St. Andrew’s Day

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 30 November 1938, Page 9

St. Andrew’s Day

Notes on the News

This is St. Andrew’s Day. St. Andrew is the patron of Scotland, because. as runs one story, his hones were brought from Patras, a town in the Peloponnesus, and interred in the cathedral of what is now St. Andrews, County Fife, in the fourth century. There is another legend that a cross, shaped like an X, appeared in the heavens to Achaius, King of the Scots, and Hungus, King of the Piets, the. night before their engagement with Atbelstone. As they were the victors, they went barefoot to the kirk of St. Andrew, and vowed to adopt his cross as the national emblem. St. Andrew is represented in Christian art with a transverse cross and ropes, upon which he was crucified. Hence the term. “St. Andrew's Cross.” Sir Oswald Mosley It is reported from Beilin that on December 4, 3037, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, wa's married to Diana, sister of the Hon. Unity Freeman-Mitford, a personal friend of Herr Hitler, who was best man. Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, sixth baronet to a title created in 1781, was born on November 16, 1896, and educated at Winchester and Sandhurst. He served in France during the Great War. He entered Parliament as a Conservative in 1918, and was defeated at the 1931 general election. Lord Snowden, who was closely associated with him in the Labour Cabinet, has left on record his impression of Sir Oswald. "I doubt,” he says, “if anybody would be able to work with Mosley unless he were prepared to meekly follow him. During the few years he had been in public life, be had never remained for long in one party nor constant to any professed views. "He entered Parliament as an Independent Tory, afterward for a short time he was an Independent Liberal, then he joined the Labour Party, and he had not been with the party more than a few months before he furnished the party with proposals for a new programme. "I never had any faith in the sincerity of Mosley’s professions of Socialism. . . . My views of Mosley’s sincerity were very generally shared by the Labour members. ... It was felt that be was a man on the make, and was using the Labour Movement as an instrument for satisfying bis ambition. "Mosley had considerable ability. He had a striking appearance and spoke well. ... If ever Mosley bad the powers of a Hitler or a Mussolini he would be more ruthless and merciless, because weaker and vainer, than those two dieThe Hon. Diana and the Hon. Unity Freeman-Mitford are the ini id and fourth daughters of David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford. second Baron Redesdale (pronounced Ueedsdale). The Hon. Diana was born in 1910 and the Hon. Unity wa* born in 1914. The Hon. Unity, who has been described from Germany as “a perfect ary am,” has more than once figured in the news because of her Nazi sympathies. Bismarck And Colonies “Bismarck’s original view that colonies would not justify the expense, still less the resulting International complications, have been well born out,” said a report in “The Dominion” yesterday. Bismarck’s words were: "I want no colonies. They are good for nothing but supply stations. For us in Germany this colonial business would be just like the silken sables of the nobie families in Poland who have no shifts to their backs.” The conversion of Bismarck to colonies was a slow process. In 1871 he had ridiculed the proposals of -those Germans who then believed in colonies; a few years later he prohibited the publication of ir report written bv Vice-Admiral Livonius; but in 1879. he acquired a coaling station in the South Pacific, and in 1880 he asked the Reichstag to vote credits in support of a The progress was slow but sure, and it. was accelerated by the action of the large mercantile houses having establishments in Africa and Oceania. He wa§ moved along bv the inevitable pressure of events. When he did move, his main policy for a long time, so far as overseas expansion was concerned, was to foster commercial settlements, and in conversations with German merchants lie emphasised his desire fo r their co-oper-ation in the “colonial business.” He was not prepared to acquire large colonial possessions before the merchants had established his footing, and still less was he ready to sanction any form of State control, or the expenditure of large sums in administration, (ill there were some pros|>eoLs of commercial success. He taught that “the flag follows trade,” and not “trade follows the flag,” which is the British policy.