“THE CLUMSY LOUT”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22102, 4 November 1933, Page 21

“THE CLUMSY LOUT”

REVOLT AGAINST CIVILISATION MR H. G. WELLS ON GERMANY. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, September 29. Mr H. G. Wells, oh the occasion of his sixty-seventh birthday, was entertained at a literary luncheon at Grosvenor House. He made a vigorous attack on the Nazi regime and coined a phrase to describe the revolution. Referring to the burning of books by the Nazis, Mr Wells said: “Unhappily, intolerance does not always stop at the,burning of books. Just now in many regions of the world there is an epidemic of intolerance which takes ugly and novel forms. “ It is all very well for an exceedingly lucky and pampered writer of radical ideas like myself to discourse in a valiantly facetious manner about book burnings, but it is quite a different business in Russia, in Italy, and in Germany —above all, in Germany. “ In Germany the radical writer and the original ■ honest writer follow an adventurous and dangerous trade. Each is hunted, man-handled; he is lied about. “ He is struck at through his family and friends; he will certainly be deprived of his property. He may be killed violently and disgustingly. These are not facts in dispute. They are proved up to the hilt. “ Don’t let the advertising and monopolising energy of one part of a race—a charming race, but a viciously and incredibly nationalistic race—blind us to the reality of what is happening in Germany.

“ The German affair is not a pogrom. To me it seems more than anything else the rebellion of the Clumsy Lout against Civilisation. It is the Clumsy Lout's revolution against thought, against sanity, and against books. Progress is too much for the Clumsy Lout. BOOKS WILL WIN. “ The Clumsy Lout is rampant everywhere with his idiotic symbols, his idiotic salutes, and contriving his imbecile cruelties. “Are we safe in England? Personally I do not feel a bit safe for ten years ahead. Luncheon parties for literary men may give place to lynching parties before my time is out. I may be taken from here to he beaten up by Sir Oswald Mosley or disciplined severely in a concentration camp by that true-born Briton, Mr Gilbert Frankau. — (Laughter.) “About one thing I do feel safe—in the long run books will win. The Clumsy Louts will be brought to heel. In the long run sane judgment will settle with all the braying and bawling heroics of these insurgent louts. “We shall have Hitler weighed accurately to his last yawp. We shall know the truth about Goering and Goebbels, about the foul murder of Matteotti, and the subtle issues between administrative incapacity and sabotage in Russia, or our children will.

“The mills of books grind slowly, but they grind exceeding email. Men may suffer and men may die, but human thought, embodied in science and literature, goes marching on. Let us get back to enduring tilings—to our books.”