BY THE WAY

Evening Star, Issue 25470, 28 April 1945, Page 10

BY THE WAY

[Written by " X.Y." for the ' Evening Star.']

PERSONAL ITEMS. (See ' Dagens Nyheter.' ' Allehanda,'

' Aftonbladet.')

Field-Marshal Goering is away Upon a springtime holiday To visit that enchanting spot— Blank Query Asterisk Dash

--Dot. Burglars, please note—he's shifted

nil His famous gems from Karinhalle

Frau Ribbentrop has gone to take A yachting cruise upon the Lake Of' Constance—where, we understand. She sailed across to Switzerland. Returning very quickly, for She found it chilly on that shore.

The Goebbels family have been In Mecklenburg, for change of scene. Thereafter Mrs G's been touring, _ Accompanied by Mesdames Goering And Himmler, on a mystery ride .Round the Bavarian countryside.

This news has recently come over: The marriage, Hitler-Teschekova. Took place about a week ago. The Fuhrer's hate of pomp and show Ensured a quiet celebration Of this remarkable occasion.

In place of their accustomed meeting The Duce sent a birthday greeting To Adolf Hitler, who has passed His latest milestone—or his last? Happy returns!—come wind, come weather, These faithful friends will hang together. . * * * * Many times and oft travellers, whether birds of passage or returned wanderers,. have told us that we in New Zealand really don't know that there's a war on. Our business men go down to the office in suite showing no honourable scars, in the form of patches at the elbows or elsewhere, necessitated by too prolonged contact with office furniture. We still walk on leather and not on wood or some other sole substitute. Smoking is not an impossible luxury. The speedometers of quite a few.: motor" cars mysteriously continue lo register mileages not altogether negligible. In the carrying industry, pillage is not unknown, but is on a scale so unassuming that one can easily imagine the perpetrators standing amazed at their own moderation, like Robert Clive in. India. If there are certain abnormalities, in presonnel and price, in what used to bo routine trade transactions, they do not warrant the term " black market." As compared with Sydney or Paris, the shade is, say, octoroon —the merest dash of colour. **» . * Yet friendly hints, are bestowed on us from various quartei'6, internal and external, warning us that our turn is coming. There is, it seems, a time-lag. It will not be ironed out until the Government abandons its demonstration of how to extract a quart from a pint pot in the matter of man power. Overseas observers, surveying our population and natural resources so as to estimate our quota in the forthcoming tarpaulin muster for Europe's larder, have suggested that military effort should ere this have been subordinated to primary production. The typical town dweller, seldom more than hazily aware of producers' problems, and nowadays limiting his jaunts abroad, to Wingatui on a race day and therefore, having no visual evidence of how land fares when stinted of labour, is now having the man-power shortage brought home to him in various other ways. Production of the coupon book at the men's outfitter's shop was an introduction to the subject; now he is liable to find that his tailor has disappeared, probably doing the humbler work of pressing in some factory. Maybe he accomplishes his daily routine with the shadow of a great calamity hanging over him; he may be politely but inexorably directed, to Burnside to make chilly acquaintance with the freezing chambers, and, not impossibly, with other involuntary coworkers for the rest of the season in the form of rats, which in self-defence have grown (fur coats comparable to the fleece of a " hermit " sheep.

Arising out of the' foregoing, taken in conjunction with the kind' of weather ushered in on Anzac Day, there looms the matter of the doublebreasted overcoat. In the rag trade the departmental manager who can forecast fashion's vagaries and stock his shelves accordingly is something of a treasure. Perhaps this applies more to the requirements of the decorative sex than those of the gents and youths. Even so, a simple matter has been made complex by the introduction of the political factor. Clothing factories, perhaps favoured with ponderable Government contracts, may have derived from a close and profitable association a false sense of security. Anticipating the speedy advent of peace, they anticipated also a relaxation of the Austerity vogue in matters sartorial. But the Government of the day is a manysided affair. Harmonious . relations with a Defence Department, whose aesthetic standards may be accurately gauged from the immaculate turn-out of its lady soldiers, do not necessarily imply " most favoured nation " treatment from the Industries and Commerce Department, or whoever is the Austerity custodian. Herein is a good illustration of watertight departments, and an opportunity to discipline Private Enterprise, which dares to direct a (possibly) State-directed employee to produce a State-forbidden article. So An eminently saleable line' is decreed unsaleable, and must stay on the shelves. If the winter progresses as it has begun this virtually amounts to State subsidising of Pulmonary Disease. Recourse should be had to another of the watertight compartments. An appeal might be made to the Health Department to decide on this double affront to Constituted Authority.

Further afield, also, there is some overlapping going on. While we are anxiously scanning casualty lists we are also hopefully examining lists of freed prisoners of war. And while hostilities are reaching a climax in Europe representatives of the Powers are going through the preliminaries of a peace conference at San Fransisco. This war opened with Poland as the first victim. It is, perhaps, appropriate that the status of Poland should provide matter for the opening stages of the 'Frisco Conference. But it is unfortunate also in one way, and that is because it is providing Russia with the opportunity to make plain an attitude

which evidently she deems hers of right, and in which by no means all other nations will acquiesce. However, it brings to the front the big underlying question which inevitably has to be answered some time or other: "What have we been fighting for? " To answer " For the removal of the Nazi menace " is not enough. Something positive must follow a mere negative. There is an implied invitation for the production of plans for a postwar world for purposes of comparison. It is here that the Class War is introduced. If that issue is dodged or shelved, it would be waste effort to proceed in the hope of emerging from the peace conference with " No More War" as an achievement, or something far more substantial than a mere formula or a pious hope.

When James Lansdale Hodson was writing his book ' Home Front,' he emphasised how pink, not to say red, were the workers in the shipyards, in the munition plants, etc. The year was 1943 and the ■ Stalingrad battle monopolised attention. Workmen invariably asked him why the second front was not Started in Europe so as to relieve some of the burden on Russia. The impression conveyed was that the workmen thought more of Russia than of their own country, and far preferred its economic system to their own. By no means a Tory, Hodson pointed out to his readers, if not to the workmen, that they would not last long in Russia if they carried on as they did in the yards and workshops in England, in such matters as absenteeism and limitation of output; while their standard of living was far higher than that of the ordinary Russian worker. He says: "Russia is little more a democracy than is Germaay, and is certainly not a land of liberty and tolerance or a laud without classes . and privileged folk, as some of our working people imagine. But we have .much to learn from Russia, as she may, perhaps, learn from us. The people of Pussia feel that the land belongs to them." .