MR WELLS’S INDISCRETIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23706, 13 January 1939, Page 10

MR WELLS’S INDISCRETIONS

TO THE EDITOR Sir, —It seems to me rather curious that no one has so far thought it worth while in your columns to commend Mr J. A. Lyons, Prime Minister of Australia, for his very timely rebuke of the English novelist, Mr H. G, Wells, who, in referring in an interview at Sydney to Herr Hitler as a “ certifiable lunatic,” and to Signor Mussolini as a “ fantastic renegade from the Socialist movement,” uttered a gratuitous insult to the rulers of two peoples

with whom the British nation i> on friendly terms, and with whom the British Government Is engaged in trying to remove the dangerous state of tension in which Europe has been plunged, largely through the efforts of meddling politicians and their press agents, with whom apparently party comes before principle. Mr H. G. Wells is well known to be a leader among the “ Parlour Reds ” of England, and his views on' international affairs should taken with the proverbial “ grain of salt,” just as people are apt to take his: fantastic futurist novels, which are entirely lacking in probability. Australia is indeed fortunate in having a Prime Minister with sufficient common sense and fearlessness publicly to censure Mr Wells for his insulting references to the so-called “ dictators, who have done so much to lift their peoples out of the mire of: economic depression and place them in the' forefront of civilised nations. The calling of names by clever phrasemakers who do not agree with their policies will not stop that progress, and is too much akin to childish spitefulness to appeal to the majority of Britishers. This is proved by appreciative references-in responsible English magazines, not influenced by hopes of a world-wide Red revolution, to the great work performed by both Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini for the uplift of their respective countries. Take, for example, the Nineteenth Century, which in a recent issue, in dealing with the military dictatorship we have set up in the Holy Land, refers to the volume of indignation released in England when the Italians invaded Abyssinia. “Much of it,” says this old-established English magazine, was,' of course, real, honest, sincere indignation. , But some of it, perhaps a ,good deal of it, was no more than a form of camouflage for those who dislike, the Italian regime becatise it stands in the way of world revolution, and who hoped they had found a good occasion for weakening it.” Again, from the same magazine: “The Italian enterprise was carried through by the energies of a people unified and made effective by the devotion of the vast majority to a great leader whom the revolutionary elements seek to discredit by the device of dubbing him dictator, thereby seeking to establish in mens minds the false conception that he stands, not for the representation of his people, but for their coercion."

The foregoing sufficiently demonstrates that Mr Wells and his namecalling" represent only one political party in England, and that, fortunately, by no means the strongest.—l am, etc.. Patriotic New Zealander. Balclutha, Jan, 10.. ; . ■ . [The quotations given above are from an article in the Nineteenth Century for February last, by E. T. Richmond. In the Mav number appeared an,.article by H. G. Wells. From it our correspondent might just have easily have quoted passages with the comment, “ sayS this old-established English magazine.”—Ed. 0.D.T.l