The pleasant informality which is the heritage of all R.A.F. Messes the world over was again very much in evidence at the weekly tiffin of the Royal Air Force Association of Shanghai yesterday, when Mr. W. J. Keswick, the Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council, and Mr. Godfrey Phillips, the secretary, were the crucial guests of honour.
Mr. V. J. B. Holland, acting President in the absence of Sir Victor Sassoon, made the speech of welcome and expressed on behalf of the Association a sincere appreciation of the excellent work done by the Chairman and the men of the Council. In a pleasantly-worded eulogy he typified Mr. Keswick as an example of all that is finest in the British character.
"On my way to the office this morning," he said, "I was reading the works of a Greek scholar who wrote, some 2,000 years ago, that the main qualifications of a leader were scme-thing like this: He must be continent, sober, frugal, middle-aged. eloquent, a father of a family, and a member of an illustrious house." We are not suggesting for one moment," he continue: that Mr. Keswick became a father merely to qualify as Chairman."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.