He’s Springboard

Heinrich Rudolph

He’s Springboard Diving at 85

THE only two men I know of, who knew the Southwest __, p^9ific m th e halcyon days of King Edward VII, of England, and Queen Emma, of New Guinea, and who still are actively in circulation, are Mr. Joseph Mitchell, the General Manager of the great Burns Philp organisation, and Mr Heinrich Rudolph Wahlen, who had made his fortune as a trader in German New Guinea before the turn of the century.

Mr. Mitchell is well-known in Sydney and the South Seas, as a BP empire-biulder; but how many people are aware that Mr. Wahlen is still alive in Hamburg, and maintaining a very lively interest in world affairs?

“I am approaching the age of 85’;, says Mr. Wahlen, in a letter written in Hamburg on June 26.

“This is quite a high age, people say—but why should I not get to 100 years?

“In the last fortnight we have had wonderful weather here in Ham burg, and I have been swim ming every day, diving from that high springboard. I feel fit in every way, and the doctors say my organism is in absolute order, and

the pressure of blood Is like that Of a young man.

If the Australian Government is perhaps meeting that I shall soon fhpm” 1 disappoint them (See reference last issue to the claim of the Waria Syndicate compensation in respect of New

“I look upon the political scene, and I can only say I am sick of it”, proceeds the veteran New Guinea-ite. “Everyone talks —and nothing happens.

“What great fools the people were to start that war in 1914! If that war had not occurred, Great Britain and Germany to-day would be keeping the world in order, and there would be a chance for the happiness of everyone”.

Most veterans, who have seen the effects of August 4, 1914, will agree with Heinrich Rudolph Wahlen.

The pre-1914 world was a world really worth living in.—RWR.