Snippets From Outstanding Talks of the Week.

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 5, 11 August 1933, Page 9

Snippets From Outstanding Talks of the Week.

DR. G. M. LESTER (3YA). AM something like the man who. when he was asked if he- spoke German, said "No, but my brother plays the German flute." I have never peen shipwrecked, but I have once or twice been near it. Many years ago I booked a passage on the British: India ship Quetta, from Brisbane to London, but before she sailed I took ill. Before I left on the next boat I heard the Quetia had gunk. inside the Barrier Reef with all hands. E were once in the China Seas, so frequented by pirates for years, and I had listened to many a grim tale told by the crew. I was awakened one night by a terrible shriek and found the captain in the passage in his old-fashioned nightshirt. We traced the noise to a cabin where a man was cowering in his berth, When I had diagnosed the case as one of delirium tremens my fears of mutiny and pirates vanished. FRIEND prevailed on me to break a journey at Ceylon, and I left the boat there. ‘That ship struck a reef in the Red Sea. GAILING from Sydney to London once we fell in with a gale that eventually carried away both out steari and hand steering gear, and tugs towed us into Melbourne badly crippled. FoR an afternoon and a night we felt our way though the thickest fog I have ever seen, when we were. making from the North Sea to the Humber, bound for Hull. In the morning, when the fog lifted, the look-out man reported breakers ahead, and looming through the mist was the threatening bulk of Flamborough Head. When the clear light of morning came, breakfast was a festive and joyous meal. We were lying off Port Douglas, a sun-baked, fiy-infested township. when three of us rowed ashore in a ship’s dinghy and ultimately entered 2 Chinaman’s store in a dreary street in the town, where we found a merry company of Chinamen gambling. Suddenly the door opened and three cou: stables and a sergeant stalked in and arrested us. Our rescue by one of the ship’s officers interrupted my speci lations regarding the penalties attaching to being accessory before and after the act of gambling. one oememe MR. G. JOBBERNS, M.A. (3YA). We speak glibly of the problems of the Pacific, and wonder vaguely whither we are drifting, but we drift so rapidly that what we say of these problems to-day may be quite out of date to-morrow. "HE filling of North America in the last century with Buropean stock has brought the interests of Europe right to the margins of the Pacific. These people are violently antiAsiatic, In U.S.A. there are represen-

tatives of every Kuropean nation, aud they will not readily mix. N South America racial bleuding hus proceeded, and it is doubtful if there ig 20 per cent. of pure Huropean blood.. The legacy of Spanish occupa: tion ig seen in the many republicsthe large element of backward, unprogressive and unenlightened people tends to political instability for which the South American States und Mexico huve become notorivus. RHE opening of the Pauama Canal was one. of the greatest influences of modern times. It has done more than anything else to bring Western America into contact with the Hast. thus increasing its political and commercial importance enormously. HE spread of Russia eastward over Asia has also vitally affected the Pacific. Outer Mongolia, a depen-

deney of Imperial China, has become a Soviet Socialist republic, and the Russian Communistic propagandist has become vigorously active in disordered China, profiting by and increasing the chaos. , "THE state of China to-day is one of the tragedies of the age,and a posgible menace to the peace of the world. There are two factions-the China that is striving to modernise along Western lines and the China that clings dog: gediy to the traditions of its ancestors This internal struggle renders Chin: politically ineffective to-day. ‘ APAN became westernised in a little _ over half a century. It is a coubtry that has a flair for’ organisationit. bas made itself the most efficient nation in the Far Hast; perhaps the most efficient and powerful in fhe world.

ANOTHER OF OLD WIRE-WHISKERS’ Enthralling Sea Stories FROM 1YA on SATURDAY, AUG. 19.: