CLEVER WRITINGS

Hokitika Guardian, 7 February 1931, Page 6

CLEVER WRITINGS

ON POSSIBILITIES OF HISTORY. LONDON. -February 5. Messrs Longmans have published a remarkable “Jen tie Sprit.” entitled“ff jt Happened Otherwise Or Lapses into Imaginary History,” written by Messrs Winston Churchill. 0. K. Chesterton, Rev. Father Ronald Knox, and others. Air Churchill dismisses what would have happened if the Confederate Army of the Southern States ol America. won the battle of Gettysburg. 'The American Union, lie says, would have been broken, an dSO years later the British Empire would have become reunited to American Slates. Air Gilbert K. Chesterton speculates on what would have happened if Don Juan of Austria had married Alary Queen of Scots. Air Harold Nicholson asks what would have been the consequences of Lord Byron becoming King of Greece.

AIT Squire AVittilev inquires what would have been the results of a discovery in 1930 that Bacon really wrote Shakespeare. Thus the , Dover Town Council would have renamed Shakepcare’s Cliff. Bacon’s Cliff, while Strat-ford-on-Avon would have been ruined as a place of pilgrimage. Finally. Father Ronald Knox contributes an answer to the question : “What if the British general strike had succeeded ?’’ The basic idea would have passed under Trade Union censorship. Father Knox parodies the news columns as they would have thus been produced.