THE LEAGUE AND THE BOY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 142, 12 December 1935, Page 13

THE LEAGUE AND THE BOY

"THEY SHOULD STOP IT'

Little pigs, according to the nurserysaying of some modest antiquity, have long ears, says a writer in the "Manchester Guardian." Perhaps we have ceased to regard pur offspring so much in the light of little pigs, as the Victorians would seem to have done, and the Victorian may tend to find them more little pigs than ever, "thanks to your small families and no real discipline." ! My particular little pig, aged five, has just been demonstrating, in the Victorian sense, the length of his. As a modern parent I might prefer to think in term's of depth of intelligence rather than length of ears, a healthy curiosity rather than a disgraceful interest in the conversation of his elders and self-supposed betters; but we will let that pass. Instead of reading about Winnie-the-Pooh, the tailor of Gloucester, or any other of his literary friends at bedtime last night, he said .he wanted a talk. "I say, what is a league?" "A league?" I replied, puzzled. "Yes. Mummy says that the League I would come to an end." i I knew where I stood now. He had; been much less talkative than usual at I breakfast and we had been much more S talkative than usu£l. The morning j papers had said "war" in all tones from \ the soberly and genuinely concerned tq the ill-concealed crescendo of joy that here was the sort of news that civilised people- like best, assuming they are not directly and personally the sufferers. But to discuss such things as international affairs, and the League with a little pig of five was somewhat overf acing. Il did my poor best and tried to keep the subject on a small canvas. A league, I said, was when a lot of men joined together to do certain things—to see that hockey or football was played according to rules, for instance. "But if it's a lot of men it can't come to an end," he objected. "It can if they don't all agree to do what they set out to do." , . NOT PERMITTED. He thought that over. "But why don't they? And the men would still be there. The League couldn't come to an end." It was my turn to think. "Well, you see» in this League it's countries that have joined together. The men are just men from the different countries. If they don't agree—if they quarrel about what they are going to do " "Why don't they call the League 'joined-lands'? If they're joined lands why do they quaggle. There's no need to quaggle." "They're not really joined lands. They've just come together and agreed to do certain things. One country has done something it promised not to do, and the others are not quite agreed whether to stop it or how to stop it." That was rather a lot for a little pig to manage. "What did they join together to do?" I did not want to introduce him to war, but it is no use being evasive with a child, and I tried to be honest and keep to simple issues. "To stop war. So that there would be no more war?." • . "Of course, I don't know what war is- " "I hope you never will," I muttered solemnly. "Please don't talk when I'm talking," he said severely, determined not to | mix sentimentality or mere pious hopes : with'his politics.. "I don't Know" what war is, but it must be something j nasty. Wasn't it the last war that I made Whitby Abbey still more ruined than it was and knocked the head off a coastguard at Scarborough?" (The long ears had evidently been busy during the holidays.) "Yes, and a,.10t more things like that." "That cathedral in the picture in your room,-.too?" "Rheims—yes." He considered the matter carefully, leaning back on his pillow and staring into space. "Well, obviously," he declared at last, "obviously" being a favourite word of his which he uses with an almdst uncanny, sense of fitness, "if it doesn't stop war because the men from, the different countries won't agree to do what they promised to do the League will come to an end. But couldn't we have another League with better men?"