LETTER FROM LONDON

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3309, 1 April 1926, Page 7

LETTER FROM LONDON

LONDON, Feb. 18, PRINCE’S IMPROMPTUS

There was an unusual opportunity at the Mansion House this week of guaging the Prince of Wales’ capacity as an impromptu speaker. The public speeches of royalty are, like some of eminent statesmen, typed beforehand, and often prepared by more or less gifted "ghosts.” ‘But the Prince of Wales made big breaks in his Mansion House speech, from the text of the typewritten copies handed in advance to the press, and between the typed version and the interpolated one there was simply no comparison. In his impromptus ILR.H. most happily said just what he really meant, and expressed his own quite vivid personality naturally. It was significant that the parts of the speech that evoked most applause were no ghostly preparations, but just H.R.H. speaking straight out on the spur of the moment. He was really quite good. “L.G.” AND BONAR LAW.

I met a man this week who during the latter stages of the war was in the inner circle in Downing Street. He expressed doubts as to whether the nation’s debt to Bonar Law would ever be adequately recognised. He paid a generous tribute to all the wonderful work accomplished by "L.G.” during that trying period, but went on to assert %hat it was only. rendered possible by Bonar Law. The little Welsh wizard was, and still is, an incurable optimist. He was continually being seized with brilliant ideas for ending the war. These schemes he invariably submitted, to the keen analytical criticism of his alter ego. Listening intently to thati'remoseless criticism, he finally made lip his mind to scrap or proceed with the design, for he held firmly to the? opinion that Bonar’s criticism would embody every sound objection worth considering, I; . Hello Dad I For a fatherito welcome a son to the House of Commons is not unusual. Mr. j. F. Hope, the Deputy' Speaker, and Colonel W. 0. Nicholson have each a son in the present House, and within living memory the Gladstone, Chamberlain, Lloyd George, and Henderson families have had two generations represented. For a son to welcome a father is much rarer, but there is every prospect of that spectacle being witnessed in the near future, as Sir Alfred Hopkinson is likely to be elected for the English Universities and his son, Mr. Austin Hopkinson, has been an M.P. for over seven years. Sir Alfred, however, is not a newcomer to Westminster. He sat for Gricklade for three years, and retired about r 2B years ago on becoming Principal of Owen’s College, Manchester,-in 1898. He will not find more than, two or three survivors among his former - colleagues. As Sir Alfred % still a member of the Reform Club it would appear that his party associations are of the easy-fit-ting sort, as is to be expected in the member f orMoseley's, father,. * Labour and the Varsities

In view of the controversy as to whether Ruskin College should be removed from Oxford and merged in the Labour College which it is proposed to establish in the Counties of Warwick’s former house, Easton Lodge, it is interesting to note that the leaders of the Labour Party have not despised education of the so-called bourgeois type. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald:.had a son at Oxford; Mr. Arthur Henderson had one at Cambridge, and so I believe had Mr.' J. H. Thomas. Mr. : Arthur jPonsonby has (or had) a son at his own old college, Baliiol, and among the" rank and file not a few Socialist members have made sacrificed to give their sons a better education than they had themselves. The party itself includes a respectable proportion of University men—Dr. Hugh Dalton, Mr. Lees Smith and Major Attlee (Oxford), Mr. Noel Buxton, Mr. Trevelyan and Mr. Pethick Lawrence (Cambridge), Mr. Sidney Webb and Dr. Salter (London), Mr. William Graham and Dr. Drummond Shiels (Edinburgh)., the Rev. John Barr, Mr Campbell Stephen and Mr. Rosslyn Mitchell (Glasgow). Dr. Haden Guest, Mr. Arthur Greenwood, and Miss Wilkinson (Manchester), Mr. Snell and Mr. Dunnico (Nottingham) and Mr. Morgan Jones (Reading), to say nothing Of others like Mr. Lawson and Mr Robert Young, who have had a course at Ruskin College. Undergraduates as Harvesters

I learn .that quite a few Oxford and Cambridge undergraduates are contemplating a repetition of the experiment which some of them made last year when they spent the long vacation in going to Canada as. harvest workers. There is some doubt whether the same cheap travelling, facilities will be offered on this occasion. It is difficult to believe that the Canadian authorities will neglect so excellent an opportunity of making their country known to some of the most desirable ■ potential immigrants. The young fellows can earn their steerage passage money,' see a bit of the world on the cheap, improve their health, and, to their advantage, come in contact with the rougher side of life, while providing much needed labour for the Canadian farmers. Some of them, at least, are likely to return to the Dominion and settle there after their University career Is over. Proletariat Unity Mr. Frank Rose, the Socialist member for Aberdeen, is engaged at present in a lively controversy with his constituents and as he has a mordant wit he is getting much the best of the encounter. .The local Labour Party wrote inviting a donation to the literature fund, and Mr. Rose, addressing his correspondent as “Distinguished comrade” explained ironically that the substantial fortune which, through the facility of the editors of capitalist newspapers, he has acquired his "earmarked for other (and possibly less virtuous) purposes” than the dissemination of Socialists literature. However, Mr. Rose gave the writer some good advice, and signed himself “Yours, in the indissoluble bond of proletariat unity.” His irony, of which this is not the first example, has

already driven the North Aberdeen Labour Party to seek another candidate, but as he fought a considerable section of it on the last occasion, Mr. Rose is not perturbed. Parliamentary Week-enders When Mr. Philip Snowden betakes himself to his week-end cottage, he believes in getting right away from political cares. There is not even a telephone at his.,little house at TilfoiM. The house is approached by a drive, and has pleasant grounds, embracing stables and a coach-house or small garage. There is also a cottage, quite substantial,, for a. coachman or gardener. Mr. Snowden does not even receive the evening papers down there. On the othr hand, Mr. Lloyd Gorge, his near neighbour at Churt, has the evening papers specially delivered. L.G. has a long hall in his "cottage,” where there is also a telephone exchange. A Fearless Advocate Few men bear less trace of the infirmities engendered by reaching the ninth decade than Sir Edward Clarke, who has just celebrated his 85th birthday. His square figure is as erect and alert as it was 30 years ago; his eye is as piercing, and his jaw as square, although his side-whiskers are not so brown as of yore. Perhaps the most persuasive advocate of his time, he was, nevertheless, a ruthless cross-examiner, and even judges quailed before his fiery glance. Russell and .the, other , .advocates with .whom he crossed swords have “passed on." Yet this son of a King William Street jeweller has still the capacity for enjoying an active life. He is a link with the past, for perhaps his greatest Parliamentary achievement was moving the rejection of the second Home Rule Bill.. He had to follow immediately after Gladstone With no inkling of fhe scheme that the latter was to unfold. It was a brilliant effort Historic Oak Sir George Lloyd Courthope, M.P., the new chairman of the Parliamentary Agricultural Committee, once had a special Act o. Parliament passed for his benefit. As a rule that step is only necessary when a member has inadvertently made ah innpeent; mistake, involving him iivtjie loss Qf his seat. In the case of Sir George-Courthope it was taken for the public- convenience. When the timbered roof of Westminster Hall was honeycombed by the death-watch' beetle and an. expensive scheme of repair and replacement had to be undertaken, it was desired to use oak from the same forest that had provided the original timber. The owner of that forest was Sir George Courthope, and though he was ready to sell at cost price .to, the State he could not do so without incurring the loss of his seat—the Rye Division of Sussex —which he has held for some 20 years. Accordingly he made it a condition, that he should be .indemnified from such a penalty, and Parliament readily agreed. Sir George has long been a leader In the development of farming and forestry in his native country.. The Cipher King . 1 Now that the letters of Mr. Walter Page, the United States Ambassador in London (luring the war, have revealed the fact that the British Government had means of tapping the German telegraphic correspondence, ii is permissible to make the further disclosure that the head of the department primarily > responsible was Sir Alfred Ewing, Principal of Edinburgh University. Besides being one of our foremost scientists, he had dabbled'in ciphers, and when war broke out he was asked to assist the Government. How it came about he still refuses to say, but by what he calls "something like an act of providence” he was able by January, 1915, to read every message the enemy sent out. Thus it was that every time the German Navy got up steam to leave the harbour the naval authorities in this country knew all about it. The Principal’s most sensational discovery was the one which Mr. Page describes—the picking up of the wireless message announcing the intention to begin unrestricted submarine warfare and the attempt to bring in Mexico against the United States. Sir Arthur handed the message to Mr. Balfour (as he then was) at the Foreign Office, and the sequel is known. Lost Continent The mysteries of the remote northern seas are once more to be explored. If anyone has a chance of success it is surely Commander J. B. Charcot, whose stout craft, the “Pourquoi Pas” is soon to be put in commission on a voyage of exploration to the Faroes and Greenland. Dr. Charcot’s work, to date, has had strange results. Dredging and combing the sea floors of the north, he has discovered ' what geologists know as the “North Atlantic Continent,” a vast tract of land, now immersed hundreds of fathoms deep, which once connected Europe with North America. Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands, are all that remains of fas lost olden world. ’ Moving Mountains.

Golfers have a. playful habit sometimes of conferring pet-names on their favourite clubs. At the South Hertfordshire Goldf Club, of which Lord Hewart is a member, there is a joke, that the Lord Chief possesses a niblick which he has christened “Faith.” It is credited with the power of moving bunkers. “Kick Hunters.”

London will shortly make acquaintance with a few profession. A kicKhunter,’ ’as he is called in America la to bo installed in one of the big hotels His business is to mix with hotel guests and find out what is wrong with hotel arrangements. Relatively few complaints, are made in a first class hotel, concerning food or service, but it is the, business of the propietor or management to know what improvements, if any, can be made. A salary of f 1,0 00 a year to kick-hunters is not unusual in the Uniter States, with free board and residence at the hotel. In some hotels there are two "kick hunters.”A Bronte Relic.

There is danger that another of our literary shrines wil be desecrated to sate the American appetite for “real gol-darn, old times atmosphere.” a Bronte memorial in the guise of Oakweil Hall, at Birstall in West York-

shire, is shortly to come into the market. Several Americans are already interested in the sale and the news has leaked out that Oakwell's rare interior fittings are destined for the other side of the Atlantic, if dollars can accomplish it. Oakwell, with its wonderful mullioned great window and its two thousand panes of glass, is a near neighbour to a grange 1 visited recently which boasted an olden harpsichord, that was a “treasure” simply because Emily and Charlotte Bronte, in their childhood, strummed on it! Knowing how the old instrument was treasured I Imagine the American “quick getters” would find it difficult to lay hands on that ancient harpsichord. Tennis at Cannes.

It is a far cry from London to Cannes, but the accounts of the great match between Mile. Lenglen and ■Miss Helen Wills have occasioned almost as'much excitement here as if it had been played at Wimbledon. By common consent the little American girl has covered herself with glory even though beaten. She made such a close fight of it that the coming battle between the two ladies at the Wimbledon Championship meeting is not now regarded as such a foregone conclusion as was once supposed. Mile. Lenglen seems to have lost something of her usual serene confidence. She has always been rather temperamental and after her long reign it must have come as something of a shoox to her to find herself opposed by suen a doughty little rival. This Season’s Courts.

I hear that the number of applications to atend and to be .presented at this season’s Courts is unprecedented in recent years. Although no official announcement has yet been made, it is understood that three Courts will be held at Buckingham Palace, ana, one at Holyrood. An attendance of a thousand at one Court is as much as can be comfortably arranged. Con-' sequently all those applications were received after ths first three thousand are faced with the prospect of having to defer their bow or debut for another year—and their number is considerable. It is many years since a Court was held at Holyrood by King Edward, and then it was found that the Palace was not suited to modern residential requirements—for ; Royalty at all events. . Considerable wo£k has been undertaken to remedy this In recent years, v and there is even some talk of making Holyrood a regular Royal residence. London Dress Shows. This week saw the beginning of the London dress shows. Court dress-, makers have paid their usual visits iq Paris, and come back primed with ideas, which they' are as eager to show to their own clients as those clients are to inspect them. With this week a Lenten veil will be drawn over the most of Society’s entertaining, and there will thus be plenty of time for visits to all the fashionable salons in the West End. Some women enthusiasts in regard to dress, attend as hiany as three shows every day, and not a few receive cards for even moro than this number. , The show takes the form of quite a fashionable social function with the soft strains of the latest dance music played in a flowerdecorated salon, while the dress designers clientele is regaled with cocktails, salted almonds, and sandwiches if the. show be ,in the morning, and with tea if it be in the afternoon.