LONDON AND WAR

Evening Star, Issue 23508, 23 February 1940, Page 11

LONDON AND WAR

SOUTH AFRICA BEHIND THE EMPIRE BELLIGERENTS IN NEUTRAL WATERS (From Ocr Correspondent] [Bv Air Mail.] ’ January 25. No doubt the Goebbels propaganda circus will make the most of General Hertzog’s motion as Leader of the Opposition in South Africa, that steps should be taken to end the state of war between .South Africa and Germany, but it is worth remembering that during the last war there was actual fighting amounting to civil war over the issue between South African parties; also that since this war started, and the attitude of General Hertzog’s party developed, General Smuts has gained appreciably in the constituencies. - As a whole there can be not a shadow of doubt that South Africa is solidly behind the Empire in this struggle, realising, as other parts of the Empire certainly do, that on our victory in this conflict depends the future of the Anglo-Saxon oversea heritage. Defeat now means the break-up of .the British Empire, , either immediately or ultimately. The spirit | and number of South Africans who are rushing-to join our fighting forces, notably the R.A.F., are a sufficient answer -to any doubts- about the loyalty and determination of our kinsmen under the Southern Cross. A DIPLOMATIC COMPLIMENT. The appointment of a British Minister in Rome in reinforcement of -a very able and popular Ambassador is certainly a diplomatic compliment to Signor Mussolini, but it is also more than merely that. The despatch of Sir Noel Hughes Havelock Charles as Sir Percy Loraine’s right-hand man places the Rome Embassy on the same footing as Paris, hitherto regarded as the blue ribbon of our Foreign Office service. Sir Percy is an old Etonian, hut Sir Noel’s alma mater was Rugby. Both ai;e, however, good Oxonians. ‘Sir Percy is a New College man, and Sir Noel a Christ Church man. Both have had extensive diplomatic experience in many quarters of the globe. Sir Noel served in the jast war. He went across to France in 1915, after a brief earlier experience out East, and he gained an M.C. besides being mentioned in dispatches. He holds the Order of Jerusalem and of the Rising Sun, and is a member of the Marlborough and St. James’s Clubs, as well as the Royal Automobile, This reinforcement means that Rome is a vital sector on the European diplomatic front. QUESTION OF FAIR PLAY. Early in this war Washington gave a lead to all the States of the Americas, North and South, in prohibiting any belligerent naval activities within 300 miles of their continents. This was an entirely novel ukase, and practically extended _ the existing international three mile territorial water limit a hundred-fold. But the decision was cordially accepted both in Paris and London. It seems almost incredible, therefore, that_ Washington can reject our friendly rejoinder to the American protest against the Montevideo fight. We welcome the extended sea neutrality zone, but only so long as effective action is taken by its American sponsors to ensure that it is not used bv German warships as a safe sanctuary from which to make hostile raids on Allied or other shipping. Any such situation as that' would be obviously and monstrously impossible. The Graf Spee was lurking well within the proscribed zone, and a constant menace to our merchant vessels. We took action to remove that menace. One doubts whether popular sentiment in TT.R.A. or in South America wiil condemn that action. WAR IN THE AIR. I* is not often an expert airman permits himself to talk shop outside his own squadron mess. When he does, however, the layman learns how technical this phase of modern warfare is.’ Recently an 11.A.F, -ace pointed out to me that the immense acceleration gained by military planes since the last war means a corresponding loss of bombing accuracy. Speed is all to the good so far as the fighter machines nro concerned, so long as the plane retains its manoeuvrability, but no bomber can be so sure of getting near bis target at great speed, ahd nigh up, ns he would be at a low altitude ahd slower speed. This is where the A.A. batteries and barrage balloons play their part, even though it is much more preventive than actively destructive. They force an attack to* keep high up and at high speed, and thereby gravely impair it* bombing potentiality. Dur-

ing the Spanish war, in which Franco held an immense advantage in air equipment, the way the Italian and German bombers missed vital and con - spicuous targets was amazing. Th« Sagunto munition works at Valentia, marked by dozens of tall chimnov stacks, had nearly 6,000 bombs aimed at it. Only 21 hit the target and work was never even interrupted. “SEEDED ” CIVIL SERVANTS. The' list allocating to their departments the young men—there were no young women on this occasion-—success-ful in the Administrative Civil Service examination of July shows that 108 have begun their hopeful careers which may, or may not, lead them to the proud postion of Under-secretary of State or Ambassador or Consul-General. The candidates are spread over the Homo Civil Service, the North of Ireland Civil Service, the Indian and Burman Civil Service, the Foreign Office, and the Consular and Overseas Trade Services, the Home Civil Service, of course, claiming the great majority. Of the 108, 80 came from Oxford or Cambridge. On this proportion we arc asked to assume that the intellectual ability of Oxford and Cambridge, in mass or quality, is as four to one compared with the ability in all other universities combined. This is asking a bit too much. Rather, interested onlookers contend, is it the latest illustration of how this administrative class examination is _ framed specially to suit candidates from the older and wealthier universities. Under present conditions, study as hard as he may under professors :of world-wide reputation, it is only one in a thousand, other than the Oxford or Cambridge man, who can hope to succeed except with the aid of special and expensive coaching. This is not as it should be. The country pays its civil servants well, and is entitled to the best, irrespective of particular academic and social conditons. WAR BELOW ZERO, Middle-aged civilians who were frontline infantry in the last war still have vivid memories of those 1915-16 and 1916-17 winters on the western front. A night in the open, perhaps waist deep in freezing trench water, tested even the stoutest physique. What it must be like now on the Russo-Finnish front, with the thermometer 80 degrees below freezing, defeats the imagination. Dante knew well what he was doing when he made one of the worst of his Inferno circles a frozen zone. I have been shown the photograph of a sturdily-built, well-clad young Russian soldier, taken by a Finn officer. The Russian lies on his side on the snowclad ground holding a signal wire, up in one hand whilst the other hand gropes for his clippers. The hand holding the wire is sticking up rigidly in the air. But the Russian soldier, though no bullet has _ touched him and ho is not wounded, is dead. In the very act of mending the wire, death froze him stiff. War at 80 below zero must be a living purgatory.

ART AND COMMERCIALISM. According to Mr Jacob Epstein he sold his statue, known as Adam,” which he regards as his masterpiece, not for £7,000 as reported, but tor £760, which is rather different. The, raw stone must have cost nearly that. The purchaser, who has made' a great deal more than that by exhibiting ‘‘ Adam ” in different places, and is understood to have cleared) £I,OOO a week with it at a fun fair, now proposes transporting the statue to U.S.A. Ho has insured it, meanwhile, against damage or loss, for £20,000. By showing it in 16 different American cities he contemplates raising about £1,000,000, relying on Broadway alone to yield over £IOO,OOO. It is understood—and understandable—that the sculptor does not approve this sort of exhibitionism, and he must be impressed, to say the least, by the disparity between what he received for his work and what that work is being utilised) to harvest as an art sensation. We all know that Milton got £5 for Paradise Lost. That does not reconcile one to £750 as the market price of a work that is being made to yield a fortune. SIR JOHN REITH’S OLD JOB. There is a general assumption that Sir John Keith’s successor as head of the British Overseas Airways Corporation, the post Sir John vacated when Mr Chamberlain persuaded him to take over the Thirteenth Bastion as Minister for Information, may be tilled by promoting his deputy. This is Mr Clive Pearson, the very capable son of the first Lord Cowdray. Not only has Mr Clive Pearson much of the parental flair for engineering, but lie has Jong and expert experience of flying. He founded two air transport concerns in this country besides having a controlling interest in two Scottish ventures. These, have now been amalgamated, and lie is their chairman. At his home near Sussex Downs, Parham Park, he has his own private aerodrome. Besides engineering and flying, he is interested expertly in banking and finance. _ He is a quiet man, avoiding the limelight, but his sporting interests include hunting, polo, and especially yachting. Nowadays business pressure makes big inroads on his -leisure occupations, and yachting, of course, is taboo for the duration. ONck BANNED. Theatrical London is awaiting with particular interest the first night this week of the controversial Eugene O’Neill play, ‘ Desire Under the Elms.’ O’Neill, one of America’s few really good playwrights, wrote this play 10 years ago, and the ban was lifted by the Lord Chamberlain in London only a few months ago. The play had a remarkable career in the United States. Touring companies travelling from New York to the Pacific Coast had good receptions in. many cities, but in genteel Boston and in Los Angeles—as in smaller towns—the police marched in and stopped the production. Whether, after all this, the iplay will prove to be as shocking as seems to be expected is very doubtful. The setting of the narrative is. agricultural America, and the story deals, I believe, with a woman’s affection for her stepson. That remarkable actress, Miss Beatrix Lehmann, is playing the leading role. She is without doubt one of the finest dramatic actresses on the London stage, and her work in ‘ Mourning Becomes Electra ’ —also by O’Neill—was memorable. ELAN. There are old songs of these islands that have immortal inspiration. But there must be many Englishmen to whom no music ever written has such elan in moments of tense emotion as France’s National Anthem. On a re-, cent evening at The Nut House, a night rendezvous patronised by Mrs Anthony Eden amongst other Mayfair dames, it was announced, just after he had given a performance, that Sherkot, the French comedian, was leaving London next day to join his regiment in France. Whereupon the entire company stood up and sang ‘ La Marseillaise.’ It recalled the night war was declared in 1914. A Fleet Street friend and I were in the then famous but now defunct Petit Riche Cafe at supper. The supper room was a Bohemian cellar, ana crowded. The head waiter, who was leaving on the morrow to join his battalion of Chasseurs, stood in the middle of the floor and sang that incomparable French war song with a verve that made the blood tingle. We all stood, of course, and cheered the singer at the end._ But ‘ La Marseillaise ’ had made him fey. He did not hear us. Did he know that destiny beckoned him to a poilu’s grave? ABSENT FRIENDS. At St. Moritz and other winter sport centres ski-ing has now started in full fig. But there are many familiar faces and figures missing from tho scene. The company is a very cosmopolitan one, and by tacit consent the war is a taboo topic. Amidst the illimitable vista of snow-clad summits, often gleaming in a brilliant sunlight, the war and nil pertaining thereto seem very far off indeed. But,_ according to a correspondent who is now in

Switzerland, even under these conditions the cloven hoof of blitzgrieg will occasionally obtrude. Thus, whilst ho was watching life from his hotel verandah, two girls passed each other on the hotel steips. One was a Spanish brunette and the other a GcrmanSwiss blonde. Both carried skis across their shoulders and were in appropriate winter sport attire. On the steps they stopped to talk, and presently the blonde said something favourable about Hitler. Promptly the brunette gave her a push, and she fell down the steps. Which shows how wise the taboo is—if only people observe it. IN NO MAN'S LAND. The British Army’s first actual war casualty this time was a young lieutenant—" tall as a tree,” the Germans say—who was leading a patrol in No Man’s Land. This is a man’s job, if ever there was one. Roa.ming about in that sinister area between the hostile lipes requires stout nerves. It is pitch dark, for patrolling by moonlight would be a fool’s game. Either a desolating dead silence reigns, or else a racket prevails that almost murders concentration. An any moment you may bump into trouble, either in the shape of an enemy patrol, an unexpected sniper, or a ’vivid burst of Verey light. In the latter case the sensation is rather like being a flood-lit Aunt Sally. You are apt to fall clattering over all sorts of concealed footsnares, varying from strands of wire to tree trunks. And losing direction is far easier than falling off a bus. Many a patrol has been saved from disaster by glimpsing and identifying a star. No doubt the same slogan obtains now as last time at B.H.Q. "Don’t forget—No Man’s Land is Ours! ” The writer recalls one night of Cimmerian’ darkness just in front of Railway Wood in the Salient. Ho was one of a small patrol probing the mystery of No Man’s Land. Suddenly we caught iust a faint glimpse of dark figures, hovering within pistol shot. We went down, safety catches off, and waited. After a tense pause our officer whispered to the writer to try a low hail in German. " Wie gchts da?” was the best wo could muster. There was no response; only a suspicious sound _as though somebody was squirming through undergrowth. Perhaps Gerry heard or smelt something up. At any rate he sent up a Verey light. Then a low voice, in which one detected a totio of unfeigned relief, murmured; “Hell! They’re Jocks!” It was a patrol from the battalion holding the line next to us, and their officer had recognised our kilts. There was a silent fraternising in the dark of No Man’s Land, and the quick-eyed officer who identified us exclaimed, as he wiped his brow; “I’d have sworn you hailed us in German!” As the immortal Pepys puts it —“ And so homel” YOUNG LORD KITCHENER. There are 25 peers in the United Kingdom who are still minors, and as such debarred as yet from taking their places in the House of Lords. But just half a dozen of them will roach the qualifying age limit this year, and amongst them is young Lord Kitchener, grand-nephew of the great soldier who perished when the Hampshire was mined, and whose immense reputation certain niggling critics are still vainly attempting to sink. The present Lord Kitchener acted as one of the King’s Royal pages at the Coronation. His grand-unde was the dominant figure in the King's grandfather’s Coronation procession. The latter was perhaps the most magnificent regal pageant ever staged in London, which has staged so many. Kings, princes, and peers rode in it, but none ontstaged the -panache of the Indian riders m that cavalcade. Then came “ K.,’” in sheer personality formidable as a Colossus, riding metaphorically with hands in his pockets. There was nothing “ stagey ” about “ K.” except his mesmeric eyes. lie looked right through you. WHITE PAPER BOOM. Officials at the Stationery Office, where the Government’s publications are printed, are beginning to give themselves airs. They look down . now on ordinary publishing firms who boost their literary “ best sellers.” A best seller in the ordinary book line qualifies as such when it reaches a sale of anything around 25,000, True there are some books, apart from standing classics, that much exceed that figure. ‘ Gone With the Wind,’ reached 150,000 But that was quite exceptional. A mere 150.000 circulation, however, is nothing to the Stationery Office nowadays. Sir Nevile Henderson’s White Paper on bis relations with Hitlerism has reached over 377,000 copies, and the Blue Book on German-Polish ore-war relations has sold over half a million copies. Yet another official " best seller,” which may boat the record, is on hand. That is the White Paper on Russo-British negotiations just prior to the Nazi-Soviet embrace.