LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 21709, 2 May 1934, Page 13

LONDON TOPICS

[From Ouk Correspondent.] March 8. rumours of cabinet reshuffle. All these hectic rumours of Cabinet changes and reshuffles with which the parliamentary lobbies are so busy may or., not mean anything.- There is an ancient adage that there can be no smoke without fire, but, on the othei hand, there is such a thing ns deliberate incendiarism. There are political as well as commercial lire bugs. The rumours are, of course, eagerly seized on by the Government’s political foes, and in this respect they are getting fine help from a little cabal of Conservative malcontents. But the situation reminds me of an occasion when the late Mr Augustine Birrell was subject to just the same rumours as Sir John Simon is now. .1 usked Mr Birrell ir there was any truth in them. “ Not the faintest,” he replied. ‘Who sets them going? ” I iiskecl. ‘ Oh, said Mr Birrell, “ usually a fellow who wants your job.” WAITING WITHOUT. But for the active hostility of the Little Entente we might see a monarchical restoration in Vienna, there are people in Austria, amongst them, it is said, Dr Dollfuss, who think the best way to ensure Austrian independence and avoid the Hitler tentacles would be" to get the Hapsburgs back. It is possible that neither I' ranee noi Italy would object strongly to such a course in the existing circumstances. But the Little Entente has taken alarm at the mere suggestion and has bluntly intimated that at the first move in that direction they will take energetic militarv action. Czechoslovakia has even gone so far as to move up troops to the frontier in readiness for an emergency. This mav restrain the dormant ambitions of the Hapsburgs. But the young Archduke Otto, the rightful heir to the throne, is waiting the call, under the tutelage of the ex-Empress Zita, his mother, at a romantic old castle near Brussels. big personality. It is a shrewd commentary on French politics that during his six years as our Ambassador in Paris Lord Tyrrell lias been in touch with no fewer than seventeen different French Almistnes. It is rather unfortunate, capable though his successor, Sir George Clerk, most certainly is, that Lord Tyrrell should be leaving the Paris Embassy just now. European politics, and not least French, is in a very unquiet state, and Lord Tyrrell understood the tangled skein and was more thoroughly and expeitlv in touch with Gallic psychology than any other Englishman. We may never know quite how much influence he exerted during the crisis of 1914, when he was Sir Edward, afterwards Lprd Grey’s, alter ego at the Foreign Office. Lord Tyrrell’s interests extended far beyond the fascinating realm of diplomacy. He knew the literary and artistic life of Paris very intimately. ’ NOT SO OLD. AI. Kerensky, the spellbinding advocate who held the reins of Government in Russia during the brief interim between the two regimeSj has just published a ’book in which he also has his say about the almost fabulous Rasputin. It seems so long since AI. Kerensky had his brief day of prominence that his voice comes to us from a dim past. One might imagine him to be an old man, hut he is nothing of the kind. I was lunching in Paris a couple of years ago at the Restaurant Alarins. behind the Chamber of Deputies, when my companions pointed him out to me. Instead of a bearded refugee grown old in care, as I had expected. I saw a slim figure, looking not a day older than and not unlike Georges Carpentier, entertaining a couple of friends and talking volubly. Even to-day he would certainly he regarded as a young man in our own Cabinet. WORTH IT? The deposed infant Emperor of old China, Pu Yi, has now in early manhood been enthroned Emperor of the new kingdom of Alanchukuo. It must have been difficult to recognise as the august figure robed in blue, with gold

dragons and maroon*sleeves and a fnr-and-pearl-decked hat with red tassels, the dejected young exile, in a Western lounge suit and horn-rims, who used to read Edgar Wallace’s novels. At the eager instigation of well-meaning pacifists the League of Nations bans Manchukuo, and its creation was made the occasion for driving Japan out of that association. To-day the region called Manchnkuo, for years tortured by the pitiless exactions of gx’atting war lords and the ruthless raids of irregular banditry, has a sound currency and disciplined forces compelling peace and order. Surely it was a misguided fanaticism that so bitterly opposed the change.'' There may be points for criticism in the Japanese make-up, but it is impossible to withhold admiration of its patriotic devotion. To signalise the happy advent of a Royal baby for the Mikado a whole regiment of Japanese inlantry has solemnly forsworn fermented liquor, ff tho Prince of Wales eventually marries and has a baby I can easily imagine tho Welsh Guards, of whom he is the exceedingly popular colonel, holding a robust and strenuous beano in celebration. But I And it hard to visualise these stalwart wearers of tho bearskin rushing out en bloc to sign the pledge. Tho Japanese gesture most strikingly illustrates the difference between human psychology East and West, and, as Kipling says, never the twain shall meet. We celebrate, by festive potations. Perhaps we inherit the habit from those ancient bersark Viking ancestors. Rut in cherry blossom land even the military do it by cutting out the wet canteen. INDIA COMMITTEE. I learn that the members of tho ParJiamentary Joint Committee on the India White Paper do not how expect to finish their work before May. My informant adds, however,' that the prospects of an agreement on essentials is much better than it was. The points of difference, so far as they have emerged, do not seem important enough to call for formal minority reports. Two men whose view will carry great weight are the Archbishop of Canterburv and Sir Austen Ghomberluin. Both occupy a position of detachment, and if they support the mam recoinmendhtions the Government will bai e little to fear from the “ die-hards. EX-M.P. ON FOOTPLATE. Mr Henry Charleton, formerly one of the Socialist members for Leeds, has returned to the locomotive footplate. During the years he sat in the House of Commons his name appeared regularly on the rota for duty at St. Pancras, and the manager of -the railway company told him it would be retained there, and that his place would be taken by a, substitute until he was again free lor dutv. Mr Charleton has been in the service of the company for over fortyfive vears, and for fifteen years betoie he entered the House of Commons ho was, as he is now, a driver of one of the express trains to Leeds. As an M.I • be was noted for a sage and genial outlook on public affairs, and in the trade union, world be has long been one or the most skilful of negotiators. He hopes that the next General Election will bring him back to political life. PRODIGIOUS. • The design for the proposed Palace of Soviets in Moscow has attracted no little attention among architects in London. Under the Bolshevik regime,' while there has been the usual iconoclasm that marks violent political upheavals, a new and strange architectural conception has borne fruit. Even in its buildings the Reel Communism rejects established traditions, But the projected; Soviet Palace fairly takes one’s breath away. It is a gigantic edifice of diminishing rotundas, each columned, over thirteen hundred feet in height. According to the design, which has been approved by the Soviet authorities, it so tar looks impressive enough, it has even a mad touch of Rome’s Coliseum about it. But the whole thing is vulgarised and ruined by a chromium-plated statue of Lenin on the summit, itself 262 ft high, and outsizing even New York’s Statue of Liberty or the celebrated Rhodes’s Colossus. But it is certainly a loyal tribute to the author of the real Russian Revolution. LONDON’S AIR PORT. I suppose eventually „the experts will settle which is really the best plan for putting London - right on the map as k great modern air port. Any number of tentative proposals have been mooted,

discussed, and pigeon-holed. There was one for roofing over St. Pancras station with a huge aerial platform, and making that the central air station for London. Then wo had another big scheme, which involved building a dizzy roof over Father Thames, in his busiest London reach, and making that a jumping-off place for all our air services, with the added advantage that seaplanes might centre there too. Now comes a third, and no loss ambitions plan, which would build over central London a great aerial platform four hundred foot high, on towers, with shops below. For this a sum of £2,000,000 will be needed. I believe steps are being taken to that end. But will it bo pleasant for the heart ol London to bo Unis overshadowed f MERRY MARCHERS. Whatever diverse woes and grievous wrongs may be the portion of the hunger marchers, it seems quite certain that hunger is not one of them, incessant munching, between vocilerous cheers, was the order of the day at Trafalgar square last Sunday afternoon. On the paving stones of the crowded square there were sufficient broad and cake crumbs to feed an army, and .so much orange peel that it was difficult to keep a footing. On the whole, the marchers were a cheery lot, apparently less interested in the doctrines proclaimed from the tribune than in the general holiday atmosphere. They looked like men who had enjoyed an outing. Some of them have taken tea on the terrace of the House of Commons, and all of them have finished up a hiker’s tour by making whoopee in the capital. So that tho grim look of the proletarian was completely missing at this demonstration. EXIT THE HIGH FLYERS.. In a way it is sad news, for people who cherish an affection for railway engines, that the fast of the forty High Flyers of the old L.Y.R,. is to be scrapped. Number 10,316, sole survivor alter thirty years of that bandsome,' tall-stacked dynasty, has just made its farewell run. Pretty early in this century, when there was a smash on the L.Y.R. near Liverpool between a goods train and a cattle train, I was standing beside the permanent way when a High Flyer, drawing one of the 60 m.p.h. Manchester expresses, came round a sharp bend. 1 still recall the gasping thrill with which I saw its chimney sway as it rocked. The arc described by' the top of the chimney cannot have been less than two feet. But they were fine engines, those old Higli Flyers, and one put up a 100. m.p.h. run over the level between Liverpool and Southport. They weighed eighty tons, and had over seven-foot driving wheels. , THE CORRODING HAND. I wonder, how long the various war memorials, with which this country and the battlefields of France and Flanders are thickly dotted, will endure to tell their story? Our village ones, those simple stone crosses graven with honest English names, may last a very great many years Even centuries hence, as lichen-covered ruins, they may possess a romantic antiquarian interest. But tlie fate of our divisional and regimental memorials abroad, overlooking the actual terrain of the Great War, is less certain. To avoid any legal complications in the years to come, after negotiations between - the French and Belgian authorities and the British military units most concerned, the Imperial War Graves Commission is taking over all such memorials. Commanding officers of British units are ceasing to be leaseholders of the sites. And already, such is Time’s corroding hand, regiments are raising funds to repair their memorials before the final handing over.