LONDON TOPICS

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4346, 4 January 1938, Page 2

LONDON TOPICS

FIRST STEPS TOWARDS TRADE PACT WIDE AND VITAL POTENTIALITIES LONDON, November 25. ANGLO-AMERICAN TRADE AGREEMENT. To those who heard the Prime Minister’s announcement that a point has been reached where formal negotiations for an Anglo-United States trade agreement may now be contemplated, there can be no doubt that the House of Commons fully appreciated the immense significance of the occasion. As Mr Chamberlain explained, an announcement'' of this kind made simultaneously here and in \N ashington marks a definite and well-recognised step in America’s procedure of negotiation. In the opinion of many it is at least half the battle, for American statesmen, unlike European do not embark upon negotiations before tnej feel reasonably sure that they will 110 break down or end in deadlock, in Opposition circles here it is being suggested that the Government will be hampered bv the intransigence of i s “ diehard ” ‘supporters, who will put obstacles in the way of any relaxation of the Ottawa agreements in order to meet American requirements. 1 am reliably assured that in tins belief the Government’s opponents will prove themselves wrong. The Empire protectiouists. just as much a,s any other section of the Government s supporters realise that a trade agreement with the United States represents a first and essential step towards that wider and fuller mutual understanding between the English-speaking peoples and upholders of democracy which alone can guarantee the peace and freedom of the world in future. FROM HALDANE TO HALIFAX. There is a rather unchancy similaritv between the occasion of Lord Hahfax’s present visit to Berlin and that of the late Lord Haldane’s just a quarter of a century ago. Lord Halitax went to Germany, as did Lord Haldane, in 1912. two years before the war. on a perfectly bona fide private mission. But both visits developed, into a far more important and international event There was. however, more secrecy about the 1912 mission than about' the present one. But somebody spotted Lord Haldane’s unmistakable figure aboard the Ostend steamer, and the secret became general property in no time. Lord Halifax talked with Der Fuhrer and his chief Ministerial colleagues. Lord Haldane met the Kaiser and Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Chancellor, who was two years later to become famous as the author of the “ scrap of paper ” dictum. Following Lord Haldane’s return the . Cabinet decided on more dreadnoughts. What will be the sequel to Lord Halifax’s impressions? FEVERED RUSSIA. The Moscow drama baffles even those who have front seats in the diplomatic dress circle. The outside world keeps Imarin" of fresh purges. The anonymous O.G.P.U. agents* continue their witch hunts, and not even Lenin s old associates of the Bolshevist coup d etat. the men who made the Revolution, are safe from arrest and prompt liquidation.” A few weeks ago it was the flower of the Soviet Army’s Geneial Staff who paid their debt to Red Nemesis. Now it is the Soviet Am- j bassadors who are going to the wall in • a very grimly literal sense. All this at a moment when big events, both in the Near West and Far East, in Spam, and in China, seem to demand Moscow’s closest concentration. What, is actually afoot? Is there a Trotzkian plot against Stalin? Or has that Man of Steel developed some form of ego- j mania? It is a problem of surpass- ] nil? interest, and yet, even from professional observers on the spot, no news percolates to the outer world which explains the true inwardness of Moscow’s fever. DANGEROUS DOCTRINE. A danger of the present European situation is the theory some Continental military exports are expoundmg This is that, by the aid of the new air weapon’s sudden and overwhelming attack, a first-class war might be all over inside a fortnight. Tiffs appeals strongly to ambitious Powers whose military equipment is in excess of their financial resources. This idea of an American quick-lunch war is based on the utter demoralisation ot the civilian population and instantaneous paralvsis of the State administration. Since this dramatic conception of the “ next war ” might be a lure to adventurous Governments with headstrong General Staffs, it is well the Home Secretary and other Ministers have stated explicitly, though by no means fully, the elaborate precautions we are making against any such coup de main. A more practical military is that the effects of air attack, a great city like London, have llfcuitastically exaggerated, and .:part from effective defence, ;ug "ravelv mistaken. If ■HHBBHB|^^b n dlv straffed, it would llie 'P°P ulace for retaliation.

LOGGERHEADS. kk> is in progress BL experts. The Britain’s future big offensive ultra - that b “’ . ■the-

Europe without the hacking of another Kitchener’s Army. That means conscription.

POPULAR AT ONCE.

it is a fact that no royal visitor to London within memory has made him- 1 self so instantly and widely popular as j King Leopold. All those privileged to make personal contact with him — courtiers and commoners, politicians and officials, military people and civilians, men and women—enthusiastically sing his praises. In looks and demeanour the young King of the Belgians is a true Prince Charming. No doubt youth and exceptional good looks explain part of the popularity, especially with the London crowds, but chiefly are his admirers impressed by his thoroughly democratic bonhomie, complete absence of “side,” quiet dignity combined with the liveliest sympathies, and intelligently independent outlook. King Leopold is a credit to Eton and to his early Army training. He appeal's to have studied most j modern problems attentively, and with | original ideas, and he is destined to play no unimportant or figurehead role in Belgium’s future history. Incidentally, the officers and men of his regiment, the Inniskilling Dixigoons, are delighted with their colonel-in-chier, who looked handsome as. a military Adonis in his Dragoon uniform. NEXT KING OF SPAIN? Assuming that General Franco does secure effective control in Spam, as impartial military experts expect, it is more than probable he will restore tne Spanish monarchy. If so, it will be the second time, in Spanish history, that a restoration has been staged. ExKing Alfonso’s return, though he is still an active middle-aged man, is out of' all question. The choice will tail, if Spain does indeed revert to a dvnasty, on the Infante Don Juan. This young man is Alfonso’s third son, 24 vears of age, and by far the most robust member of Alfonso’s family. Two vears ago he completed his course ox studies at Florence University, and ne is married to Princess Marie Mercedes second daughter of Prince Charles of Bourbon-Sicily, by his second wife, Princess Louise of France. Don Juan was gazetted an honorary sub-lieuten-ant in the British Navy in. April, 1930. During his service as a middy he won favourable opinions, from bis superior officers and fellow shipmates alike, as a thoroughly pleasant lad with healthy sporting tastes. 'But it would be. a big task for a youngster in the twenties to shoulder the kingship of post-revolu-tionary Spain. HUSTLERS OF THE AIR. There was much excitement at Croydon when the Cape-and-back flyers zoomed safely down to earth, fiv® days and 17 hours after they took off. iney have knocked nearly four days oft Miss Johnson’s memorable record. \Vlnlo Flving-officer Clouston, with a live days’ growth of beard, and his flying kit smothered in oil, looked decidedl\ trampish, Mrs Betty Kerby-Green in her neat pm striped blue masculine suit with its gay buttonhole, seemed fresh as a daisy. What has been achieved now as a forced march through air will doubtless be normal travel speed in a few years’ time Consider, too, Mr Eyston’s 312 m.ip.h. car dnrin<r record, llsec to the mile. Mi Eyston is already talking of 400 m.p.h. as" a car possibility. Even at his picsent record, were there a track, he could travel right round the globe m about two and a-half days. The s- - teenth century circumnavigators tooK about four years. JUDICIAL JOHN BULL. People who frequent the law courts are hopeful that Mr Justice Charles, who figured in a recent cause celebre, may tram on into a first-class judicial celebrity. Since Lord Darling s tune v e have had no genuine court jester. Biiu Mr Justice Charles’s long suit is not so much wit or even humour, as boiled philosophy. He is a sort ot Dr

Johnson of the Bench. As suggested, during a Kent Assize case the othei dav, lu which a youth was charged with demanding money with menaces from an elderly man, by Mr Justice Charles’s interpolation, “ I am glad the old gentleman bucked up and told him to go to hell!” This is in harmony with the same judge’s remark, in another case involving assault by a voung man on a much older one, that anybody who tackled him would get more than he bargained for. Unless, of course, the aggressor knew that Mr Justice Charles nearly got a boxing blue. On another occasion, when a K.C. propounded some abstruse scientific problem, the judge observed, “ Yes„ and the answer’s a lemon! ’ Physically Mr Justice Charles makes a typical John Bull. His weight is 16st,

and he smokes an ounce of pipe tobacco a day. FUTURE P.R.A.? In Mr Gerald Brockliurst, the portrait painter, who has been elected an I 11.A. at the age of 44, many art exI perts believe we have a future presiI dent of the Royal Academy. Mr Brockhurst is the son of a Midland coal merchant, and practically swept the board of prizes as a student at Birmingham’s Art School. He is one of the most prosperous of modern painters. His exhibits at the Royal Academy show at Burlington House usually sell for about the top figure of the year. This was so with Ids ‘ Armida ’ in last summer’s show, and also with his ‘.Zeitgeist ’ and ‘ Jeunesse Doree,’ exhibited last year and the year before. ‘ Armida ’ was sold for 1,250g5. Sale price is an indispensable test for lI.A. presidency . It would never do to have a P.R.A. whose works could not face the certain ordeal of the London saleroom. That is why the P.R.A. is so often an architect and not a painter.

YOUNG ROCKEFELLER. It will to watch the poUtic^jgjll^^ss—or regress— o^Mm

America’s foremost business pioneers is ; now hopelessly dated in the States, just as it is in this country. However, lord still holds his own. The man who said once that “ history is bunk remains one of the most successful of America s industrial benevolent despots. EGYPTIAN ROYAL DRAMA. A royal drama of real life is recalled and ended by the death in Istanbul at the age of 56, of Prince Ahmed Seif El Din. When he was 17 Ahmed shot and wounded in the .throat whilst he was sitting in a Cairo club, Pnn Fuad, later King of Egypt. His r «ason was his belief, right or wrong, that Prince Fuad, his brother-in-law, had ill-treated his wife, Ahmed s sister. Sentenced to seven years P en al seivitude, which was reduced to four, he served two years, and then, certified insane was removed to an Egyptian asylum ’ and later to an institution in Sussex. It is difficult to isolate a prince with an income of £200,000 a vear, and after several years in the Sussex asylum Prince Ahmed mysteriously vanished. An adventurous American, acting probably for Ahmed s mother, bribed an attendant, hod cars and special trains waiting, and brought off a getaway as thrilling and romantic as anv film story. Ahmed wanted to sue the British Government for £4,000,000 for illegal detention, and there might have been a sensational cause celebre, but the Egyptian authorities refused to let four English doctors examine him as to his mental condition, and the action never eventuated. FIFTY YEARS AFTER. Sir Francis younghusband has published through John Murray a new edition of ‘ The Heart of a Continent. This vivid travel diary, of an adventurous trek from Pekin to India via the Gobi Desert, Chinese .Turkestan, and the Mustagh Pass, was written 50 vears a»o, but the new edition has additional chapters, in which amongst other things, the author confesses his belief in telepathy and in societies in the stars as superior to us as we are to primitive savages. It is interesting to contrast the photos of Lieutenant Younghusband of 1887 and Sir Francis n f 1937 The metamorphosis is almost, incredible, but by no means The strange lands he tells us about have changed too. Motors now plough the GobAlesert. Turkestan stirs to a new drama. Fifty years ago Sir Francis found that a Mongol worthy tieasuiM an empty corn beef tin more.than did Sir Francis’s own family the jade bowl bron"lit back from Yarkand. His native batman remonstrated with Sir Francis for presenting to a not sutticientlv important dignitary an old limejuice 'bottle. Values and ideas havo changed since then, even m the Asiatic hinterlands.

HOLY TERROR. It is really amusing to see now gingerly all the dramatic critics handle Mr revised version of bhakespeare’s ‘ Cymbeline.’ In spite of Mrs Shaw’s shocked remonstrance, he has refused to cut any of the lovely lines in the bedroom scene, but the Shavian innovator allows himself a free hand with the fifth act, in which he introduces dialogue which, in spite ot the author’s disclaimer, obviously is inspired by the recent drama of the Duke of Windsor. Prince Arviragus, abdicating as claimant to his lather s throne, expresses disgust at the constraint placed on a crowned head, and his preference for a cave rather than a palace. “ 1 could not even marry the woman of my choice!” declaims the actor, and the first-night audience gave a sort of hysterical gasp. The reticence with which the critics handle the production is a remarkable tribute to Mr Shaw. A tribute, that is, not only to his dramatic genius, but still more to his formidable prowess as a controversialist. Nobody is in a hurry to cross swords with the redoiib able octogenarian. GORDON CASTLE. Ex-servicemen who recovered from wounds at Gordon Castle during the War will genuinely deplore the necessity which compels the Duke to sell that beautiful place and fine estate. The late Duke turned it into a V.A.D. headquarters, and refused to accept the Government’s grant of 3s Cd a day for each of his hospital-blue guests. He was generosity itself to the Jocks and Tommies who passed through the Castle regime. He provided them regularly with salmon from the Spey and venison from the forest, and his chauffeur, an ex-soldier who lost an eye in the Mens fighting, was being constantly commissioned to take the Duke to Elgin. These visits were to buy sports equipment for drafts of wounded men whose tastes kept changing with each fresh draft. First it was footballs, then golf clubs, then cricket (rear, then croquet sets, and so on. The writer landed at Gordon Castle in the summer of 1918. Our delight was dancing, and the Duke promptly reinforced his attractive Gordon Castle maids by some eligible dance partners from Goodwood! famous painter. No contemporary artist painted so many famous people, royalty included, as Philip de Laszlo. His canvases comprise a synopsis of all the most notable personages the past haltcentury. From the Kaiser and Kinjj Edward to Theodore Roosevelt andtjß Archbishop of Canterbury from solid to Gwen Ffrangcon DijAß they are all there. Born ojjjM 1 parentage in Budapest, cuted his art studies, little man, who brushed cavalry a maitro d'a the U II K k i|j|purtiugfl