LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 22354, 2 June 1936, Page 5

LONDON TOPICS

FINIS ETHIOPIA . [From Our Correspondent.] [By Air Mail.] , May 7. With the flight of the Emperor and the Italian occupation of Addis Ababa, Mussolini’s East African adventure is over. Once the energetic and capable Marshal Badoglio took charge the Italian advance became swift and ruthless. Ho has accomplished within seven months, and just in time,to escape the heavy rains, what most military experts declared would take seven years. Abyssinia’s quick collapse, which deletes from the map one of the world’s oldest kingdoms, is due to several factors, including gas attacks, as well as fast-mov-ing tank coluriins. But it is impossible to ignore that/the main factor may have been the fallacious sense of security given to the Emperor and his entourage by a deluded faith in Geneva. In tins betrayal our own vociferous pacifists had more than their share. The JioareLaval peace terms, which they spurned with such fine vicarious scorn, look remarkably good now. Abyssinia has been tin-own to the tanks, hope of Europe’s collective security shattered, and British prestige gravely weakened, all to no purpose. Sir Sidney Barton, to whom as British Minister at Addis Ababa the foreign residents are looking for protection, is one of the few cases of transfer from the consular to the diplomatic service. He is in his sixtieth year, and has held his present trying post for the exceptionally long period of seven years. Most of his service has been spent in China, and during his spells of leave he contrived to become a member of the Middle Temple. In his early days he saw active service with the North China field force, and was mentioned in despatches. He is thus no stranger to fighting not greatly different from that which "confronted him during the last week-end, MINING ROYALTIES. The Government, 1 understand, is not unfavourably impressed by the mine owners’ suggestion of defining some total value of the mining royalties which are eventually taken over by the State. The idea of first reaching a global assessment, and subsequently apportioning it in varying amounts among the royalty owners, is deemed to be a good one. The Mines Department has been active for some time in getting together a very considerable amount of information on the royalties issue, and it now seems possible that negotiations may he entered upon along these lines at a not far distant date. In putting forward this suggestion of a global valuation the royalty owners, I gather, have indicated that their estimate ol the total value of their rights is somewhere in the region of £150,000,000. Here, however, ,the Government does not share their views.. The figure, in fact, is regarded as in excess of anything that is likely to be acceptable as a basis for negotiations. BUDGET LEAKAGE. It is curious how any suggestion of political sensation involving a personal equation eclipses all other interests at Westminster. Just now the one piquant topic, both in the parliamentary obhy and in the city, is the Budget leakage. If the facts are such as current gossip in both places confidently suggests, it is difficult to see how a first-class scandal can be avoided. Everybody to whom Budget secrets are confided, whether Ministers of the Crown or Whiteha U officials, has to live right up to a high tradition. They must he like Csesar s wife. Even in days when our electoral system was thoroughly corrupt, and standards of public life rather less exacting, the Budget tradition was maintained. All of which, of course, intensifies feeling in the present allegations. This feeling is not least intense in the Civil Service, whose withers, it may fie emphatically stated, will be found to be quite unwrung. AUSSIE. Somehow foremost Australian statesmen all have personality, and usually of a pleasing type.- No exception to this rule is Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Earle Pape, who is now in London. He is a finely set-up Aussie type, and combines with a mild manner the tanned features and outdoor eyes of tho pioneer in wide-open spaces. He lias done important exploration in New South Wales’s “ lost provinces.” and ridden nearly as many hours in the saddle as did that hero of Dumas’s

‘Three Musketeers,’ the iron-muscled D’Artagnan. He saw ins son killed bv lightning on one expedition. Thong i his first and last love is medicine and suraerv, politics of the social welfare genre ‘is a second string, and he is not afraid to dream dreams of the future. We might he all the better in this prosaic old country of lanes and P«i s tures if we could enlist, or recruit, a few' more out-of-door men m our political gallery. They take «i larger-view of life and its essentials than the homekeeping office man. HAROLD COX, Harold Cox’s death at the ripe age of 76 robs me of a friend. Fleet street of a brilliant figure, and, at a time when it can least afford it, this country of a great individualist. A Cambridge logician with mildly Bohemian habits, with the perfect wnfe in the person of a successful woman actuary, Harold contracted in his younger days ail the usual political and sociological measles, but lived them all down to become so level-headed that merely normal minds regarded him as slightly crazy. He was one of the brilliant 1906 House of Commons, the only intellectual one of our epoch, and his unswerving fidelity to principle as against opportunism—no wonder he made L.G. his bote noir—moved Asquith, then Prime Minister, to declare that, in the inconceivable event of Preston proving unfaithful to him, it would be almost the duty of the House of Commons to create a fixed constituency for his honourable friend, whose voice sounded like an authentic echo from the grave of history. HUSH-HUSH TACTICS. s Though Asquith spoke in jest, lie spoke no more than truth. Harold Cox ought to have been the fearless spokesman at Westminster over many useful years of one of our university constituencies. He was splendidly read, loved controversy for its own sake, and remained to the very last a hoy at heart, though a giant in intellect. When he and his wife lived in_ Gray’s Inn w r e used on occasion to climb in on tiptoe for fear of disturbing deep actuarial calculations, with ample provision of refreshing beer, and discussion, fierce and fraternal, continued far into the early morning. Even in his early Socialistic days his brief residence in the East soon convinced his virile understanding that democratic control for India wms a gigantic farce. But he stuck to Freetrade, Adam Smith, and the liberty of the subject through thick and thin. Nor did he surrender his judgment to the age of mechanical robotism. His thought travelled the broad highway, but his feet the country footpaths. LAST PILGRIMAGE TO GALLIPOLI. Field-marshal Sir William Birdwoqd and Admiral Sir Roger Keyes will this summer lead what may be the last pilgrimage to Gallipoli. The pilgrims, numbering about 600 survivors of the epic, will embark from Liverpool on the liner Lancastria, amongst them the 72-year-old V.C., Captain Edward Unwin, a very gallant merchant service seaman, who volunteered for the expedition at the age of 51, after, he had retired from' active sea service; He was the man who suggested the expedient of the immortal collier, s.s. River Clyde, as a better adventure for landing on V Beach than open boats, When the plan threatened to miscarry, owing to the lighter which was to bridge the gap between the steamer and the beach going adrift, he swam ashore, and, with the help of a bluejacket and a few minutes, managed to drag the landing vessel into position. What lias happened to the old River Clyde, except that she has twice changed her name and ownership under the Spanish flag, is a mystery. Perhaps even her own crew know nothing of her historic past. UNDER THE HILL. The tiny Surrey hamlet of Coldharbour, riglit under the almost majestic shadow of Leith Hill, will sadly miss the late Professor Karl Pearson. The doctor was an imposing personality, physically as well as intellectually, and lie and his beloved dogs, of whom he made close personal friends and chums played a distinct part in the quiet activities of Coldharbour. He will be long remembered as the leading exponent in this country of eugenics as well- as the. patentee of biometry, and his talk about cross-breeding rabbits was as fascinating as any romance thriller. Francis Galton was Iris great inspirer, hut Karl Pearson himself know how to inspire others in different avenues of human exploration. He chose ids home with rare judgment. It would bo difficult to imagine a more perfect setting for a groat scientist’s closing years than the Surrey_ village tucked away at the foot of Leith Hill, with a vista of five counties to be had for the climbing, and the air scented with heather and pine. JUST A CENTURY. A hundred years ago tho House of Commons was energetically discussing the plans, and incidentally the cstjninted cost of its present Gothic building. The old one had been deYet only a year or two ago there died

stroyed bv fire 18 months earlier, a famous army veteran of commissioned rank, who remembered seeing the fine fire made by that vanished edifice. A hovel proposal was made, in 1836, by one chivalrous M.ia West Countryman, that the plans should include a Ladies Gallery. 11ns aroused laughter at first, but was carried on a division, though the parsimony of the Treasury postponed its fulfilment for five years. Xhe knight-errant fought a duel, near the Harrow road, with a critic who cut up a novel lie published. Being that sort of man, one wonders what he would have thought, had he been there, the night a militant suffragette padlocked herself to one of the brass panels in the Ladies’ Gallery, and had to be carried out like a poached egg by policemen. SHROPSHIRE LAD. At the ago of 77 Professor A. E. Housnian. the tuneful and distinguished poet who wrote ‘The Shropshire Lad,’ has died at Cambridge. He had been Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge since 1911, though himself, after Bromsgrove School, a graduate of St. John’s, Oxford. He was a bachelor, and started what looked to he a humdrum career os a higher division clerk in the Patent Office. It is astonishing how many poets and men of letters onr Civil Service has produced since the time of Chaucer and Pcpys. There must ho something in the security and • leisure of the work that stimulates literary activity. Professor Honsman, who was the elder brother of Lawrence, had healthily conventional poetic tastes. He rejoiced in rural rambles, cosy taverns, and nut brown ale. His ‘ Shropshire Lad ’ is a classic enshrined on the securest foundations of a ]l—a popular song—but he wrote much finer poetry. His epitaph on our Old Contemptibles is amongst our best war poems: What God abandoned, these defended And saved the sum of things—for pay. UNEXPECTED ROLE. Because musicians are usually temperamental, their reminiscences are never dull. This applies to ‘ Chords of Remembrance,’ by Miss _ Mathilde Verne, tho pianist and music teacher. She studied under Clare Schumann, widow of the famous composer, and recalls personal anecdotes of Brahms. Tho latter once acted as accompanist for a singer, who, overwhelmed by the occasion, gave song after song. “ To sing is not difficult,” said Brahms, turning round on his music stool, “ but to stop seems very difficult!” Hubert Herkomer, Miss Verne’s cousin, was called to Osborne to paint Queen Victoria’s portrait on her deathbed. Overcrowded with funeral guests, the place was in a muddle, and the painter found two wretched ladies-in-waiting shivering in a bitterly cold ante-room. A gentleman, one of the guests, brought wood and coal, and, with his own hands, laid and lit a fire for them. That Good Samaritan was none other than the Kaiser. ART CRITICS. The art critics are the only people, except the R.A.s on the Hanging Committee, who really see the Royal Academy pictures properly. _ At the miscalled private view there is always such a society crush that nobody catches more than a glimpse of parts of tho interesting canvases. Few neople want to, with so many pretty frocks, charming women, and interesting notabilities about. When the galleries open later to the public there is always a fair crowd promenading Burlington House, and it is difficult to get anywhere near tho most attractive exhibits. But on the two Press view days preceding the private view the critics, with a sprinkling of artists, have the place to themselves, and can really see the pictures adequately. Critics nowadays seem to be of two classes—either elderly m’en or very young women. There is not much interchange of talk. Everybody is too afraid that what he or she regards as ft daub may turn out to be a masterpiece, and vice versa. They keep silent and look knowing. NOSTALGIA? Seventy thousand acres in this island arc scheduled for oil prospecting. No stone is to ho left unturned, if need he no beauty spot left unprobed, in the effort to renroduce here those awe-in-spiring conditions admired by travellers in America’s oilfield regions. Though the prospectors have favoured the South to begin with, and concentrated on a spot near Portsmouth, there is an area north of the Tweed, just south of the Forth, of which experts entertain high hopes. A curious situation will arise if thev strike oil in Scotland. Word of it will flash round the glohe, and in countless patriotic Scottish bosoms, under alien skies and in distant hinterlands, nostalgia will assprt its poignant pangs. Dr Johnson's dictum as to the finest prosl pect any Scotsman sees being the road [to England would he completely re- ! versed. A resurgent movement might be set afoot that would threaten to

dislocate onr Imperial administration for lack of competent North Britons. If Scotland strikes oil, so will Imperial Airways! NOT THE ONLY ONE.

It may interest Mr George Bernard Shaw to know that he is not the only superman of whom London can boast, I was introduced a few days ago by some cricketing friends to a gentleman who is a business man hut makes cricket his hobby, and plays in more than mere club cricket, who turns the scales at 24st. Three hundred and thirtysix pounds is a huge weight for a really active man, hqt this cricket Colossus, who has played for Surrey and Ground, is quite an efficient man in the field as well aS 5 a fine batsman. It is no joke being a superman. It puts one .quite outside the ordinary railway station weighing machine pale, so to speak, these contrivances being ranged up to hut not beyond 20st. _ Anyone who weighs more than that is left in the air so far. as the penny-in-the-slot machine is, concerned. My cricket friend, when he wants to know how he is going on, tips sixpence to the man in charge of the goods weighing machine. That weighs up to a ton or so, and serves his purpose. NATURE’S PURE HARMONY.

It would he interesting to know how many people nowadays possess or know anything about an /Eolian harp. A Cambridgeshire worthy, who is an expert in this pleasant instrument, says they arc usually about 3ft long and'Gin broad, with a depth of 3in, made of varnished pine, with beech ends for inserting the tuning and hitch pins. They have two narrow bridges of hard wood, over which a dozen catgut strings are stretched, tuned to the most exact unison possible, hut not too tight in tension. Two holes in the sound board are usual. The ends are raised about an inch above the strings, and support another pine hoard, between which and the sounding hoard the draught of air is directed, the harp being placed obliquely in the direction of the wind. The soothing harmonies produced thus by Nature transcend mortal music, and the rEolian harp is just the thing to go with an Old World garden sundial.