WARTIME INDIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24850, 23 March 1944, Page 3

WARTIME INDIA

PICTURE OF NEW DELHI OLD WAYS CLASH WITH NEW MELBOURNE, Mnrrh 10 Six days spent in travelling from Colombo, via Madras and Bombay, to New Delhi, do not perhaps teach one much about India, says Mr. Geoffrey Tebbutt in a despatch to the Melbourne Herald from New Delhi. But they do give some impression of the almost terrifying complexity of the country in which the Supreme Allied Commander, South-Kast Asia, Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, is preparing for his larger offensive, and of the difficulties of grafting modern war organisation upon a land still so largely primitive.

It is, symbolic of this contrast that the temporary buildings being knocked together—living and office accommodation for the Supreme Commander's largo staff—arc arising by ponderous methods, with mechanisation almost non-existent.

Women are working as bricklayers, oxen or buffaloes are drawing materials, and water is carried in skins as was done centuries ago. This occurs in the region of the grandiose modern red-stone secretariat buildings and emphasises, even on questions not directly related to warfare, the constant drag, by Western standards, on getting results quickly.

Host of Menials Coming from Australia, u here the shortage of labour is so acute, one is --truck here by the vast numbers of menials in jobs purely decorative or living in organised idleness. For example, every petty functionary, British or Indian, has a peon squatting all day outside his door, while places such as the Viceroy's house (a modest name for the enormous domed palace whoso chill marble corridors, seem to stretch to infinity) swarm with hundreds of turbaned servants who appear to have nothing to do except salaam to visitors and get in each other's way. it is part ot the system and war does not change it.

The cheapness of labour docs not mean a low cost of living, which is savagely high here, and the shortage of transport and accommodation is at the Australian level.

I lie comparatively few hotels have touts in their grounds to accommodate .some of the overflow visitors. Telephones are so scarce that the Australian High Commissioner, Sir Iven Mackay, with whom I travelled from Australia, brought his own telephone equipment and ;ilso his own cars. Food and Transport

India if, only now introducing; food rationing and liquor is becoming short (the Indian substitute for Scotch whisky works like a depth-charge), but there is no limit to most, other purchases, and the shops are still richly stocked with many goods which, two years ago, disappeared from the Australian market. The Indian railways, cursed like Australia's with a differing gauge, groan under wartime pressure, and internal commercial (lying is not highly developed. How far toward the front Britishofficers can travel as they do in the roar area 1 do not vet know, but they move here so heavily encumbered with kit that teams of ctiolies are necessary to get: them to and from the trains. That also i.s a custom of the country. I think it is appropriate to wind up this first impression of New Delhi by quoting a remark attributed to an American general: "Of course, it i.s possible to live in New Delhi without being crazy—but it's a great help if you are. HISTORY ON MEDALS LONDON, March 12 An anonymous donor has given mora than 300 medals commemorating aeronautical events to the Royal Aeronautical Society. The earliest is dated 1711, the latest 1011, and the collection includes medals of the first balloon ascent of the Montgolfier Brothers in 17SS, the first cross-Channel (light of Louis Bleriot in 1909, and a portrait of Amelia Earhart, the famous American who flew the Atlantic solo in 1932 and lost her life in a round-the-world flight in 1937,