1948-01-17 — Page 7

James Cameron

finds himself among the Political Crazy Gang.

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, JANUARY 17, 1948.

Pibun's) he slipped shrewdly. off to exile In Malaya.

The new Government has Issued a warrant for his arrest, und that of his nasociate the Inte Premier Thanron, for res

itunes-nd regleide,

IH4hanehmen árg all over the pince in hiding. From time to time cx-ministers have been discovered in attics, or con- cealed under ricebags. In the bottoms of bonts, Stores of arms have been found in their BANGKOK. Now it came to pass that homes by triumphant Pibun NCE upon a time-that in until the other day Slam was men.

10

ago--an itinerant serib

sy, about a week governed by an Administration. Heigh-ho! bler came to a kingdom where that was dishonest, corrupt and

degenerate to degree that THE Siamese, it is fair to say, the lotus blooms and all women raised a few eyebrows even in could scarcely care ICBY. are beautiful, and lost his heart the Orient.

It arranged the They are a merry people, they to a princess with velvet eyes, economy of the State the rice, like to laugh. who fed him with rare fruits, the tin, the teak--strictly for and told him of the overlord the enrichment of itself and its who ruled the land from relations..

marble palace.

Then as the moon rose above presenting The

the temples she leaned close and murmured:

"Now listen: you'll agree that the prime factor for a stable Government and a sound econo- mic

policy is a firm Administra- tion. Take exports, now..."

And lo, the pumpkin turned into a yellow cab, from the Astatic Taxi Corporation, and the dragon in the streets was an advertisement for Wong Lee's incomparable Household Soap. And the overlord in the palace was an khaki drill who jumped the and seized the Government

army

boss in

any

Eighteen millions of them in a fertile country the size of France can keep themselven

without troublesome expen- diture of effort. Unlike the Indians, they are neither abject nor arro- gant. They are Buddhists, and op posed to the shed. ding of blood, which they consider both immoral and fatigu ing.

Doubtful

Dictators

....

Somerset Maugham

countr with a squadron of might have written it.......

soldiers and half Service-surplus tanks..

A dozen

And the vagrant reporter.

who has run

into

some cock-

eyed political situations her

They are inclined fret at the Chinese 3,000,000

to

in Siam, who do

all the work and

make all the money, but mostly they prefer to sit in the

shade and gambie

on a pair of fighting fish.

with the help of Gilbert & Sullivan..

"You don't yes, and possibly Trotsky, too!

......

see

BY THE WAY

by Beachcomber

Nastonishing scheme to de- a knowdown? And I, without a rool

Avelop the vast porridge to my mouth, the blubbout foot

quarries of Bechuanaland is probably the next step.

Iool.)

The Plothwick by-clection

Before the January rains turn-the quarries into quagmires, churning R IVAN RUSHER (Progressive the porridge out of all recognition,

MR Trade Unionist) has begun his

con-

En great dam will have to be built at campaign in the Plothwick

tho Junction of the Chobo and stituency, but it is such a secret one Marico rivers. This will allow the that nobody knows what he is do- waters to scap into the saltpans of ing. His only opponent, to date, is Mr Arthur Biddiem, the Liberal shallow Lake Ngami. Then

Prodnose: Surely there is some who polled nine votes al Mumhurst mistake. This is evidently a special Charlie Suet has not made up his article Intended for come other part mind to stand. He is, at present, an Independent Conservative, but tho of the paper,

Central Office does not know what ho

means by that, and so every. thing is hanging, as it were, fire, Henry James said to the sword- swallower.

We

A Voice: How far to the Callie pot crass-roads, Mrs Griggs?

Voices: Put up the lights! cannot see! Where la Jevons? (A cloud of old feathers falls slowly.)

(Enter 873,017 brigands. She turns Civil Service examination;

slowly away from the cheese.) Prodnose: Who? alyself: Yolando do Marignolles, last of the Thompsons,

Father Father! Would you turn me from your door even before they begin to throw the paper snow down? Is this what you call having

exactly six days off one working week, and the seventh was a Sunday.

It has a confusing currency based on the tient. You get 50 ticals to the pound, which sounds gayer than it 1 The rate is apt to auctuate madly. Bangkok has a money-changer every 40 yards. It also has a great monu- after Democracy, erected ment to

1. What law, Order in Council, rule, by-low or regulation in broken by a man who uses two hats mate of wood-fibre as manure for hops?

To what Department should a woman apply for a licence to sell á horse's tall to a cushion-stuffer?

3. What Department laaues per- mits to keep ferrets in a furnished house?

The king's funeral is scheduled for By that time, Pibun reckons, March. some way will have been found to extradite Pridi from his shelter For the under the British wing. Foreign Office an awkward point.

A new law

the 1032 coup, which today has a A ROYAL murder is an embracing point in Slam which is dense The police with princes. The royal family, in

rather challenging air. watch it carefully.

a polygamous country, spread its one

cannot turn`a seed generously,

It is felt that anyone who salutes corner without meating blue blood;

mom chabs,

it now must have some ironic motive, highnesses,

No shooting?" said and anyone who does, so is instantly zajnwongs, lungs, phras, chaophyns

to

art

the removed jail. However, Government cannot bring, Itself to

this costly piece of remove

it continues to stand nouveau, 30 brazenly at the end of Bangkok's one modern street.

At one thing, however, they do not laugh. That problem is the back- ground to everything:. Who killed the king?

all with good, steady jobs in the Administration.

Beenuse of this Siam has been compelled (to avoid an aristocratisa- tion of the entire population) 10 invent a nable law of diminishing returns; each successive generation drops one rank.

to

The present ruler, brother Anando, is king Phumiphon (Half- Brother to the Sun, Master of the Tides, Hereditary Keeper of the Twenty-Four Golden Umbrellas), a

Inw reading

In

any barricades 7.

the marshal to me. said: "This looks like as pretty

But first paradox-the big He is smail and smiling, like a piece of contemporary Fascism as one has seen for a man of the party was Pridi, the well-mannered schoolboy. In the man who led Slam's wartime

One of the difficulties of a serious while, but wait and see.

never what resistance, helper of the 14th assessment of Siamese politics is the East things are

Army. And the man who has fact that every politician looks like they seem."

A few weeks ago Siam, the indignantly deposed him, Mar- a precocious little Ind off to a birth- coups d'etat ure shal Pibun, was the accomplice day party. "Our

Bike that. nice and one insistently independent

Outside, Bangkok State in Southeast Asia, became of the Japs, the Premier who ther cup of tea, quiet. Have an

declared war on the Allies in hums and moves around its Innumer- in which a dictatorship overnight. The

brisk and 1942, and who survived his trial able canals-the "klangs" the

the genile Siamese Impartially coup d'etat bloodless. The hot and in- as a war criminal by what can

abruptly streets that are apt to end dolent city of Bangkok was only be described as the skin of and fish and wash. It has smart

his teeth.

in rubbish-dumps. It has thousands

coalles taken over by a military junta:

of tricycle-rickshaws, i Constitution disappeared in a

So the good man was bad and enormous straw hats, and pretty girls. couple of hours.

the bad man was good. Pridi Bangkok appears to be heavily po-

with pulated

captivating young

glow of golden lamps. For: half is perhapa western analogies. AJI was the man who changed Siam women in white blouses and black

an hour I waited there while the,, politics medieval absolute trousers, smart as paint and pretty from a monarchy in 1932 to something as pictures. The black-and-white is approaching constitutionalism, official mourning for the late king, but his men were smugglers killed in June. The rich are still und bribe-takers and time mourning, the poor cannot afford a

was

The cast

INTRODUCING the cast of this fantasy is a problem, In Siam names are long and bubbly spelling is not much

servers,

Pibun

views de-

help. First there is Luang mocracy with the gravest Pradit Punomyong. He is doubts-but he claims to keep "Pridi." And there is Fiell the Cabinet clean. Marshal Phibul Songgram. He

change.

BAN

Relax, brother!

QANGKOK has curious archate trums, apparently designed by in "Pibun." One is out and Pridi has fled. With the con- Emett. crowded with girls, soldiers,

Remember mvance of the British and and shaven monks in saffron robes. the other is in.

those two and you bave the Americans (who still recognise It hus an Inexhaustible supply of his Government, remember, not days off; public holidays knocked

jot.

True monarchists studious youth

Inusanne.

แ

How lung Slam can maintain a palace murder happened seven months ago; the body of the late rigid monarchy under seml- King Ananda Mahidol still Hes under permanently absentee monarch is a mountainous gold canopy in the up to Slam. They are getting away now under totalitarianism. It with t

unfair to judge Easter!!

Slamesc-men,

girls, passers-by the talk in Siam is of "Communism" soldiers crept in, knelt, knocked and "Democracy," though it is a dead their heads on the ground, bewailed, certainty that no one in Siam inows The Siamese are monarchists to the what either of them is by definition. nth degree.

Here you have the final outpost of contusion th a clueless world. Ananda was assassinated In June. The smiling Siamese, knowing that Someone, somehow, at some moment their rice is live times cheaper than in the hush of the evening, forced anywhere else, drift happily from

one kind of political morass bribed his way through those another. Whatever happens, you corridors and shot the king in his may be sure, will be good for o

11 seems he was drugged laugh in Slaus. first; only the day before an offeint- food-taster had died.

or

room.

Into

And so until this evening, ot least they lived happily ever after.

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The Giles 1948

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