Brilliant Cartoonist David Low Happily In Trouble

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 March 1947, Page 5

Brilliant Cartoonist David Low Happily In Trouble

(Special A.Z.P.A, Correspondent) liecd. 7.10 p.m. London, Ahircli 6 Because he portrayed Air. Churchill as “Alicawber” offering iii.s services to Air. Dalton (Chancellor of the Exchequer), David Low, lhe world famous cartoonist, is in trouble with a -section of the readers of the “Evening Standard.’’ Some have written asking that lie be sacked and Vice-Admiral T. N. James said:

“Has not the time arrived when he should be packed off to New Zealand ?” Low is treating lhe criticisms with his usual good humour. In one or two cartoons he sacked himself and used tlv* signature “High!” He also has drawn himself as a lampshade and a piece of soap, since it was suggested that such might have been his ultimate end had the Nazis conquered Britain. Low also has written a reply to many letters published about him, and though many show high displeasure, others bestow praise on him, while one declares "Low makes me sick in his effort to come back. He made a mistake against good taste and i:, not man enough to admit, it." Another declares: “Leiter., slighting Low’s cartoons prove lhe shallowness of some people in not realising lhe genius of the greatest cartoonist ot our time.” In his reply, Low points out that a cartoon, not being an explicit statement but a flight of fancy, is particu-.

i larly apt to strike individuals in difI font, ways, according to their various • characters, associations and interests i and their awareness of what is going ■ on. ! Discussing various types of people i who criticise cartoons, Low said he ' inct a man who insisted that Mr. : Chamberlain was not. really an umj brclla. He says there is one woman ; who thinks he is a dreadful liar, since • she found out that a white horse is • not kept at Transport House. Of his 1 cartoon of Churchill, Low’ says the ! correspondence falls under two ‘heads. ; i Objection:; Io Mr. Churchill being h made lhe subject of satire at all" bi - J cause he won the war and saved lhe ' nation, including me, “and resentment al Mr. Churchill being shown as ; ‘Micawber,’ which is held to be a disgusting, milicious misrepre ntatimi. "I confess," says Low, “that the writers don’t convince me. Firstly, it can be contended that beet. ' Churchill won the war (not single-handed, incidentally), one should never again talk back at his provocative self on

domestic affair.-: nor represent linn in cartoons except in glittering terms! Surely not! That would be not omj foolish, but insulting to Churchill, who can take as well as give. Secondly, Mr. Churchill fought the elections and is now fighting the next on lus opposition to national planning, and has placed his reliance on private enterprise to solve our difficulties. 'Micawber' is a lovable Dickens chai actor who though he affected maxims of ordered finance in practice, guided his affairs by a principle ot waiting for something to turn up. He is a symbol of the opportunist way of lite and the antithesis ot planning and controls. It may be that my correspondents know something that I don I know and that Churchill, secretly, is noi opposed to planning mid controls, lor all his tine words, /.nd it may be they would like me to draw him as unlike 'Micawber' as possible, which would be as a kind of Himmler bristling with forms and chits. But 1 don't propose to do so to please them, or anybody else.

"I think dear old Wiliston makes a dear old ‘Micawber’ and until someone can give me a sensible reason why not, I propose (o draw him so always in future. Anybody that doesn t like it ran always write me.”

l.ow illustrates his reply with a cartoon of himself arguing with an objector. The caption says: "How dare you, sir, parading those ludicrous travesties of our national leader? ’

Low’s reply: “How dare you, sir Those are our national leaders!”