SHAW ON HIS FATHER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20642, 14 August 1930, Page 11

SHAW ON HIS FATHER.

PASTOR'S REMONSTRANCE. AUTHOR DEFENDS HIMSELF. LONDON, August 5. An extraordinary controversy has arisen between Mr. George Bernard Shaw and the Rev. J. C. Carlile, a leading Baptist minister. In Mr. Shaw's preface to a private edition of his works, lie describes his father as a miserable drunkard, and as having invariably left parties which he attended scandalously drunk. Referring„to this passage Mr. Carlile, who is editor of the Baptist Times, in the course 'of a sermon at the Folkestone Baptist Church, of which he is pastor, said the preface would be remembered as immortalising the failures of Mr. Shaw's father. "The skeleton is taken out of the family cupboard and shown in all its nakedness," Mr. Carlile declared. "It is a pity that the dramatist did not remember the Latin tag about speaking well of the dead. No doubt all Mr. Shaw says about the old man's drunken habits is perfectly true, but it is not chivalrous to bring him back frouj tW dead lo exhibit his ■ mistiness as an excuse for his sons rudeness." Mr, Shaw, in replying, says:—"This sort of reprimand usually comes from people who tltiiilt that because the truth is unpleasant olio should tell lies. If a story is to bo told about my familj I prefer to' tell it. myself, rather than leave it for, a gentleman who. might bo out to tell lies. Would Mr Carlile say anything disparaging about Henry VIII. or Mary Queen of Scots if he were preaching about them ? The idea that one should not say anything unkind about the dead is a thoroughly falsa one.'!