HAROLD MONTAGUE RUSH WORTH

Radio Record, 17 July 1936, Page 6

HAROLD MONTAGUE RUSH WORTH

-Steel and Velvet |

Specially Written for the

6 Radio Record `

by

Clyde

Carr

M.P.

T is as well for me that Captain Rushworth is at present abroad, for he is the most modest of men. In "Who’s Who in New Zealand" his story is compressed into nine and a half lines. His war service is described thus: "Joined Durham Light Infantry for service in South Africa, 1902; served in Great War (7th City of London Regiment); wounded; R.A.F.; wounded over Passchendaele; thirteen weeks prisoner in Germany." Many a book has been written about less. A mutual friend has, with difficulty and some artfulness, extracted further information. His cour: tesy enables me to publish it. But first, the other brief details from "Who’s Who." Member for Bay of Islands since 1928, Rushworth is a farmer at Opua. He was born at Croydon, England, and educated at Rugby and Jesus College, Oxford. A civil engineer and Fellow of the Surveyors’ Institute, he was on the staff of the London County Council. It is now my- duty, to put a little flesh on these bare bones. The Captain himself would not suffer under similar ‘reatment. If one could fix his game leg at the same time, and perhaps extract a little of the iron from his soul, one would have justified one’s existence. But he is still at heart that combination of man of peace and militarist-Imperialist which seems so inconsistent. To begin, then, it is something to have had one’s early education at Rugby, the scene of "Tom Brown’s School Days," one of England’s "great public schools," ever associated with the name of Dr. Arnold. In addition, Rushworth is an Oxford man. We can'all envy him that distinction, the very hall-mark of educational privilege. Nothing can disguise it or take its place. Towards the end of the Boer War he gained a commission in the Northumberland Fusiliers, "the Fighting Fifth," but resigned when hostilities ceased. , ° He then studied law and was called to the bar at the Temple, London, but did not practise. He took up engineering, rising to be chief executive officer over the largest department of that greatest of all local bodies, already referred to, his responsibilities involving a rent roll of several millions a year. After the Great War’ he resumed

his duties with the council, his department, broken up = during the "holocaust, being reconstructed after his return to work. So much for that. It is his exploits in the fighting field and the air that are really breath-taking, Rush-

worth arrived in France ahead of hig regiment, the 7th Middlesex, which he had joined at the time of Lord . Roberts’s defence appeal. He helped first as an engineer on special duty in connection with mobilisation, and in the very early days went into the line in charge of a detail, attached to the Worcester Regiment. Shot through the arm in No Man’s Land whilst obtaining samples of German wire, he soon signed on again, only to receive extremely Jangerous wounds at Loos. On one occasion the company he led was decimated, His intrepidity notwithstanding, eighteen months of surgical operations and patching up notwithstanding, he was pronounced unfit for service. So he may have been, on the ground. But, like "A Sky Pilot of Arnhem Land," in spite of physica] disabilities that would have daunted and damped the courage and confidence of most men, he "wangled his wings." A fighting ace in the Royal Ajr Force, older by years than was usual, he was brought down from the central blue in an engagement against overwhelming odds on the Belgian side of Passchendaele. This was on Angust 18, 1917, the Captain’s being one of six machines ordered out to "clear the sky" of Von Richthofen’s "circus," which had forced down our artillery observation planes. The opponents met over Roulers, six to thirty-one. The "circus" was put out of action and remajned so for nearly three months, but only one British machine won home. The Captain was wounded in three places, crashed in a field near Cortemark, and was discovered by the Germans, badly injured. He was court-martialled nine times, and- moved to seven different prisons before, on the intervention of tht: Dutch Ambassador, he was sent home. Commanded to ap pear at the War Office, he received specis! thanks for valu- | able secret information supplied during his imprisonment. In a fortnight he resumed flying duties at Northolt and volunteered for service in the Bast. Then came the Arristice. To-day he still plays a great game of tennis, using both hands and placing the ball with such adroitness as to compensate very considerably for his lameness. He was always an athelete, a British Rugby player and a member of the Rugby Council; a runner who could make the hundred in 10 2-5 seconds. He plays a good game of cricket, is a chéss player, a voracious reader, and uses a carpenter’s and joiner’s tools like a craftsman. I happen to know that he does not enjoy polities. As the sole representative’ of the Country Party, he has gone alone, though he is generally classed with the Independents. President of the Douglas Social Credit Association he is, of course, 2 leading exponent of monetary reform.' Somé may regard that as. his one inevitable

eranky-ism. But I strongly disagree. His expositions ate marked by complete sanity. I will back him to meet and beat the orthodox Marxian eyen, on, his own ground. Continued on page 51.),

This concludes Mr: Carr’s series of -articles. A book embodying the series in the "Radio Record" --and several new ones-will be published shorily,

-H. M. Rushworth

(Continued from page 8.) To the slave of the old scarcity complex who insists that you cannot give to the poor without expropriating the rich, he wil] illustrate effectively the teeming rea] wealth of goods and. services man’s ingenuity, resourre and industry have won from nature; the 4lmost limitless potentialities, moreover, of the immediate future; hence the urgent possibility and duty of enriching all without loss to any.. This depends, as he insists. upon a money sy3: tem that shall serve industry, distribution and consumption adequately and consistently, as it may and should, instead of being like the benevolent-des-potic parent who alternately spoils and flogs his erring child.