LIFE OF THE SIAMESE

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1935, Page 2

LIFE OF THE SIAMESE

KING AND THE PEOPLE ITS TACTFUL REVOLUTION. CHEERFUL COUNTRY VISITED.

Soon after the King of Siam again started on his travels last winter I arrived in Bangkok, writes Sir Percival Phillips in the Daily Mail. A Regency had taken over ihe Government. The capital was quiet and the people were as calm and cheerful as ever, but beneath the surface of things one could detect a feeling of uneasiness and uncertainty.

The leaders of the last revolutionary rising were in prison. Suspects were still being gathered in; the police were searching houses and offices; much subversive propaganda was in circulation by underground channels, and conversation on political topics was extremely guarded. The kingdom was impoverished and its finances were in a chaotic state. Antiroyalist sentiment manifested itself in many ways, and tire influence Of Communist agitators was apparent in certain sections of the so-called Republican movement. I heard strong criticism of the King for having spent money lavishly on his previous tour of Europe and America. His lack of sales resistance in the United States, according to popular opinion in Bangkok, led to his being smothered in motor-cars and every other mechanical product likely to appeal to an enterprising and progressive monarch. He returned with an expenses account of staggering proportions which was received with consternation by a poverty-stricken Ministry of Finance. And now he had gone off again on another circuit of the world, certainly to undergo a second operation on his eyes, but actually, in the opinion of his critical subjects, to increase his hoard of gadgets for which they cbuld ill afford to pay.

"KING WILL NOT COME BACK." I asked a member of the foreign colony who had lived for many years in Siam when the King was expected to return. "The King will not come back,” was the surprising reply. “He has seen the handwriting on the wall. The revolutionary movement will rise again, and he realises that if he is here he will be assassinated. You will find him in the near future safely lodged in some foreign country, probably in England, with sufficient funds beyond the reach of his enemies to assure him a comfortable future.”

He added darkly, “I would not be surprised if there were executions in Bangkok before the year is out.” If there are, the revolutionary spirit in Siam has entered a new phase. No revolt in our time has been conducted With such tact and restraint as the first upheaval, when the absolute authority of the Throne was challenged by a band of ambitious young men imbued with idealistic principles of democratic government. When the last coup took place Ministerial Departments changed hands almost by appointment and outgoing incumbents were shown to the door at their convenience. The Siamese are, with the exception of the Japanese, the politest people I have ever met. If they reach the stage of inflicting the death penalty upon their political opponents I am sure It will be done with every expression of regret.

They are "intensely nationalistic. Extreme dignity marks their unfailing kindliness to foreigners. The police guiding the curious traffic in the streets of Bangkok, the guards on the railway trains, the soldiers and sailors one meets along the busy river front, bear themselves with an independent air which is in no way aggressive. The inferiority complex is utterly lacking.

PROGRESSIVE PEOPLE. And they are progressive. The State railway service would do credit to any nation. Bangkok has a fine new central station which I prefer to Victoria. Trains run exactly to time and are clean and comfortable. The express linking the capital with Penang and Singapore is composed of sleeping and dining cars as comfortable as those of the Royal Scot. You can travel from Bangkok to the frontier of Indo-China in carriages comparable to any in Great Britain. The wooden stations are well kept and the ground around them is trim and tidy. Stationmasters stand at attention with a friendly smile as your train moves away, and the entire countryside through which you pass * smiles with them. Frontier guards are as strict as any Balkan police in the matter of visas, but although their meticulous observance of immigration laws is sometimes irritating it is done with perfect courtesy.

It is difficult to think of them as a revolutiOnary-minded people. They give the impression of being too engrossed in the pleasant business of living their simple lives to bother with affairs of Government.

The crowded waterways of Bangkok, where thousands of families live in crazy wooden huts on stilts and go shopping in the early morning in flat-bottomed boats, have no resemblance to the slums of a capital from which revolutionaries are recruited. Their ramshackle, un,painted caricature of Venice is steeped in cheerfulness, if one can judge by the kindly faces that grin responsively at every passing launch. Ashore in the unpretentious business and residential quarters you find the same carefree spirit, perhaps a little more reserved, but as discernible. The Westernised young Siamese takes his recreation in the European way; he goes in for sport with hearty zest; at night you may find him in a well-conducted cabaret decorously applauding the strange but graceful dances of a native ballet, or watching with appreciative eyes a comic film in one of Bangkok’s gaudy cinemas. The police keep his recreations within proper bounds. There are none of the debased attractions of a port where ships of many nations are anchored. The foreign colony live in fine moderh mansions reached by shaded boulevards. There are a sports club with tennis and squash courts, a golf course, and a spacious lawn which is the pleasantest place imaginable for the consumption of iced drinks at sunset.

The Diplomatic Corps has its own quiet social life and its members mingle with the many princes and princesses of the Royal House who have adopted Western ways and like them. Britons who first went to Bangkok years ago love the place. I know a Yorkshire man who settled there more than a generation ago and calls it home. Yes, it is difficult for me to visualise a bloody revolution in such a setting. Perhaps the King finds it more difficult still.