TO BE AUCTIONED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 93, 19 August 1942, Page 2

TO BE AUCTIONED

I BOOK FROM MR CHURCHILL NATIONAL RADIO HOOK-UP "On a date le'L to be announced, a valuable book of. which Mr Winston Churchill's, ancestor, Sir Winstone Churchill, father of the iirst Duke of Marlborough, was the au-_ tho:\ is to J>e auctioned over a natonal radio hook-up in aid of patriotic funds," strfi.es an article from the monthly Bulletin of the National Patriotic Fund Board. The article continues: — "The booik, "All the Kings of This Isle.' Avas published in ltf7s. It was presented 'to the New Zealand Prime Minister (Mr Eraser) by Mr Winston Churchill when Mr Fraser was in England last year, and has been autographed by both. "Around this rare volume is built up a collection of other books and art treasures, which will be put up for auction in separate lo\s, in the four main centres. "Mr Pat Lawlor, of Wellington, is honorary organiser, and •an appeal is being made to owners of book treasures and other articles of particular cultural value to give them as gifts to assist in the building up of a collection, which, witli the Churchill Book, it is hoped will result in a striking contribution being made to the patriotic funds from New Zealand literary, art and cultural circles. "The appeal is for rare books, rare documents, M.S.S. and autographed letters, pictures and prints, Maori and general curios. "The proceeds of the auctions arc to be allocated in the usual proportions among the provincial councils."

c honourable rules. The very climate of Costa Rica, with mild suramei i days and brisk cool night's the yeai s round, stimulates ordered living. Its citizens arc neither exhausted by the altitudes existing in much ol Mexico- and Guatemala, nor debilitated by the moisL tropical heat of Nicaragua and Panama. The President ol' Costa Rica, Dr. Rafael Angeu Calderon Guardia, is a young man, born in 1900; he is a physician who specialised in cancel research. His father, Dr. Rafael Calderon Munoz (also a physician), is Costa Rican consul general in San Francisco and first designado (vicepresident) . I visited the simple frame house in San Jose which is the 1 presidential mansion, to present a letter of introduction from Sumner Welles, cur Under Secretary of Sate. In the house I noted signs saying that as >the President was ill he begged to be excused from audiences. This is typical. The President must see ill most everybody, personally , all the time. His reception rooms are normally crowded with bare-footed peasants, workmen bearing petitions, clerks with grievances, and others demanding his personal attention. - It is traditional that the President comport himself like any other citizen. He goes" about the streets without a bodyguard; he may be seen with his elbows on his frontyard fence, chatting to a neighbour; if he goes to the movies, he buys a ticket like anyone else; if lie takes a journey, he stands in line at the railway station; he is no more, no less, than any of his compatriots. The country lives 60 per cent on coffee. Until the war Great Britain and Germany took the bulk of it; now Costa Rica is suffering gravely. The Uniit'ed States—which through purchases of gold, bananas, cacao and coffee has always been Costa Rica's best customer —is buying 200,000 sacks of coffee this year in an attempt to ameliorate the crisis. Rut this is only half Costa Rica's export coffee crop. Last September the Export Import Bank lent Costa Rica 4,600,000 dollars for extending the Pan-American Highway from San Jose to the Panama frontier. This will take four years; thousands of" Costa Rieans will get work. Costa Rica is of great strategic importance because of Its proximitj' to the Panama Canal. German influence was for a time considerable in Costa Rica, about 20 per cent of the coffee land being owned by Germans, and the. preceding government' inclined to lie somewhat' pro-Ger-mnns. This influence is now diminishing. The Calderon Guardia government is strongly ' pro-American and is taking strong steps to check Nazi propaganda and'filth columnism. In every way, Costa Rica is striving to protect the liberties it cherishes—and it , lias proved that it knows how to make democracy work.