1940-04-22 — Page 3

Monday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

April 22, 1940.

Umary, Shpreme Court,

MAGAZINE

PAGE

Princess Elizabeth was 14 Yesterday: St. George's Day Is Celebrated To-morrow

Birthday of a fairy princess

HE PRINCESS ELIZA- BETH was 14 years old yesterday. One day she may be Queen of England. It set me thinking.

I recalled an earlier Princess, Jittle Victorla Alexandrina of Kent, who nt 17 came to the throne from the modest obscurity of Kensing- ion Palace; a palace, as somebody gald, "very pleasant to drink tea in."

This little girl begon her edues- tion at five with writing and French, going on to "Moral Stories" and the "Concise History of Eng- Jand."

At seven she was tackling Latin, and had learnt altnost by heart a book on British trades.

She was the heiress of England, but she did not know it. Her mother, with an Imaginativeness rare in any walk of life, thought the burden of such knowledge might be too much for the child.

Victoria, writing in after years, said that she was about 13 when she came to, understand her posi- lion, adding that the thought of responsibility to come made her very unhappy.

I was possible to keep Princess- Victoria thus Ignorant of her atatus. Princess Elizabeth hus long been aware of what the future holds for her. It is difficult to dis- cover from her beautiful behaviour in public whether not thought distresses her.

Or

the

Fairy Tale Stage

MY own daughter is still in the fairy tale stage" with regard to Queens. To her they are all, and always, hoppy and glorious.

But the Princess must, being a quick and sensible child, have observed that her mother does not have much time to call her own. She must already be aware that Mummy has to do many things which fatigue or bore her. And she must sometimes say to herself: "Mummy is only Daddy's wife. When I'm the Queen 1 stipit have

far

more to do, because I shall. have all Daddy's work as well as things like visiting exhibitions and

giving parties to hundreds

people."

And it is no wild guess that sometimes with that pleture of the future in mind, the clilk of 14 may feel a little wistfulness, FO little fear..

Most of us accept without re- sistance what we are brought up to expect, and the Princess is brought up to this job of being Queen of England. She does nat go to school with ther girls. Perhaps a school would not be able to cram in the speelal know- ledge fast enough,

Languages are important, a lot of time must go to them. history is important, if you are to bear a crown 000 years old. And this being a commercial uge, no doubt she, too, like the earlier Princess, studies 11 book on British trades.

Play with other children? No much of it, and

not often. Do

what you will to level things out, there can be, for this little girl, no chance to drink delight of battle with her peers.

She has no peers, the sense of equals. To assert that she is a child like other children is the merest pretence. She has a toy house, but it was an official gift. She is taken to the pantomime, the Tournament; but always in special box, always apart.

She rarely sees a inon with his hat on.

Her whole childhood is, and must be, a childhood "of years only. Each one of these public appearances, while it is partly a treat. Is also partly a discipline.

a

Her Task Fixed

IF my daughter wants to raven- ously ent chocolate, she may. But the King's daughter is on show; her gloves are fixtures, and choco- Iale, if it in eaten at all, comes. decorously and in small quantiiles from a beautiful box.

She has never been a commoner, she has never known the picosures and humblations of being one of a crowd.

Looking forward another four or five years I compare the probable life of the Princess with the future of my own child. The one will, at 18, have her task fixed, Sho cannot suddenly throw it away. forget all the training of years, arid decide that she will be a manne- quin or a medico instead.

.

9 ho

mus!

accept it with all ita Implica- lons, the hus- band ns soon

two wheels, running out of petrol; obeying the rule of the road (I hope) and seeing some beautiful country by the way,

Дл possible, By State Coach

the

the

the

children, eternal discipline which must never fail:

dough. the hand, change

ter,

My

on

other mAy

plans

her mind and her dozen times between now und 16. present

Ahe

wants to be a

vet, But If,

when school is over, she decides against that, the skies will not fall.

She can take ber time about marrying. She can have a scho- lar's life or farmer's.

She can, and must, acquire ex- perience of the world by knocking her sense and her wits against the sense and wits of other people.

If she wants money, she will have to earn it. If she wants power, she will have to fight for it. Her life will be flexible, and her future very much of her

own making.

In other words, she will до through fe as a man in a baby var goes darting freely here and there, taking dangerous corners on

THE Princesa must do her Journey through life in a 'stato coach, keeping on unchanging pace, surrounded by guards, mak- ing her own rule of the rond, travelling along routes already policed and beflägged; Buckingham Palace to the Abbey, Buckingham Falace to St. Paul's, Buckingham Palace to St. Stephen's.

No change of plans allowed, because a whole romense organ- Isailon hangs on

the correct carrying out of these plans. No happiness

No change of plans allowed, be- cause a whole inmense - organisa- (lon linings on the correct corrying out of these plans. No hap- piness.

Perhaps that goes too far. There are many kinds of happl ness, and one of the best of them is doing a difficult job well,The Princess Elizabeth being brought up to undertake one of the most difficult and responsible jobs in the world; if she succeeds in it she will know one of the most satisfy- ing of the world's joys. A verse from the Wisdom of Solomon comes to my mind.

"For she goeth about secking such as are worthy of her, show- ing herself favourably unto them in the ways, and meeleth them in every thought. For the very true beginning of her is the desire of discipline, and the enre of dis- elpline is love."

INANITY FARE

#

supposo Colman

when

Ronald

is a very ole man There'll still be those dimples Of Shirley Timple's.

2

St. GEORGE

for ENGLAND

IBBON has never been for- U given for grossly libelling our patron saint. He identi- fies him with George of Cap- padocia, the Arian bishop of Alexandria from 356 to 361.

This George was born in a fuller's shop, and began his career as en army contractor. He supplied the Roman army with bad pork, and made his fortune.

This did not prevent him from being made Bishop of Alexandria in place of the rightful Bishop. Athanasius, who had been turned out.

As Blahop, he resumed his pro- fiteering habits, which made him «unpopular; and when Julian the Apostate restored the hopes of the pagans, they seized Bishop George and literally tore him 'limb from limb.

His unorthodox opinions pre vented him from being canonised as a martyr.

This disreputabile person is not the patron saint of England.

*

The authentic George was "military tribune”—that is to say a cofonel in the Roman army, who was martyred during the last per- secution, in 303, and buried at

It Was Done Before

NORWEGIAN—

THE ruthless war the Ger-

T

mans are waging against the Scandinavians to-day is not the first attempt by Ger- many to establish herself in the north. With occasional and momentary success it has been going on for centuries.

The Huns came pouring from the Steppes, to be broken at Chalons; the Turks came riding into the West, to be hammered by Charles Martel; Islam eanie in arins, to be routed at Granada and shattered at Lepanto; the Sublime Porte sent its unnies through the

Bulkans, to be held and put to aight at Vlen-

But

before

-THERMOPYLAE

they said, as if they were speaking to-day of the Red Air Forec. "So much the better," grunted Leonidas. In his short, Laconic way: "We shall fight in the shade."

*

When the anmies met-2,000,000 against 4,0001-Xerxes waited for four days, expecting a surrender. He even sent a herald saying. "Give up your arms." Again Leo-. nidas answered him in the Sparian (or Laconic) fashion. "Come and get them," he said.

Xerxes ordered a detachment to charge and take the Greeks allve. The force advanced and broke against the long pikes of the Greeks.

2,500 Years Ago

these ralds from tho Eost, before the history of Britain began, when Rome was just a De towa no one. regarded, the Enst made its mightiest effort against the West.

A

Two thousand flye hundred and twenty years ago-in 680 B.C.- the power of Asia was centred in Persia. To Uhe throne of the Persian conquerors-Cyrus, Darius, Combyses succeeded megalo- manlae named Xerxes, or, in Bib- Heal legend, Ahasuerus. He turned his

eyes to the West and saw the fount of our classical civilisation.. Athens: Independent of him and, ten years batore victorious over his predecessor.

That insult, thought the new- crowned Kling, should be avenged: and the Greeks, whose colonists owned his sway, should also send earth to him ne token of their sub- mission.

So, for five years (a five-year plan, perhaps) Xerxes built up an army and a fleet From India and Atrien, from Meden and Kurdistan, from the Crimea he recruited: the Infantry numbered 1,700,000; the sailors amounted to nearly 500,000 (counting transports as well as warships); the cavalry was a mero

80,000. Twenty-nine separate na- tions formed the forces--rather as they form the Russian troops to-day.

After months of preparation the urmy of Asia began to move, Xerxes had two bridges built over. the Dardanelles: the eastward one against the current, the westward one against the wld. It took the army seven days to cross them.

The city states of democratic Greece were, ilke Europe to-day- Incapable of forming a united front. Half the states wanted

to leave But Athens to fight it out alone. Sparta forgot her traditional rivalry and made common cause with Athens, and, as the military leader of Greece, 'assumed the inl tiative. One of her two kings, Leonidas, was given the command.

He determined to hold a pass (much as Horatius determined to hold the bridge) in the mountains. This was called Thermopylae-the Hot Cintes. The force Leonidas controlled numbered 300 Spartans and about 4,000 mixed triber- second-line fighting men. Spies came to him with tales of the ar- chers who fred from horseback: "Their arrOWS darken the sun,"

Three times Xerxes Jumped throne from hils 'as he saw bls

repulsed "con- temptible" little

ordered the

army

force. Finally, he Royal Bodyguard-the pick of the Persian force, nicknamed "The Im- mortnis"-lo charge, They rode *headlong up the pass-but the

Spartans did not move.

The next day was a repetition of the Brst. Leonidas managed his rollets with genius, But--Persia was wealthy and Greece was poor, One Greek, Ephialtes by name, sold a military secret: there was an- other, hidden, difcull pass by which the Persians might take Leonidas in the rear. A large de- tachment cume round.

Greeks warned the Spartan of his danger, and he ordered the bulk of the ailled troops away. The Thespians volunteered to stay. The Spartans nover retreated.

Leonidas led the little remanant of his force into the open ground, and charged headlong into an advancing force. They turned the vanguard into the sea. Leonidas, mindful of an oracle which prophesied that elther Sparta or her King must fall, was sloin.

The battle of Thermopylae was lost-but Greece, and with Greece. Europe, was saved.

Lyddu, where .a sixth century church erected in his honour still slands.

For some unknown reason he was called "the great martyr," and legends, soon gathered round s

He name.

was provided with a dragon as early as the sixth cen- tury, and with a horse in the thirteenth, after the Fourth Cru- sade. The horse in his statute at Constantinople, in the Imperial palace used to neigh violently when a hostile army approached the city.

He was adopted na potron saint of England by the Normans la re- cognition of the assistance which he gave to the Crusaders by up-

their pearing among

hurlin Javelins at the Paynins. In the fourteenth century the Order of the Gorler was placed under his patronage and his feast became, u

red-letter day in the Church

Calendar.

I have not heard that he helped us in any of the battles on the Western Front. Parlaps he felt that is equiptment was ratller out of date. So much for St. George.

M

* J

Are we really a patriolle people? Foreigners think we are.

The Germans ore fond of say- ing that the Engilshman's motto is "My country, right or wong" I used to think that this precious epigram was spoken by an Ameri- can, but I have run it earth as a toast tiven at Norfolk in the year after Waterloo by a gentleman of the curious name of Decatur.

I do not think it is true of our countrymen that they defend their country's actions with a bad con- science.

We are not so demonstratively patriotic as most other nations.

We have an unusually large number of anti-patriots who, more or less sincerely, believe that Eng- Jand

from other misguided rascals in never being in the right

differs

RADIO

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ON

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DA1337---Until.

A lililo love, a little kiss. DA1230-I'll always be true.

Vloans, city of my dreams. DA1304-Parted."

4

I love thee.

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GIGLI

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La Donne o moblie. Don Pabqualo, Sogno poave e casto, DA1837-Standchen. (Schubert).

Wiegenlied. (Dralims).

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EXPRESS

But there is another reason. Rudyard Kipling's "Staiky

In

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WORL SERVICE

Co." there la scene where a well- meaning visitor tries to rouse en- thusiasm among the boys by fam- boyant talk about "our country.

absolutely flat. It fell

That kind of thing, the boys thought, is lo bad taste.

Kipling was qulic right. The Englishman loves his country us a man loves his wife.

Privately he is convinced that she is the best and most charming woman in the world. But as to boasting about her perfections, it Is simply not done.

M *

Again, a good deal of patriotism consists in hatred of other nations. We, I am thankful to say, are bad haters.

We were worked up into haling Germany during the last war, and words we proved that Lowell's about the national character are still true. "The Englishman is not quarrelsome, but he has an inde durability of fight in

him

That we have short memories is illustrated by the following story:

An American and an Engilah- man mel casually and got on very well together. When they parted the American sald, "Well, sir, I like you very well; but I must tell you that I hate the English, I can't get over the burning of Washing- ton." (This unfortiinute incident took place in 1812. As an act of rdprisul, our troops burnt some public buildings in the Ameriena capital.)

ton.

"No. Did we?" said the Eng- lishman in surprise.

"Yes," you did."'

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-W.R.I

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