Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 30, 1968, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free january 1968 Sun finally sets on British Empire a foreign news exclusive by Patrick Odonovan London special owns historians do not like precise dates for the Start of great and imprecise but last 16 will do better than any other Day As closing Day for the British of course the tiling had been dwindling and changing Ever since the second world but the announcement of no British military presence East of Suez of Hong Kong As an infinitely though trading Post this is the final slamming of a great and the throwing away of the at least on the there is Little to show for there Are the great solemn the missionary out posts of thread Needle t h e whitewashed stones around the gaunt government the innumerable statues of no other not even w As so there Are deserted and flys pecked Hunting there Are Bare Gar Rison that will never again shake to the hymnal Roar of a Church there Are policemen in nonmilitary uniforms and judges in wigs under which even the darkest face svy eats like a baked and there Arete great armies of the unmarked shovelled into the ground and forgotten on marches dead of a skirmish or a stray Bullet or Cut Down All together while standing in a Square or of and the ceaseless attrition of unsuitable climates resolutely its great monuments Are there is Lutyens Delhi if your taste inns to thai sort of crazed magnify there Are the 18th Century Hou ses and churches of there Are some decent houses that out for England in the lift Ian there Are Archi ruins of the penal settlements in there or were some Good but the roman left More Evi Dence of its but ours was a strange for Imper with its own built in political it carried from the seeds its own inevitable death within its haphazard Start in its beginning and development it was Hap Haz it was born of Pride and and of a missionary Zeal that could be political or or it in of heroic self sacrifice and of a personal honesty that was almost offensive in its no no ministry planned but the color red spread Over the map of the world like a Lichen with a life of its in no Way in any time it could be scraped Back or it All at hated admired and at the years of its most spectacular it was Strong and destructive drink to the but what was its begin Ning and where do you Start with the Conquest of of Ireland with lie Rich territories held in France with the curious accretions that came with dynastic Tangier for example first perhaps the colonies that Are now the United states were the real As a Start that was muddled and costly and in its end an act of history As fecund As the French Revo it came out of the Energy of a generation for whom these islands were too out of a longing for Quick and easy out of a willingness to Dice and out of a poetic image of a country thai could be made into the equal of but the in seemed to catch England the very idea of an Empire in the Early 19thcentury repugnant to the As late As 1877 there was solid opposition to the passing of Benjamin israelis Royal titles Bill that made the British Queen Empress of an Empire was essentially i matter for russians or but the idea of Empire was first and later out of that bottomless feeling of superiority that used to be the Mark of an it was different from the French Conception of the glory of his or from the German sense of what was owed or from that Brief american aberration of Manifest Des it was simply the feeling that god had so made the English that they were uniquely fitted to Rule because they had something unique to and that All their history since the reformation was Evi Dence of executions follow conviction rallies9 by David Oancia peking the in a dramatic display of the Power of proletarian dictatorship sought to assure the Popula Tion generally that the state has the authority and the Force needed to halt a wave of bloody Black Market ransacking of Homes and other crimes including the reappearance of pros Titu Public conviction broadcast on television on the eve of the three Day Spring festival festivities have been held in peking and these resulted in the immediate execution of four persons and other sentences ranging from death with a stay of execution to Long prison terms for 22 other for the first time since the cultural revolution a s launched almost two years ago it has been made unmistakably Clear that political crimes can Lead to heavy in the extensive publicity campaigns associated with these conviction officials disclosed that Vio Lent involving dissidents regular troops have occurred in peking itself and in a suburban commune and Coal display of Force peking has been bristling with soldiers carrying Bay one mounted rifles and automatic weapons for Al most two this Dis play of Force involving Pat Rols on virtually every main thoroughfare in the capital has no precedent in recent it was against this som Bre background that this cites people began the celebrations that once were the occasion for the annual family feast ing and now the reunions and associated events this year Are officially students at higher institutes have been told there will be no Winter Holiday and that permission for Home visits will be granted Only in cases where there is a family emerged the strictures on travel during the festival for workers is equally despite appeals to avoid Rush buying of key commodities and festival candies and other Long lineups formed outside food markets and other in Many of these lineups stood All of whom a share to build up the family one violent clash erupted last thursday at the huge peking Central railway which was jammed with people who somehow had managed to get travel permits for the a group of workers and staff from the peking knit Ting Mills had gone to the station to propagate Mao tse tunes thoughts and maintain revolutionary they complained that As they were doing they were attacked by about 29 men from the subway engineering Bureau who professed to be checking passengers tickets and were searching and Black mailing people and beating up passengers fireworks tossed when troops began to interrogate the people from the subway Engineer ing Bureau sent out for their own fire works were tossed into the station concourse from the second floor As about 100 persons armed with picks and shovels broke into the there was a struggle Over army weapons but none seems to have been stolen or in the ensuing Melee 49 of the 50 knitting Mill workers were 19 of them being seriously More serious was fact that 32 soldiers were also beaten and one was sent to Hospital with severe the peking in re porting the described it As teaching by negative those who have fallen victim to factionalism draw a deep lesson from the Case and awaken promptly it asked in an when the great proletarian cultural revolution has won a Ive a handful of renegades and spies mingle in our the handful of diehard capitalist readers in the communist party and the ghosts and monsters in society Are not reconciled to their the second and equally serious incident occurred at the men Soukou site of one of the country important Coal the peking Garrison and the peking committee have issued a joint order calling for the wiping out of enemies creating instigators in this area manipulated a group called the red Flag commune to Start fights in which Many persons were said to have been wounded or this group has been accused of precipitating a blood Bath at the local setting up private courts and taking captives from buses and Little space has been Given in the peking press to the operations of what can be called the Ordinary Shanghai news reported two sweeps by a group called the army of ten thousand against profiteers and other the newspaper said that those carrying out the sorties fought not Only profiteers who bought and sold a whole Range of goods including Iron and building farm and Industrial food Coal and they also found land under ground daggers and other weapons in the fluid society of people who live on River they discovered As Well people trafficking in human beings and private Prostic an illicit Trade systematically eradicated in the years following the communist Victory in copyright 1968 the Globe and mail fort Garry Trust feels you rate a so we give you a rate on guaranteed investment certificates 5 year term 1 to 4 year terms interest paid every six months or May be compounded half yearly and paid at you rate High with fort Garry Trust port Garry Trust the interested people company head office 200 Nanton 203 Portage 6ravch offices North Winnipeg 600 Selkirk Avenue at James 1861 Portage Avenue at fort Garry 1181 Pembina member Canada Deposit insurance corporation deposits insured up to Lor each person 4029 sneers at Che alleged by Ruben Salazar Havana group of pro soviet cuban com arrested recently for ant revolutionary acts against were guilty of making disparaging remarks about Ernesto Che Guevara and siding with Russia during the missile i 1 Raul Castro charged in a report to the cuban communist p a r t y s Central j armed forces chief Castro made it Clear that j communists opposed to armed i struggle in latin America and j in a favor of russian moderate j policies Are considered traitors j by the cuban j younger brother of Premier Fidel said a j yearlong investigation showed i that Anibal old time cuban and a of anti cuban i revolutionaries met frequently to criticize Fidel castros hand Ling of the this group was said Raul of discussing grow ing ant soviet sentiment in Cuba and of saying that the departure from Cuba of guv the Argenti Neborn revolutionary who became a member of Fidel castros Cabinet but j later disappeared mysteriously amid rumours that he had had a falling out with Premier was healthy for the the importance of the arrest of Escalante and his followers is that it Means that Fidel Castro intends to pursue his Hartline policy of creating in latin America j and ignore russian Call for i in outlining the sins come melted against the cuban Revo Lution by those Raul Castro told the committee that the counterrevolution Aires Felt j that thanks to the sane policy of the soviet Union in removing the missiles from cuban soil and the letter from Khrushchev to Kennedy not Only was a War avoided but Cuba was saved from an imperialist the classical statement of this attitude was made in 1850 by the British foreign lord Over the Case of Don a British subject who got the British govern ment to help collect his debts in lord Palmerston enunciated a sort of divine right of the English to England he in a five hour speech to the House of was the natural guardian of and Liberty was England could not remain an Island in a sea of she must assert her ideas and impose peace and the world must be made Safe for englishmen this his opponents described As the Peculiar weakness of the English at that the country was enjoying a fantastic increase in Many radicals and businessmen were not interested or indeed actively opposed the move towards More Money could be made by investing in the United states than in some undeveloped n e w however fabulous its Distant a conservative ministry taking Over India from the East India com Pany in did it without and considered they were assuming a heavy rather than a lucrative it was in the who made the English begin to think and feel he liked the Romance of and at a time when our naval and Indus trial supremacy was being he believed that to be a great Power England had to act like if the use of England instead of Britain causes i have done so because this was the almost Universal habit of these exhilaration with the increasing acceptance of the idea came an almost Universal exp Lara How marvellous that so Small a country should Rule so much it did not alter the condition of the poor in British it rough soldiering for their and dignified employment and real Power for the and very often an Early death for and driving it on was this missionary Zeal to spread the word of the late Jawaharlal Nehru writ ing in 1936 of the British in mentioned their Calm Assurance of always being in the and said there was something of the religious temper about this these men believed also that the supreme duty of the new subjects was obedience to the of it was not As simple As the classical Way towards colonial status was via charter these were Given by parliament the right to Trade with certain make then own arrangements with local and were for Bidden to involve the government in major policy but As Well As making these Mer chant adventurers also enjoyed the process of govern to British governments they seemed a convenient and cheap Way of increasing and there were such companies in places like East Africa and West and even in but somehow they and the religious missionaries crying out for Security and a free hand with souls established the principle that British subjects Landing on territories that had not been bagged by other White pledged Britain to extending the and when the companies As in and when the cries of a distressed company were backed up by the indignation of Christian missionaries As in often and even sometimes against its declared the government of the Day took Over the new the phrase White mans Bur Den had some meaning in those Clear but there was no Clear take the Case of the labor government last week decided no longer to offer its but in 1819 sir Stamford on his own obtained this unripe Plum for the he was a servant of the East India he was also a most gentle and civilized without any Trace of racial arrogance in his dealings with he was governor of Java during its British occupation in the course of a War with he thought the Island of Singapore would make an Ideal entrepot for it was almost and he did a Deal with local his com Pany was furious and Houn ded him to death their squalid it became the fifth largest port in the and the Symbol of British domination in South it also became a Magnet to the and a curious amalgam of the stately Commerce of England and the symbiotic trading of the Hong Kong had More disgraceful it was acquired from the chinese in wars made at the Behest of Anglo Indian merchants who wanted to Trade with and one of the chief commodities they had to sell was the Island was used by a few Fisher pirates and it was taken As a reprisal for the treat ment of English merchants in the factory at Canton in it became English in perpetuity a year later by the treaty of protect route Arabia became except for Syria British As the fragments of the ottoman Empire was tidily scraped one reason for in the Prezil and Pren Tiona list was to protect the route to colonies beget the Neces sity of a Safe route to India begat Singapore and Aden and most of it also begat the strange dual control Over Egypt though there were other pressing commercial reasons which begat the Sudan which begat or helped to the dream that came True of an Allred route from the Cape of Good Hope to for Many years after the second world i did a great Deal of Colony they varied a great Deal and yet All had the superficial appearance of there was Little of the Imperial panache of the French or even the the food for Visi tors was the ultimate de basement of English cuisine to cold beetroot potato fruit Gin and they were run with considerable Gover nors appeared in tight White with spurs and a and a helmet topped with preposterous Cocks and they were treated like guns exploded into salutes at their rigid soldiers bands flags went up and Down at the ritual and the sound of bugles Hung on the evening much of this still goes on with the ritual adapted to what is left of local Bare bungalows there the admirable of s i e is it Vesej were Youngish men who 9rsfri vast slices of territory and took their wives out to live in great Bare they strongly administered a jus Tice that was largely in comprehensible to their like fathers worried by the excesses of their they both loved and disciplined and were on their Side against All the officials who did not understand and they devoted themselves to Sani to Road building and to curbing the excesses of native there was often a Good Deal of understandable Pink i think As a officials i admired More than any other i have the called Box Wallah by the More conservative and condemned to Wear Dif Ferent evening were less All this tumult of enter and exploitation and ideals and death what has it left behind that matters railways and a a hunger for Educa an Ideal that Justice should be a dissatisfaction upon which new and better could be the apparatus of a civil service and a Hospital service though Only in a skeletal and very often a grudging respect that can into the brotherly affection of people who have shared an important flags Down it has also left terrible and self doubts of people who were in the Tutelage Remote masters for too it has left the conviction that they have been robbed of their riches and it tips left a deep hatred for the attitude devalues their it has left a c u in g among tie humiliated by of Weir it has left a grievance that can Flower into hatred and which will accept almost any ideology that care Fec timely express that now almost All the flags Are not Many people in Britain today mourn the is they came Down because of humiliations like the fall of Singapore in and by economic they were helped Down by by the Patent impossibility of resisting National most of they were brought Down because having destroyed their conservative their1 taught Tifesi people unconsciously the political and social weapons that made death of the Empire As inevitable As the ebbing of the a new weekly ;