LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 23352, 23 August 1939, Page 9

LONDON TOPICS

RESERVE FLEET G.O. I.R.A. CHIEF BACK FROM UNITED STATES [From Our Correspondent.] [Bit Air Mail.] •i ■ August 3. The brisk-looking naval reservists, who to the number of 12,000 are rejoining to help man the 133 ships of the Reserve Meet, will like their C.O. This is Vice-Admiral Sir Max Horton, whose manly bosom is adorned by the Russian St. George’s Cross, equivalent to our own V.C. This decoration was given him in St. Petersburg, as it then still was,-by the late Tsar, in recognition of an intrepid excursion by British submarines into the Baltic early in the Great War. Sir Max bagged on that historic excursion one cruiser, three destroyers, and a mixed grill of transports and merchant vessels. He was presented with a unique chance to torpedo one of the Kaiser’s best battleships. She was a sitter on a calm moonlit night, beautifully within range. But Sir Max’s two torpedoes, carefully aimed, failed to explode. Sir Max is a genial bachelor, has the breezy seadog way with him, and. rather a rare thing in the Royal Navy, is a first-class bridge player. If trouble comes he will be in it.

Sean Russell, chief of the I.R.A. Fenians, is believed to have returned from'the United States, where he netted a surprisingly • large sum. Most of it came, however, not in subscriptions from Irish American Irreconcilables, but from German Nazi agents. It is not known for certain whether he is now in Ireland or London, nor how he made his passage. Possibly, imitating an adventure of Mr de Valera’s younger days, he: may have worked it as a stoker. Though Sean Russell is not over fond of real work. Sean, or in plain English, “John,” Russell is one of three Dublin brothers, arid for a time he ran a market gardener. He •is a plump redheaded fellow, . with a temperamental brow and a retrousse nose, easily identifiable; in a crowd.

" A non-smoker, and very fond of children, he drives a car at break-neck speeds, and its red colour perhaps indicates the disposition of its driver’s political sympathies.. He exudes a malevolent hatred of everything “ British,” but only one of the old I.R.A. chiefs still associates with him. In the “ trouble ” he proved himself a ruth less guerrilla subordinate. But he is not out for any personal martyr’s crown if lie can avoid it. BETTER THAN CASTOR OIL.

One would need to be unduly optimistic to hope that our people might have the wit to adopt with the HI.A. similar tactics to those which proved successful in Ulster. The I.R.A. activities in Ulster were promptly taken in hand hy Major-general Solly-Flood, a cavalryman who served with distinction in South Africa and the Great War. ■He was at that time military adviser to the Ulster Government, and he obtained power to intern all criminals against whom there was not enough evidence for a court conviction. These suspects, who were as well known in Ulster as they are here, were lodged aboard a ship called the Argenta moored in the roughest part of Belfast Lough. Their ridiculous plight, throwing up their immortal souls all day long, had. a great deal to do with the rapid col-' lapse of the I.R.A. “ campaign ” in Northern Ireland. It is suggested that we might employ similar tactics here, and use a vessel moored in the Pentland Firth or some equally stormy anchorage, as an internment centre for our I.R.A. suspects. The Ulster idea is even brighter than Mussolini’s famous castor oil trick. HINDU VISITORS. London has just been presented with something novel in entertainment—so novel, in fact, that one is a little anxious lest public opinion should fail to recognise its worth, before its allotted short season is completed. The entertainment consists, of a series of dances, staged at the Aldwych Theatre, by Hindu visitors headed by a famous Indian dancer, Ram Gopal. There are 17 dances, many of them solo; against an unpretentious setting of a single background curtain, the only artificial aids being skilful lighting and the magnificent costumes worn by the men and women in the company. Two of the performances are memorable —the Eagle Dance, by Gopal himself, a remarkable representation of Indian religious belief danced in a garment of feathers of gold, and Maya Rani’s Peacock Dance, an equally striking study by a feminine member of the cast. The music, at first peculiar and meaningless to Western ears, takes unto itself a queer quality, all the more so because of the informality with which the four musicians sit at the back of the stage impassively playing drum and wind instruments, .Many of Loudon’s Indian community, the women in their own national costume, attended the first night.

WHICH IS ABSURD. » Experienced police officials are strongly of opinion that so-called prison reform is being absurdly overdone. Recent revelations certainly lend colour to this view. Convicts serving sentences in Parkhurst have actually engaged in forging bank notes. Apparently they managed this by means of materials stolen from the prison photographic department. Some of the forged notes, .admirably executed, were passed at shops near the prison. Not long ago three prisoners serving a term in a London gaol managed, thanks to the unrestricted intercourse now permitted in the common room in the evenings, to plan an ambitious smuggling coup. By means of an outside agent they took a West End office, chartered a motor boat, and arranged for a cargo of contraband to be “ run ” across from France. This prison coup was revealed only by the accident that the motor boat in a dense fog ran ashore on the Isle of Wight. But it threw rather a queer light on our penitentiary system. Incidents such as these suggest that our prison system may be approximating to the absurdities of certain American. gaols. A former prison governor, discussing this question, expressed the view that our people approach the problem from a wrong angle. Instead of doing so scientifically, they do so emotionally. In their regard for the criminal they overlook society. Sweden has the model system. There they have two distinct types of prison treatment, one for what may bo called the amateur backslider, the other for the seasoned criminal. The former is sanely reformative and restorative, the latter preventive and punitive. My informant declared that prisons can never be run on what be called Y.W.C.A. lines, and that “ A good time was had by all ’’ was a bad slogan for crime settlements 'lho trouble is, in his opinion, that

well-meaning, , but sloppy-minded, emotionalists are being given too much say in prison management nowadays. Such mentalities sympathise more with real criminals than with miserable deft defaulters.

COMMANDER FLETCHER, M.P. Lieutenant-commander R. T. H. Fletcher, Socialist M.P. for Nuneaton, who has just rejoined the Navy as a volunteer in his own rank, will be away from his political duties for about two months. Commander Fletcher, a brilliant linguist, had a most adventurous career at sea during the Great War. The climax, in 1916, took place in the Pentland Firth, where Commander Fletcher was serving on a flotilla leader. His vessel met a “ pocket ” of air, with disastrous results. All members of the deck watch were killed, and Commander Fletcher himself, on the bridge at the time, was hurled down to the main deck. He sustained serious internal injuries, and though he left hospital with the intention of going to sea again, he was eventually transferred to admiralty duties in London. Politically be is now regarded, as being among the best half dozen or so Opposition back-benchers, and had he been in Parliament for a longer period —he was elected in' 1935—there is little doubt that he would be a member of the Opposition Front Bench. For the remainder of this week, the House will miss his somewhat dry interjections at question time. FAMILY HAZARDS. A book of legal reminiscences by a city solicitor reveals some interesting facts about the Attlee family. The late Mr Henry Attlee, former President of the Law Society and member of a well-known firm of London solicitors, had four sons. One of these is Major C. R. Attlee, Leader of the Socialist Opposition in the House of Commons, who is now getting over a serious operation. He 'served in the War in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and France, first with the South Lancashires and later with the Tank Corps. One of his brothers, an architect, was a conscientious objector, but another, now an Oxford vicar who produces miracle plays, served as chaplain attached to H.M.S. Victory. Mr Henry Attlee, the father, was a typical Victorian patriarch, with a druidical beard, a stately stylo of oratory, strong Liberal views, and a zest for billiards. At this game, however, our Major Attlee became his master, but the old gentleman always refused to take a start. He regarded it as much less undignified to be beaten bv his son than to accept a handicap. That was a throughly Victorian point of view, too.