A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 198, 19 May 1936, Page 7

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Marchese Marconi The Marchese Marconi is reported to have acted as chairman of the committee which approved the decrees relating to Italy’s annexation of' Abyssinia. Guglielmo Marconi, with whose name ; I lie invention of wireless is so closely connected, is 62 years old. His mother mis an Irishwoman, and he was born at Bologna, Italy. He was educated at Leghorn and then at Bologna University. His wireless system of telegraphy was first tested in England, and in 1899 he established wireless communication between England and France across the English Channel. He was the first also to transmit wireless signals across the Atlantic. He was decorated by the King of Italy and the Tsar of Russia. In 1909 he received the Nobel Prize for Physics. He was resident for many years in England, and his first wife was an Irish womanIpswich. Ipswich, near where a colliery disaster has taken place, is in Suffolk. It stands where the Gipping becomes the Orwell, 69 miles from London. It is a centre for engineering works, and agricultural implements and railway wagons are made. There are also tobacco, clothing and boot factories. The docks cover about 30 acres and ships ■go from there mainly to London. The original name of Ipswich was Gipeswic. It was a town at the time of Domesday, and its burgesses received many privileges from the kings. A prosperous port in the Middle Ages and later, it was in the fifteen century a centre of the wool trade. A cemetery of the period 450-600 A.D. was discovered there in 1906, and from it were taken necklaces and drinking cups now in the British Museum. China and Japan. Japan’s actions in North China are said to be undermining Chinese economic and financial strength and threatening to prevent the projected currency reform, in connection with which Sir Frederick Leith-Ross is at present in China. As the result of the United States policy of buying silver, China, in October, 1934, was faced with a heavy drain of her silver stocks. An export duty was thereupon placed on silver by the Chinese Government, In 1935 the Government took measures to secure control over the principal Chinese banks, to co-ordinate their activities and to encourage a better understanding with foreign banks, in whose hands had mainly lain the responsibility for controlling exchange operations. Suggestions were made for a foreign loan. The British Government before consenting to the proposal suggested the necessity for certain currency reforms and sent out Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, its chief economic adviser, to investigate. France, the United States and Japan were invited by the British Foreign Office to co-operate, but declined. Sir Frederick left England in August, had an audience with the Emperor of Japan, and arrived in China on September 21. He found Japan not in sympathy with a loan to China. Political events in China last November caused the Government to abandon the silver standard by rendering bank notes inconvertible and by the imposition of a tax making the export of silver unprofitable. Sir Frederick has urged the creation of a sound central banking system and the balancing of the Budget within a welldefined period. The scheme hag been denounced by Japanese military spokesmen. Normandy. The Pope has removed from office the Archbishop of Rouen, who is Primate of Normandy. Normandy, an old province of France, and once the largest, takes its name from the Normans or Northmen. It lies along the English Channel. Its capital is Rouen, while Caen and Bayeux are interesting Norman towns. For many years the Channel Islands belonged to the duchy, and it was owing to this connection that they became English. After having been included in the Roman and the Frankish empires, Normandy was ravaged by the Danes or Northmen, who found an easy way for their boats along the Seine. Some of them settled along its banks, and in 912 King Charles the Simple made a treaty with their leader Rollo, to whom he gave some land around Rouen. Thus Rollo founded the Duchy of Normandy. William the Conqueror was Duke of Normandy, and when he died in 108” he left Normandy to his eldest son Robert, thus separating it from England. Henry I reunited the two countries, but Henry 111 surrendered Normandy to the French king in 1259, but that act merely gave effect to its loss in the reign of King John in 1204. During the Hundred Years’ War Normandy was a battleground for the French and English armies. Rouen. Rouen stands on the Seine, 87 miles by railway north-west of Paris. The chief industry is the spinning, preparation and dyeing of cotton. Many improvements of Rouen’s shipping facilities were made during the Great War, when it was an Important British base. It ranks to-day as the second port in France in volume of shipping. The population is about 130,000. Its magnificent cathedral dates from the thirteenth century. The heart of Richard Coeur de Lion is buried in the cathedral. The bishopric dates from about 260. Rouen became the capital of Normandy in 912. The English burnt Joan of Arc in the market place in 1431. The Prussians entered the city in 1870. Abingdon Street. It is proposed to erect a statue in memory of King George V on a site in Abingdon Street, London. This street consists of one long terrace of “shabby Georgian houses” partly facing the north front of the Houses of Parliament and partly overlooking the Victoria Tower Gardens, and “is a magnificent specimen of real English ugliness. It is the only surviving relic of unsightly property in this immediate neighbourhood, and its appearance suggests the dustman sitting on the doorstep of the nobleman’s mansion.” It is largely inhabited by members of Parliament on account of its convenient situation opposite the Houses of Parliament. It. has been suggested that, a modern block of flats erected on “this magnificent site” would probably l>e capable of providing single-room accommodation for all tile members of the House of Commons.