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Zurich Herald, 1942-03-19, Page 6Axis& ripent elites lull. the roti. Mr Carol With ri . itis. '4 Wee VOICE PRESS N() COURAGE IN ESCAPISM "No; escapism at this time is not good enough. Let us by all means keep as long as we can whatever joys are left in life; keep our sense of humor and all of the love and kindliness that should exist in human comrade- ships and within homes and fami- lies; and keep as well our ideas of justice and sportsmanship and fair play, and our inherited in- stincts of compassion . rid mercy and pity. But, holding fast to these things, refusing to abandon ourselves to sombre nightmares of gloom, let us not try to create within or among ourselves a false psychology of escape from this war. Courage, the great need of the hour, cannot be born of that. —Ottawa Journal —0 -- DANGEROUS BB RIFLES A strong campaign is being started against the use of BB rifles in the hands of small boys. In Brantford, still another boy has lost the sight of one eye and many complaints are coming in from all parts of the province. One doctor in Brantford tells of treating three cases of wounding by BB guns in one week. There should be far greater restrictions on the sale of BB guns and am- munition to minors and it is to be hoped the recent shootings in various parts of Ontario will bring such restrictions into being. —Niagara Falls Review. —0— HUTS FROM HOLLAND A shipment of 25,000 hate re- cently arrived on the Russian front from Holland. Each hut could house 25 Nazis and each- but was fitted out comfortably. That is only one indication of the way Hitler is using the oceu- -eied countries to further his cam- paigns. —Windsor Star —0— THE LITTLE DARLINGS One effect of the sugar ration- ing, as reported by a Toronto grocer, is that many customers who previously had only one of :two children slow come ia't and brag about their large families. Trying to kid him! —Ottawa Citizen. —0— .WHY NEWSPAPERS ARE LII ; WOMEN 1. They are thinner than they used to be. 2. There is a bold face type. 3. Back numbers are not in de- mand. 4. They have a great deal of influence. 5. Every man should have one el his own and not chase after his neighbor's. St. Thomas Times-J'ournale —o— INCONSISTENT The odd thing about Mr. Eamon de Valera, Premier of Eire, is that, while he will not allow Brit- ish ships the use of Eire's bases, he is perfectly content to allow British ships to convoy goods from the U. S. to Eire. --Brantford Expositor. —o— IT DOES THE JOB Toxoid treatment does prevent diphtheria. This has been proved to the hilt in scores and hundreds of cities. The moral is clear. No parent should dare to allow any child of his to go without immuni- • i.ation against diphtheria. Edmonton Journal. —0— GREATEST OMELET If there was any point to it, the world's greatest omelet could be made from the 3,311,000,000 eggs which were laid by 368,000,- 000 hens in the United States in the month of January last. —Woodstock Sentinel -Review. —0— WHAT A.R.P. MEANS It still seems in effect that most of the argument about A.R.P. conies down to whether those letters stand for air raid perhaps or air raid probably. —Vancouver Province. —0— AUTOMOBILE PROGRESS 1940—No running beards. 1941—No gear shifts. 1942—No tires. 1943—No cars. —Grit. Huge Food Orders For Great Britain. The British Food Ministry has intimated through the Minister of Agriculture at Ottawa that it will be in the market this year for 10,000 long tons of Canadian beans. This information is being passed along to the bean growing centres. Price quotations are Nought. Canada will be sending a lot of flood over this year, if it all gets there. The campaign of sinking& ie being much intensified and the new risk they suggest is not over- looked. The bacon order is over 600,- 000,000 pounds and the wheat order 175,000,000 bushels, ?Slillians of pounds of cheese, hitter, prepared meats and fruits ,fatter into the food consignment, A 150,000 UPSET Pictured above is an upset for turf history books. It shows The Rhymer, Greentree Stables' "un- known," 15 -to -1- shot, pounding across the line, Jockey Arearo tip, in the seventh running of the $50,000 Widener Cup Race at Miami's Hialeah Park. The favorite, Market Wise, and all the name nags like Mioland, Attention and Challedon, finished 'way back in the field of 17 starters. Best Seller was second and Olympus third. A Weekly Column About This and That in The Canadian Army Once upon a time the cockiest looking soldier you would encoun- ter was the Highlander, character- ized by the swing of his kilt and his glistening white spats. Today kilts are very seldom seen and the palm for cockiness has to he awarded to the Tank Corps man who wears a beret at a cocky angle and walks the streets with an air reminiscent of Kip. ling's cat to whom all places are alike. And all places are alike to him. From the steel -walled turret of his tank he looks at everything he encounters with the unbiased, unembarrassed and unworried look of a man who known he can brush aside any barrier, surmount any obstacle. In the interests of the readers, of this column I made an investi- gation into what makes a "tanker" tick a few days ago. Because I am not as young aa I used to be and, therefore, a mite on the clumsy side I have a few assorted bruises to report that the young, fit, well-trained tank man would not. Perhaps I'd better begin at the beginning. The Commandant of the Train- ing Centre said — his eyes may have been twinkling, I couldn't see because of the shine on his glasses — "we'll have a tank brought round for you to look at." That was all right. But it didn't stop at that. When the tank arrived—all 30 tons of it— a helpful sergeant poked his head out of the driver's hatch and said: "Shall I take the gentlemen for a ride, air?" Bow Bowman of the C.B.C., was the reason for the plural. We looked at each other. We .lookea at the sergeant. There was no mistake about the twinkle in his eye. We climbed in. By the time I had hoisted a middle-aged leg over the rim of the gun turret 1 seemed an awful distance from the ground. A slightly hysterical major, who roared with laughter from start to finish of the ride, advised me to stand on the gunner's stool with my head and shoulders in the open. "You'll ' see more from there." I felt more, too. And every time I looked inside during the quarter of an hour that we careeerd up hill and down dale there was the major, wedged in a corner of the gun turret, cackling horribly at my wild attempts to lessen the force of the buffets delivered by the plunging iron hippopotamus. The tank man, to judge by my reactions, has a sense of power and invincibility as he advances steadily with a disregard for any- thing confronting him that no other soldier feels. Certainly I never felt it in France a quarter of a century ago. Once you have safely clambered out of the tank after your first trip you realize that you have never had such a feeling of safety in any mode of travel before. It didn't seem quite the same when the driver put on speed, hurtled down a steep bank, rolled a few boulders aside, took a ditch in stride, climbed the side slope of a hill, turned in his tracks and charged down it again and headed straight for a tall and very thick - looking tree. After the first tree it was dif- LIFE'S LIKE THAT By Fred Neher • eeiiieateressee eeseoeetvere ,f;,;m.m nr e, ng .114ou,,.v:w..., "Do you mean you're the guy that ordered this bed? 1 1" ferent. You don't dodge any more and you get that feeling that it doesn't matter what stands in your way. Then you have time to realize that your mobile fortress is giv- ing you a degree of safety you didn't know existed. Instead of a copse of saplings such as we ploughed through you imagine a woods full of hostile machine - gunners and you know that their bullets will spatter harmlessly on the steel hull of your tank. You know, too, that the crew of well-trained "tankers" under battle conditions will be spraying the ground ahead of them with shells and machine-gun bullets at a far faster rate than the best fire-power concentrated in any attacks in other wars. It all adds up to a feeling of jauntiness and by the time your first ride conies to an end you feel like tipping your hat to one side a: d "walking with an air." But that jauntiness is an as- sured and sensible one, not a "devil-may-care" attitude. Tanks and the myriad other cross-coun- try vehicles our boys are driving in the individual citizen's army of today are not tuaning them into reckless drivers when they get on to the road in civilian cars. The effect is almost opposite. Once you get back into an auto- mobile you think to yourself, "this thing isn't armoured and un- hurtable like that tank I was just in' --I've got to handle this more carefully!" Yes, they're a cocky lot—these "tankers!" And they have a right to be. They spend their fighting hours in cramped, hot, noisy quar- ters and feel like stretching when they get out. They have an exhilarating job. They charge across country un- daunted by obstacles. They carry the battle to, through and beyond the enemy. That sort of thing calls for light-hearted efficiency—and that same light-hearted efficiency guarantees a cocky bearing and a jaunty stride: But middle-aged' newspapermen, though they catch the enthusiasm wind experience the exhilaration, don't quite manage the jaunty stride when they laboriously climb out—they are too busy feeling for the bruises that the youngster doesn't get. • No wonder the major was slightly hysterical—he knew what we would look like when we climbed down. Air Force Needs Radio Mechanics The Royal Canadian Air Force needs radio mechanics who have had some„university training for work with the radio detector— the secret instrument which de- tects enemy aircraft. Men enlisting for duty as radio detector operators will be requir- ed to sign on for attachment to either the Royal Canadian Navy or the Canadian Ariny. This is a new requirement. Re- gardless of the atta:_hment, to either the navy or army, the per- sonnel will remain members of the air force. Operation of radio detectors is a highly specialized work and a mighty dangerous g.ouncl job. Detector personnel is just as im- portant to the ground forces as air crew is to the flying personnel xor they play an important part in the protection of the land units. THE WAR - WEEK — Commentary on Current Events Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek Urges Full Support From India On Feb. 21 Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, in a message addressed to the Indian people on the eve of his return' to China, called for their "utmost exertion” in :the cause of freedom and asked Britain to grant India "real political power" Immed- iately. The text of the message fol- lows: During my two weeks' stay in India 1 had the ,ppportunity of dis- cussing very frankly with the high- est civil and military authorities as well as with my Indian friends questions concerning joint plans against aggression and the objective of OUT coronion efforts. I was hap- py to find that there was full sym- pathy and general understanding between us. My mission is now drawing to a close. On the eve of my departure I wish to bid farewell to all my friends in India and to thank you for the many kindnesses shower- ed upon Mille. Chiang and myself. The briefness of my stay has, not permitted me to tell the In- dian people all that I wished to say. I avail myself of this oppor- tunity to address to them this farewell message. It is an expres- sion of my high and warm regard and of long cherished hopes for India. It comes from the. depth of my heart. iSiuce my arrival in this country I foma•cl to nay great satisfaction that there exists among the peo- ple of India a unanimous deter- mination to oppose aggression. China and India China and India comprise one- half of the world's population. Their common frontier extends 3,000 kilometers. In the 2,000 years' history of their intercourse, which has been of a purely cultural and commercial character, there has never been any armed conflict. Indeed, nowhere else can one find so long a period of uninterrupted peace between two neighboring countries. This is irrefutable proof that our two peoples are peace -loving by nature. Today they have not only identical interests but also the same destiny. For this reason they are duty bound to side with anti -aggression countries and to -fight ,shoulder to shoulder in order to secure. real peace for the whole world. Moreover, our two peoples have an outstanding virtue in common —namely, the noble spirit of self- sacrifice for the sake of justice and righteousness. It is this tra- ditional spirit which should move them toward self -negation for the salvation of mankind. It arms against aggression and in it is also this spirit which- prompted China to be the first to take up the present war to ally herself un- • hestitatingly with other anti - aggression countries not merely for the purpose of securing her own freedom but also for the pur- pose of seouring justice and free- dom for all. I venture to suggest to my brethren people of India at this most critical moment in the his- tory of civilization that our two peoples should exert themselves to the utmost in the cause of freedom of all mankind, for only in a free world could the Chinese and In- dian peoples Obtain their freedom. Furthermore, should freedom be denied to either China or India, there could be no real international peace. A World Divided The present international situa- tin divides the world into two camps, the aggression camp and the anti -aggression camp. All those who opposed aggression by striv- ing for the freedom of their coun- try and of other countries should join the anti -aggression camp. There is no middle course and there is no time to wait for de- velopments. Now is the crucial moment for the whole future of mankind. The issue before us does not concern the dispute of any one man or country, nor does it coLacern any specific questions now pending be- tween one people and encaner. Any people therefore which joins the anti-ale&ession front may be said to be cooperating, not with any particular country, but with the entire front. This leads us to believe that the Pacific war is the turning point in the history of nationalism. The method, however, by which the peoples of the world could achieve their freedom might be different from what it used to be. The anti -aggression nations now expect that In this new era the people -of India will voluntarily bear their full share of responsi- bility in the present struggle for the survival of a free world, in which India must play her part. The vast majority of world opin- ion is in full sympathy with In- dia's aspirations for freedom. This sympathy is so valuable and so difficult to obtain that it cannot be appraised in terms of money or material and should therefore by all means be retained. The present -struggle Is one be- tween freedom and slavery, be- tween light and darkness, between good and evil, between resistance and aggression. Should the anti - aggression front lose the war, world civilization would suffer a setback for at least 100 years and there would be no end of human suffering. Japan's Record In Asia So far as Asia is concerned, the cruelties committed by the Japa- nese apanese militarists are beyond do- soriptiou. The suffering and op- pression, which. have been the fate of Formosans and Koreane since their subjugation by Japan, should serve as a warning. As regards barbarities com- mitted by the Japanese Army since ocr war of resistance, the fall of Nanking in Decemlber, 1937, is a case in point. Over 200,000 civilians were massacred within one week. For the last five years the civil- ian population of Free China has been subjected almost daily to bombings from the air and bom- bardments by heavy artillery. In every place invaded by Japanese -troops, inen, women and children were either assaulted or killed, The young men and the educated people received their special at- tention with the. result that men of intelligence and ideas have been tortured. Nor is this all. Institutions of culture, objects of historical In- terest .and nterest.and value and even articles necessary for livellh000, such as cooking utensils, plows, tools and domestic animals have been either forcibly taken away or destroyed. In places under Japanese military occupation rape, rapine, incendiar- ism, murder are frequent occur- rences. Moreover, they have with official connivance everywhere opened op- ium dens, gambling houses and houses of ill -fame in order to sap the vitality of the people and destroy their spirit. Such is the disgraceful conduct of the Japa- nese, the like of which is not found in countries invaded by other aggressor nations. What I have just said is but an inadequate desoription of the true state of affairs as reported by Chinese and foreign eyewitnesses. India's Support Urged In these horrible times of sav- agery and brute force, the people of China and their brethren peo- ple of India should for the sake of civilization and human free- dom give their united support to the principles embodied in' the At. lantic Charter and in the joint dec- laration of twenty -sial nations, and ally themselves with the anti - aggression front. I hope they will wholeheartedly join the Allies namely, China, Great Britain, Am- erica and the Soviet Union, and participate in the struggle for the survival of a free world until com- pieta victory is achieved and the duties incident upon them in these troubled times have been fully discharged. Lastly, I sincerely hope and I confidently believe that our Ally Great Britain, without waiting for any demands on the part of. -the people of India, will as speedily as possible give them real political power so that they may be in a position further to develop their spiritual and material strength and thus realize that their participation in the war is not merely aid to the anti -aggression nations fot securing victory but also the turn- ing point in their struggle for India's freedom. From the objec- tive point of view, I am of the opinion this would be the wisest policy which will redound to the credit of. the British Empire. REG'LAR FELLERS—The Tryout -YOU'RE GETfIK . TOO FAT, PUDDINHEAD! YOU BETTER STOP EATING SO MANY *CIL- Are '.5OOA41/ • r. WONDER. IF I IlAVE THE WILL. POWER TO WALK R10HT PAST THE STORE? `IIEL:L DONE, PUDDINHEAD, MY 80Y/ YOU CERTAIN Y DID A FINE JOB 'THAT TIME/ By GENE BYRNES .PAs, (Unto. in ri ht, xcnrmvni