BREEZES

Wairarapa Daily Times, 1 August 1936, Page 4

BREEZES

Lucky Black Cat! “Dad, there is a black cat in the kitchen.’’ “Well, black cats are lucky, my boy.’’ “This one is—he’s got the Sunday joint. ’ ’ * * * * A Sad. Case!

Two inmates of a mental home were comparing notes. Said one: “How were' you found to be insane?” “I don’t quite know,” replied the other, “but this is what happened. A man for -whom I did odd jobs decided to sell up and go abroad, and said anything not disposed of at the sale should be given to his Scottish servant. I asked if I might have anything the servant didn’t want, and they put me in here.”

German Militarism. ‘ ‘ The Hitler Government has surrounded its whole armament preparations with a sinister wall of oaths, prohibitions, laws, threats of penal servitude, and the executioner’s axe and rope.” This is the allegation made by Albert Muller in “Germany’s War Machine. ’ ’ His book claims to be a dossier of the militarisation in the Third Eeich.

“Hitler’s Government has made war the supreme law of life, to which policies and economics, and every sphere of the people’s life, are subjected,” he says. “German racing cars competing at Brooklands and the Isle of Man are part of the war machine. “A unique form of subsidy is the fact that the State lias taken over all racing-car construction; it supervises the building of cars; it appoints constructors and constructing firms, and it supplies the whole of the finance, states Mr Muller. * * * * Britain’s Real Rulers. Britain to-day is ruled by three men.. They are a playwright, a mathematician, and a retired Colonel of Marines. Recently they quietly celebrated another victory for their policy. Cabinets come and go, but these three remain, always behind the scenes, advising, guiding the activities of Cabinet Ministers, and their ideas are always accepted in the end. Their names are: —

Sir Robert Vansittart, tall, speckleeyed, Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Sir Maurice Hankey, short, dapper, bald, Secretary to the Cabinet, to the Committee of Imperial Defence. Sir Warren Fisher, tall, tight-lipped, Permanent Secretary of the Treasury and head of the Civil Service. These three men know more secrets than any Cabinet Minister. They could, with a few words of studied carelessness, plunge Britain into war to-mor-row. They could, if they cared, use their inside knowledge on the Stock Exchange to make fortunes for themselves.

Instead, they are content to draw £3OOO to £3500 a year—and to keep their power. And the secret of their power is that they never reveal it openly. They merely present facts to the Cabinet. But, on the facts as they present them, the Cabinet has little option but to go the way these three musketeers desire. Even when Ministers disagree with him, the Permanent Under-Secretary just goes on being permanent. * * * * Tattoo Talent.

Aldershot Tattoo, the greatest annual military spectacle in the world, produced by an “unknown” retired officer, ended this week. Within a fortnight work will be well on the way for next year’s tattoo. And the tattoo of 1937 is to be the “best ever” in celebration of Coronation year. Thousands of tickets for that tattoo have already been sold.

Here is the story behind the tattoo which, from a simple military parade before Queen Victoria in 1882, has grown to such amazing dimensions that this year the half-million attendance mark has been passed. The late Lord Rawlinson was the originator of the public tattoo. He was anxious to provide better recreation grounds for the troops of the Aldershot command. In 1920 the first tattoo was given. Three years later Rushmoor arena, made from War Office owned waste land, had been built—and! 42,000-odd people paid, for admission. Now the tattoo committee pays more than £IOOO annually in rates to the local council. It owns its private electric power station, capable of providing more than three thousand million candle-power. Not a single professional producer is employed. The. chief of the Tattoo staff is a retired lieutenant-colonel with a brilliant war record. Had he cared to turn his talent to other account he might well have proved the . English De Mille —and wild horses would not persuade him to allow his name to be published.