LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 19274, 12 June 1926, Page 10

LONDON TOPICS

THREAT A LA MOSCOW[From Ouk CoiuiKsroxnENT.] May 6. Wo are at this moment in the grip of the biggest trouble the Old Country has been up against since August 1914. Whether efforts to settle the coal dispute have been badly bungled or postponed to an unnecessarily fevered eleventh hour now hardly is worth discussiifg. East week-end the negotiations reached a complete breakdown, and at once the trade union lenders, without consulting their members or any suggestion of a ballot, declared a general strike. Midnight on Monday was zero hour, exactly twenty-four hours after the minors knocked off work, and a paralysis of railway and general transport ensued. The Government ignored this throat to the general community by three million organised workers in order to keep the coal negotiations going. But in the midst of a last effort to effect some compromise between coal owners and minors, verne came to Downing Street .hat tic machine hands had refused to pr.nt the ‘Daily Mail,’ because they disapproved of its leading .article. On that attempt to suppress the liberty of the Press the Cabinet determined to demand the withdrawal of the general threat menace. And thus the worst industrial crisis wo ever faced was at once precipitated. REVOLUTIONARY THREAT.

There is no doubt that behind the trouble lurks a revolutionary threat. The extremists, who have patiently captured the Trade Union Executive control, have prepared for this emergency for months, and may he years. It has been brooding ever since the war. Labor leaders like Ramsay MacDonald and J. 11. Thomas and “Undo” Arthur Henderson, whom the firebrands used as lignrelicads, evidently felt the danger. They made a big effort during the hours just before the general hold-up started to get a settlement of the coal trouble. Conciliatory speeches in Parliament seemed to promise peace. And negotiations were actually resumed. But the last ray of hope was extinguished promptly. The extremists outside the House of Commons overruled the moderate parliamentarians, just as Mr Herbert Smith, the miners’ figurehead, was stiffened up when he looked like consenting to some wage reduction while the bankrupt coal industry is being reorganised by the Communistic Mr Cook, the miners’ general secretary.. And now it looks very like a grim fight to a finish. LONDON SCENES. To gauge the temper of the mischiefmakers ir may be mentioned that, apart from the ‘ Daily Mail ’ episode, the mechanical staff of most London newspapers insisted on censoring the editorial articles. Three Sunday newspapers had to stop printing and take out a notice about the voluntary emergency service movement, of which Lord Jellicoo is one of the heads. And when, on the shutting down of all the London newspapers, the Government took over the 8.8. C., and arranged for periodical official news bulletins, the Engineers’ Union declared the intention to jam- that wireless service by wholesale oscillation. These facts give the clue to the true inwardness of the present trouble. London. presents a sinister appearance to-day. Hyde Park, just now blooming in all its summer beauty, is closed. The usual throng of society fashionables has vanished. Thousands of motor lorries tiro parked down Rotten Row as the emergency milk distributing centre for London, and Hie park is strongly (patrolled by Guards in steel hats and lull battle order. All Array and Navy leave is stopped, battalions from the South are being moved North, the tanks rumble over country roads, and naval ships are centred on the Mersey and the Clyde. STEADY CONFIDENCE.

It may bo that moderate counsels will prevail. The extremists are a small handful of men relatively, even out of the minority composed of the trade unions concerned, and the popular resentment against tills effort to dragoon the whole nation is intense. Volunteers are joining up at the recruiting stations in a way reminiscent of 1914, There is nob tho faintest doubt or question that, be the struggle long and grim, as may be, tho Government will emerge top dog, as it must and ought. Once the first paralysis of the stoppage of all public utility services is overcome, however slowly at first, things will swing round favorably to the Government. The first few days will be the worst, and once those are weathered, as they are already being, the fight for democratic government as Opposed to a Soviet dictatorship on the Moscow model will be won. To-day an extraordinary congestion of motor traffic fills the London streefs. A taxi look an hour coming from Westminster to Blackfriars Bridge. All the huge food supplies, with no trains running, were thrown upon the roads. But trains will be running to-morrow to some extent. The pressure on the nation’s throat will steadily lighten, and presently will come tho day of reckoning for the conspirators. A Cabinet Minister told mo to-day that, come what may, the Government, which meant to see the business right through, would introduce laws making another such attempt against the community impossible. GUARDS’ MEMORIAL.

The completion of the Guards’ War Memorial, which is being erected at tho western side of the Horse Guarrls’ Parade, has been much delayed by the difficulty of getting the required blocks of Portland stone. So many huge buildings arc being constructed in London that demands on the quarries have taxed thoir output capacity to such an extent that a good deal of now work is more or less hold up. It was expected that the memorial would be ready for unveiling by tbo King, as colonel-in-chief of the Brigade of Guards, on the occasion of trooping the colors, but the ceremony cannot now take place until tho late autumn. Some •‘5,000 cubic feet of Portland stone have been worked into the base, some of the blocks weighing as much ns 51 tons, and about six courses of stone have been laid above it. Work on the Kitchener Memorial, which has a site on the southern end of tho square, barking on the gardens of Downing street, has been similarly delayed. YOUTH VERSUS AGE.

We are constantly being told that the younger generation are a very decent lot compared with their predecessors. In the same breath we are assured that it is different elsewhere. I wonder! A friend who has recently returned from a tour in Australia and New Zealand found the same antagonistic feeling existing between the generations under the Southern Cross. One old Australia “grizzly” with whom ho came in contact assured him that there is a. great gulf fixed between the generations in their feelings towards life and their duties towards their country The younger generation seemed only to care for money and what money will buy—enjoyment generally motor cars, dresses, and presents, and especially the monetary value of those articles. I suppose that it is natural for people to think that they have a monopoly of the world’s trouble on the spot. The younger generation before the war were accused of decadence. When put to the proof they gave the lie to that canard. “FIVE BOB” FLIGHTS. Five shilling aeroplane flights should he a possibility during the summer if a scheme for which three young flying

men are responsible is carried through. They are each contributing £I,OOO to the partnership fund, and are buying tliree-seater aeroplanes. They then intend to visit seaside resorts, and take up passengers for very short joy-rides at 5 S a time. One of them has already had some experience of this kind of passenger-flying, and on the figures he has provided the three young adventurers expect to make a profit of £6O a week each. They intend to work twelve hours a day, and to fly whenever the weather is at all possible and they can persuade people to pay their couple of half-crowns. They argue that the general public no longer regards flying as a perilous adventure only for the heroic, and is anxious to try the sensation personally. SHIPS AS FURNITURE. An interesting problem for psychologists is presented by the lact that small models of old-time sailing ships arc now freely used as decorations of house interiors. Why the “ Beggars of the Sea -as Fronde rails them—should suddenly coma into their own again it is difficult to suggest, unless it be, that, an ago so dogged with sordid considerations'of £s. d. needs another touch of romance,. Exquisite examples of the carver’s art - , reinforced by technical knowledge, may now be scon in any furnishing establishment that provides for the etceteras of internal adornment. Is the world becoming young again? For no child will object- Steam and oil notwithstanding, the glamor of oar and sail remains, and both are enshrined in painted galloons and galleys, built on a tiny scale for the purpose. It is at least a pleasant thing to record. PIT-HEAD BATHS. Though their leaders express cordiai welcome of Sir Herbert Samuel’s recommendation for pit-head baths, there may be some difference of opinion about this provision among the minors themselves. .1 remember decidedly strong criticisms when a project of the same kind was mooted before the war in Parliament. And the experience of wellmeaning Army enthusiasts, who ran improvised batlis near the western front lines during the war, suggested that the Englishman’s traditional partiality for a tub does not extend to all sections of the proletariat. It was amazing how many, even of vermin-ridden battalions, positively hated bathing as a sort of physical ordeal. Usually these profestants, who sometimes had to bo forcibly bathed under the eyes of the R.S.M., came from crowded industrial urban centres in the North. They were, even so, a minority, but, they were a clamant one. .Most battalions, particularly the county ones of the South, revelled in baths, and the best available near the line wore those of French minors in the Givenchy neighborhood. A LIVE WIRE. 'The nine-year-old Marquis of Townshend, who lias been so closely guarded on his magnificent estate, Raynham Hall, near Fakcnham, Norfolk, against any barm that might befall him m consequence of the anonymous letters received by his mother threatening to kidnap him, is now in London. lie is still being guarded, and, although ho will be ten years old this month, there is no likelihood of his being sent to school yet. The boy is well known as. a boxing prodigy, but it is not known that lie is also an expert motor car driver. At Raynham bo is the plague of the chauffeurs’ lives. Every new type of car that drives up to the Hall the marquis surreptitiously creeps into, when no one is looking, and starts it off down the drive. It is his proud boast that ho ran drive any make of car, even a Ford. A SIMPLE PROBLEM. It is .a curious coincidence that, just at this rather haggard national emergency, Mr John Souler’s Academy picture, ‘ The Breakdown,’ should bo causing so much fuss. The London critics persist in calling it a “ problem ” picture, but surely never was there so simple a riddle. It shows a nigger in evening dress, sealed on a broken statue, saxopluming to a lady, absolutely nude anti closely shingled, who jazzes in front of him. Obviously it is the artist’s indictment of our hectic, feverish, post-war life, with reckless abandonment of old-fashioned conventions now dubbed “ Victorian,” and its passionate devotion to syncopated negroid music. It hardly needed tho title—- ‘ The Breakdown ’ —or the close resemblance of the fallen statue to Britannia, to explain the meaning of this gloomy prophecy in paint. VILLAGE CRAFTSMANSHIP. Students _of arts and crafts in general, and disciples of tho William .Morris school in particular, have long lamented the ago of machinery and the passing of the old-fashioned craftsmanship of our British villages. Thoir pessimism would lighten a little if they were to visit a, certain district in H. 0. Wells’s county—Essex. Thanks mainly to the enthusiasm of the people at tho Old Vicarage, Newport, one good old British industry is lifting its head again. There is a continuous output of genuine pewter products, not by machines, but by village craftsmen'. They are faithfully reproducing the lienntifiil old designs, and have to thoir credit tho steady revival of an ancient craft,_ as well as the satisfaction of realising that they are doing their hit towards counteracting the depressing increase of ugly things. In one small corner of Essex the"quest of beauty in craftsmanship is being pursued with most encouraging results. INSPIRATION AIDS. Once upon a. time, lieforo the typewriter had become the almost universal ally of the author that it is today, 1 watched Hilaire Belloc in awe and admiration as he typed a brilliant journalistic tour-de-force straight on to the machine. Ho had been unable to deliver bis “copy” to time, so in the office of his stricken editor ho snt himself clown to put tho matter right. I remember marvelling bow ho could overcome the irk of the rattling mechanical medium to produce sur 1c champ an article that, soared into literature. To-day most journalists and an increasing number of authors have mastered tho art of tho direct method in a greater or lesser degree. 1- fancy that Lord Dunsany enjoys a unique distinction in the matter of inspirational aids. All his mystic fantasies are written in his own hand, and not with the fountain pen that is the next-best solution of tho anti-typewriter scribe’s problem. Lord Dunsany quests his Celtic magic with a quill. THE UNKINDEST CUT. There are two distinguished old warriors in West End Service Chibs to-day who are thirsting for the blood of'tho editor of their favorite newspaper. These tin veterans are Admirals. G.B’s, M.V.O's. and great golfers. Also they, arc, as is the way with old naval men, if possible even greater sticklers for etiquette and “ the right thing ” than the Brigade of Guards. Last week-end they played a match against the Royal Wimbledon for that famous combination known as The Jokers. The match was dully reported in the columns of ‘The Times,’ and the two gallant admirals figure therein, not as admirals, hut as aldermen.