A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
IHAVE received from a friend in Hankow some interest- ing notes bearing on the question, frequently asked, what the alleged Christianity of leading Chinese person- alities amounts to. Of the genuine sincerity of both General Chiang Kai-shek and his wife there is, I am told, no doubt. Not long ago the British Consul-General was asked for a different version of the Old Testament for General Chiang " as he was finding Jeremiah difficult in the particular Chinese version he was at that time daily reading." (Not all of us find him simple in plain English.) Madame Chiang Kai-shek was using Moffatt's trans-, lation. " Several years ago," adds my correspondent, " General Feng YU-hsiang (` the Christian General ') preached in a school chapel here, and we have never lost faith in his deep Christianity since then , . . General Chang Chih-chiang later preached in the same chapel, and he knew his Bible through and through." The Chinese character is curious and complex—as the recent negotia- tions between Generals Chiang Kai-shek and .Chang Hsueh-liang showed—and Christianity may not in all respects find the same expression in China as in the West,. but these notes by an Englishman with long experience of Chinese life. and thought are of undeniable interest— and they., are obviously important as -well as interesting, * * * The Lake District has its organised " Friends," and very -admirable service they are doing it. It is high time the potential friends of Dartmoor got busy about the question • of its preservation ; something, I am glad to see, is being done about the matter, but the projeCt to create a reservoir in the Taw Valley still needs a good deal of fighting. Various aggressive hands have been laid on Dartmoor in the past, as derelict gunpowder works and derelict • peat-works and derelict • mine-shafts attest. The conviet prison at Princetown is a disfigure- ment for miles around ; the Artillery monopolise a wide area .near Okehampton, though not continuously *; the advent of the motor-coach has made places like Widecombe and Dartmeet hideous to those who knew them thirty years ago. But with it all, Dartmoor is one of the few places in England where whoever will can get far from roads and see Nature as it was a couple of thousand years ago. If there is a case for a National Park anywhere it is on Dartmoor,—though those parts of it belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall may, it is to be hoped, be considered safe from the worst kind of desecration anyhow. * * * * The small book by Francis Downman (Richards, 2s.) assailing the B.B.C. for its refusal to permit an adver- tisement of claret in its publications has a rather unex- pected interest. If the latter part of the booklet consists of a rather tedious attack on total abstainers generally, the earlier part, consisting of Mr. Downman's spirited letters to the B.B.C. and• the far-from-spirited replies- of the officials of that organisation, is highly entertaining. The journalistic vigour of Mr. Downman, who describes himself modestly as a vintner, is surprising, till—equally surprising—a case of dual personality stands revealed. For there is, it seems, no Mr. Downman. A memorandum which emerged from the correspondence " is submitted by Ernest Oldmeadow, sole surviving partner in the firm of Francis Dowmnan," and Mr. Oldmeadow, several of whose letters on the Spanish situation The Spectator has published in the last few weeks, was till last year editor of the well-known Roman Catholic weekly The Tablet. He is now Chairman-designate of the Wine Merchants' Union. It was no ordinary vintner, therefore, that the B.B.C. was tackling.
* * * * The article by Mr. H. E. Wortham in the Daily Telegraph on the centenary of Oscar Browning's birth has, as might be expected, let loose a flood of anecdotes about the figure round whom more than others in living memory Cambridge legend erystallised. But I challenge Mr. Wortham's rendering of J. K. Stephen's famous verse. As I have alwayS heard them the lines ran : 0.B., Oh be obedient To Nature's stern decrees, For though you be but one 0.0.
You May be too obeSe. • I agree that the last words may be rendered two 0.B.'s " ; they were meant to be spoken, not read. Mr. W. M. Crook recalls his own exploit in securing the O.B.'s resignation from the Presidency of the University Liberal Club. The process of extruding him in due course from the Treasurership of the Union was equally noteworthy, but it was eased by the presentation to him of his portrait by the father of his one-time pupil and subsequent colleague at King's, Lowes Dickinson. My own chief memories of him are his discourse on the Bottisham eels we were consuming at one of his well- known Sunday luncheons, and the spectacle of the massive figure tricycling up to the bathing-sheds to hurl itself with mighty displacement into the Cam. -- * * * * Does Mr. Thurtle's question whether the 'Archbishop of Canterbury's broadcast on King Edward's abdication was " submitted to the B.B.C. authorities for approval " mean that the Labour Party is in favour of a B.R,C. censorship ? Presumably it does, though the member for Shoreditch may be merely stating his individual view, or relieving his individual feelings. The suggestion that the chief officer of the national Church should have his address scrutinised, and, according to whim, objected to, by Sir John Reith or anyone else, is mani- festly preposterous. It is open to any man, woman or child to disagree with what the Archbishop said ; but if we tolerated nothing but what we agreed with, Mr. Thurtle himself might have to turn Trappist.
* * * * In this column last I referred to the British official wireless service and mentioned that the news it radiates is sent out in English. That is correct, but I ought to have added that the messages are in MOrse ; it is. no use therefore for 'Britiili hearers to try and listen-in to- theni'.' They 'are picked Up by different official and other' ageneiei 'Ottiatt'deended and translated and tributed thrOUgh vtiribni channels. JAxUs.
Previous page
