LONDON TOPICS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4328, 24 August 1937, Page 2

LONDON TOPICS

NON-INTERVENTION COMPLEXITIES July 22. One expects anything of the absolute groundlings. But it is rather a shock when a front bench speaker in the House of Commons talks ot m.m.es. Roval Oak’s attitude in the recent Spanish blockade episode as cowardly. We are proclaiming ourselves as the firm upholders of non-intervention m Spain. We have been asked by the rest of Europe to endeavour to find a way of securing the continuance ot that policy. Then when a Franco warship holds up a British .merchant blockade runner as it was strictly entitled to do, swashbucklers in the House ot Commons talk of cowardice because the Roval Oak did not promptly blow that Franco warship skyhigh, as she could easily, without any risks to herselt, have done in 10 minutes. \Vhat a curiously perverted view of international justice, and what a strangely distorted view of the Nelson touch. If this represents the front bench Labour outlook, it is little wonder Labour cannot win a solitary by-election. Even the man in the street has a more intelligent point of view than that. In presenting to the 26 nations concerned the British proposals for a modified and improved system of international non-intervention in the Spanish conflict our Government has indulged m some very plain speaking. Whilst otteiing its plan admittedly as a compromise between varying points of view, it stresses that the proposals can only be successful if they are accepted m a spirit of compromise. Pointing out that all the nations expressed the desire to see non-intervention continued, our Government claims to be now providing them with an opportunity of giving practical effect < to that wish. There is a word of warning as well. The nations are cautioned that unless a greater spirit of cp-operation is evident than has been achieved in the past, the scheme will fail, and Europe will be faced with a new and infinitely more dangerous situation. Expressed in their briefest, the proposals are threefold, consisting of the establishment of international officers at Spanish ports to carry out the duties of the naval patrol, which is to be withdrawn forthwith ; the setting up of a commission to make arrangements for the .withdrawal from Spain of foreign nationals engaged in the conflict; and the subsequent recognition, with certain reservations, of the belligerent rights of the opposing forces. A final but extremely important provision is that the British Governriient is to be authorised by the Non-intervention Committee to enter into immediate discussions with the two Spanish parties with a view to putting the three foregoing proposals into practical operation. THE NEW NAVAL TREATIES. The naval treaties, signed by Mr Eden last week-end on behalf of Britain with Germany and Russia, are complicated documents, more resembling legal contracts than international agreements. Their avowed purpose is to register the assent of Germany and Russia to the naval pact of last year by which France, the United States, and ourselves agreed to limit _ the number and size of certain warship types and to exchange building programmes. Japan’s action, however, has already nullified the battleship limitation to 14in guns, and under the new treaties Germany and Russia claim and get liberty to exceed the cruiser gun limit, too. Russia is, moreover, allowed to maintain secrecy as to her Far Eastern fleet, and general limitations are apparently not to apply to it. This introduces the novel and, as it may seem to some laymen, the idiotic theory of, ocean-tight naval agreements. What is to hinder Moscow from moving her Far East squadrons into Western waters? A “ gentleman’s agreement ” ? NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY. The intriguing announcement in some Sunday journals of a new political grouping at Westminster carries little conviction. The suggestion is that, despairing of electoral success under the existing regime, a new democratic party is to emerge, consisting of Labour and Radical groups and led by Mr Herbert Morrison. The domination of the T.U.C., and also most of its favourite Socialistic shibboleths are to be dropped. How Mr Morrison is to manage without . the puissant support of the T.U.C.’s war chest, and whether the T.U.C. will meekly consent to efface itself from the political landscape are matters not explicitly dealt with in the journals concerned. The whole thing has rather the look of a desperate ballon d’essai. The truth is that what the Labour Party wants is not a new grouping, but a new and more intelligently patriotic outlook. FAR EAST WAR CLOUDS. Events in the Far East appear to be shaping ominously. The warning given by Japan to three million Army reservists to hold themselves in readiness for immediate mobilisation is either a grave foreboding or a desperately realistic bluff. In London there is a suspicion that the Japanese military party, after its recent political setback at home, is possibly in the mood to stick at nothing in order to force the hands of the Tokio Government and further its own settled policy of squeezing the Chinese factions to the ultimate limit. There is a danger that China, aware of Japan’s reservist warning, might decide to put the issue to an immediate military test now. whilst its forces in the field are considerably superior numerically to the potential enemy’s. The hope of a less drastic denouement depends mainly on Japan’s lack of financial reserves and the possible attitude of Soviet Russia The situation from the European standpoint is still further complicated by the German-Japanese Pact. TO THE DEATH. The Spanish trouble has so overshadowed European politics that it is hard to believe the civil war is only just a year old. Though to-day more than half the peninsula is under the control of Franco’s troops, the end of the struggle looks as far off as ever. Franco has a force of about 600.000 men, and the Madrid Government about 500.000. Both are armed to the teeth with modern weapons, but the Madrid forces are now better drilled and more experienced in fighting tactics than they originally were. It looks, therefore, despite the fight-to-a-finish

I attitude of both sides, remarkably like ( a stalemate. Exactly a century ago, 1 when Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister of England, the same scenes I were being enacted in Spain. That I was a war of succession, but Bilbao was besieged, there was fighting near 1 Madrid, and an English Legion of 10,000 men was fighting under General de Lacy Evans. That quarrel was finally settled by mutual embraces by the opposing commanders. No such prospect is held out now. FED UP! The strongest supporters _ of the movement to withdraw all foreign combatants from Spain are not to be found either in London or in Pans. Most fervently of all is this idea supported by the foreign combatants themselves. This applies in some measure to those engaged on both sides, Franco’s and the Madrid Government’s, but most of all to the latter. Reliable observers, who have spent some weeks in the Peninsula, tell me there is not a man in the Madrid Foreign Brigade who does not bitterly repent the day he allowed valour or partisanship to outrun discretion, and joined up for the duration of what most believed would be a brief campaign. The eager volunteers of many months ago are now the most bitterly disillusioned men it would be possible to imagine. The service conditions a’re deplorable, the nature of the fighting disheaitening, and the environment beastly.. But the chances of many of these foreign volunteers escaping from the trap into which they have walked are uncomfortably remote. i PRODIGIOUS. Gromoff, the Russian Air Ace with the eagle head and face, has done it. He and his two companion airmen, taking off from Moscow an hour after midnight, flashed like a meteor 24 hours later over the North Pole, now almost a European suburb, and on the following morning were zooming non-stop above San Francisco’s admiring roofs. This beats bv nearly,a thousand miles the world’s" non-stop flight record achieved four years ago by the two French aviators who flew from New York to Syria, and is the first time that anyone has flown over 6,000 miles without a break. The marvellou sufficiency of this feat is equalled by its intrepidity. For most of their long hop across the globe the Russian airmen took their lives in their engines, for a forced landing, even if not a crash, meant almost certain death. From Moscow to San Francisco non-stop by air in just over two days! It is a prodigious achievement of mortal mechanics, ancf casts over the very latest stream-line railway express the grim aura of swift obsolescence. * SENSATIONAL MEDICAL NOVEL. • The Citadel,’ Dr A. J. Cronin’s latest novel out this week, will cause a tremendous sensation. Until six years ago, when he made an instant success with his ‘ Hatter’s Castle,’ followed by ‘ The Stars Look Down,’ this gifted Scottish doctor had a West End practice. In his new novel Harley Street is the raise en scene, and he draws a lurid picture of shameless professional charlatanism that is bound to evoke a storm of medical criticism. Dr Cronin concedes that there are honest and worthy West End specialists., but his book suggests they are a minority, and that most practitioners exploit public ignorance and credulity I with utterly worthless quack treat--1 ments at exorbitant fees. Water injections as vaccine, elaborate mumbojumbo which makes the patient think “ you are the cat’s pyjamas,” and similar hokus-pokus are described, and it is stated that handsome rakeoffs on big fees are given to encourage G.P.s to send their patients along. Dr Cronin even writes of organised specialist “ pools ” who recommend each other to wealthy patients. A veritable literary bombshell has been exploded in Harley Street and Wimpole Street. BIG GUN LIMIT. Our naval experts are divided as to the necessity of following the lead of Japan and America in building 16m gun battleships. Japan broke away from the Naval Pact, not on gun calibres but on ship ratios, and, having refused to comply with the proposed 14in gun limitation, America has rejected the latter also. The logical denouement seems to be that we should follow suit, the more so since Italy is also mounting 16in guns on some of her ships. But some of our naval men argue that, since a battleship with 16in batteries costs several .millions more than one with 14in, it is better to have more of the latter rather than a few of the former. They contend that it is unwise to put too many eggs in one basket in these days of submarines and bombing planes, and also that a 14in gun, within any practicable range, is just as effective as a 16in. In support of this they point to the goodshow put up at Jutland by the German battle cruisers against Beatty’s heaviergunned ships. URGENT AND CRITICAL. But there is another school of British naval thought which adopts a totally different point of view. These officers cite both the Coronel and the ( Falkland Islands actions as grimly con- i vincing proof that in naval engagements it is always the big gun that I settles the issue. There is no more loom for discussion, they contend, as to the superior range of a 16in as compared with a 14in gun than as to the inferior destructive dynamics of the 14in shell as compared with the IGin. j Moreover, they urge that not only is i sea supremacy more vital to us than j to any other Power, but that we are, I with the possible exception of U.S.A., | better able to pay for it. The question | is a highly technical one, but is both urgent and vital from the Admiralty’s and the Empire’s point of view. It will have to be settled quickly and on completely convincing lines. Another i “ Der Tag ” must not find us out- j gunned at sea. j. LAUNCHING THE “ 552.” |. An impression prevails in many quar- 1 1 ters that the Queen Mary’s sister liner, ) as yet known only as “ 552,” may be j launched from the Clyde shipyard, , 1 with due christening ceremony, as I 1 early as next May. From a well-in- 1 1 formed source, however, I gather that \ 1 no such expectation obtains on Clyde- 1 side, where it is realised that it is j 1 much more likely to be the following | 1 September before the great ship will j ' be got off the stocks. There are a mini- I 1 bor of considerations which make it j 1 highly improbable the vessel will bo | ready for her launching by May, and, ; 1 in this event, a delay until the ensu- s

e ing September will be obligatory in ), order to await another suitable State ,e of the Clyde tide. It is strongly hoped ;s, and believed up north, however, that it when the great occasion does arrive it o will be graced by the presence of Queen ,r ! Elizabeth, and that Her Majesty’s »f, name will be associated with the new il ’ liner. It was in the month of Sep[S I tember that Queen Mary launched and y 1 christened the sister ship, hj HEREDITARY SPEED. A hundred years ago this week that G.O.M. of Bath, Sir Isaac Pitman, e brought out his famous shorthand sysi. tern of phonography. Probably for the j reason that it is the most scientific and t easiest, Pitman’s system still holds an y immense lead over all its rivals in popu- , larity. Curiously enough, the inventor, *’ Sir Isaac, never himself developed much | speed with his own shorthand, but, r! nevertheless, speed seems hereditary in . I the Pitman family. This week there *> I are in London nearly 300 delegates from e i 40 different countries in honour of the n centenary, and they will be welcomed 0 by Sir Isaac’s grandson, Mr I. J. Pite man, chairman of the firm. He was a 0 great athlete in his Eton days, and, r until he broke a leg, an Oxford Rugger d Blue and international three-quarter, r He played for England in 1922. Gibbs, v the Harlequin flyer, was the only faster t Rugger man of our time in this coun- •- try. There have been three Pitman e rowing Blues, including the Oxford ;, stroke of 1926. e - YOUTH AT THE BUTTS. v This year’s Bisley meeting, certainly ' so far as the King’s Prize shooting was concerned, was a triumphant victory for youth. Officer-cadet D. L. Birney, hj who' was born in Simla and is the son of a D.S.O. colonel, is only 23. He fin- [ ished his rounds at the final I,oooyd r range considerably before many of his • s rival competitors, and sat smoking in k sunny comfort whilst the latter completed their hopeless attempts to get p within his aggregate figures. Apart : from the winner, however, second and ’s third positions were taken by a young j R.A. second lieutenant and another 0 officer cadet respectively, whilst Brown, y the 15-year-old Taunton schoolboy, wh« t outshot 200 crack marksmen in the prej lirainary stages of the competition, finished up quite creditably only 16 , points below the winner. Usually Bisley champions are inclined to be in the veteran class. On this occasion no L women shots distinguished themselves, though the lady who won the King’s n Prize in 1930 was officially r camouflaged as Corporal M. E. Foster. s SUPER GOLF. - The superb golf witnessed at Walton ’* Heath, when Cotton and Shute played for the unofficial match championship of the world, rather shook the belief of old-time golfers that the famous s triumvirate, Braid, Taylor, and Vare don, would, in this prime, still have x held at bay the young tigers of to-day. t Improved golf balls and improved I- clubs cannot alone be responsible for th« s enormous carries Cotton was getting d from the tee. The modern golfer has y learnt something of the rhythm of e swing that was unknown to the chain- - pions of a quarter of a century ago. 0 The only point in the game in which . Cotton was outplayed by his redoubte able opponent was in putting, and in - this particular we have still something e to learn from the American golfers. It s was curious to notice that Cotton, y though he had reached the long r- fifteenth, measuring almost 600 yds, - with two effortless shots, was yet in i- trouble nearly every time at the short v sixth, where a three is well within the 1 compass of any 12-handicap player. This 1 hole always used to worry the late i Harry Vardon. He got his three oca casionally, but in all the times he i played over the course he never once t succeeded in putting his tee shot 3 actually on the green. 7 MAHDI’S ELDEST SON. Not the least romantic episode of London’s Coronation season is the visit of Sir Sayed Abdel-Eahman el Mahdi. I Sir Sayed has been staying at a West End hotel, and has shown the keenest 1 interest in studying the life of modern 7 London. He is the eldest son of the Mahdi whose fanatical Arab followers f killed General Gordon when Khartum 1 fell in 1885. The Mahdi was born about 1843 in Dongola province, and I educated at a village near Khartum ; where the tomb is located of that city’s • patron saint. He was acclaimed a t holy prophet, and defeated the L Egyptian forces in every engagement that took place, finally wiping out a j . concentration at Omdurman of 10,000 i ’ troops under Hicks Pasha, a retired [ Indian officer, who was led astray by a j treacherous guide, and his men de- . moralised by unendurable thirst. Gor- ; cion was decapitated by the Arabs who . slew him. Sir Sayed, a highly-cultured Sudanese notability knighted by the - British Government, is chiefly interested in gardening and park planning. An amazing metamorphosis in one generation. | M.C.C.’S CELEBRATIONS. The Duke of Gloucester was one of a distinguished company at the M.O.C.’s one hundred and fiftieth anniversary I dinner. A good point was made by Major Aster, who was in the chair. 'He observed that, in an age of rush I and hustle, a leisurely game like cricket was more than ever valuable. One of the breeziest speeches of the evening was by “ Gubby ” Allen, who captained our last touring side in Australia. Replying to the toast of “ Cricket,” proj posed by Sir Stanley Jackson, I “ Gubby ” commented on the women j j cricketers. He said that, always j anxious to see as much of things as | he could, he equipped himself with the | I largest pair of field glasses he could find, and went to the Oval on Tuesday. “ There I was heartbroken.” said “ Gubby,” “ to see Miss Snowball run out for 99. 1 never believed one woman ’ [could be such a cat to another!” I “ Gubby ” wound up by saying that, i jin these troublous times, it would bo a 1 j happier world if dictators could be per- ! suadecl to take more interest in cricket, i j and less in other affairs. i | Lord Hawke pointed out that he . ! was the only person present who j played in the first of the centenary | matches at Lord’s in 1887. There were < 1 now only three living who took part 1 lin those games, himself. Sir Timothy : O’Brien, who was also present on this i I occasion, and Mr A. J, Webbe, who i | was not well enough to attend. Sir < j Stanley Jackson told a good story of ( I his younger cricketing days, when he < [ was playing for Yorkshire against i j Derbyshire. The latter had a fine < ; bowler called Porter, whom many pre- ( sent might remember. Porter was after 1

Sir Stanley’s scalp, but Sir Stanley managed to make a score, including a couple of strokes, known as the “ draw,” behind his body. After the match Porter said to one of the umpires ; “Yon feller ’as got all strokes in t’ paper an’ what’s more, one or two they know nought about neither! ” The Rev. Pat M'Cormack said grace before dinner. “ For good food and good fellowship,” were bis admirable words, “ and for all that cricket has done in teaching us to play the game—thank God!” MARCONI. The greatest inventor in human history was the unknown caveman who first discovered the secret of lire. Next almost to that anonymous hero must rank the Marchese Marconi, who has I died quite suddenly in Romo at the age [ age of 03. Wireless and flying are the two outstanding developments of modern times, and, of the two, the miracle that Marconi’s Irish-Italian brain evolved from the discovery of Hertz, the German scientist, is by far the more important to the world at large. It began when the boy Marconi, whose father wanted him to be a musician, found that clouds interfered with his hand mirror heliograph. At 21 Marconi gave his first practical demonstration of wireless by agitating a magnetic arm at a distance of 100 yds. A year later, in 1896, he dumbfounded the G.P.O. experts by telegraphing without wires from St. Martin’s-le-Grand to the Embankment. Two years later Marconi got a wireless signal across the Channel, and in 1901 transmission was established between Cornwall and Newfoundland. From that dramatic moment the illimitable future of Marconi’s wireless was achieved. One of its first spectacular uses was when the Titanic sank. The survivors, who owed their lives to Marconi, assembled outside his New York hotel to cheer him.