LONDON LETTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 225, 23 September 1929, Page 17

LONDON LETTER.

END OF THE JAMBOREE. SCOUTS AND PEACE. INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, August 15. The 50,000 Boy Scouts who left : Arrovve Park on Tuesday, singing lustily, are now touring England, the New Zealand boys among them. But quite a number have already converged on that hub of the tuiiverse, Trafalgar Square, and this writer saw squads of French; Scouts, piloted by priests in long, black, soutanes. They seemed to find little difficulty in our well-regulated traffic and crossed the top of Whitehall with much less tremor than I would have faced, say the Place de la Concorde. Having made the Chief Scout happy by presenting him with a pair of braces . . . ana a motor car, the 50,000 Scouts are dispersed to the ends of the earth. And the big idea which the 1929 jamboree has brought to birth is the need for world peace. Lord "8.-P.." as we must now call him, declared it in these words: "Let us change the whole world from the idea of war to the-idea of peace. It's no' good trying to alter the old. They have been brought up to think in one way, and they will always think in the same way. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Leave the old and concentrate on the young, and you can change the whole character of a nation. We alone have the universal ear of the young, let us set about teaching them that the highest virtues are friendliness and good will. And there will be no more war." Statesmen's Utterances. In this so-called empty London we read of what the great world is doing in Scotland and abroad. The Dominions are fast becoming a holiday resort for statesmen —Canada, anyhow, which scores by its nearness, has one Cabinet and two ex-Cabinet Ministers to tell it all about Britain and its affairs. Mr. Churchill can, of course, be relied upon to go off at the deep end about Russia, and he has been declaring his emphatic opposition to res nation of relations with her. Moreover, he branded as absurd the suggestion that the redistribution of the Atlantic Meet would have unfortunate .'reactions on the naval negotiations between Great Britain and the United States. Personals. Mr. Amery, as an Imperial crusader, must be costing Lord, Beaverbrook some sleep o'- nights, ■ for he has been telling Canadian pressmen that while he was anxious to" promote inter-Imperial trade in every possible way and unwilling to criticise Lord Beaverbrook's campaign, he felt that free trade within the Empire, though a desirable ideal, was quite impracticable, because Great Britain could not tax wheat to give Canada preference and Canada might find it inconvenient to reduce taxation on British products. Each commodity must be considered.on its own, merits,.but through subsidy 6r decreased freight rates there might be arranged a preference for the Canadian producer which woulunot raise the cost of living in Great Britain. He emphasised the value of the work of the Empire Marketing Board and declared that Ly expanding and perfecting the line of policy which it was sponsoring, it should be possible for the British Empire to build up a sufficiency which would be entirely adequate. He also discussed briefly the emigration problem and repudiated the notion that Great Britain was trying to dump her unemployed on the Dominions. He expressed guarded misgivings about the British Government's Egyptian policy.

Nearer home, only across the North Sea, Mrs. Snowden intervenes. She has been confiding at The Hague to a French journalist of the Paris "Journal," what a Yorkshireman is like. "Those who suspect: the Chancellor of the, Exchequer of bluffing do not know their man. He is a man who, so long as 1 have known him, has fought for what he believes to be the truth, without thought of what the cost to himself might be," he said. Mre. Snowden reveal* ed the fact, too, that , following her husband'e outspoken speech" on reparations in the House of Co.amone, he received thousands of letters of approval from people of all parties. "I know this/' she said, "because as my husband was busy at the time I had to answer them myself. You have asked me for my View on the meane of unravelling the present difficulties. My answer is: Give Britain the knowledge that she is no longer being unjustly treated, that her demands are being taken into account, and that certain things are due to her." German Professor for Paris. While noting that the present Government is bringing into the Reparations discussion a note of realism, it is pleasing to have to record a new step towards international co-operation, and that between France and Germany, to wit, that a Dusseldorf architect has been appointed- to the Chair of Architecture and Town Planning at the Sorbonne. Such an action is a graceful compliment from France to Germany; it is also a welcome reminder of the proper character, or the university, for a university is essentially an international Jnstitution. The term "nation," too, still used as a classification. in Scottish universities, is a survival from, the days when the word denoted groups of fellowcountrymen pursuing their studies in medieval universities. We are being reminded that such more friendly intercourse was not' unknown during' other wars, that Sir Humphry Davy received a prize.from the Institute jf France, for his discoveries when we were at war with Napoleon. Moreover, in the earlier war with France French admirals were instructed .to give any help they could Cook if they-.ime across him in, distant seas. For- complete and absolute ostracism of each other our Great War has been in fact exceptional. Now that we ar once more to have German Rhode's Scholars and. a German professor at the Sorbonne, international amity is really afoot.

PERSONAL ROTES. Mr. F. Milner, headmaster of the Waitaki High School, Oamaru, as is well known, last year initiated a scheme by which a limited number of boys educated, in public and secondary schools could be received at Waitaki for an agricultural course of at least one-year before becoming farm pupils. Twelve boys sailed last' December under this scheme. On August 16, five more boys sailed, on the Tamaroa, representing Felsted, Framlingham, St. Paul's, Highgate, and ' St. Marylebone Grammar Schools. It is expected that from 12 to 15 others" will "follow them ne*xt "Decem-

ber. The school fees for boarding and tuition are £05 per annum; and the headmaster undertakes to place the boys, after training, with suitable farmers, to keep in touch with them, and to report regularly on their progress and prospects.

. Dr. Sydney H. Swift, of Auckland, who arrived in London on July 15, has since been travelling in Ireland, mostly around Killarney, but later intends touring on the Continent before returning to° London for the purpose of postgraduate study.

Mr. W. L. F. Fetch, of Te Kuiti, is at present staying at Walmer, Kent, having been travelling since March last. He travelled via Sydney to Durban, and then went on to Nyasaland, where he visited his son, Captain E. H. M. Fetch, before coming on to Southampton via Mombasa, Suez, Marseilles, Tangier and Lisbon, spending some time at each port en route. While in England he will visit old friends and relations. He will tour England also —not taking any of the usual arranged tours —before returning to the Dominion via Africa. .

Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Carpenter, of Auckland, came back to London for the garden party at Buckingham Palace, They were visiting in Sussex for Goodwood week and then went to Scotland for August. They return to New Zealand in October.