The Sun SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1929 A GAMBLERS’ PARADISE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 857, 28 December 1929, Page 8

The Sun SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1929 A GAMBLERS’ PARADISE

THE changing history of nearly five centuries was epitomised * yesterday in a meagre message from Hong-Kong reporting that a mutiny at Macao, across the bay, had been suppressed by gunfire in half an hour. Compared with vivid narratives about how the Auckland Cup was won, or the lamentable manner in which Otago was overwhelmed at Eden Park, the story of a garrison’s rebellion in an obscure Portuguese colony, which could be hidden in the bush of this province, was in and by itself a trivial incident, merely showing that discontented men are much the same all over the world. Yet behind the brief revolt there is a great wealth of romance and all the primitive adventuring that, in a bygone age, discovered far countries, islands and continents, and founded empires.

Today, Macao is a languorous seaside resort not unlike our own North Shore by day, and a paradise for gamblers at night. It is best, if notoriously, known as the “Monte Carlo of the Orient,” where laws are as easy-going as the nation that has allowed a former island colony to become part and portion of the Continent of China. While Portugal slipped back in greatness at home the dividing waterway at Macao was allowed to silt up until it became a bit of the mainland. In other words, sand stopped the Macaoan month of the Canton River. Those who desire in imagination to know this romantic remnant need only spend a pleasant summer day at Narrow Neck under the shelter of Mount Victoria, eliminating, of course, the lure of the Oriental Monte Carlo, where Chinese, Portuguese and British residents of Hong-Kong, seeking to break the monotony of life in the Far East, may gamble to their hearts’ content without fear of a raid and the subsequent infliction of heavy fines. Such is the modern place of a military mutiny that crumpled under a whiff of grape-shot a week ago. Yet Macao can boast of an adventurous past, and a promising time of imperial pioneering. It was one of the many odd points along the mighty seaboard Cf the East that Portuguese rovers seized as prizes for hazardous navigation and added to the territory and wealth of their nation. A sturdy race circumnavigated more than half the world and so made a European Kingdom a maritime Empire. Bartholomew Diaz first doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and Vasco da Gama resolutely crossed the Indian Ocean and saw the rich wonders of Calicut. Three years later the questing sailors of Portugal rounded the eastern shoulder of South America and discovered Brazil.

Thus and for close on a century the trail of Portuguese maritime conquest extended so rapidly that at one time Pope Alexander VI., with a famous edict, generously bestowed on Portugal all new lands which had been, or might be discovered east of a line drawn from two hundred and seventy leagues west of the Azores! Macao fell into the brimming treasure-pot of the conquering Portuguese navigators. It was the first foreign port to he opened in China for free trade, and its prospects appeared so rich that the little colony was settled by emigrants and soldiers from Portugal in 1557. The initial promise! of a great commercial destiny was never fulfilled, and may never be achieved. Searoving was not destined to last as the monopoly of the Portuguese. British adventurers also fared forth in search of the treasures of the Orient, and- in the process of time trade followed our nation’s flag from Plymouth Hoe to Hindustan and ever eastward to China. When Hong-Kong became a British possession the fate of Macao was sealed in commercial ruin. History is a record of vivid contrasts and vital lessons. And there is a lesson in the fate of the broken Portuguese Empire* Since the day of habitable land discoveries with untold riches of gold and spiceries has passed, the great nations of today whose power extends far beyond the boundaries of their foundation must give heed to the need of holding what they own and of proving worthy of their possessions. Today, the British Empire is the world’s greatest cluster .of nations whose danger as to destiny lies not in political or commercial vassalage, but in political freedom. Here and there loose talk of self-governing status and Dominion independence carries a risk of a break in the splendid structure of the Empire. The children have become wiser (in fancy) than their fathers, and demand more than probably would be good for them. And there is evidence of weakness at the centre. Responsible politicians are inclined to forget the lessons of history, and are making expediency take the plate of experience. There is an increasing lack of wisdom and constructive ability in British Empire politics, and unless the drift be arrested and redirected in the charted channels of progress and enterprise, the story of vanished empires, banished by their own follies, may become the final history of our race. There may be some pleasure in political independence, which in practice too often means political ignorance, but the spirit of Empire builders did not go forth in bold adventuring in order to establish resorts for gamblers and mutineers. THE QVIET CORNER

THE BORROWED RAY

(Written for THE SUN by the Rev. Charles Chandler.). We are cumbered with our egotisms ; A thousand prisms hung around our souls Refract the single ray, that otherwise Would show us instantly the w r ay.—T. E. BROWN. rf'HERE is an “inner light.” Upon that point one can afford to he dogmatic. It is a guiding principle or an inward prompting, and when obeyed can lead us step by step into all truth. The demands it makes upon those whose lives are attuned to the highest that they can conceive, are insistent. The continued disobedience of that voice leads to spiritual atrophy and death. It is the Shechinah. “Wall upon wall the gross flesh hems it in.” It is the little bit of God in each of us. It is ‘‘the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” and yet, it is cumbered with our egotisms, as T. E. Brown l+e Manx poet so aptly expresses the idea. The intellect , which is so readily and so easily deceived by appearances , usurps its power, and breaks into a thousand lesser lights this one bright ray “that otherwise would show us instantly the way We are as foolish pilgrims who falter through the intellectual morass of life with borrowed lanterns. Swelled with conceit, and head erect with pride, we blindly grope where we might clearly see. Once get hold of the idea that the universe revolves around the ego; that nothing can exist so far as we are personally concerned, outside of our own individual consciousness, then we shall be driven into the “holy of holies” —into that secret chamber of the soul from out of which the One True Light eradiates. NEXT WEEK: QUICK MARCH.