By the Way

Evening Star, Issue 23373, 16 September 1939, Page 3

By the Way

(By x;v.)

I’m sorry for the German; For bored he well may be. He cannot tune his radio To news from Daventry. His Government esteems it wrong To listen in to Norman Long, Or Holloway or Fyfe. Ho cannot hear the strains of Squire, Or Clapham’s little chats with Dwyer, On peril of his life.

His duty to his Fuhrer Constrains him to avoid The wiles of Winterbottorn and The snares of Murgatroyd. His ears are deaf to Harry Roy, Or Flanagan and Allen’s “ Oy!” And (Himmel!) it must hurt To listen to a broadcast set Which isn’t strong enough to get What Daisy says to Gert.

Now I, a Sou of Freedom, Can hear, within my room, Stout Goering’s high-pitched utterance, And Hitler’s raucous boom. No doubt their auditors are stirred, For here and there I catch a word Remarkably like “Heil!” When either speaker, just to mop His probably perspiring top, Is silent for a while.

I’ll swear to hearing “ Fuhrer ” And “Reich” and “ Vaterland,” Such words as neither you nor I

Could fail to understand. The rest might possibly explain The villainies of Chamberlain

As, seen through Nazi eyes, Atrocities in Poland—or Reflections on the Corridor, Or threats to foreign spies. No doubt it’s meant to fill me With salutary dread, But as my stock of German's small, I take the thing as read, With just a giggle, so to speak, When Goering gives a shriller squeak, Or Hitler blows a blast Which ought to make humanity (Including Chamberlain and me) Stand staringly aghast.

But Neville shows no symptoms

Of any heart attack; And I am not disposed to feel All “ goosey ” down ray back. Their speech is vehement, no doubt, But what it means I can’t make out, Except a word or two. This spouting is, as one might say, A little change from 4YA For chaps like me and you. * . » » »

Mr Ncvill Chamberlain has begun his periodical statements in Parliament surveying the European situation, as promised. In the course of one made, this week ho had a bone to pick with war correspondents and the Press. In default of authentic official news other matter has been published which the British Prime Minister describes _as “ highly imaginative reports of foreign correspondents over whose activities wc unfortunately have no control.” At the same time British journalists, presumably muzzled, have made a protest and an appeal to the Government for some relaxation of a censorship which they conceive is not working in the public interest. It is a common experience that, if supplies of a necessary commodity are cut off, some substitute promptly becomes available and goes into general consumption, even if unpalatable and deleterious to' the human system. In the Great War, when the stringency of the British naval blockade cut off Fritz’s coffee, a concoction of acorns and bark went by the name of coffee and was drunk in Germany. It was the ersatz brew or nothing. But in this case the Allied authorities appear to have “ cornered ” the genuine article, yet complain if recourse to substitutes is made to try to meet an insatiable j demand.

If certain items in a very varied assortment of Press messages from divers sources are to be taken as trustworthy, the reputed benefits of education have just about been nullified in Germany. We are told that the Germans were kept in ignorance of the entry of Britain and Franco into the war arena; and, when this could no longer be concealed, that those Powers would subside and gracefully retire as soon as it was obvious that the Western diversion had failed to save Poland from complete obliteration, _ For the past six years in Germany it has hardly been worth while having learned to read, so far as keeping abreast of international affairs is concerned. One by one newspapers with any pretence to independence have disappeared, and the entry of any papers from abroad, especially English papers, has been stopped, lest any citizen crave a wider horizon than Dr Goebbels thought suitable for his vision. Thus, since September dawned, the censorship in Germany cannot have made much difference in the status quo

“The time has come,* 9 the Walrus said; “To talk of many things."

ante. The deliberate transformation qf the boasted “ Suberman ” of 1917 to the sub-human of 1939 is the feather in Hitler’s cap. ...

For there is something sub-human in the attitude-of the .German'officer as disclosed in the interview he gave in Berlin to the representative of a Danish paper. Just returned from th* front in Poland, he said it was impossible to take prisonera—there was no one to taJke charge of them and thero was danger to the advancing German tanks if any Poles sprang up again in their rear after, they ' had passed. When during the Abyssinian campaign, a Mussolini of the second generation described how exhilarating, a sport it was to bomb the niggers from the air and see them scatter Or suddenly li* still, the citizens of countries which had denied themselves 1 the felicity, of dictatorship thought, to put it mildly, that here was an exhibition in most execrable taste. Yet it must be said for the German officer that he_showed some compunction; he said it' was “ most deplorable.” Perhaps even this admission was spiced with propaganda as well as with humanity. The German hero was talking to a Copenhagen correspondent, and Denmark is also a neighbour of Germany, earmarked along with Poland and numerous other European States as constituent parts of Greater Germany under the Rosenberg Plan. Pour encourager les autre*.

Out of the tangle of cables the fact emerges that the Poles are putting up an heroic fight against heavy odds; Fighting in the big salient west of the Vistula River, it seemed inevitable that the Polish forces would he encircled by German armies advancing; from East Prussia on the north and from Slovakia on the south. .With the fall of Warsaw to follow, the rest would he merely a cleaning up. At the moment that appears to be-still the confident Berlin idea. Yet (unless dop® for the democracies is being - administered) it appears that the Polish centre is still capable of hitting back hard, fighting a delaying action, so that, if necessary, it can fall back and take-it* place in line with the main bodv on the positions chosen by the Polish High Command for the decisive encounter. If by that time the French and British forces have been able to deploy in the angle between the Rhine and the Moselle, German/, should hare her hands full with a war on -two fronts. *\ * * * ■ Farewell for a, season. My comfort and friend, Bright sun. and warm brficze on My garden descend. The crocus is yellowy The hyacinth blue: Good-bye, honest fellow, To youl July was a shiver, And August a sneeze; My lungs and my liver Were starting-to freeze: And I might have perished With rampant T.B. If you hadn’t cherished Poor me. It’s hard to be meeting, When going, to bed, Two stretches of-sheeting As cold as the dead: But I didn’t suffer That horrid mishap, For you were my buffet. Old chap 1 A quilt’s on my bed —it Has blankets and rug; But yours be the credit For keeping me snug. You nestled beside me Or lay at my feet, And) thereby-supplied me , With heat. Your garment—a blue one— Shows symptoms of wear; But you’ll have al new one Next time I can spare To go to the city And pay half A crown To buy you a pretty New gown. ; Meantime I suspend you, Head down, on .a hook. It need not offend you, . Because you would look (If otherwise treated) A trifle I know how conceited You are! Good-bye for the present. You leave in my mind A grateful and pleasant Remembrance behind. When evenings grow chilly. And winter is due, I’ll boil up a billy ’ For voul .