliament, not about D.B.C. polley, but about B.B.C. programmet, then I ask myself: Can the Corporn- tion survive the war?

So long as the war continues the B.B.C. will contlue to exist, of course, us an instrument of national informa tion und propaganda. But when the war ends the BBC. will hovd served its purpose in this capacity, and 1 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.. Il (adopted 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 better 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 films.

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

Bund," Ragtime

"Congress {Dances," "Sunnyside Up," "Forty Second Street," "Shall We Dance?" -and-"Gold-Dlggers of 1835"-enough- to broadcast one every other day for- a fortnight.

But the man who produces and ' ndupled these shows is sitting at the B.B.C. In London twiddling his. thumbs.

As long ago ay 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 cliqucial- ness of the B.B.C., and one was re- proved by listeners for writing about purely internal matters.

Now these internal matters have come out into the open. The public has noticed that the repetory com- pany has all the appearance of having been not 55 migh engaged as "Invited" to Join the happy B.B.C. fully

party "somewhere England."

ת!

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

There is every good reason for the part-evacuation of the B.F.C., but that is no reason for closing Broad- Leasting 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.

"It soldiers at the front can run the risk of being bombed," said one artist to me, yesterday, "then why should we ask for speeláí protection?" Meanwhile, I have learned the fol- lowink about the B.B.C.'s wartime

manners:

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

A well-known producer has been. sent back to London, his production this week taken over by a junior, The senior producer is now in "0" category at liberty to find another Job If he can.

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

Colver

*

The entertainment side of the Cor- poration is so out of touch with publle feeling that we are given · memorles pf 1014, and Jokes about Hitler. This attempt to build up. Illiteras n PLEASE Tuin To Page 2.

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