RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 69, 15 December 1931, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current ‘ Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.)’ Experts are claiming that money is going further than It did. Perhaps that Is the reason why It stays away so long. » » • According to a criminologist prison concerts were quite unknown a few years ago. In those days they considered that the lot of a prisoner was hard enough as it was. It has been suggested that the unemployment problem could be alleviated by men being organised for apple picking in the coming season. After all it must be remembered that Eve actually solved the unemployment problem just like that. » • » A feature that attracted much attention at the Wadestown flower show, we are told, was the blooms of a blue poppy. Presumably horticulturists were the,people whose attention those popples attracted. Most of us are quite content to grow red popples, yellow poppies, and the other colours that popples favour. Almost anything blue, on the other , hand, attracts the attention of experts just because most plants show a distinct antipathy to the colour. It does not matter whether blue is a pretty colour. What does matter is that the lucky person who can produce a blue rose will find himself Inundated with orders. We already have a blue pea, but it is scentless. Not content with that, hnceaslng efforts are being made to give us a true blue sweet pea. For some reason the dahlia also thwarts all efforts to make it produce a blue flower. As yet we have no blue chrysanthemums. Gardening experts went wild with ecstasy In 1927 when a member of a firm of famous horticulturists produced what fashion experts would call an off-blue rose. It is the same with carnations; there are no blue carnations —thank goodness.

Some Idea how anxious some people are «to force a plant to produce flowers .of a colour it does not like may be*had from the t fact that £l5OO was promised by an enthusiast for six seeds from a yellow-.sweet pea. For reasons best known to itself, the sweet pea cannot be made \to turn yellow. It will be seen, therefore, that apart from the blue craze, growers of flowers have other dreams. One'-, day they hope to give us a black carnation, a pipless currant, and, let us hope, a gooseberry that does not require topping and tailing. Another impossibility, made desirable for no other reason, seems to be a scarlet flower with a sweet scent. For 300 years the Dutch nation tried to do the Impossible with their tulips, but to this day a trae black tulip seems to be os elusive as ever.

It is only too true that the decision to suspend work on the 73,000-ton Cunarder will cause distress In trades outside that of shipbuilding Itself. Few people realise how many trades are involved In building a huge liner. Some idea may be had from the requirements of say a 50,000-ton liner. It Is almost true to say that there is hardly a trade in Britain not connected In one way or another with a decision to build such a ship. A vessel of that size gives employment in the yard alone for three years. The men employed vary from 500 to 3000, depending upon the stage reached in the construction. Something like £1,500,000 goes directly in wages. An equal sum goes in other markets. Steel foundries are given contracts for 20,000 tons of steel. This Involves the hewing of 80,000 tons of coaL It takes 400 men eight months on full time to supply this coal. Probably engine makers will be the hardest hit Industry in connection with the suspension of work on the giant Cunarder. The engines and boilers are fitted In sections. The job takes almost as long as the building of the vessel. Boiler-makers and engineers engaged on the job usually look forward to three years’ employment even in vessels considerably smaller than the 73,000-ton Cunarder. Makers of ballast pumps, motor generators, and the usual auxiliary engines receive rich orders. So much for the “solid” work. A new liner, however, always means a boom in plumbing. Bricklayers and masons receive large orders for tiling and marble work. This and the plumbing costs may run away with over £20,000. Carpet manufacturers receive orders for at least five miles of carpets. Timber merchants prepare for large contracts for panelling. Paint manufacturers and painters divide another £20,000 for the expensive paints and work required for decorating a crack liner. Plasterers find as much work as may be obtained in 12 five-roomed houses. Electrical interests incidentally will sadly miss the type of contract that demands at least 5000 electric bulbs, and over 100 miles of wiring.

Lord Derby’s decision to sell his town house does not come as a surprise. Not long ago he drastically revised his racing menage. Indeed at that time he said that owing to heavy taxation the time might be coming, “if it has not already come” when it would be necessary to sell his country home where his ancestors have' lived for centuries. Taxation is making others think the same. Within the present year there has been talk of closing Glamis Castle: Lord Lascelles has sold his town house; and Minster Abbey, the oldest home in England, never unoccupied since the year 1200, is now empty. The reasons are death duties, taxation, and increased costs. When the Earl of Richmond and Gordon recently succeeded to his father’s vast estates at Goodwood, he was forced not only to sell his trees but to ask the Government to allow him to pay his death duties in land. Incidentally Lord Derby himself has been forced to sell 5000 acres of his Lancashire property. Ills heirs will probably have to sell more. In many cases these vast estates were given in those far off days when the King gave land for services rendered. Now the heirs are asking that the land so given may be returned for taxes rendered. So the pendulum swings: so the old order changes giving place—to what? » » * For the villager’s gossip (half fact, half Invention) Seems much more important ant! worthy attention; And all matters of State seem but trifling affairs To the life that goes on in the smallest of squares. —“MacFleckuoe” in-the “New;