A POET GOES TO WAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 189, 12 August 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

A POET GOES TO WAR

A POET. you may say, has no business to go to a war. He should stay at home and write sonnets to nightingales in his garden. That, however, is not the way many poets have looked at life, from Aeschylus to Phillip Sidney, Byron and Rupert Brooke. The modern idea of a poet as a rather effeminate person who shrinks from the rough and tumble of life would hardly have been understood in the ancient world or the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. So when Mr. W. H. Auden, accompanied by Mr. Christopher Isherwood, decided early in 1938 to go to China, they may have received the blessings of many distinguished shades. To the implicit and explicit tragedy of China's ordeal here described • time has added some deep strokes. Since Mr. Anden and Mr. Isherwood were in China, tlie Japanese have pushed much further into the country. Hankow and Canton Imvo fallen. Moreover, at the time of writing this article, Britain's policy is obscure. Some of us may have recovered a little from the sickness that assailed im when we read our papers on Monday, July 24th, but we still do not know how much the Lion is going to retreat, or is tho right word "recede"? However, the hook tells us a lot and is well worth reading. Mr. Auden and Mr. Isherwood do not claim to be authorities on China. They went there as observers with Chinese sympathies. They travelled much in the interior; visited Hongkong, Canton and Shanghai; saw a little of the tiring line; were exposed to the risk of death from the air; and met numbers of Chinese and Europeans, from coolies and servants up to Chiang Kai-shek and Madame themselves, from military advisers and missionaries to Consuls and the British Ambassador. The two travellers kept a joint diary; Mr. Isherwood wrote the account of the journey; Mr. Auden wrote poems for the front and back of the book, and took excellent photographs.

A Patient People The main impression I get from the book is of a people extraordinarily patient and courteous under suffering. The Chinese met by these Englishmen seem to be always smiling. They never jii't cross; they never raise their hands to Heaven and cry out against the invhdor; they are never sullen or despairing. Tliey do their best for their guests hihl pass them on with cheerful faces hikl words. The suffering is plain enough. Tuere is nothing like adequate equipment for succouring the victims of this undeclared war. The fcook presents question* which would have to be faced even it' there were no invasion. The size of tlie task of unifying and modernising China, is staggering. Old and new jostle each other wherever the visitors go. At Sian, far in the interior, they Btay in a guest house complete with central heating, private bathrooms and a dance floor in the middle of the dining room, but the houses are mostly shacks, the streets are rough, when it rains the place is a miserable bog, and along the southern horizon "you can see the broken line of the big, savage, bandit-infested mountains." Sian, we are told, smells of murder. Less than 30 years ago, the Chinese population rose against the Manchus and massacred 25,000 of them In a, single night. The complication of banditry is well illustrated. A missionary persuaded raiding bandits •to retire from a town on promise by the authorities that they would receive rifles and ammunition. The missionary took

By - - Cyrano the rifles to them, but found out afterwards that they had been deliberately ma.de useless. The Chinese authorities thought it was a smart trick, but the missionary warned them they would pay for it. They did. The bandits took a bloody revenge on the town, but spared tho missionary. The visitors met this missionary, one of many, and they give a very favourable account of the class. These devoted men and women, some of whom have spent many years in the country, are able to throw a email cloak of protection over the harried Chinese. The travellers think, however, that strict puritanism is pushed much too far by some missionaries, and they pass on an amazing story of two European airmen who, forced to land prematurely, sought hospitality at a mission. The missionary received them cordially and they stayed to supper. When grace had been said, however, the missionary asked them whether they smoked or drank. It was admitted that one smoked and that both took a drink occasionally. "Then I'm sorry," said the missionary, "there's no place for you under this roof," and out the hungry men had to go, to spend the night in a local Chinese inn. Shakespeare and Shaw The Englishmen met many educated Chinese as they went about. At Hankow there was an "intellectuals'" party for them, and a poet wrote a poein in their honour and Mr. Auden responded with a sonnet. They exchanged views with their hosts on Shakespeare and Shaw, while everyone knew that at any moment Japanese 'plane; might wipe out the whole discussion. Knowledge of Shakespeare and Slia-v, however, didn't save Hankow. There was confidence everywhere, but also the wish to think the best that is so characteristic of all communities in war. Japanese morale was breaking; had not a number of soldiers committed suicide? It is the custom of Japanese to prefer self-inflicted death to what they consider dishonour. Mr. Auden's line about a dead Chinese soldier, "Abandoned by his general and his lice," was translated into something quite different. Lice, one or the oldest accompaniments of war (they are mentioned by a Greek poet of 800 8.C.) were considered too coarse, ;ind the Englishmen had u suspicion that it wasn't deemed to be the thing to admit that a general could abandon his troops. In |>eople undergoing such an ordeal such things may be easily forgiven Not only lives but the patient work of years is at stake. They visited a university and they could detect the shadow of anxiety on the staff; dreams had been realised, and now everything was threatened with ruin. The visitors feared that the refreshment given them would cost their academic hosts a good slice of their month's salary. And at Shanghai they met a New Zealander, Mr. Rewi Alley, who for seven years had been working to improve conditions in Chinese factories, and was seeing his work undone by the war. Boys bought from their parents worked twelve and fourteen hours a day for their food and a bed. Children were employed in terrible conditions, where disease and early death were certainties. The European Enclosures The most incisive writing in the book is, perhaps, in the descriptions of the European settlements. Thase are exotic, a slice of the country from which the particular nationals come. The European official or business man strikes no roots in China, and as I read these descriptions of pleasant At Homes in soft and smooth surroundings, with an English military band playing, and in the distance the rat-tat-tat of machine-guns, 1 cannot help wondering again how long this is going to last, whatever is the outcome of the present struggle between China md Japan. Meanwhile there is an

enormous amount of surf-ice politeness. These two visitors lunched with four Japanese civilians at the Shanghai Club. The Englishmen were prepared to :<e polite, but when one of the Japanese explained that his countrymen really loved the Chinese and that the nice thing about the war was that there was :io bitterness, they lost control and retorted it was no wonder the Japanese felt like that; they hadn't had their towns bombed. The four Japanese, however, didn't seem in the least offended. "That is certainly a very interesting point of view," replied one. Peace Terms at Tea Another point that the book makes is the vital importance of Chiang Kai-shek. He is well supported by his wife. Early in the war the Japanese transmitted peace terms, through a neutral Ambassador. The intermediary came to tea and said his piece. There was an awkward silence, whereupon the embarrassed ambassador explained that he gave the message without any comment. "I should hope so," replied Madame, quietly, and

then with a charming smile: "Tell uio, how ere your children?" That was the only answer the Japanese icrt*ived. This, I think, is a good note 011 v hieh to stop writing about a notalile book, though I haven't said anything about Mr. Auden's poetry. •"Joiirnp.v to a War." hy W. H. Atulfn and Christopher Islierwood tFaber and Fnl>er. Limited). <S> <g, Saving An Orchid A NATION-WIDE campaign to protect a Ceylon orchid, which is not found in any other part of the world, has been launched in Ceylon. The orchid, which is white and known as the Vesak Mai, is the rarest and most beautiful of the indigenous orchids of Ceylon. The destruction of the plant is already a punishable offence. Nevertheless, three thousand posters in English and Sinhalese, making a direct appeal to save the orchid from being exterminated, have been posted up in areas in which the flower grows.