POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 21, 24 July 1940, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

It is when a majority of the people learn to think for themselves that a Government becomes uneasy. * * ■ ♦ ' Hitler's gift bombproof train to H Duce is to be manned by Nazis. Another insult to Italy? « » . * But, dear Lord Halifax, Hitler has claimed all along that Providence has bsen, and still is, on the Nazi side. » * * . Dr. McMillan: "Other people need an aroma of something else than petrol." Should doctors tell? * * * Sir Felix Pole: " . . . Nelson would not have won Trafalgar if wireless communication had been in. existence; he would have had too many orders . from Whitehall." * # ♦ COMMENT. Mr. Percy Flage,—The third item in your column of today (July 22) call* for some comment. I don't know if you are aware that throughout New Zealand an important primary indus-try—deep-sea fishing—is almost entirely monopolised by Italians. A man's job, I think you will agree. As an Englishman, I noticed this with consternation at Island Bay some 17 years ago. The implied inferiority of this nation as seamen, therefore, in a New Zealand journal, falls very fiat indeed. But deep-sea fishing or no deep-sea fishing, it is a world-wide fact that, so far, the Fascist fleet has refused to stand and fight the British warships. ,By the way, we like commentators to sign their names.to their criticisms or at least supply a pen-name. M * # . MAETERLINCK. Dear Percy Flage,—The cable in the news recently re Maurice Maeterlinck arriving with two blue birds in New York as a refugee revived many beautiful memories of the performance of "The Blue Bird" % saw in Wellington, as a child; also, of course, his classic on the life of the bee. A man of intellectual beauty and, I believe, on occasion, excellent wit. It is said he is a man of outward physical ugliness, but of course marvellous scientific attainments mentally. A woman, famous for the beauty of face and figure she possessed, approached him with the suggestion that a child of hers with Maeterlinck, combining his brain and her beauty would be the perfect human being. "Yes, my dear Madame," he replied, "but Mother Nature is perversely inclined at times. Supposing the poor child should be endowed with my face and your brain!" RED ROBIN. * * # HEARD THESE? Extracts from, letters (1914-18 war) written by s'qldiers' wives to the officers concerned with the payment of reparation allowances —by favour of Tika:— We have not received no pay since my husband went from nowhere. My husband has been away at Clirystal Palace and got four days'^furlong and now has gone away to the mind sweepers. . We have received your letter. I am his grandfather and-grandmother. He was born and brought up in this house in answer to your letter, Mrs. Haynes has been put to bed with .a little lad- Wife of Peter Haynes. . I write these few lines for Mrs. Morgan, who can't write herself. She is expecting to become a mother and can do with it. In accordance with the instructions ring paper, I have given birth to a daughter on the Ist April. You have changed my little boy uito a little girl,, will it make any difference. My Bill has been put in charge of * spitoon. Shall I get any more pay. (More to come.) *♦* • • HITLER'S INDIGNATION. 0 Hitler, we are sorry ■ To have made you rampant mad, When we commandeered the Frenca fleetIt really was quite sad. But be not too indignant, Or make a moral fuss; Our crime, in Nazi eyes, was this. We made you "miss the bus. 'Tis plain, if planned deceit had brought That fleet within your power, A promise not to us# it You'd have signed in half an hour; Though with not the least intention Of respecting your sworn word. To think you might act otherwise, Is palpably absurd. Would aspect ethical have swayed Your choice, for one brief minute? A choice so vital, it could mean We'd lose the war, or win it. ; Don't make us laugh by claiming You would choose the loftier way, When all the world knows that you a The course you thought would pay. When Satan in the pulpit stands, How shocked he is at gin! And innocence profound as yours, Might take a tyro in; But experience has l°ng,re^e4 How full of guile you're crammed. So ere we trust your word, well see You well and truly damned. R.J.P. • * * . ' KEITH MURDOCH. Tom L. Mills: Outside the politicians, the personage who comes most frecmently into the limelight of publicity —and not altogether of his own seeking—is Sir Keith Murdoch, recently appointed by the Federal Cabinet to be Director-General of Information. Keith Murdoch, a son of the Manse, first came into the limelight as a reporter on the Melbourne "Argus." His great opportunity came with the Great War. throughout the whole course of which (including Egypt and Gallipoli) he served as No. % war correspondent for a group of Australian papers. Back to Melbourne, he joined the literary staff of the "Herald," where he rose with astonishing success, becoming editor, and today he is managing director, as well as associate partner with Melbourne magnates in newspapers in other parts of the Commonwealth. His knighthood came as a reward for his numerous activities, for he is a man of tremendous energies, a numerous president, and a dabbler in everything but politics. It will be news to many readers of these lines that Keith Murdoch has visited New Zealand twice as a reporter. The first occasion was about 1914, , when he came over as private secretary for Andrew Fisher what time he was Labour's Prime Minister for Australia. In those days . Cabinet Ministers when they travelled overseas out of their own bailiewicks took a reporter with them instead <V their regular private secretary—thu£ they made sure of getting good publicity from the reporter's newspaper. On his second official visit Keith. Murdoch represented his own paper, the "Herald," and other journals in "covering" the tour of the then Prince of Wales (now the Duke of Windsor). 1 met him on both occasions.