LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 22106, 13 August 1935, Page 7

LONDON TOPICS

LLOYD GEORGE CAMPAIGN [From Our Correspondent.] (By Air Mail.) July 18. One of the absorbing political topics of the moment, which will probably engross much interest between now and the General Election, is how far Mr Lloyd George’s plan of campaign will succeed. The general impression at the moment is that it may not cut much ice, but L.G.’s reputation as an astute and far-seeing opportunist is still good enough to raise a doubt in some politicians’ minds. Even without the collections that are taken up at L.G. meetings, and subscriptions now said to be pouring in, L.G. has ample funds well invested in his old war chest. There will probably be no lack of money to run the campaign, but the real difficulty will be to establish the essential political machinery all over the country. Without such machinery no political party nowadays has any chance of success. Even the National movement, overwhelming as it w'as, would have been paralysed without it. The shrewd idea is that L.G. means his Councils of Action to improvise this vital link. MYSTIFYING. The sympathies of most people in this country are strongly with Abyssinia and against Mussolini in the Ethiopian affair. I feel that way myself, though I realise that my knowledge of the actual facts is partial, and that there may be two sides even to this question. The Italian Press argument that we grabbed our colonies in days past does not impress me. Many things were done in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and oven later, that are not done now. Moreover, we never forced a war on an inoffensive people or a State belonging to the comity of nations. But what passes my comprehension, I confess, is the attitude of London’s ultra-pacifist and anti-armament papers. They are busy publishing scurrilous caricatures of Mussolini and heaping insults on the Italians. That kind of thing seems to me a dubious method of _ promoting peace on earth and goodwill amongst men, and a frightfully risky one for people who advocate scrapping oui fighting services. PERTINENT. Sir Ernest Benn is not the only one who has grave doubts about the Exchange Equalisation Fund. Earmarked to steady the pound sterling, since it lost its gold it now amounts to £350,000,000, twice the total of our pre-war Budgets. Mr Chamberlain says the fund is- temporary and quite abnormal, but Sir Sir Ernest wants to know when it will be wound up. Other countries now have similar funds, and international poker with no limit, by groups of anonymous Sir Ernest thinks mav'be a very risky game to play. What use, he asks, might less orthodox politicians, say Mr Lloyd George, or Sir Stafford Cripps, be tempted to make of such an inviting nest egg. The sum would suffice, without any loss to the Budget, to reduce income tax by another shilling for four years, which could hardly fail to be a tremendous economic stimulus. Sir Ernest is frankly worried by the belief, moreover, that bureaucracy, once it gets its grip on public funds, rarely lots go. It will be a case of “ The night is fine, the Walrus said, do you admire the view?” INTRIGUING IRISH RUMOUR. A remarkable story reaches me to the effect that Mr De Valera was recently in London, strictly incognito so far as anybody but tho official people ho came to see were concerned, and that he was accompanied by several of his Dublin colleagues. I should hesitate to mention this intriguing report, because I have found no possible means of checking it, and I should have refrained from any reference to it at all, but for the very credible London-Insh source from which it came to me direct. My informant declares that, to the best of his belief, it is a circumstantial story, and that he heard, furthermore, that there is considerable hope, as a result of this secret mission, of a more helpful reaction between Dublin and Downing street in the near future. The story seems too important to be completely ignored, but I give the facts as I got them for no more than they may be worth.

SOLDIER AND FARMER, TOO. South Africa’s Minister for Agriculture, Colonel the Hon. Deneys Reitz, is paying his first visit to this country since the war. He is a keen cricket “fan,” and delighted both by. the prowess of the visiting South African cricketers in'the field and by their reputation as thoroughly popular sportsmen. Colonel Reitz had a distinguished record in the Great_ War. He commanded the first battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front during some desperately hard fighting. He has not seen London since he was here during the war period on different occasions. On his voyage from South Africa to London this time Colonel Reitz had the great thrill of renewing acquaintance with his old battalion. He was their guest of honour at Ismailia, and met several of his old comrades-in-arms who _ are still with the regiment. South Africa’s Minister for Agriculture can wield the pen as well as the sword. He has written two readable books—* Commando ’ and ‘ Trekking On ’ —which deal with earlier pre-war adventures. THE NEW ARMY. If the immediate world outlook is depressing sincere pacifists, they might cheer up a little on the strength of King George’s Silver Jubilee review of the Aldershot troops. - It is the first occasion that has revealed the British Army as a mechanised force, and, however great the lethal potentiality of the new order, it certainly lacks the romantic accessories of the old. Gone is all the sartorial glory of .the soldier. All ranks, even the erstwhile glittering staff, wore dull old khaki, and might as well have worn overalls, _ because their robot military machine now eclipses the mere soldier, and the full dress parade of the army is about as ornamental as a railway siding. Only a few cavalry squadrons, stripped of all but their mounts, and the martial kilts of the Camerons remained as reminders of .the obsolete operatic era of soldiering. If mechanism does not kill military lure, then nothing can. SILENT SERVICES. King George’s silver jubilee review of the Fleet of Spithead is the first occasion when merchant and fishing craft joined in the sea parade. They were there, smart as paint, to honour those 11,000 stout seamen who gave their lives to combat Gorman frightfulness afloat, to keep the old red ensign flying on the seven seas, and to ensure the nation’s vital supplies. Not otherwise could Great Britain have battled through. There

were 20 miles of grim grey warships, riding in majestic power on the sparkling bine water, and no doubt the crowds were duly But a third of these fighting ships were museum specimens, veterans _ of Der Tag, and, however splendid they looked, full ripe for the scrap heap. Jcllicoe’s old Iron Duke, Revenge, Valiant, and Barham were in the thick of the Jutland fighting, and Barham wears many honourable scars. It was a new Army the King reviewed, but largely the old Navy. More expert visitors picked l out with interest new gadgets, such as catapults and antiaircraft pom-pom towers, on the postwar ships. GUY NICKALLS.

Rowing and. the river are bred in the bone of the Nickalls family. The name is a household one, not only at Eton, Oxford, and Henley, but wherever sportsmen still pull boats and scorn outboard motors. But Guy Nickalls, now killed in a motor accident at the age of 68, was the greatest of them all. No amateurs of any generation on record won so many rowing and sculling races. His total was 78, of which he won or helped to win 67, including a record-time victory in a Leander eight at Henley in the Grand when he was nearly 42 years old. By a queer coincidence the motor smash in which he met his death occurred on the same day that Lord Ampthill, with whom he once won the Goblets at Henley, passed aw’ay. Guy Nickalls was a handsome, genial, all-round sportsman, who shot- big game, rode a horse well, was a powerful swimmer, and a keen fisherman. In the war he served with captain’s rank with a battalion of the famous Lancashire Fusiliers. Both his sons are oarsmen of distinction, and the Nickalls dynasty should continue still. FADING LURE. The latest census of British seamen makes gloomy reading. The number of British sailors under 25 years of age who are now afloat has been steaduy declining for the past five years, and now amounts to no more than 15 per cent, of those engaged in coastal and 24 per cent, on deep-sea foreign voyaging. Out _ of one hundred thousand British seamen, nearly 70,000 are between 25 and 54 years old, and 8,000 are old shell-backs above the latter age. Owing to young men not coming forward, the average age of our native seamen tends to grow steadily higher. _ The question is how far this disquieting tendency is due to any loss of the old lure of sea adventure amongst post-war youth in this seagirt island, and how far to the depressed state of the shipping industry, and consequently poor prospects of employment and advancement. But whatever the case, the fact is little less than calamitous. Where should we have been, in T 914-18, without our sturdy and gallant merchant seamen? BISLEY FASHIONS. The big Bisley rifle meeting may be even more fascinating to the novice than to the expert. Things that the latter accepts as normal and humdrum the former may find strange enough to be comic. • Take the attitudes in which different crack shots do their pot-hunt-ing at the ranges. Service shots, of. course, adopt the regulation prone position, lying flat on their stomachs, head towards the butts, legs extended at an obtuse angle in the grass. But far different is the posture of the civilian or ex-service crack marksman. He wears a medley of old garments that no self-respecting tramp would trouble to lift off a destructor dump, - His headgear is a huge sombrero with collapsing brim. He lies, not on his stomach, but usually on his back, feet towards the target, and his elaborate match rifle, gripped beneath his armpit, ' is propped along his legs, and kept rigid by straps wound round his arms and perhaps gripped between his teeth. Anything more completely unmUitary than this get-up and attitude it would be impossible to imagine. It is a popular delusion that for this type of shooting. the main thing is keen eyesight. The match marksman has powerful lens sights that supply that' part tf the equipment far more accurately than any human eyes could. It is judgment of the flag movements, which indicate how the wind is blowing, that counts in long-distance shooting with match rifles. You must choose your moment to shoot with and not against the wind, and adjust your wind-gauges exaptly to each light air current. But the results, to any one who has merely fired an army course, are amazing. I saw one veteran, an old gentleman who has fired his regulation rounds at generations of Bisley, pile up 12 bulls out of 13 shots at I,2ooyds. At a mile T he normal eye cannot distinguish whether a figure is that of a man or a woman. Yet at three-quarters of that distance this old chap plunked his stream-lined bullet dead on the tiny bull’s-eye almost every time. BURIED TREASURE. The sturdy Cockney navvies employed in the demolition of old Waterloo bridge, as well as the engineers in charge of the work, are now taking a new sporting interest in the job. It now approaches its final stage. Those graceful arches of stone, which for over a century carried across the Thames the changing kaleidoscope of London’s traffic and witnessed the growler’s evolution into the modern saloon taxi, have vanished from the scene. The workmen are getting down to foundations now. So the question urgently arises where are those gold and silver coins, together with newspapers, in a sealed bottle, which were placed a hundred and odd years ago beneath one of the foundation stones of the arches. The stone was of Cornish granite, suitably inscribed, but in which arch did it repose? This uncertainty adds all the thrill of a genuine hunt for buried treasure to the labour of unpicking Rennie’s Victorian masterpiece. The expert assumption is that the treasure arch !s the one at the Embankment end of the bridge. FLIRTING WITH DEATH. Mountaineering has never been more enthusiastically popular,' within the comparatively narrow circle of its active practitioners, .than since the war. It almost suggests that, egged on by the unadventurous calm that has followed the excitements of the .1914-18 period, men desperately seek fresh avenues of risk*and danger. . The sensational feat of the present year has been the conquest of the grimly formidable northern face of the GrandesJorassos, which seemed almost beyond the wildest dream of daring alpinists. Two years ago a famous French guide made the attempt, but was beaten by the weather when 2,000 ft from the 5,000 ft summit. Next year a wellknown German mountaineer, Herr Peters, tried the ascent, but again the weather beat him, when within 500 ft of the top, and his companion was killed in the retreat. , It says a lot for the German’s nerve that Herr Peters returned to the assault this year, and won through with another companion. But, if this spirit of bravado holds, the Alps will soon get a worse name for tragedy. REPORTING BY TOUCH. Newspapers have paid much tribute to the good-humoured way in which thq House of Commons carried on its

foreign affairs debate during the “ black out ” which fell upon Westminster, and to Mr Morgan Jones for continuing his speech uninterrupted by the darkness. A word or two of praise, however, is also due to the members of the Press Gallery, wso also stuck to their job through a half-hour of adversity. To speak in the dark is not so difficult as to take notes of the speaker. The official reporters had the aid of one small night light between them, and another, shorthand _ writer, brought a bicycle lamp to his aid. Several others continued to take their notes in pitch darkness, and found, moreover, that they were afterwards able to transcribe them. One descriptive writer, who had to get his copy to press by 10 o’clock, actually wrote up his account of the scene in the House in, almost pitch darkness. His typescript was quite readable, hut he tells me ho encountered his greatest difficulty in finding and addressing an envelope in which to enclose it. QUANTUM MUTATUS! Experts in the press box at Lord’s found the cricket at the Varsity match, not quite up to snuff. But it was good enough for me. The weather, when I was sunning myself on the terrace, was delightful. There on the sacred but leather-jacket-devastated area in the centre were the traditional academio Montagues and Capulets, battling their cricket duel with entertaining vagaries of fortune. And, round the arena, was the nicest assortment of smartlygowned mammas and sylph-like society flappers that any connoisseur of fashion and beauty could reasonably demand. But what took most of my interest was the Cambridge No. 7 batsman, in whom, in unaccustomed cricket flannels, I recognised with some difficulty Mr W. Wooller, the tall, Welsh rugger centre-three-quarter whose remorseless stride and torpedo dive Twickenham crowds have learnt to admire and dread. Out of his football shorts and boots, my sporting sympathies were with Mr Wooller, and I rejoiced and was exceedingly glad When he hit up a comely 20 against Oxford’s wiles. CURATIVE NEEDLES. is the latest thing in health treatment. Dr C. de Radwan, an eminently serious Polish specialist has records for all tion in London, and profoundly impressed the Fleet Street people. The Polish specailist has records for all manner of troubles. He has “ energy ” records to produce psyebo-gymnastio mental reaction, “ relaxation™ records to reduce mental tranquility and “ regeneration ” records .to set up other favourable conditions in the patient. So, unless the B.M:.A. raises killjoy obstacles, we may soon have the family doctor, after lie has .finished with your tongue and pulse, and done prospecting with his stethoscope, writing out an illegible prescription which will include, not only the indispensable drugs, but appropriate gramophone records. , I am interested in the “energy” theory. It looks as though, after all. in his brutal, raucous- way, the old Army K.o.M. was on the right scientific track. He got those psycho-gymnastic reactions all right.