LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 22783, 4 May 1931, Page 9

LONDON TOPICS

[From Our Correspondent.] March 19. Nothing has been decided yet as to the composition of the British delegation to the Imperial Economic Conference, to be held in Ottawa, probably in August. It will no doubt include Mr J. H. Thomas and Mr William Graham, who will have the assistance of a large team of technical advisers. Even more important, however, will bo the instructions with which they are provided. It is believed that these will include the acceptance of a wheat quota, as some compensation for the refusal of any form of tariff. Ministers recognise that it will be useless for them to cross the Atlantic unless they have some constructive proposals to make, and some of them will refuse to go if they are expected to take up a merely _non-possumus attitude. More sincerely than anybody the Prime Minister prays for the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s speedy recovery. If Mr Snowden cannot resume active duty before the final planning of the Budget either Mr Graham or Mr Thomas must deputise for him. Since even an understudy must have some voice in affairs, and Mr Graham is as firm a Freetrader as Mr Thomas is a fervent revenue tariff advocate, this would inevitably mean splitting not Only the party, but the Cabinet on the most embarrassing issue imaginable at the moment. With Mr Snowden in full control these opposing forces may bo restrained. But if ho is laid up ami absent from Cabinet deliberations an awkward determining responsibility will be thrust on the Prime Minister. Hence his special interest in his Treasury lieutenant’s health.

Sir John Tliomaon-Walker, who has been called in as a consultant in Mr Snowdon’s illness, is a Scotsman, who, if he had cared to follow the family business, would have been prominent in the jute textile industry of Dundee. He preferred medicine, and for many years he has been recognised as one of the ■World’s greatest authorities in his own department—urology. He has been a pioneer in both diagnosis and treatment, and many conditions, which at one time were regarded as beyond human aid, are now successfully dealt with as the result of his discoveries. Sir John is under no financial obligation to continue in practice, _ but he loves his work, and the_ patients in several of our-public hospitals, notably King’s College, have the benefit of his advice. Outside his profession he is, as he prefers to be, little known, but within its ranks his fame is world wide.

MR VERNON HARTSHORN. With the untimely death of Mr Hartshorn, the Cabinet is sadly crippled in tho matter of industrial and statistical experts. .Since he succeeded Mr J. H. Thomas in Juno last as Lord Privy Seal and Minister in Charge of Unemployment, it is true that he came into but.little limelight on tho floor of the House of Commons, but his work for the Government " back stage ” is understood to havo been notably efficient, and there are many-who believe that, had ho been in charge of tho unemployment question from tho time the Government took office, there would have been more success to show for Socialist administration than is now the case. At that time, however, he was debarred from .any office by reason of his membership of tho Simon Commission. This fact led to tho suggestion current at one time that Mr Hartshorn was likely to prove the Government’s choice, as successor to Lord Irwin in tho ViceRoyalty. To those who knew him well, however, tho absurdity of such an appointment was apparent. _ While Mr Hartshorn’s organising ability and industrial knowledge was second to none in the Socialist Party, he made no pretence to having tho diplomatic capacity requisite in a Viceroy. LONDON’S TRAFFIC REVOLUTION.

Mr Herbert Morrison, who has charge of tho Government’s new Bill to place London’s entire traffic under a junta of five dictators, is, perhaps, the ablest, next to Mr Graham, of tho younger men on tho Government bench. As Minister of Transport, he has got more Bills through Parliament than any of his colleagues, including the Road Traffic Act, with its highly controversial abolition of tho speed limit for motors. A little man, with American horn rims and a shock of noncommittal hair, ho is a facile talker, and bears all tho traces of the parliamentarian who graduated in local affairs at the L.G.C. He is nob afflicted with any inferiority complex, and does not affect an Oxford accent, but gets on well with the extremists, despite the fact that ho is personally the apotheosis of the bourgeoisie. His new Bill will bring needed grist to tho Parliamentary bar’s somewhat depressed mill.

THAT TRAGIC “IF.” That wo are clinging lethargically to tho ghosts of outworn tradition, instead of grappling energetically _ with new post-war conditions, is tho view of M. Andre Siegfried, tho famous French political economist and. psychologist. A North Country captain of industry commented shrewdly to me to-day on M. Siegfried’s statement that, alone amongst our neighbours, wehave failed to recondition our industries. “Had tho millions economically wasted on tho dole,” he said, “been wisely husbanded on industrial re-equipment, we should now have faced a loss dubious future. Wo have frittered away on stop-gap relief what would have more than sufficed to create economic prosperity. Instead of financing industry, w'o have subsidised unemployment. It is the old story. You cannot have your cake and cat itl” ANGLO-CATHOLIC FUSION. One outcome of the centenary of tho Oxford movement, duo in 1933, about which tho Archbishop of York received a representative deputation at Lambeth Palace, may well bo a fusion of tho various High Church organisations. As before, the English Church Union will join forces with the Anglo-Catholic at tho Albert Hall in the summer, when Lord Halifax is to preside at tho annual meeting and Mr George Lansbury take the chair at a men’s meeting in the evening. Tho idea was certainly discussed last year, and statements issued since have shown that there is a sincere desire to pool resources between the defensive and propaganda arms of tho whole movement, and so diminish sectional rivalries. The difficulty, however, is to reconcile tho older and newer methods, and hero tho need for another outstanding loader like Lord Halifax is felt. As a step towards that larger unity within the church, towards which Anglo-Catholics are now striving, tho fiict that tho pilgrimage to the Holy Land will for tho first time bo conducted by a diocesan, the Bishop of Guildford, is significant. NAVAL TRAINING. The older generation of naval officers is fond of declaring that tho modern personnel does not get enough sea training. This may he true of tho Mediterranean and the Atlantic Fleets, which together spend actually at sea not more than four out of the twelve months, tho latter giving very liberal leave when anchored in the home ports. It is true the complements have a

strenuous time while they. are at sea, but the older school maintains that this intensive training is a poor substitute for more continuous and less crowded routine. In the days or sail it mattered little on the score or expense how long a ship kept the sea, but nowadays, with high speed and tremendous horse-power, a costly fuel bill must be faced. Ships of the . Queen Elizabeth class, steaming at eighteen knots, can easily fire away £o,OW worth of oil in a week, while tho fuel bill of H.M.S. Renown, when she took the Prince of Wales on his Indian and Japanese tour, was somewhere about £47,000. “ OLD PLUMES.” Field-Marshal Lord Humor is seventy-four this week, and lus birthday greetings' include many from old comrades of the Sudan, the Veldt, and the European wars. “ Old Plumes, as the immortal Second Army called him when holding “ Wipers ” against the odds, is a fine veteran, with that unimpaired vivacity of mind and body which seems tho compensation of particularly small men. In this respect he recalls Lord Roberts. His career ' has afforded him amazing wealth oi reminiscence. He fought against. tho Mahdi’s fanatics as a junior officer, was a colonel when he pegged away with relief columns for Mafeking, and, after his grim vigil at Ypres with the Second Army, of which ho held command, saw more fighting in Italy, and later passed from Government House, Malta, to rule Jerusalem in troublous days. “ Old Plumes ” belongs to ( the spick-and-span school. Ho will be “ all present and correct ” when the last trump sounds. LORD PONSONBY. If I were Lord Ponsoby I should feel a sense of grievance. Ho went to the House of Lords against his wish in order to suit the convenience of the Government, and, as if that were not enough, every reshuffle of offices seems to require him to move round. Many of his friends desire the Socialist Government to come to .an end in order that he may have leisure for the production of somo ( more of his delightful anthologias from 5 diaries, published and unpublished—a subject which ho handles with an able and authoritative pen. Lord Ponsoby, who was one of Queen Victoria’s pages, entered politics ns private secretary to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and some years ago scandalised his fellow-Socialists by attending a parliamentary dinner of the House of Commons Etonians, and leading them in tho singing of the ‘ Boat Song.’

TYPEPHONING. A revolution in existing correspondence methods looms on the practical horizon. The Post Office engineering experts, who are keeping amazingly abreast of the times for Government officials, Irtivo tested with complete success a new typephoning system. What it amounts to is this. A letter is typed on a special transmitter near the telephone mouthpiece, and, by a marvellous mechanism of delicate impulses, the letters so struck are projected over the phone to a transcriber at their intended destination. All that is necessary, given the apparatus, is to have the phone switched on the desired number. This system will shortly bo operating for general subscribers, at first in the London areas only, but in due time throughout the country. It also suggests the ultimate supercession of our old friend the postman. QUEER KINKS. In conversation with a West End hotel manager, who is a veteran at the business, I was astonished to hear that potty' pilfering is the bugbear of his life. Nothing is safe, it appears, from the amateur kleptomaniac. Soap, towels, trays, jugs, all vanish mysteriously, and have to bo quickly replenished. The more fashionable the hotel the worse the pilfering mania. When culprits are caught red-handed it is rarely prosecution follows, because that form of publicity is avoided, and almost in'variably sends up the rate of pilferage. Railway companies lose thousands of train towels a year, and worst hit of all are the big Atlantic liners. Some of tho latter display notices asking passengers who hanker after “ souvenirs ” to apply to tho chief steward. Even swagger West End clubs suffer from tho pilferer to some extent. THICK-EAR FINANCE. , Junior counsel, travelling back to London last week-end from tho Birmingham Assizes, told an excellent story of how two men, entirely without resources, found sufficient money to attend a race meeting. They entered a secluded wood outside a Midland town, and thc_ bettor dressed removed his .coat, waistcoat, and trousers, -which his companion then took into the town and pawned for ss. He went with this sum to a shop soiling clocks on hire purchase, and paid it as deposit on a clock priced £4 10s. Ho took tho clock to another pawnbroker, who advencod 30s on it, with which sum ho was able to retrieve the suit from tho first pawnbroker. His friend then roclothed himself. and tho couple went to tho races with the balance of 255. Unfortunately they backed losers, not winners, and are now lodged at the country’s expense. ' HIDDEN GLORY. It is worth , while making a journey to London, oven from afar, to see Trafalgar square as it appears at this moment. The block of buildings on tho east side, which included tho licensed premises known as tho Golden Cross and associated with two wellknown Dickensian characters, has been demolished, and so far tho new buildings to take its place have not been started even in ferro-concrete skeleton. The result is an astonishing sense of sky-lit amplitude and architectural dignity in Trafalgar square. As tho traveller emerges from Charing Cross Station a new and finite unsuspected vista greets him, looking half-left towards Nelson’s towering column. Tho whole sweep of tho National Gallery’s facade is revealed, and tho square loses its cramped appearance for once. It is an object lesson, unbelievably impressive, in the architectural value of space and sky-lino. Owing to tho ugly buildings that grossly hedge it in, no living Londoner has yet seen the true St. Paul’s. OUT OF THE QUESTION. The controversy onco more revived on the subject of undergraduates’ bills, and the way credit is almost forced upon tho sons of well-to-do ’ parents, reminds mo of a story of a young man who gave a dinner party—a “drunk” it is prettily called at Cambridge—to a few friends, when champagne flowed like water. The next day one of his guests remonstrated with him for his extravagance, saying “ Rum punch would have done perfectly well.” Tho host looked aghast. “Rum punch!’’ ho exclaimed. “Why, -who was going to find the ready money for the lemons p" The youthful host had unlimited tick ”at tho wino merchants, but fruiterers believed in tho cash principle.