LOOKING BACK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 72, 27 March 1937, Page 13

LOOKING BACK.

NOTABLE EVENTS. N.Z. CRICKET TEAM'S TOUR. NEXT WEEK'S ANNIVERSARIES

(By M. P. WHATMAN.)

With so much attention focused on the New Zealand cricket team's departure for England and so much speculation regarding its possible performances, it is interesting to recall that it will be ten years on Monday since the departure from New Zealand of the Dominion's first team to tour in England. This 1927 team, with T. C. Lowry as its captain, had a satisfactory record, pl'iying 38 matches of which 20 were drawn 13 won and five lost. The team's successes included wins over Sussex, Worcestershire, Civil Service, Glamorpan. Somerset, Derbyshire and Norfolk, while among the important teams with which they drew were Essex, Oxford University, Leicestershire, Scotland, \ orkshire, Nottinghamshire, Surrey, Gloucestershire, Lancashire and Wales.

The most successful batsmen on the tour were C. S. Dempster, who scored 2165 runs with an average of 54.12; R. V. Blunt, 2063, 51.57; J. E. Mills, 1629, 39.73; T. C. Lowry, 1503, 38.65; C. C. Dacre, 1572, 36.55; M. L. Page, 1370, 31.00. Of the bowlers, W. E. Mirritt, a last-minute selection, took 169 wickets at an average cost of 10.54 runs. Blunt took 94 wickets with an average 24.53; H. M. McGirr, 69 wickets, with an average of 23.96; M. Henderson, 47 -wickets, with an average of 23.95, and Page, 39 wickets, with an average of 19.46. b Page, now making bis third tour of England, this time as captain, and Lowry, manager of the present team, are the only survivors of the 1927 tour to make the same trip ten years later. A Royal Birthday. Wednesday will he the birthday of His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, who will then be thirty-seven years old. Since the accession to the throne of his elder brother, King George VI., the Duke of Gloucester has been more and more in the public eye, as he has assumed the responsibilities which, if there were one, would fall to the Prince of Wales. The Duke of Gloucester, who paid a visit to Australia and New Zealand two years ago, is the third son of the late King and Queen. At an early age he decided on a military career and passed from Eton to Sandhurst. In the Army his promotion, in accordance with his father's wish, was gained by ordinary hard work without special privileges. The result was that in his youth the Duke did not appear in public to the same extent as Ids two elder brothers. The Duke of Gloucester is an excellent horseman and was the first of the late King's sons to win a point-to-point race. He is also an excellent polo player, being regarded as very close to international standard. By his marriage last year to Lady Alice Scott, daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch, the Duke of Gloucester became the third member of King George V.'s family to marry a commoner, the other two being Princess Mary and the present King. Deficit of £36,500,000. Great Britain was shocked on April 1, 1027, when. Mr. Winston Churchill announced that the Exhequer showed & deficit of £36,000,000. Explaining this apparently disastrous position to the Commons, Mr. Churchill laid stress on the effects of the general strike of the previous year and the coal dispute, estimating the decrease of revenue at .€17,500,000 and the Increased expenditure at £14,500,000, a total loss to the Exchequer of £32,000,000.

This was, he mid, the overwhelming cause which had involved the nation in so great » deficit upon the finances of 1926. There was, moreover, the further loss of' £18,000,000 in 1927 and one.of £9,000,000 in the following year to be anticipated, while he reckoned the trading locs of £160,000,000. Despite these losses, the country'* economic vitality and financial strength were not yet impaired'; its resiliency and resources, though stricken, were incomparably greater than anyone would have dared to predict a year earlier. , The total estimated expenditure of 1927, said the Chancellor, became £818,390,000, and he claimed that the increase* made by the Government had been paid for by the economies which they had effected. Alter stating that the Government had decided that during that financial year the Ministry of Transport and the Department of Mines and Overseas Trade were to be absorbed, Mr. Churchill said that the total revenue on the existing basis would be £796,850,000, a deficit of £21,640,000, though the country was actually confronted with an appreciably larger deficit. Great Airship Lost. One of the greatest tragedies of the air was the loss of the United States' Navy airship Akron, which dived to the bottom of the sea with her crew of seventy-four officers and men on April 3, 1933. The Akron, which was the largest airship in the world, was 785 ft long and was fitted with a hangar containing five aeroplanes, which could take off and return to her in mid-air. At her trials the Akron was found to be poorly constructed and unsafe but she entered service after a successful maiden flight, in which she carried 113 passengers 125 miles. On the evening of her destruction she left Lakehurst, New Jersey, on a cruise. Shortly after her departure she was caught by a thunder storm and suffered such damage from the wind that her loss became inevitable. Her crew were ordered to prepare for the end and maintained •. perfect discipline to the last. Her structure gave way and she fell from a height of 1600 ft into the sea. On the ipipact with. the water her gas cells were demolished and she went straight to the bottom. One «f the Akron's officers was saved, and his evidence made it clear that she was too weak to resist the force of the storm, which was not one of exceptional severity. The Akron's loss was thus due to the same cause as that of the British R 101 in 1930, and the United States' Shenandoah in 1925.