LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 22069, 1 July 1935, Page 2

LONDON TOPICS

RAMSAY MACDONALD'S ROMANCE [From Ouk Couuesposdent.] (By Air Mail.) June 6. Washington has issued a denial of the report that President Roosevelt is taking steps to arrange an international currency conference, or that plans to that end are now being discussed in London by an official from the U.S.A. The whole virtue of this denial reposes in that blessed word 44 official.” In actual fact an emissary of Washington, official or not, has been for some days in London, and has discussed the conference proposal with British officials and certain Ministers and City people. For some reason President Roosevelt, in all his exchanges with Downing Street, seems obsessed by the desire always to exclude anything clear-cut or definite, and to preserve an entirely unofficial status for any negotiations. This attitude, I believe, has been the source of much difficulty and even embarrassment to the British Cabinet. Mr Ramsay MacDonald, who, at 68, is about to resign the Premiership he has held in three Ministries, can look back on as romantic a career as any man. Before being appointed secretary to an M.P. at £75 a year, he dug pot’ tees for a living, studied as a pupil teacher, and then took a clerkship in London at 12s 6d a week. It was the late Earl Balfour who first singled him out, when a back bench M.P., as a debater of unusual promise, Perhaps Mr MacDonald’s fine touch of the Scots doric helped to recommend him to A.J.B.’s sensitive ear. Despite all the rumours of party intrigue, it is pretty certain that Lord Horder has been the real cause of the Prime Minister’s retirement. Mr MacDonald’s eyesight still gives trouble, and he seems, temperamentally incapable of resting it adequately in office. He did his eyes a lot of harm by insisting on reading the whole of the memoranda connected with Mr Churchill’s charge of undue influence on Indian civil servants over the India Bill. 4 PERSONALITIES IN PARIS. M. Fernand Bouisson, who quits his chair as President or Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies to become the twentieth French Premier within six years, is a typical Southerner, bald, short, ruddy, with a close-clipped square heard. He is 61, has been Deputy for Marseilles for over a quarter of a century, and his chief interests, apart from politics, are shipping and Rugger. He will he overshadowed, however, of necessity by the veteran M. Caillaux, the stormy petrel of French politics, whose financial genius now obtains a free hand over Budget business in order to save the franc. A few years ago, when the franc was in jeopardy after the war, Poincare was called in to the rescue. Now it is the turn of his old enemy, Caillaux, whose attitude during the darkest hour of the war caused him to be bitterly suspect in France. Years ago Madene Caillaux figured in a cause celebre which involved the shooting of a Paris editor who was publishing ipcriminating love letters. NEW MEAT LEVY PLANS. I learn, that the meat talks, -which have been taking place between niembei's of the Cabinet and dominion Ministers, have reached _ a stage of considerably greater promise. The difficulties of reaching an arrangement that will be agreeable to all_ parties may be understood when it is borne in mind that our Government has not only to consider the interest of home fat stock producers and the meat-pro-ducing dominions, but must also protect 'consumers, be mindful of treaty obligations, and try to do nothing to offend the Argentine. New ideas which our Ministers have now put forward do seem to go considerably further towards reconciling these many conflicting interests. It is still somewhat doubtful whether the Argentine -will find the proposals fully to its liking, but I gather that the chances arc good that the dominions will find in them a workable basis for agreement. No details of the proposals are as yet obtainable, but there is good reason to believe that a levy scheme forms the basic principle of the new plan. BIRTHDAY HONOURS.

King George’s Silver Jubilee birthday honours list must be reckoned a good bag for the Boyel College of Heralds. One viscount, 6 bold barons, 9 baronets, and 43 knights, not counting cockades distributed overseas, is pretty good shooting nowadays. The new vicount, Baron Bledisloe, did distinguished work as New Zealand’s Governor-General. The new barons include the ex-president of the P. 8.1., the senior M.P. for the city, and two trusted Court officials in Sir F. Ponsonby and Sir Clive Wigram. Major Attlee, the Labour Opposition’s second-in-command, is to be _ sworn of the Privy Council, and so is that famous old Oxford stroke, and incidentally deputy-chairman of the House of Commons, Captain Bourne. The president of the Mining Association is a baronet, and Professor A. J. Hall and the popular actor, Mr Seymour Hicks, are knighted. The Poet Laureate gets a coveted O.M. to dignify his sack of Malmsey. The senior master- of sea transport and the former chief engineer of the Mauretania both get’an 0.8. K., and mirabile dictu, Mr Citrine general secretary of the T.IT.C. and a very pink politician, the K.B.E. It will be amusing to hear the comrades felicitating Sir Walter! DELENDA EST. In the whole gamut of human horror there is nothing more terrifying than earthquake. The piteous tragedy of Quetta enforces that truth. The Indian Aldershot has been blotted out. Apart from any question of life and limb, the mere physical sensation of earth tremors is one of the most helplessly demoralising imaginable. The human tenant ceases to have foothold on his earthly tenement, a feeling of intense mal de mer is set up, and the world seems to dissolve in eclipse. _ California Japan, and Northern India are the three recognised earthquake zones, and this liability, so often emphasised in the latter instance, may be attributable to the proximity of the mighty Himalayan range. Though millions of years old, the Himalayas are geologically young mountains, and the surrounding globe has not yet settled down to solidarity under their colossal weight. In these regions man remains, in Byron’s phrase, “the feeblo tenant of an hour.’’ KING WITH THE GUARDS. To the • delight of the huge crowds the King, 1 * recovered from his chill, took the salute at the colour trooping on his 70th birthday. In his uniform as colonel-in-chief of the trooping regiment, the Irish Guards, and riding Brownie, the 25-year-old charger he has used on ten such occasions, His Majesty made an impressive figure. No-

body could possibly believe ho has readied the Psalmist’s allotted span. The ceremony was carried through with the precision and elan expected of the corps d’elite concerned, but for a moment Brownie checked during the inspection. The King waved his hand to the two small York Princesses m an overlooking window. At one rehearsal a Guardsman dropped his rifle, but no sensation of that kind now marred the regiment R.S.M.’s perfect content. The Dukes of York and Kent were mounted on Dauncey and Violet, veterans of the Royal mews, but the Duke of Gloucester rode Vain Bachelor, on whom, owing to his perfect manners, the King’s groom headed all the Jubilee processions. The Prince of Wales and Prince Arthur of Connaught, as usual, chose police chargers, the latter, as Colonel of the Scots Greys, selecting a grey one. THAT BLUE RIBBON. A sporting M.P. has turned the mythical blue ribbon of the Atlantic into a tangible trophy. So if old Neptune is a betting god ho must now be studying Atlantic greyhound form as some mortals have recently done that of Derby runners. It is 28 years since the Mauretania, now being sold piecemeal as souvenirs, won back the Atlantic ribbon for our Red Ensign. After the war came the Bremen, with her squat smokestacks, to wrest the trophy for Germany, but only to surrender it two years ago to Italy’s rakish-looking Rex. That ocean hustler made the trip from Gib to Sandy Hook in 4d 13h 29min, nearly an hour better than the German boat. The French liner Normandie, recently ploughing through the Atlantic billows on her maiden voyage, challenges the Rex. In actual tonnage the Normandie is huger even than our own Queen Mary, now fitting _ out on the Clyde, but to patriotic British seamen’s eyes the Clyde boat has a sleeker streamline. Whatever Neptune may fancy Glasgow rivetters to a man will back the Queen Mary. STOUT FELLOWS. A visit to the Kingsway recruiting headquarters of the_ R.A.F, these days is a cheering experience.. _ It serves at least to correct any notion that our post-war youth is all of the same complexion as the Union’s notorious we-won’t-fight resolution suggested. The R.A.F. headquarters is thronged by very useful and capable looking sters, quite reminiscent, in their way, though on. a small scale, of course, of those gallant adventurers who rushed to join up with the First Hundred Thousand in 1914. The spirt of adventure is not yet dead in British manhood, and most of the would-be airmen recruits afford no confirmation of the theory that we are entirely a C 3 nation, either. There is not much question that we shall get all the men needed, and that they will be picked men, at that. The type I saw at the Kingsway offices was a' most attractive and convincing one. In raising its cadres, the R.A.F. will not Have to lower its standard. ACADEMIC CONVICTS. It is news to me that the British Institute of Adult Education actually has over 14,000 prisoners among its class students. The prisoners pursue their studies in gaol, and even sit for Society of Arts certificates! This being so,_ it is less amazing to hear, from the institute’s secretary, that before long we may have prisoners matriculating and even graduating while serving their sentences. Scores of applications have been sent to the institute from prisoners in various gaols, asking for facilities to take the London matriculation examination, and also a- London science or art degree. London University could afford such facilities, because it alone grants external degrees. No doubt such an idea would have given any of Mr Gladstone’s Home Secretaries a fit, but study seems a very suitable and satisfactory occupation for convicts, if taken seriously, and less questionable than the lawn tennis provided in at. least one English prison. We have fewer people in gaol nowadays, but their educational standard is notably higher. TO THE TEEThL Nothing in the late Colonel Lawrence’s 4 Revolt in the Desert ’ is more intriguing than his picture of Auda Abu Tayi, fiercest of all the warrior desert princes, and chief of the finest fighting tribesmen. Whilst Auda was discussing plans against the Turks with Lawrence and Feisal in the latter’s tent, he suddenly 14 ejaculated: 44 God forbid!” and flung out of the tent. As Lawrence and Feisal gazed at each other in surprise there came a sound of hammering without. Lawrence went to investigate, and found Auda, bent over a rock, pounding his false teeth to fragments with a stone. He explained that he had forgotten that Jemal Pahsa had given him the dental set. 44 1 was eating, my Lord’s bread with Turkish teeth!” As a consequence of this Homeric gesture, the old warrior could hardly eat anything until, after Akaba had been captured, Sir Reginald Wingate sent a dentist from Egypt 44 to make him an Allied sot.” Such was the temper of that doughty Arab leader, who was married 28 and wounded 13 times, TRIGGER AND PEN. * One does not expect Nimrod to be as handy with a pen as a gun, but the collected letters from big-game hunters to Mr Denis D. Lyell, the hunternaturalist, published by Murray as 4 African Adventure,’ make a fascinating book. Amongst the epistles are several from Captain Selous, D. 5.0., perhaps the original of Rider Haggard’s Alan Quartermaine. Selous fell, with the Frontiersmen in East Africa, just a year before his son, Fred, was killed in an air combat in France. _ Selous pinned his faith to the Mannlicher as the best of all small-bore rifles. And he had no use for rich men, who shoot big game by the aid of their Somali hunters, but by themselves could not even find it. Sportsmen generally will find these letters from famous old hunters, the thrilling adventures they relate so succinctly, and the author’s comments all good reading. But I should like fuller detail about MrR. J. Ounninghame’s exploit of catching a lion, who had killed some Masai cattle, with fly-paper! UNIQUE HEIRLOOM. The Pusey Horn, the oldest specimen of Early Saxon hunting horn in existence, has been sold at Sotheby’s for £1,900. It is over 2ft long, a foot in circumference at the mouth, and mounted in silver with exquisite Gothic workmanship, with an inscription stating that it was King Canute’s gift to William Pewse. It has remained for nine centuries in the Pusey family, and is quoted in our legal text books as the supreme example of an heirloom. The tradition is that Canute, the father of King Harold of Senloc, gave it to Pewse for bringing him, in disguise as a shepherd, warning of a Saxon ambuscade. In the seventeenth century it was the subject of a law action and a famous judgment by the then Lord Chancellor Jeffries. A condition of its tenure, with the estate that went with it, was that the holder must wind the born whenever enemies invaded the Royal realm. It will be tragedy if this unique souvenir has to leave England now, but the name of the new purchaser is a secret.

SIXERS. Those who have read their * Colonel Bramble ’ realise “ how the British Army’s sporting obsessions strengthened the faith of admiring French liaison officers in the inevitability of an Allied victory. It must be equally consoling now to foreign observers to note, amid the currency crises and re-arma-ment threats, that our dominating concern at the moment is who of the mighty cricketers of the past hit a-ball over the Lord’s pavilion." It has been settled conclusively that this doughty feat was performed 36 years'ago by A. E. Trott, and, 17 years before that, in a match between the M.C.C. and Somerset, by Mr W. Herbert Fowler, who is still alive to testify, to the truth. The high l discussion which has taken place on this topic puts international alarums into their right perspective. I did not see either of the Lord’s sixers, but I saw old W.G. smite»a ball clean over Clifton College chapel, and had the honour to be present when A. C. Maclaren swiped one right into the Old Trafford pavilion clock. CINEMA EXPRESSES NOW.

The L.N.E.R. have this week put cinema coaches on some of their regular expresses between London and Leeds. The idea Las been tested on the London-Peterborough run, and duly approved for more general adoption.' The cinema coach seats 44 film fans, and its carpeted floor slopes gently to give the back seats a clear view of the screen. Thus the established institution of the railway station cinema is carried to its logical conclusion, and, the station

cinema becoming portable, film devotee* may indulge their ruling passion even. , when travelling at 60 miles an hour on main line trains. . Those who hav* sampled the express cinemas, the charge • for which is a shilling, report favour-, ably as to the result, though the movi® , part of the show seems rather more perfect than the2 talkie at present. I understand the station cinema s uses, when people have to kill time, but til* train cinema makes no appeal to me, I prefer to read or watch the countryside glide past. .■ car wireless! j Even less am I enamoured of wireless receivers in motor cars. Apart from whether such diversion may distract the driver or drown warning sounds on the road, I find it positively irksome to have jazz music, a slight discourse on , the habits of snails, or even a - accent thrust on my attention, x when travelling by car. The first time I wa* treated to this kind of entertainment, . we were threading the traffic maelstrom round the Elephant and Castle, and some gifted elocutionist was reciting \ Tennyson’s ‘ Ulysses.’ I found the conjunction most unhappy. With a : scorching driver doing 44 in a 30 m.p.h. built-up area, and the gongs of a pursuing police car sounding behind,- i there might be a certain appropriate- | ness in a wireless recitation of Francis j Thompson’s ‘Hound of Heaven,’ but vl Lord Tennyson’s poetry does not blend with the Blackfriars road and the Eleplant. But tastes differ. Some peopl® cannot enjoy the solitude.of a Thame* backwater without a gramophone record of the Black Crows.