LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 19775, 27 January 1928, Page 8

LONDON TOPICS

IS SANITY DAWNING ? [From Our Correspondent.] December 8. The failure of M. Litvinotf and Sir Austen Chamberlain to effect a rapprochement at their Geneva meeting was certainly not due to any lack of goodwill on either side. Moscow is desperately anxious to resume full commercial relations, Russia’s economic problem being one that grows steadily more haggard. But the Soviet, in its capacity as the Russian Government, is perpetually stimied by the Third International, with which Communist G.H.Q. it is hopelessly involved. Thus Moscow may undertake to abstain from anti-British propaganda in the Far East and the East End, but cannot control its federated Communist allies’ activities, just now most inopportunely engaged on manufacturing Red films for Indian cinema fans as well as in training at Tashkent College its revolutionary missionaries. This Jekyll-and-Hyde duality is the stumbling block to all overtures. But things seem to bo improving at Moscow. There arc signs of a dawning sanity. The Bolshevist upheaval, like all movements in autocratic Russia, was a one-man affair. Lenin’s genius inspired and his personality sustained it. Now another superman, Joseph Stalin, begins to loom. He is grasping the reins of one-man control. His secret, like Lenin’s, is a genius of organising administration. He lifts ousted'Trotsky and all the old Red oligarchs, and may be fated to play the Mussolini to Russia. Stalin’s influence is against the foreign intrigues of the Red Internationalists, favors more, religious and economic toleration, and represents Russian as against exotic Semitic tendencies. If lie attains real supremacy, he may bo strong enough to suppress those baleful activities which rendered the Geneva talk inevitably fruitless. AN ENCOUNTER. Quite unobtrusively a piquant little encounter has taken place between Mr Lloyd George and Mr Neville Chamberlain. The latter, whose rare administrative gifts perhaps somewhat obscure for the average onlooker his real political flair, publicly commented on Mr Lloyd George’s statement, in the course of a London interview with a distinguished Continental journalist, that he is hoping at the next General Election for a Liberal-Socialist majority at Westminster. “L.G.” has, after some delay, repudiated that statement, not quite categorically, however, but with a significant comment on the inconvenience of having private conversations treated as public property. Mr Neville Chamberlain today welcomes the disavowal, and rather wickedly adds that it must have removed a load of anxiety from the minds “both of Liberals and Socialists.” One can only observe, without doubting “ L.G.’s” memory, that most political seers are inclined to predict precisely what he was misrepresented as hoping for. ANOTHER NEWS I? APE R. Another newspaper has made its appearance in London. It is to be published fortnightly under the title of the ‘New Zealand News,’ and, as this title implies, it will draw its main circulation from New Zealanders resident in or visiting Great Britain, It is designed to give a sunimary of the cabled and mailed news from the dominion, and to express, quite independently of any party, the New Zealand point of a ictr upon affairs of the moment. Twice before has London had its New Zealand newspaper, but few people realise that the first publication was so long ago as 1840. In that year the ‘ New Zealand Journal ’ made its appearance from an office in the Strand two days after the treaty of Waitangi was signed, and months before the news of that event, which settled the question whether the land of the Maoris should become a British colony, was known in England. Like the ‘ New Zealand Nows,’ this journal was a fortnightly, twelve-page issue, with, news on the front page. The price was (id, and it lasted lor twelve years. All the other dominions, and some of the Crown colonies as well, now have their London newspapers. MR A MERY AND THE GHOST. Mr Sherlock Holmes was -wont, like other more normal citizens, to sneer at Scotland Yard’s disguises. Quite apart from the astute and alert criminal, the ordinary man in the street usually has little trouble in locating a detective, however camouflaged, both by his boots and his walk. But Mr Amcry’s disguise, in the little fantasy he has just perpetrated, recounting an ocean traveller’s interview in the ship’s smokeroom with Ulysses in a blue reefer suit, is even flimsier. Though the writer carefully tells us he is 6ft—instead of about sft 4in—and describes himself as a university professor, ho appends the initials “ L.5.A.,” and,_ moreover, reveals throughout the “ interview ” the unmistakable personality of our Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. 2 But 1 like his Ulysses, and his reminiscence of the Congo fighting, when “ the white officers alone had rations, the troops living on the bodies left after the fight!” Pretty grim that, but, unless somebody has been pulling Mr Amcry’s leg, a true story. P. AND 0. VICE-CHAIRMAN. At one time the Hon. Alexander Shaw, who has become the now vicechairman of the P. and 0. Company, seemed likely to make a considerable figure in political life. He reached the House of Commons early—at the age of thirty-two—after a brilliant academic career at Oxford, where he was president of the union, and a. promising beginning at the English Bar. fake his father, Lord Shaw of Dunfermline, lie was keenly interested in politics, and, though he did not often speak in the House, he had a quietly caustic humor, as well as administrative abilities, which would have carried him far. But the Jong and irregular hours of Parliament did not suit Ins rather uncertain health, and ho turned his at-

tention to the city, where, if the hours are arduous, they are short and more or less fixed. Being the son-in-law of Lord Inchcape made his election to the directorate of various shipping companies comparatively easy, but that he has made good use of his chances is indicated by the fact that a year or two ago he became a director of the Bank of England. THE YANGTSE PIRATES. The attack by Chinese pirates on the British steamer Siangtau and the capture of her captain will come as another particularly nasty shock to foreigners in China. Heretofore piracy—which is common enough—has been practised almost exclusively upon sea-going vessels, and no serious cases have occurred on the Yangtse. The spot where the Siangtau was attacked is on the middle stretch of the river, where, fortunately, only the smaller passenger steamers ply. Such an attack, however, once having been canned out, is almost certain to be copied by similar gangs, who will realise that the larger vessels that frequent the lower river offer much greater reward in loot. The British, Japanese, and Chinese steamers which traverse the 600 miles of the Lower Yangtse between Shanghai and Hankow are passenger boats of a luxurious type. Unfortunately, they are even less protected against pirates than are the coasting boats that have so often suffered from the scourge. The present season is also particularly dangerous, as the Yangtse is almost as liable to fog in winter as is the Thames. Naturally, in such circumstances, all steamers have to come to anchor, and an attack upon them offers little risk to any band of desperadoes that think to make the attempt. LABORATORY LOGIC. One can imagine Sir Oliver Lodge being very interesting on the subject of the experiment now in process at the Sherwood colliery, and conducted under the supervision of a distinguished medical committee, members of which periodically study its working and effects. At a cost of £I,OOO, an up-to-date clinic has been established at this progressive pit, capable of dealing, fifteen at a time, with the forty men per shift. Ultra-violet vapor lamps constitute the treatmtnt, and the medical world is watching with special interest the application to underground workers of this latest scientific cure. This treatment of workers employed on digging pre-historic bottled sunshine out of the earth, and paying the penalty thereof, by the use of bottled sunshine in its most up-to-date scientific form is a sort of parallel, as it were, with the case of the wounded soldier, suffering from the explosion of a picric acid shell, whose injured limbs are painted with the same powerful corrosive. OX PARADE. Lieutenant Webster’s record-break-ing seaplane, in which he won the Schneider Cup so gallantly at Venice, is not attracting huge crowds to the Morse Guards’ Parade. But all day Jong there is a keenly-interested and hero-worshipping throng round the exhibit, which is under an open marquee. and illuminated by a big lamp. What strikes (he average layman about the machine is its fragile tininess. it seems almost incredible that so small a machine could develop such terrific speed, and safely carry even a, single human being through the air at round about 300 miles per hour. An export, who was explaining the points of the ’plane to me declared that, in all human probability the seaplane of fifty years hence, or even less, will be as grotesque an advance on Lieutenant Webster’s .little bus as the latest King George railway engine on Stephenson’s Rocket. J, heard one serious criticism made on the Air Ministry’s exhibition. An exquisitely up-to-date flapper said emphatically that Lieutenant Webster would have been “much, more interesting” than his machine. G.T.C. JUBILEE. In celebration of the attainment of its jubilee, the Cyclists’ Touring Club is to hold a public dinner towards the end of next month, and the guests will include Lord Birkenhead, Lord Besborough. Sir John Foster Fraser, Sir Henry Maybury, and Mr Ramsay MacDonald. All of them have been keen cyclists. Sir John Foster Eraser once made a tour round the world on wheels. Mr MacDonald prefers walking, hut is conscious of the advantages of the wheel reaching quickly the spot where his walk begins. The general impression that the motor has killed cycling is mistaken. More pedal cycles are being used to-day than ever before. ft is probably true, however, that it. has become more of a convenience than a means of recreation and exercise. It has been a great boon to rural workers by increasing their mobility. The C.T.C. estimates the number’of cyclists at well over six millions in this country alone. AN AMAZING DOCUMENT. The names of the League of Nations investigators into the “white slave traffic inspired misgivings, and their report, based on the obiter dicta of the lowest dregs of cosmopolitan slums, lacks all vraisemblance. They seem to haVe swallowed with avidity all the melodramatic balderdash glibly whispered by a notorious class ot incorrigible liars, and to have approached their inquiry with tho naive simplicity that accepts the threadbare “ clergyman’s daughter ” legend. Expert testimony is that this disreputable traffic, of which some hysterical feminists make so much, is an insignificant affair in the world’s life, and confined to a tew South American estamincts. The “victims” are invariably hardened sinners. 'The fascinating kid glove villain, who lures innocent girls to “ white slavery” as a commercial proposition, is a mvth. What traffic of this sort docs exist is mainly carried on by women. If anv doubt existed as to the reliability'' of this precious report, which the League of Nations will presumably accept with perfect trust, its London references should clinch the matter. “ London,” it states, “ like other great cities, is faced with the problem of prostitution, and in some of the streets, especially of the Most End, their presence cau ho readily observed.” To anyone who knows Piccadil ly_ audits environs that is simply comic. '1 he place is packed with them. Probably there are more now than ten years ago, the only difference being that, instead of being mostly foreigners, they arc mainly English, an average ot several years younger, perambnlatory instead of stationary, and frequent night clubs instead of public houses. The League’s report is on a par with the evidence of the London magistrate who told the Street Offences Committee that there was “no bribery!” THE PRINCE'S PRIZE.

Climsland Fearnought, the winning shorthorn belonging to the Prince of Wales at the Smithfield_ Show, takes its name from a parish in the Duchy of Cornwall, very near the Devon border, where His Royal Highness keeps much of his bloodstock, both horses and cattle. The Prince visits the place from time to time, and the living is in his gift. The present rector is the Rev. Martin Andrews, whom the Prince met in France during the war and brought home from Khartum, where the padre was assistant to Bishop Gwynne. He is a parson after the royal patron’s heart, seeing that he enlisted in Australia, was a, sergeant-major at Gallipoli, and finished as corps chaplain in France. Climsland has helped to stock the Prince’s ranch in Canada in the past. CULTURED SPONGES. Experts in sponges acknowledge that the finest come from the Mediterranean, those from the western shore of Florida rank second, and Cuba, which is distinguished by one type only, ranks third. The largest sponge dianks are, however, situated in the Bahamas, cover 500 square miles, and the quality ol these sponges is making them much sought after to-day. I understand that

experiments are being made in the Bahamas with the cultured sponge, as against the natural growth, with much success. The chief research work is being undertaken on the Acklins Bight, which has been specially set aside by the Government for this purpose. The process of culture consists in cutting a .sponge under water into peicos one inch square and stitching them to a wire protruding from a cement disc. The disc is affixed to the sponge bank, and growth thus takes place. An expert tells me that it is not known how sponges are propagated. They are the lowest form of animal growth. When gathered they die on exposure to the open air, are dried, and the outside jelly-like covering is removed. LONDON'S BATTLE. Despite hysterical protests by all sorts of sentimentalists the City Corporation lias declared war on our London pigeons. And a regular battle has started. Assurances have been given that the slaughter will be as painless as possible, but stern questions of public policy compel the massacre. Perhaps the sentimentalists have themselves pronounced the doom of these birds. Since the war the habit has become exceedingly popular of feeding the city pigeons. Enterprising individuals attend, with hags of pigeon food, at the Bank and St. Paul’s, and children purchase this provender in order to attract swarms of birds, who perch oven on their shoulders and feed merrily with a bewildering fluttering of grey wings. This hobby has caused the city birds to multiply and grow fat exceedingly, and now they have become more than a mere nuisance. They work much harm to buildings, and cost the city a, considerable sum. So the City Fathers gave the signal—thumbs down! . THE WILY HARE. Now that the coursing season has been running lor a month, it is possible to form some opinion of the effect on greyhounds of the new racing. It is safe to say that a, lew greyhounds—especially the Irish stock—have returned to the cha.se of the live hare with renewed enthusiasm, greater speed, and no loss of cunning; hut the vast majority of dogs have not. The majority have needed half a dozen courses at least before they seem to remember that a real hare is not going to run straight, and that to make a, “ pick up ” it is necessary to anticipate each twist and turn. Over and over again racing greyhounds, when run against local talent, hare won the couple of points awarded for the “run up ” and have not earned one of the points awarded for turning or picking up. “Them racing dogs are fools,” is the general verdict of the coursing fraterm tv. z