Wiater scumes in a Village

holding on to its two

with five good leaves

Poems from New China

THE MONEY TREE

Shaking the money tree
strong branches, each branch
shaking it, so that there will

come down golden flowers;
so shall we get food _

(woodcut by Yen Han).

GUIDE TO GOOD READING—1

This is not a ‘nice ‘ story-but
life in slums is never nice

A TRUE STORY, Children of
the Poor, tells of a boy raised in
abject poverty, how his mother
sold herself to feed her three
children and thus acquired an-
other child, and how the boy be-
came a thief and his sister a
prostitute. It is not a “nice”

_ Story. But life in the slums is

never a “nice” story.

This autobiography describes
the childhood of John Alexander
Lee, one of the most popular fig-
ures in the New Zealand labor
movement. Twice, between two
world wars, Children of the Poor
was peddled from door to door,
to prevent his election to parlia-
ment. On both occasions, he
was ‘elected with a record majori-
ty. Later, he became under sec-
‘retary to the premier. ©

In 1940, Lee was expelled from

the Labor party for advocating
that MP’s should themselves elect

teens, was a hardened woman of
the streets, marked for an early
death.

Capitalist society, aint made

him into a ,thief, was incapable
of reforming him, so he was sent
to an institution where young of-
fenders served their apprentice-
ship to become professional crim-
inals.

The fact that John Alexander
Lee became a useful respected
citizen is no tribute to those who
were the rulers of New Zealand
in his childhood. When he final-
ly succeeded in breaking away
from the gutter, he did so de-

spite them, and not because of_

anything they did for him.
x * *

THIS BOOK is an indictment
of capitalism, as true today as
when it was written in 1934. For
every man like Lee who rises
above the gutter into which he

has been thrust by ae
scores are doomed to live aM
die there.

We need more such’ ate to
show working people that pove™
ty, prostitution and thievery,
mention only a few of our soc
evils, are products of the capita)
ist system.

We need more writers who are
good craftsmen, sensitive in
acting to the problems of the Pe
ple and dedicated to the ¢
of labor and progress.

Originally published in si
Children of the Poor was ose
lished in 1949, with the aid of
New Zealand State
Fund. It may be obtained 12
Vancouver at the People’s
operative Bookstore, a
Pender Street, price $24
PHILLIPS.

and clothing; ask

where is this tree?

and the answer will come

“Erom the beginning of all things

it has been: man himself, man

with his hands and fingers.”

* The Money Tree that dropped gold when shaken.

is an old Chinese legend. :

UNDER THE APRICOT TREE

Our troops resting

.under the apricot trees;

and seeing branches heavily laden,
villagers picking the harvest,
then bringing baskets of the fruit
to relieve our thirst;

cabinet ministers by voting on
them. Since then he has been
a propagandist, generally siding
with labor and exerting a wide
influence on public opinion in
New Zealand. :

Children of the Poor relates
the Lees’ story, opening with his
boyhood in the slums of Dune-
din, a city in southern New Zea-
land. There was no father and
the family was in receipt of a
small welfare allowance. The
‘mother did housework to supple-
ment her meagre income and
brought home cast-off clothing
and left-over food for. her child-
ren. :

As a child, the author was. pos-
sessed of a brilliant mind but he
was crushed by, the barrack
room discipline of school, where
sixty to seventy pupils were
crowded into one class. Lack-
ing direction, he drifted from

GUIDE TO GOOD READING—2

New, sound approach to
Knights of Round Table

ing and poetic style to write the
in. Green has no such | luck:
But there is another obie¢
to sticking exclusively to io
for the Arthurian legends)" 4
one of the best things @ one
Green’s work is that he has 8 6
to other and older source
well, ve
Bo * a and
THE REAL King Arthur ven ex
his knights were fighting ig {0
the fifth century, struggling git
hold their part of Britain ag

THE KNIGHTS of the Round
Table are, or ought to be, among ©
the legendary heroes of every
child. They are par§ of our herit-
age and Puffin Story Books has
done a good deal in providing a
new generation with an admir-
able new version.

Like most of those retelling ,
these tales, Roger Lancelyn
Green has based his collection of
stories of King Arthur (obtain-
able here at the People’s Coop-

firmly our comrades said

that they were not thirsty,

telling the kids who brought them
to take them back to their homes;
then did the village people marvel
saying, “This army is different!

for when we were in the hands

>

¥

of Kuomintang troops not a single
apricot would they have left us; the
liberation army has rid’ us of

all the pests; yet when we offer them
our fruit, they refuse it.”

—TIEN CHI

NO BRITISH PRODUCER FOR ‘WAT TYLER’

school to blind alley jobs and to
petty thievery.

At fourteen, he stood condemn-
ed to spend the next seven years
of his life in a reformatory. By
this time, his sister, still in her

a
°

- Britain's leading composer gets
~ world premiere---in Leipzig

MAGNIFICENTLY produced
before a distinguished audience
in Leipzig State Opera House re-
cently, Alan Bush’s opera Wat
Tyler was received with immense
enthusiasm. ~

The composer, who himself
eonducted this world premiere,
was given a half-hour ovation.

It waS a personal triumph for
ene of Britain’s greatest compos-
ers, who has not yet been able to
find a British producer willing to

_ present his new opera.

The work tells the story of the
English peasants’ revolt in the
14th century. Alan Bush person-
ally supervised the preparations
and rehearsals at Leipzig.

This performance, occurring
in the midst of the most success-
_ ful and widely representative
Leipzig World Fair since the war,

took on the character not only of
_ a cultural but of a major social

and diplomatic event.

The packed theatre was crowd-
- ed with representatives of the
> eultural world and many _well-
known personalities.

Representatives were present

: from all other opera houses in
_ the German Democratic Repub-

lic, the German and other mem-

bers of the Commission of Arts,

— all

the Lord Mayor of Leipzig and
visitors from many countries to
the Leipzig Fair, alongside the
music -lovers of Leipzig and en-
thusiastic participants from’ the
factories and trade unions.

. The production, staging the
performance directed by opera
director Heinrich Voigt and con-
ducted by Helmut Seidelmann,
reached an artistic leve] rarely to
be enjoyed in London. .

This. production brought out
all the qualities, the moving
power simplicity and richness of
Alan Bush’s great opera.

Serfdom and the battle against
serfdom, the first great uprising
of the English people, the
treachery of the ruling class, the
bitterness of defeat and the
strength of unity of the people
and the confidence in the futuge
these were conveyed
through music and action. of
abounding beauty and life.

Alan Bush has -held close to
the historical records. The fig-
ures of Wat Tyler himself, of
John Ball, of the young and dis-
solute king and crafty nobles
stood out in memorable scenes.

Above all,. the mass scenes
were magnificently staged.

At the fall of the curtain Bush

received an ovation. Half an hour
after the curtain fell the aud-
ience was still cheering and re-
ealling again and again the
actors, musical director and
above all, Alan Bush.

Alan Bush has already been
approached by three other opera
houses in the German Demo-
cratic Republic, and at least two
other” besides have declared
themselves interested in it.

The. Leipzig Opera House has
requested Alan Bush to place the
world premiere of his next opera
in its hands, and he has promis-
ed this. This premiere is ex-
pected for the spring of 1955.

* ae *

THE EVENT should be a real
encouragement and stimulus to

‘erative Bookstore, 337 West Pen-
der Street, price 60 cents) large-
ly on the most famous version
of them, Sir Thomas Malory
Morte d’Arthur.

Malory, who some believe was
a Lancastrian knight, imprisoned
after the Wars of the Roses, was
a storyteller of genius. His tales
are lovely to read in his high-
flown Frenchified English, and
the very names of Launcelot and
Guinevere, Beaumains and the
Lady Linnet express romance.

Nevertheless as a result of fol-
lowing his version a terrible style
has become accepted for the tell-
ing of these stories, and indeed
for fairy tales generally, which
might be called the Boons for
Damsels, or Nursery Chivalrous,
style. ;

The language was alive when
Malory used it, but now it is
dead.

Green has used it as lightly
and mercifully as he can, but his
difficulty is that there is no liv-
ing tradition of telling these
stories which he might have
adopted instead.

It was a piece of tremendous

- luck for Lady Gregory, when she

retold the great Irish legends
of Finn and Cuchulain 50-years
ago that enough of the stories
were still being told in Irish
cottages to give her a vividly liv-

the progressive artistic move- 2

ment in Britain. It can take pride
in the honor and international
recognition
Bush.

ed with a prize at the Festival of

Britain, cannot be performed in =
Britain and has to receive its =

premiere thanks to the German
Deemperatic Republic?
—R. PALME BUTT.

accorded to Alan =

But it must also sharply put =
the question—how does it come =
about that a work of such a z
leading British composer, crown- =

155 PENDER STREET EAST

ATTY

Admission $3.00 each
Tickets at Pacific Tribune Office, Suite 6 -

the Saxons after the Romans Hie
But by the time the ne
reached 'Malory, ten ¢ceM urate
later, they had become sat rmysti®
with medieval religious at anne
ism and the knights had
into feudal gentlemen. and ti
As a child I always foum™
atmosphere oppressiN i wp
frightening — the Holy Git
indeed a subject for night rail
But mysticism one ;
closes in after the art
the scene of Sir ca i
te make up for it,
brought together. Be
sources some of the VY

‘stories ever told.

For instance, here is
wain and the Green Koh ;
its enchanting account °
tion with that wife of 4 ‘ol
taken from a middle
poem, and at least half @
others worthy to stand

The stories have peen t
illustrated by Lotte Re + WO
what one might take “bey a
cuts, but > apparently - of

“scissor cuts”  snipPe ante
black paper and mo
transparent paper.

It seems a long way ©
then Miss Reiniger Boddi
or of some beau i
films before the ep ne a
are evidently her .

* SHEILA

CELEBRATION 4th ANNIVERSARY
PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF CHINA

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 — 6 p.M.
Bamboo Terrace

vancouver: ®

426 Mai

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — SEPTEMBER 18, 1953