Englishman's Umbrella

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 44, 8 March 1937, Page 13

Englishman's Umbrella

What a Chinese Sees Beneath It

£)R. LIN YU-TANG is A Gfatae*e who feels an afflnity with the English. In the course of an address given by him before the Mid-Paciflc Association in Shanghai and reprinted in the Review of Reviews, he said: — "I am going to speak about England in particular, for several reasons. First, because as a Chinese I feel all foreigners in China are Englishmen.. The international settlement in Shanghai is known among the Chinese as the 'British settlement,' and we- are probably right. Secondly, because the English show more sense and less sensibility. I would at any tlme twist the British llon's tail rather than pinch the whlskers of a Japanese marine. The British lion has a better sense of humour. And, thirdly, because I feel I understand England better, I feel the spirit of the English people is more akin to the spirit of the Chinese people, for both nations are worshippers of realism and common sense. Both peoples have a profoimd distrust of logic and are extremely suspicious of arguments that are too perfect. • • • "rpKE English Constitutlon is a master- * piece of patchwork, and yet in spite of its being patchwork it offers the English people a real guarantee of their civil rights. The English form of governments is in itself a contradiction, a monarchy ln name and a democracy in reality, and somehow the English people do not feel any conflicfrin it. The English profess the greatest love for and loyalty to their King, and then proceed to limit the expenditures of the Royal household through their Parliament. Some day England will yet become a Bolshevik State with the English King still on his Throne and under the leadership of a most die-hard Conservative Cabinet. I feel eonfident that the basis of English democracy will stand the strain of any crisis it may have to pass through, just by Its sheer dogged sense of reality and A kind of robust animal instinct for life.

"AND eo there goes the Englishman, with his umbrella and unashamed of his umbrella, refusing to talk any language but his own, demanding marmalade in an African Jungle and unable to forgive his boy for not producing holly and a plum pudding in an African desert on Christmas Eve, so sure of himself, so terrlbly cocksure of himself, and so terribly decent. There Is an inevitability about his words and actlons and gestures when he is not looking like a dumb, persecuted animal. You could predict exactIy what an Englishman would do even when he sneezes. He would take out his handkerchief — for he always has a handkerchlef— and mutter somethlng about a 'beastly cold.' And you could tell what is going on in his mind about Bovril and going hoine to have a hot bath, all as inevltable as that the sun is going to rise in the east next morning. But you could not upset him. That cheekiness Is not very lovely, but is very imposlng. In fact, he has gone round conquerlng the world with that bluff and cheekiness, and his success in doing so is his best justification. "TpOR myself, I am rather intrlgued by that cheekiness, the cheekiness of a man who thinks that any country Is dog-gone and God-forsaken whose people do not take Bovril and do not produce an inevitable white handkerchief when the correct moment comes. One ls lured to look behind that extremely brazen front and take a peep at his inner soul. "Of course, there ls something ln it. His soul is not such bad stuff and his cheekiness ls not just side and alrs. I sometimes feel that the Bank of England can never fall just because the English people believe so, that it cannot be closed simply because 'it isn't done.' The Bank of England is decent. So is the English Post Office So is their Manufacturers' Life Assurance, So is tlje whole British Empire, all so decent, so inevitably decent. I am sure Confueius himself would have found England thr ideal country to live in."