A LETTER FROM LONDON

Northern Advocate, 4 February 1926, Page 7

A LETTER FROM LONDON

NEWS AND NOTES. (Special to “Northern Advocate.”) LONDON, December 24. THE SPEAKER’S HEALTH. Ate. Whitley has been in rather low health and spirits lately, and to some of his friends he has dropped a hint that he may soon be compelled to seek relief from his duties. Ho has been urged to carry on in the hope that, a spell of Warmth and sunshine in the Smith during the holidays may restore him, and for the present he has agreed to accept that advice. Nevertheless, I shall not be surprised if the election of a new Speaker becomes necessary ere long, by Mr. Whitley’s resignation.

PAINTINGS AT ST. STEPHEN’S

If is, by the way, mainly duo to the quiet but persistent efforts of the present Speaker that the scheme for the interior decoration of the Palace of Westminster is about to be carried a stage further by a series of historical paintings in St. Stephen’s Hall. Mr. Whitley has shown a keener interest in this matter than any of his recent predecessors, and since ho was appointed to the chair he has had the satisfaction of seeing valuable mosaics given by Sir William Raeburn, Mr. P. J. Ford, Sir Robert Houston, and the late Sir Joseph Walton. Two of these, representing St. Andrew and St. Patrick, are already in position in the Central Hall, and the other two arc in course of erection in St. Stephen’s—all of them designed by Mr. Aiming Bell. THE BETTING TAX. I am doubtful if the proposal to impose a betting tax will be submitted to the House of Commons, although it has an adventurous flavour which will commend it to Mr. Churchill. It is well-known that Sir Robert Horne, when at the Treasury, was greatly attracted to the idea, but the inquiries he made as to the opposition that might be expected from the churches daunted him from going further. The present Chancellor’s task of making ends meet is even more formidable and if, as its advocates contend, a tax on betting would yield at least twenty millions a year he may bo tempted to “have a flutter.” I believe that the present House of Commons would show a majority for it, especially as an alternative to putting the income tax back to its old figure, and I know the Inland Revenue officials do not regard I the administrative difficulties as inj supcrable. Even the churches are not united against the scheme, for some of the bishops support it, presumably on the principle of one of their predecessors who approved' of prize-fighting because there was a good chance of at least one rascal getting what he deserved. HOMO THORNYCROFT. dhe death of Sir Homo Thornycroft, at 75 years, removes a sculptor whose work adorns London more profusely than any other artist’s leaving out of count, of course, those painters whose hoarding advertisements now constitute London’s real popular art gallery, and contain much work that compares well with that in the “Art for Art’s sake” exhibitions. Sir Homo had two sculptors for parents. His mother executed small Royal commissions, and his father’s genius is immortalised by the famous Boadieea group on Westminster Bridge’s northern approach. His own best work is probably the Cromwell statue which aroused so much feeling among the Irish Nationalists when Lord Rosebery presented it to Parliament. He was a great devotee of the open-air life, and declared that if he failed as a sculptor he would turn farmer. How far London might then have lost and England gained depends on how good he might | have been as a farmer. Much of his [work is very heavy and stereotyped, but his admirers have the consolation that no such agitation ever greeted it as that directed by the admirers of stolid stereotype against Epstein’s masterpieces. LIGHT AEROPLANE CLUBS. The movement for the institution of State-aided light aeroplane clubs all over the country hangs fire to some extent. This is entirely due to the fact that the Air Ministry only received an initial grant of £30,000 with j which to foster the movement, and as yet only five clubs have been started, serving respectively London, the Midlands, Lancashire, Yorkshire and New-castle-on-Tyne. For a subscription of three guineas young men and women can join these clubs and can learn to fly and become qualified aviators at a tuition charge, including all costs, of only-30s an hour. I hoar that quite a number of women are joining the clubs and proving apt pupils. More than one has already earned her certificate for proficiency. An incidental effect of the interest women in the club is the development of a social side to their activities, dances, and other forms of entertainment bcing organised. Lieutenant-Commander Perrin, secretary of the Royal Aero Club, who has justh returned to London from a tour of the provinces, says that the out-of-town districts manifest an interest in the now movement and in the development of a social side far greater than the metropolitan area. Many young motor-cyclists who nre learning to fly declare that they intend to buy small light planes of their own in the near future.

WHEN GBEEK MEETS GKEEK. Lady Millicent Hawes, the Dowager Ducliess of Sutherland, may, I hear, oppose Sir Archibald Sinclair, the Liberal member for Caithness and Sutherland, at the next election. Sir Archibald, who was returned unopposed at the last election, is, of course, her nephew. Lady Millicent Hawes, who changed her name on marrying Colonel Hawes, is the eldest daughter of the late Earl of Eosslyn. She has always been keenly interested in social questions and was largely instrumental in getting the Government to take ap the question of lead poisoning ■in the Potteries. She is living in Paris at present, and is literary and artistic. Lady Millicent has written one play and is now writing another. At Dunrobin' the Scottish seat of her son, the Duke of .Sutherland, she entertained brilliantly in former days. THE DUCHESS OP ATHOLL. When the Duchess of Atholl realises that an important part of her audience in the House of Commons is above and not belo'w her, and when, accordingly, she ceases to drop her head and her voice at the end of sentences, she will make an effective debater. She has one advantage which speakers for the Government seldom enjoy in a full dross debate: she obtains a quiet hearing. Even Socialists, it would seem, hesitate to interrupt a duchess. But no one looks less like the part. She wears a plain black frock which any typist would regard as too dowdy for her, as well as much too long, and her glossy dark brown hair is worn parted in the middle after the Victorian fashion. In manner she is as unobtrusive as in dross. She has a. pleasant word and smile for everyone, and • even the wildest Labour member rather likes to be seen talking on equal terms in the lobby to a real duchess. A FAMOUS SOCIETY. The dinners of the African society at one of which the Prince of Wales will be the principal guest, arc famous. It was twenty years ago when the society was on its last legs, that the dinners began. There was a proposal to wind the society up. Captain Shelford, the ' chairman, objected, and vowed to go on the first Wednesday of every month to a certain cosmopolitan cafe and call himself the African Society. Ho got famous men to join him—Mr. Winston Churchill among them. The type of man you see at these African Society dinners is that of the man who, in the hinterlands of Africa, hundreds of miles from the next white man, puts on his dress suit after a trek and ceremoniously sits down to dinner by the light of an oil lamp. THE PBINCE’S AMBITION. The Prince of Wales has said he would like to trek from the Cape to Cairo. If he trekked with Sir Alfred Sharpe, who announced the Prince’s intention to dine with the society, he would have as companion a man who knows as much about Africa as anyone. Pit and straight. and well-built, it is almost impossible to believe, despite his grey, well-trimmed moustache and hair, that this famous Lancastrian is 72 years of age. He is always going or coming back from a big game expedition, and tolls me he is off again in the new year.

1 WIRELESS MARCONI SET. Captain Eckersley’s experimental high-power wireless station near Hendon, which lias just been destroyed by fire, was a much more ambitious affair that the wireless set' Marconi has on his private yacht. Captain Eekers- ' ley’s apparatus itself was housed in a special building. Marconi, on the other hand, though his yacht contains a wireless installation which enables him to “listen-in’ ’ almost anywhere, carries out most of his own experiments on a little home-made wireless set which lie sometimes brings up on deck. It is quaintly mounted on a tin biscuit-box.