LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 21823, 12 September 1934, Page 6

LONDON TOPICS

[From Our Correspondent.] August 2. RIVAL FACTIONS IN AUSTRIA, 'J'herc is no immediate risk of Europe being involved in another armed conflict over Austria, but-that danger may lurk for months in the existing situation. One-third of the population is strongly Socialist and one-third just as fiercely Nazi. .The problem is therefore how to establish any form of government that presents a. genuine promise of stability. Once again in this curiously anomalous democratic era people are praying for the advent of a strong man. Only some masterful personality, it seems, can now hope to enable constitutional control to be resumed and the two opposing flanks of political violence to be held, in separate check. A PETIT CAPORAL. Dr Dollfuss’ murder was a terrible shock to Mr MacDonald and those British Ministers who met him in London. He has been bitterly .maligned for his drastic action against the Communists in Vienna some time ago, but nobody has ever explained satisfactorily how these alleged victims of official brutality came to possess arsenals of rifles and machine guns or with what object they collected tnese souvenirs. Dr Dollfuss was in reality a most likeable little man, a dwarf in stature, but as brave as a lion. He proved this in the manner of his death, if further proof were needed than the fact that he had. the Austrian V.C., and that’ a cliff in the Italian Alps is called after him in commemoration of a gallant exploit in the war. His army batman, now butler to Millioent Duehesr. of Sutherland, worshipped him. Ho was murdered at the historic desk where Count Berchtold signed Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia in 1914, and, where a century earlier Metternich and Tallyrand discussed affairs of State.

, Politicians of all shades will this week Ix 3 congratulating Mr Stanley Baldwin on his sixty-seventh birthday. S.B. will congratulate himself on getting away to his beloved Aix-les-Bains. Though he. must feel the need of a holiday, like everybody cooped up in Westminster most of the summer, Mr Baldwin shows few signs of wear and tear. Like all men of his sandy complexion, he defies Anno Domini so far as looks go, and there can be few men living within three years of the allotted span assigned by the Psalmist who have a more middle-aged and less elderly appearance. In the gallery of famous British statesmen S.B. will hold a unique place. None has so adroitly kept in the background whilst being right in the firing line. It may be his English stock, with its absence of Cel-" tic theatricalism, that enables him to do this. People associate S.B. with a homely cherry pipe, never with an exotic American debt. . AMERICA’S FILM MENTALITY. The sordid drama of John Dillinger, America’s Public Enemy No, I, constitutes a double indictment. This miscreant was shot down by the police,, pistolled in the back iii the approved manner of the gangsters themselves. Thus official assassination is substituted for process of law in U.S.A. There may be adequate reasons, but they do not redound to the hdnohr of American- uplift. When DilHngqr was dead people rushed to dip their handkerchiefs in his blood, a tribute reserved by other peoples in other ages for martyrs arid heroes. Whilst this popular mentality persists in U.S.A. it is difficult to rank America amongst civilised communities. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. For many years now America has been scattering far and wide from her film studios the seeds of criminal neuroticism. Europe has an older and better tradition. THREE JUST MEN. It is logical that Fleet street, which lives in the moment and buries its dead yesterdays, should have few permanent memorials. , I know of only two. One is the pigmy statue of Dr Johnson, looking towards- St. PauPs from an island church. The other is the aggressive bust of the late Lord Northcliffe, frowning outside St. Dunstan’s at the evening newspaper bills. But now there is a third, in the form of a plaque of Edgar Wallace, outside the Fleet street office of Thomas Cook and Sons. It was here that, according to legend, Edgar , had his pitch as a newspaper boy, before he joined the Buffs, transferred into the R.A.M.C., blossomed forth as war correspondent, and finally made fame and fortune as England’s best-seller in the book line. He was once on Nofthcliffe’s staff, but Edgar’s fame will outlive Northclitfe’s. GROWN UP. It is an amusing but terribly middleaged pastime to spot, as holders of important jobs, men whom you knew as jaw youngsters. I have encountered a Harley street specialist, a solemnly portentous figure, whom 1 last saw in the thick of the melee at a hospital Hugger cup tie. The contrast between then and now is. beyond words. Take Admiral Percy Noble, the new Fourth Sea Lord, who is now fifty-five, but looks, thanks to an athletic past and fox-hunting present, about twenty years younger. He was in the illustrious Rugger team, full.of internationals, which shed glory on the Royal Navy. so long ago as 1907. He played stand-off half to the gentleman who is now Sir Louis Greig. Admiral Noble was a hefty young lieutenant then. Now he is famed as the Beau Brummel of British admirals and a bit of a martinet. • WIPERS. It must have been interesting to be in Yyres last week-end, when the bells in the new Cloth Hall’s belfxy were dedicated. it is twenty years since the picturesque old Belgian city was Startled by the first German shells, agonised citizens fled its familiar street, and. the German" batteries slowly reduced buildings to ruins and ruins to dust. For over a year on end I watched that tragic process. In those days the historic square, where the Cloth Hall towered, was out of bounds as being too unhealthy. Plumer was not the first British general to tread the streets of Wipers. Marlborough know it, and, before him, the Ironside troopers of Cromwell clattered their horseshoes over its cobbles. How strange the new Cloth Hall looks, decked in bunting, by contrast with memories of the ghostly rums of the old, past which at night trudged our steel-hatted columns and anxious transport. I like to think of bells sounding their merry music now where formerly was heard nothing but the Wagnerian orchestration of the Hun. KILTS AT THE PALACE. Scots folk, of whom there are more in London than in Edinburgh, perhaps with Glasgow thrown in, will feel more at home this week. The ,2nd Camerons arc coming to relieve the Guards whilst the latter get a little training at real

soldiering in the field, and kilted warriors will mount guards at Buckingham Palace and elsewhere. ‘ A leading Scottish paper states that not since 1909, when the 2nd Gordons undertook similar relief duty, has a kilted battalion been on duty at the Palace. I have a clear recollection of the Camerons doing Palace duty since the war.. Another statement in the same paper, which will not please the gallant Cam-, crons, is that, in the meantime, they are “ putting in sentry practice at Al- 1 dcrshot.” The inference, which is that only Guards know how to do this, is one that will amuse old soldiers immensely. REAL SOLDIERS, Cockneys will find the Camerons, every bit as smart and soldierly as any Guards regiment. I saw a lot of the Ist Camerons on the old western front, and the opinion of shrewd judges was that no finer battalion ever went over the top in the war. Their non-commis-sioned officers-were the finest body of men I ever clapped eyes on in uniform. No better feat .of arms was achieved on the western front than the assault by the Ist Camerons on the' most formidable sector of, the Hindenburg line. This was protected m front by a canal and the Camerons’ G.O. was asked whether his men could take it. and how long he thought they would be doing it. Half an hour was his estimate. Actually it took them ten, minutes. They floated themselves over the canal on inflated inner tubes from bicycles, and the Germans did not relish what followed sufficiently to-make them want to linger there. SENIOR SERVICE. A very pretty little squabble has been launched as to the Royal Navy’s title to call itself the senior service. The protaganists are mainly service people, but this is not a private fight, and even the laity can join in. Soldiers argue that the Army is an, older institution than the Navy, dating back to the New Model Army of 1645, of which the Goldstream Guards survive as an original unit to-day. I should have imagined the Army might claim a longer ancestry even than that, and that King, Harold, who fell at Senlac, led an Eng*! lish Army. But the Navy can certainly point to King Alfred as its foster parent, and equivalent ranks in the Navy have long been a step higher than those in the Amy. It is our island tradition that gives precedence to the Navy, and Nelson clinched that prestige at Trafalgar. POOR OLD LONDON. Tn the watches of the night, when suburban roofs throbbed to the feverish zoom of raiding air squadrons, Londoners had a premonition that more than sleep was being destroyed. Next morning they knew officially that the eneuiy bombers . easily eluded the defending patrols, having by far the better machines, and that, in the mind’s eye or R.A.F. Horatios, the Air. Ministry is a heap of smoking ruins and other vital points in the Empire’s ancient, capital blown to smithereens. Many citizens sat up, there being no danger from _fly* ing shrapnel, and watched the vivid flashes from high overhead which signified the release of, imaginary bombs. We were subjected to two assaults from the blue. First a whole cohort of enemy planes sailed menacingly above us. and’ later came a swarm of individual raiders. Those who-remember 1914-18 were devoutly thankful it was “only protend.”* VOICES ON THE ETHER. I met a man to-day who is a wireless enthusiast and expert. He is nob content, like the normal wireless fan, merely to tune in. and listen to the voices that come talking across the league of cerulean ether; He runs a wireless station of his own; arid regularly talks with people, ■ in different parts of this country and abroad, tor whom at various ■ times he has made transmitting sets. Twice a year, at a settled time on a fixed date, he gets his transmitting set working, and rings up an old comrade of the Great War in the Khyber Pass. His friend is on the qui vive for the call, and these two old comrades, the one in the fierce glare of the Khyber, and the other down in quiet Sussex, talk together of old times and present conditions. I should think that must lie hard to beat as a romance of wireless. > dusky kamarads? My voung friend in Kenya, from whom I quoted the other day, tells me conditions require all whites to possess a black valet and. an old motor car. He now has both. Hc_ does not mention what he paid for his secondhand car,, but he. pays his “ boy ” £2 a month. For this sum the “ boy does every tiling, from _ pressing master s trousers to washing his. clothes, and even, if required, soaping. his back. Roses, carnations, and dahlias, my correspondent informed me, are looked on almost as weeds. His fancy has been taken by the jacaranda tree—“ bluebells growing on a tree.and smelling like a chemists shop.” Another interesting fact, he states; is : that Hitler’s Nazi salute, so far from being a pure Nordic gesture, has been .practised by the black Masai for more generations than African history records. So, if Geraan tourists invade, Masailand they ■ will get’that home-from-home feeling at once. AMERICAN INVASION. There will be. quite an influx of Americans to the Scottish moors. Lettings already announced include . Cortachy Castle, by the Earl of Airlie, to Mr P. T. Bedford, of New York, and Mr -J. P. Grace, of the same city, is taking Kinnordy House, in Angus. Another American citizen who is returning to Angus again this year is Mr J. Pierpoiit Morgan, a prince of hosts who proved a firm friend of England during the war. In Inverness-shire Mr Hubert Litchfield, the . property magnate of New York, ~is taking Bunchrew, Mr C. W. Ogden will be at Climes (Beauly), and Mr P. S. Mead, of Massachusetts, will be entertaining at Corrybrough. The Duke of Athol!'a famous shootings at Fruuour, near Dunkeld, which for so many jears were shot over by the late Mr .lanies Mason, who there * entertained His Majesty when Duke of York, is let this year to Mr W. Wolcott Blair. Sir William Keith Murray has let Ochtertyre and East Glen Turret in Perthshire to Mr Herbert Pullitzer, of New York'. , RESTAURANT LOGIC, A few nights ago a K.C. was dining out with his wife at a smart West End restaurant. The bill was a formidable one, and the lawyer, after attentively scrutinising it, called for the manager. Ho challenged one item in partciiilar. “ What,” he asked, “ is this 5s for?’* The manager replied that it was for fruit. “But we didn’t have any fruit,” protested the lawyer. “ Well, sir,” suavely responded the manager, “ it was there if you cared to have it.” The K.C. pondered this point for just two seconds, and then gracefully conceded it, but mentioned that'he had a counter-claim against the manager for precisely the , same amount. The manager expressed his polite amazement as to what this item might he. “.For, kissing my wife,’’ .replied, . the subtle limb of the law. “Tou know, sir,” was the indignant'• reply.“ that I did nothing of the sort.” “ No,]’'said the K.C. genially, “ but .she was there !”• ■ • ’ ■'