LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 21318, 24 January 1933, Page 9

LONDON TOPICS

PROBLEM OF THE POUND [From Oim Correspondent.] December 8. I have managed to get the views of perhaps the ablest financial expert in the city of London. He told me frankly he was quite prepared to see the pound even lower before Christmas than it has yet dropped. I asked him how he explained the puzzling phenomenon, in face of our much reduced purchasing power for essential food and raw material, of stable prices in this country. He attributed it solely to the big, but rapidly vanishing, margin between wholesale and retail costs, and agreed that eventually we must begin to feel the pinch m higher prices. But that was, he declared, a malady carrying its own certain cure. Directly that happens all the stagnant wheels of industry and 'commerce will at once get whirling again.

I mentioned the anxiety lest astute foreign speculators, knowing we have £170,000,000 allocated specially to stabilise the pound, tried by deliberate and unscrupulous manipulation to make that alluring fund their private milch cow. That was, said my expert, an unavoidable danger, and was, in fact, already happening. The only possible check consisted in countermanoeuvres hero by experts not less experienced and probably just as astute. This very high authority ridiculed the prevalent theory that transhipment of gold to America “ made no difference.” Gold, he said, was a commodity like everything else, and must bo paid for by somebody. He instanced Mr Hoover’s very remarkable admission that not long ago U.S.A. was nearly forced off the gold standard herself. My financial expert, without expressing personal views, commented on the extraordinary persistence of gold as the world’s currency medium. It had, he pointed out, maintained its position for about 4,000 years, and this despite many and varied experiments in other directions. There was a time, he mentioned, when America adopted tobacco as its standard of currency exchange. Following that expedient an even more curious one was adopted for a brief period. At that date there was in America a vast preponderance of males and shiploads of hefty agricultural women, who made excellent wives for settlers under rough conditions, went across the Atlantic. Those ladies were in demand, and wives actually became the exchange standard. We agreed that American divorce law vitiates any return to that romantic basis. MR HOOVER’S PROPHECY, I wonder whether Mr Hoover, -as he waited to hear what was the final attitude of Congress with regard to war debts, had time to recollect the prophecy he made when in London in 1919. Discussing then with an English friend the terms of the peace agreement, ho expressed the greatest surprise that we had not stood out for a more general washing out of the costs of the war. Reparations and war debts, he declared, wore all a terrible mistake, and he went on to warn his hearer of a subsequent sequence of events very similar to those which have actually occurred in tho last twelve years. “ Mind you,” ho concluded, America will make you pay, and she will ruin tho world. I only hope to God I shall have nothing to do with it when the final reckoning comes If Mr Hoover remembers those words ho must bo distressed to think he is so much less able to have anything to do with the decision than he would have been a year ago.

OUR AMERICAN AMBASSADOR. Great Britain is fortunate in having as its present representative iu Washington so experienced a diplomat as Sir Ronald Lindsay. He has been over thirty years in the service, and has been stationed at practically every important centre, including Pans and Berlin. As a former Permanent Undersecretary at the Foreign Office, ho has a world-wide outlook. For his present task the most important fact is that, after the war he was counsellor to the Embassy at Washington, and it is not without significance that both his late and his present wife were Americans. Sir Ronald is thus well able to gauge the trend of opinion, unofficial as well ns official, on the other side of the Atlantic. He is a younger brother of the present Earl of Crawford and Balcnrres.

DEMAND FOR A SQUARE DEAL. There is a touch of good old “ Rule Britannia ” days about the terms in which our Government has conveyed to Persia its determination that the AngloPcrsinn Oil Company shall not be debarred the privileges of its concession. “ Will not tolerate ” and “ Will not hesitate to take measures ” are phrases which have not been used in our inter-

national diplomacy since the policy of conciliation and “the other cheek ” came into vogue. The statement; almost took the breath out of members of Parliament when it was made to them by Captain Eden, the youthful-looking Under Foreign Secretary. That it met with approval, however, was not in doubt lor a moment, endorsement being given in a subdued roar of cheers, ft is not difficult ta imagine how shocked and astonished the Persian Government must have been when the message was transmitted to it by our Minister in Teheran. Doubtless the Persians were convinced that they would get away with their repudiations and breaches of agreement just as easily as other Eastern nations have done in recent years. There are signs that our National Government is beginning to feel its foot. WINSTON AT FIFTY-EIGHT. The big dinner party given last week by Sir Abo Bailey was a family affair. It was in joint celebration of Mr Churchill’s fifty-eighth birthday and the cementing of an old family friendship by Miss Diana Churchill’s engagement to Sir Abo’s son. At fifty-eight Winston is as big an enigma as he was at twenty-nine. He might peter out of public life, or he might burgeon forth either as a future Prime Minister or perhaps President of the Royal Academy. He seems to have got well over his serious illness, following close on a bad accident in America. His debating style is iindimraed, and I hear he has resumed activities in the ancient craft of bricklaying. Like Mr Baldwin, Winston is going in for pigs, and is building new pigsties at Westerham. It might furnish a mutual interest for reconciliation between the two statesmen. Despite his Army galloper days and his polo, Winston is now a sedentary figure, and has lost his Lancer cavalry aura. MY HAT! Never was there a more emphatic chorus of disapprobation than greets tho new Army uniform. Except, presumably, the experts who designed it, carefully avoiding tho smartness of the Zouave trousers and Aussi tunics they have imitated, nobody has a good word for it. It is risky to mention the topic to Army people. One irate old colonel denounced it as an obvious pacifist plot to make the Army ridiculous and recruiting impossible. A young Guards subaltern dismissed it with a succinct “My hat!” The general verdict is that it is ugly, slovenly, and unserviceable, and will, if the King’s influence does not squash it, make the British Army the dowdiest of all. At a momentwhen the Guard-style peaked caps are being served out to postmen, the shapeless soft felt hat excites real fury. That soldier mannequins profess to like the new outfit cuts no ice. Imagine a full private being injudicious enough to criticise Brass Hat tailoring. JELLICOE. Few men who have been so near to loath so often as Admiral Lord Jellicoe live to celebrate their seventy-third birthday. Yet that is what the British admiral who commanded at Jutland is doing this week, and he will receive a host of congratulations from all over tho world. Admiral Jellicoe once, early in his naval career, was capsized in a boat off Gibraltar, and had to make a swim of some miles to savo himself. When the Campcrdown rammed the Victoria Jellicoe was ill in his bunk on board the latter, and was rescued by a brother officer. In tho Boxer rising he was badly wounded in the chest, but managed to carry on till his command fought their way to safety from a hot corner. It was Lord Fisher who spotted Jellicoe as the man for Germany’s Dor Tag, and pushed his brilliant protege through all branches of the sea service to give him a rounded experience ready for tho World War.

A strong characteristic of Admiral Joliicoe all through his distinguished career has been a gift for improvisation. He adds imagination to sound theory and wide experience, and has

never hesitated to be original. Thus during memorable . pre-war naval manoeuvres, whilst still a young junior officer, Jellicoe managed to bag a whole line of hostile battleships. These were anchored in a safe bay and guarded by lynx-eyed sea patrols. But a vessel that looked like a nondescript pleasure yacht, with a company of Bohemian musicians making merry on her deck, was allowed to steam quietly past the patrols and into the bay. Once in touch with the battleships the yacht swung her torpedo tubes into action, and claimed to register direct hits on all the big fellows. Jellicoe had got his crew and vessel up with elaborate camouflage to cheat the enemy’s patrols. ELOQUENT GLANCE, It was one of the jokes of last week in London that the Empire Industries Association and the Freetrade Union held luncheons at the same hour in tho same West End hotel. The former is, of course, a stalwart tariff institution, and the latter, equally obvious, is Cobdenite to the bootlaces. Naturally there was some anxiety lest sheep from the one fold might stray into the other. To obviate any necessity for stretcherbearers at a festive luncheon attendants were told off to be specially watchful about this possibility. Thus one such guardian of the peace, approaching a well-known Cobdenite as he issued from the cloakroom, inquired with mellow suavity: “Are you Freetrade or Protection, sir?” I was not present, but a friend who was and overhead this little comedy assures me tho Freetrader gave the innocent attendant a glance compared with which those Browning’s monk bestowed on Brother Lawrence must have been positively coy. BACK TO BARTER. Some queer things are occurring nowadays over in Ireland, of which the outside world hears little or nothing. From a friend in Cork I have received a letter which confirms the rumour that in more remote parts of Southern Ireland they are returning to a system of primitive barter in these very difficult economic times. Even the doctors are now* accepting their fees in kind. Sometimes it takes the form of a fat young porker, sometimes that of a cockerel. The latter seems to be already accepted as more or less the recognised fee for the traditional visit and bottle of physic.

HEY PRESTO!

A sporting journalist of my acquaintance lias just had to have all his teeth out. He had been very unwell for some time, saw a specialist, and the trouble, as so often seems to_ happen nowadays, was traced to septic teeth. He went to a good dentist, who first took an impression of his mouth in wax, and then fixed up an appointment for the wholesale extraction. My friend kept the painful tryst, and was given a general amesthctic. He was “ out ” for exactly twenty minutes. When he came to his first alarmed impression was that something had gone wrong* and that the operation had not taken place. Because lie had a complete set of teeth in his mouth. This, he was told, is the very latest idea. If possible, instead of fitting a false set to the hardened gums after a long interval, the soft gums are fitted to the denture right away. I think this must be an “ all-in ” record —twentysix teeth out and new ones fitted in twenty minutes! COMPULSORY BANTING. _ Last week all the leading jockeys who ride during the fiat racing season were entertaining their friends. It is an old-time custom designed to mark the close of the flat racing season. A night or two ago it was the turn of Gordon Richards, the champion jockey, who just missed his ambition of riding 200 winners during the season. It is a tradition that at these friendly racing dinners all the jockeys eat ns much as they can possibly consume —by way of relaxation after “ banting ” during the season to keep their weight down. Gordon Richards himself is a happy exception. He is naturally of the lean kind, and stands in no need of dieting. After the week of merry-making most of these famous jockeys go off to the Riviera or to Switzerland for the winter sports. They are great believers in skating, ski-ing. and tobogganing for keeping them fit during the winter,:

BEDROOM CRICKET. It will be interesting to see whether some of us become early risers as a result of the Australian test matches. From 6.30 to 8.30 in the morning the course of the play is broadcast via Paris, and if you wake up early enough you can follow it as every ball is sent down. What is more, _an enormous number of people are taking advantage of the boon. Truth compels an admission that they do not get up before the milk. They simply take their portable sets up to tho bedroom overnight, set the alarm clock for 6.30, and then switch on the wireless to learii how things are faring down-under. I listened in myself one morning. It was astonishing how well the announcer’s voice travelled over the ether. Though it faded away slightly at intervals, his voice for the most part was as clearly heard as if he were speaking from one of the studios at Broadcasting House.