A VISITING CARD.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 142, 18 May 1936, Page 2

A VISITING CARD.

ITALIAN PRESS ERRS. An illustration was recently given of the errors into which the Italian Press is led by its blind attacks upon Great Britain, says the London Times. Somewhere in Abyssinia was found, ill an otherwise empty pocket-book, a visiting card. This card boro the name of Cecil E. Dormer, described as in attendance on Dedjasmatch Ka'ssa, of Ethiopia. On the strength of the discovery the Tribuna printed a special article about a “certain Dormer flying at full speed before the advance ot the Italian troops.” Tbo writer went on : “Even the most modest Englishman will agree with us that the fugitive Mr Dormer does not cut a good figure in the service of a barbarian man of colour. Did bis very humble services merit the luxury of the Bristol visiting card? But it is not necessary to be cruel. It is evident that the poor Mr Dormer has been driven to Africa by urgent personal needs, . . . We take note of this other English visiting card left as a token, of the material and moral solidarity of the sul>jects of His Britannic Majesty with the slave-owning hordes of the Negus.” The dreadful truth is that this Air Dormer has since 1934 been the British Minister in Oslo, and that, his visiting card dates back to 1911, when, as an acting second secretary in the diplomatic service, he was attached to Dedjasmatch Kassa during the chieftain’s visit to London for the coronation of King George V.