SHAW ON HIS FATHER

Taranaki Daily News, 22 August 1930, Page 4

SHAW ON HIS FATHER

AUTHOR DEFENDS HIMSELF. '.a . — . London, Aug. 5. • An extraordinary controversy has arisen between Mr. George Bernard Shaw and the Rev. Ji C. Carlile, a leading Baptist minister. . In Mr. Shaw’s preface to a private edition of his works, he describee hie father as a miserable drunkard,, .and as Lavino- 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. pot remember the Latin tag about . spcaking well of the dead. ,No doubt all Mr. Shaw says about'the old man’s, drunken habits is perfectly true, butji- is not chivalrous to bring him back frcpii the dead to exhibit his nastiness, as ,3.11 excuse for his son’s rudeness.’ Mr. Shaw, in replying, says: “Tiffs sort of reprimand usually comes from people who think that because the.-.,truth is unpleasant one should tell lies. If a story is to be told about,my family I prefer to tell it myself, rathqr than leave it for a gentleman A who.- /.might be out to tell lies. Would Mr. Carlile say anything disparaging about; Henry VIII. or Mary Queen of Scots if hfl were preaching about them? The idefti. that . one should not say anything.; fliikind about the dead is a thoroughly., false one.” '■ /.Ti