HERE AND THERE MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE AND PROGRAMME FEATURES

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 7, 25 August 1933, Page 22

HERE AND THERE MAINLY ABOUT PEOPLE AND PROGRAMME FEATURES

HIS year the civilised world cele brates the centenary of the birth of the "Slave Abolition Movement,’ and listeners to LYA on Thursday, August 31, will hear the Reverend W. Law son March discourse upon slave trading and the fight for its abolition. It is computed that during the most intensive period of the traffic in slaves. there could hardly be fewer than ten million souls involved, that the whole of these men, women, and children were in bondage for purely selfish rea sons. 2 bondage which led to every form of ill-treatment and suffering. , ™ Eg PJ \HE movement begun by _ British emancipators was (lestined to spread freedom throughout the world. Seven hundred thousand slaves in British colonies were given their freedom. America followed by liberating nearly four million, and Brazil, Cuba. and Mauritius replied by setting free another million. Dr. Livingstone and others revealed taht the traffic was rampant in Central Africa, and Britain Jed in abolishing the trade through Bast African ports, Zanzibar and Pemba, In 1926, 57,000 held in bondage in the Himalayan State of Nepal were given liberty by a decree of the Maharajah, and about the same time 8000 souls were released in the backward State of Burma. F Ey x (SOINCIDENT with the struggle in other parts, Sierra Leone has freed over a quarter of a million domestice slaves, has advanced to great prosperity and a modern social regime. while its neighbour, the independent country of Liberia, has steadily receded to abysmal noverty and ignorance The British Fleet still maintains a slaye-trade preventive service, but much remains to be done: before many millions of our fellow creatures are given the individual boon that creatures of the wild possess. = * * N China the "girl adoption" system persists. Some children may find a good home with their masters, but millions suffer cruelty and degradation that makes Christian blood curdle. In India millions live in debt-bondage, in Java many cannot call their lives their own, and in Africa countless poor crea tures suffer the worst possible ill-treat-ment that slavery makes its own. It is computed that to-day more than five millions of men, women, and children are held in bondage. The fight for their freedom never needed so much zeal on the part of abolitionists, The easiest work in this direction has been done, and a much harder task presents itself in eradicating the pernicious and underground systems that have thousands. of years. of social sanction In old world civilisations. — » * e ‘A TALK that will attract the attention ‘of the widest circle of listeners is scheduled to be given by Mr. C,

Stuart Perry on September 2, at 3YA. under the title of ‘Some Famous Open Boat Voyages." Some of the greatest epics in our maritime literature are in relation to passages made in open boats, and probably none were more’ heroic ventures than the Maori voyages to this country. But seamen in distress have added tomes to the romance and lure of the sea, and there’ surges through the memory the vyoyages of Captain Bligh of the Bounty, Shackleton’s passage along the ice-barrier, and the doughty deeds of the shipwrecked

crew who made a boat of twigs and hirds’ skins to escape from one of our lonely island dependencies. * bo * HESBE instances are but a few that have happened in our own waters. but maritime history is full of incidents that make the stories of the voy ages of the "Tilicum" and the "Firecrest" merely light reading. Man’s last invention to rob the deep of its terrors is the medium by which Mr. Perry isto recount his anecdotes, but when a seafaring people can no longer get themselves into difficulties at sea the time will have arrived for the adventurous to recapture the earth, as Mr. Rudyard Kipling has predicted as possible. T is often said that genius is akin to madness, but really tnere are few instances in actual life that support such a contention. If genius had but a single synonym it could rather be versatility. More than 40: years ago there burst upon the artistic world a genius who was later to become as

widely known throughout a distressed world as the most untiring patriot. When President Wilson was formulating his fourteen points, the thirteenth had special reference to Poland, and it is understood that Ignaz Paderewski, through his friendship with Colonel] llouse, was responsible for its text. * * * ANY musicians have been patriots and quite a number of premiers have been musical, but never before had the world’s greatest pianist become & premier. At Versailles, Clemenceau hurled this epigram at Paderewski: "So you were once the world’s greatest pianist, and now you are Premier of a country? My God, what a come-down!" And no man knew better what that sentiment implied than "The Tiger." But at the end of the war Paderewski’s. prestige made him the logical man to represent the infant Polish State at the Peace Conference, and this fact was recognised by the real ruler and leader of Poland- M> shal Pilsudski. * * ’ T the age of three Paderewski saw his native village burned, its inhabitanis slaughtered, and his father taken to prison in retaliation for the latest Polish uprising. That incident always rankled in his mind. Possessed of dramatic flair, the snub he offered to the Czar was unction to his patriotism. The Czar summoned him to the Imperial Palace and expressed gratification that so renowned an artist was a Russian subject; Paderewski bowed, looked his Majesty in the eye, and replied: "Sire, I am a Pole!" * om * N 1891, Paderewski began to capture the world. The present generation has dim but stirring recollections of his flaring hair, the low Byronie collars and the avalanche of flowers after each recital. He was and still is a tumultuous genius, who treats the piano as though it were too small for his conceptions, and tries to stretch it to an orchestra. He has a grandeur which only the greatest artists and conquerors possess in its perfection, and yet he has a simple trust in humanity. Of the prodigious fortune that flowed to him in pre-war years no trace remains. His beloved country and compatriots have taken all.