LONDON TOPICS

Dunstan Times, Issue 3518, 20 April 1931, Page 3

LONDON TOPICS

February ‘Ad. Critics ill' wlr.il is con vcuio.ntL culled “ tin' flapper vote " arc ominously justified !iy recent hy-electinns. In the Idast Islington contest less tlnin si) per cent, and in Farehani only just a hare 50 per cent, of the registered voters took the tronhle to poll. This in spite of the gravest economic crisis this I country ever faced, and after the inj tensest electoral campaigning hy all | parties. It follows that either the newly-enfranchised young people take I no interest whatever in parliamentary j government or the general voters are completely disgruntled hy the tactical manoeuvres of the party politicians. The ] tone of everyday comment rather sngI gests the latter explanation for such remarkable public apathy. The country is waiting for “ one clear call ” that carries some conviction of vital real itv. j DAVID AM) I’ll ID. GOLIATH. Obviously Ah' Snowden and Air Lloyd I George are now at daggers drawn, it | is a piquant antagonism for two inti- | mate inends who are close neighbours. Mr Lloyd George sees in .Mr Snowden the stumbling block to his ambitious schemes of curing unemployment by borrowing more millions, and Air Snowden realises that Air Lloyd George is egging on tin' malcontents of the Socialist Party, who refuse to see any need for curtailing social luxury services: in time of national bankruptcy. Yet it was Air Snowden who made overtures for Air Lloyd George’s-, support for the Labour minority .Ministry. At the present moment some Liberals might welcome Air Snowden as leader of their party, and most Socialists of the Left Wing would jump at Air Lloyd George as their Chancellor of the Fxcheqiter. it will he a dramatic duel, and Air Lloyd George is confident he holds the winning hand. There is a good deal of interested speculation, not only in political but in commercial circles, about Air Snowden’s reply to one point raised hy the Chamber of Commerce deputation. Sir Walter Paine bluntly stressed the necessity of a tax for revenue purposes on imported foreign manufactures. He urged that, allowing for such imports as are already taxed, this would either yield, at 10 per cent, ad valorem, £OS. 000.000. or, in so far as it fell short of licit amount,, relieve the unemployment dole hy giving work to our people. Air Snowden’s reply was significant. He smilingly observed that ho must not anticipate his Budget proposals. This statement coincides with renewed lobby rumours of a strong move in the Labour Cabinet in favour of an import tax “ for revenue only.” ” TH F FHOZFN A I. ITT.” The Conservative and Liberal camps have hy no means a monopoly of fratricidal troubles. Mr Baldwin may have Ids newspaper peers and Air Lloyd George his Simons and 1 1 is Runcimans, hut the Socialists are equally unkind to each other. There is even gossip now about a possible severance between the Alos'ey group and orthodox Labour. Air -i. 11. Thomas’s recent scathing attack on Sir Oswald Mosley has given deep‘offence. Lady Cynthia is furious about it. for her, either in the lobby or the House of Commons, Air Thomas appears to have ceased to have corporeal existence. She looks through him at the oak panelling. But somehow shrewd observers never regarded the queer union between the Mosleys and trade unionism as more than a political marriage of convenience. SOVIFT CHAGHLN. I’nhlic opinion will probably compel even the Socialist. Ministry to take some action in the matter of dumped I*ussian timber from the prison camps, evidence is now overwhelming that conditions in those camps are terrible, and that the Soviet’s exports are really slave products of the lash and forced labour. Lut a foreign Office export informs me that tin public entirely mistakes the real situation in the matter of Russian wheat expels. Nobody was more chagrined than the Soviet when, owing to the-bottom dropping out of i In* grain market, those wheat cargoes were sold at slump prices. They hoped to realise top prices towards financing their five Year i’lan, and the wheat exports were stopped the moment Mos•ow realised the truth. I) is no part, of fh(‘ Soviet’s poliey to supply cheap Lv'd to Capitalist communities. fILVNCO ITALIAN FXTFNTFy It- will be a real feather in the cap of the British foreign Office it no snag appear* in the announcement that a naval agreement of sorts has been signed between Paris and Home, franco-Italian naval rivalry in the .Mediterranean wa> the stumbling block in the way of the success: of Mr MacDonald's recent Naval Conference, and at that time it seemed almost hopeless to get I l 'ranee and Italy lo come into line with the genera! naval reduction policy If outstanding troubles have now been smoothed away, and a (Inn ifranco-l Lilian agreement reached, the great credit for such a Fortunate denouement belongs to Air H. I. (Vaigie. of Mr Arthur Henderson’s foreign Office sialf. who has been acting as benevolent intermediary in Paris and Home. Mr Craigie is a quietly persuasive level-headed Scotsman, to whom vveti “ IVrtinax ” pays tribute. 1 UNLUCKY? I Supers! iiious onlookers at the Spanish | constitutional crisis may he impressed by the fact that King Alfonso is the i thirteenth. Though far from the oldj e.,t of fttrope’s dwindling crowned | heads, ho lias worn his diadem years j longer than any of (hem. llis accesI shut dales hack to ISSti. and he is the | solitary royal survivor of Queen V ic- | joria’s era. Less fortunate than the | King ,1)1' Italy, who has a Mussolini as lijs right hand. King Alfonso's deleI galed dictators did not make good, and I he is non involved in tlm recoil ol their I lai 1 utes. lint lie is among the ablest | and mo-.t energetic men in his kingdom, and. ll I he worst happens, has one sav- | ing quaiilieal ion. He drives a last cat' j as well as any ra-.-mg motorist, and is j the only king who has ” stepped on the gas ” round Hrooklamls. I j ( ANADA’S CCVLHNOi; GLM.iiAL, It astonishing how little the newspanel's appear to know about the nev. Governor-General of Canada. When I ho fuel of Hesshorough's appointment was announced there were liny usual paragraphs ahon! him, hut omitting all I the inoM iiiU-rc-ting fact.. To start with, his countess i- a french woman, the firs! ever to go to Ottawa as wife of a < I o', ci me '-Genera I. which should recommend the m-w appoint ment to all (lie i’reii'-h -Canadian eom m n in I \ . Slash,ares. moreover, the earl s special hohhv for theatricals, which should tend

;o brighten up things a good deal in the dominion capital. Hut for the last car! hut one quarrelling with Gladstone on Homc.Hitle, the earldom would now have been a manpiisate. It was promised, and would have been conferred. even if the earl of that day had been content to remain only neutral in the controversy. THf AI'STH ALLAN POLAND. It is curious, bub none the less true, that Australia’s troubles are - keeping down the price of wheat in furopc, and incidentally are making things more difficult for Canadian wheat exporters, fn other words, there are two sides to the loss of value by the Australian pound. If an Australian sells wheat and is paid £IOO for it hy a London buyer, that sum automatically becomes £IOO hy the time it has reached Australia, with the result that the Australian farmer can sell his wheat for less than the Canadian, and yet receive more for it. The pound in Australia is still worth a pound for internal purposes. and prices there have not yet risen to counteract the fall in exchange. f.H. It is now revest led that Air Churchill, itis closest friend, and the’godfather of Ids eldest boy, is organising a fund on behalf of the late far! of Birkenhead's family. That f.f. died leaving only about £5.000 surprises nobody. Money melted in his hand, and by no means selfishly. He was romantically generous to his friends, and could not ignore any appeal upon his purse even front comparative strangers. ' Some amazing incidents could be fold to illustrate that admirable weakness. He regarded money as most people would counters, and lived right up to his means from the first. Already a substantial "sum has been eagerly subscribed by,wealthy people who knew the late Karl, and admired his splendid qualities of head and heart. It is a rather tragic necessity, hut F.K. is not the only famous lawyer-statesman of recent- date to incur it. 1 t ’ FdNGFH PHI NT DHAM A. It is quite, wrong to say, as more than one paper has said, that the late Sir KdWiird Henry invented the finger print system of identifying criminals. He certainly developed and exploited it. For ages finger' prints have been regarded in the Fast and Far Fast as incontrovertible signatures to documents, but till Henry got to work the difficulty, so far as applying the system to criminals’ identification, was that of classification. Many scientists, however, to-day doubt the infallibility of the system, for it is possible to emboss a man's “ prints ’’ on a pair of gloves. Thus A can commit a burglary and leave B's finger prints on the scene of the crime. PANCAKF .MY ST FRY. On Shrove Tuesday an American gourmet dined at a famous West Fuel hotel, and raved about the pancakes. So smitten was he by these delicacies as served at that hotel, be called round a day on two later to seek information from the chef. He was duly allowed to interview that celebrity, and begged to be given the secret of the wonderful pancake recipe. He was assured the whole thing was a mere question of fuel. To be of the right subtlety in flavour, a pancake must he cooked not over gas or coal, but on charcoal. With that he was completely satisfied for the moment. But an actual trial, with the charcoal rite carefully attended to, sadly disappointed Ids fastidious palate. He ventured to press his inquiries further. Then as an after-thought the great chef mentioned that with the charcoal-cooked pancake must go a sauce of orange juice, liqueur brandy, butter, sugar, and curacoa ! HACK THAIN DF LUNF. One London hospital, perhaps piqued by Dublin’s enterprise in the sweep direction, lias devised a novel way of raising money on the occasion of the Grand National. A special train has been chartered to take .’l5O enthusiasts from London to Liverpool and back for the great sporting event. On this train, seats for which have been eagerly snapped up, there will he a display of dress fashions hy stately mannequins who will all he well-known society beaulies. This is only one attraction. There is to be a raffle, held during the train journey, and also conjuring displays by a famous magician, who will pass from carriage to carriage to show Ids tricks. In this ingenious way, without contravening inconvenient laws, it is hoped to raise a considerable sum to help the favoured hospital. ZOI’POT. Until the international sweepstake’s headquarters wore located there, how many people in this country had so much as hoard of Zoppot? This delightful seaside resort on the shores of the tideless Baltic is just inside the Danzig Free State, and is the fashionable ha thing resort of that part ol Fnrope, with conditions far superior to those of the Italian Lido. Wealthy German and Palish families congregate there in the season, and Zoppot’s plage is one of the gayest and brightest anywhere. Sun basking is even more the rage there than in the Mediterranean, and the beach is tilled with Jnnoesque beauties acquiring that deep bronze shade now so -fashionable in Continental society. German and Polish ladies do not practise slimming m> the French and British do and they wear bathing •nstnmes that reveal their mature charms with amazing ('rankness. GOING AM FH 1C AN. I ilo nut know what effect the Ante rican film invasion may he having on our public morals, hut there is no doubt the talkies arc rapidly Americanising our London speech. School teachers arc aghast about it. It amounts to a perfect epidemic, particularly amontLst young people and iti the hunt hler suburbs. .Milkmen and taxi drivers use the talkie ” Oh, yeah ” as a mattei of course now, and apparently quite unconsciously. Small children exclaim Sez you!” and “Some kid!” without any intention ol showing oil' ” I guess” and “Spilled a hihlttl” are commonplaces. How much further the Americanising will go goodness knows, hut. a Cockney accent, complicated ny a nasal Middle West intonation utd Bowery idioms, is enough to make Christopher Columbus turn in Itis grave. I asked a London County Council school inspector what ought to ho done about it. Me replied: “Search me!”