“THE MAIL’S” LETTER FROM LONDON

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 29 July 1932, Page 8

“THE MAIL’S” LETTER FROM LONDON

DOINGS IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS POLITICAL AND SOCIAL EVENTS UNDER REVIEW IMPRACTICABLE MR DE VALERA (From Our Own Correspondent)

LONDON, loth June. There was never tile ghost of a chance that the negotiations with Mr do Valera would come to anything. The remarkable gentleman is as remote as a mediaeval saint from all contemporary implications, and dwells in a world of his own that is part idealism and part illusion. Even his nolitieal entourage realise how impracticable the President is. and are beginning to regard him as a sort- of sacred white elephant. Utterly devoid of humour and pathetically certain that everybody will come to his view if only he expounds it at sufficient length, Mr do Valera’s bright lexicon includes no such word as “compromise”, Once Free State Ireland, which had grown tired of ten years’ Cosgrave administration, realises it's blunder, another Irish election will perhaps solve the existing impasse. EX-PRESIDENT’S DINNER PARTY There was a most exclusive little dinner party at the House of Commons the other night. It was attended only by ex-presidents of the Oxford Union, Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, as one of the elders, being in the chair. The principal speech of the evening was made by Sir John Simon There are more expresidents of the union in the present House of Commons than has been the case in any other Parliament, and for the most part they are to he found among the ranks of the younger members. Every ex-president of the last 12 years, with the exception of those who lost- their seats in the Socialist debacle last autumn, is a present member of the House. Other ex-presidents at the dinner were Mr Leslie Hore-Belisha, Mr John Buchan. 'Sir Gervais Rcntoul, Mr Kingsley Griffith, Mr Scrymgeour-Wed-derburn, Air Lennox Boyd, Air Hugh Molson, Air Dingle Foot, and Air Robert Hernnys.

SALE OF CHILDREN Famine is npt an infrequent visitor to Japan, hut I do not remember before having heard it had reached such severity that country folk have been forced into selling their children. Such a method of gaining relief is frequently resorted to by the Chinese, where famine is always present in one province or another. The reports that Japanese peasants are resorting to similar practices are rather difficult to believe. For I cannot quite understand where they find a market for their children. In China it is generally girls who are'sold, but there the muitsai system is in vogue, and in many cases the child who is sold, though into nominal slavery, receives a far better home, and more kindly attention, than would be the case with her parents, even were they able to keep her from absolute starvation. The same system does not prevail in •Japan. White slavery, moreover, is hardly understood in that countrj The butterflies to be found in The tea and geisha houses are not looked upon as dishonoured members of. society, and their parents arp more.,likely to have paid a premium than to have received n price for their admission to such institutions.

ORIENTALS WHO DIFFER, When one compares China and Japan, it- is amazing- that the former is so fre'quently afflicted with .famine and the latter so seldom. China, with its vast arable tracts, possesses all the natural advantages, while Japan, already densely overpopulated, is so rocky and precipitous, and has such a sparse covering of soil, as to make one marvel that its people can feed themselves at all. The Japanese, however, are possessed of foresight, the Chinese omersed in the spirit of laissez fairc. The Japanese have terraced their mountain sides into something like step-ladders, each narrow ledge being carefully earthed and irrigated into productivity. The Chinese, on the other hand, though laboriously ploughing and sowing their,extensive fertile plains, can never, bring themselves to take the precaution of seeing that their earthworks and dykes aro in order against the possibility of flood. “Never mind,” they say, as the rivers rise just before harvest time, “the water will probably recede before it reaches the broken levee.” When the flood water does not go down, and their crops are lost, they stoically lake to their sampans, and ascribe the calamity to “bad joss.”

“UNCLE ARTHUR” IN RUSSIA , From Airs Knowling’s hook on the Russian upheaval, one gets a very homely picture of Mr Arthur Henderson amongst the Bolshies. In 1917‘L.G. desired a rapprochement with the revolutionaries, and sent Mr Henderson as a sort of trade uniori ambassador extraordinary to St. Petersburg. Naturally this was gall and wormwood to Sir George Buchanan, the British Ambassador there, and the situation was rather tense. But Sir George took a trip to Finland to let “Uncle Arthur” feel his feet, and on his return found him much less rosy in his views. Not only had the Bolshies plied him with awkward questions, and shown much less amiability than he expected, hut they “cared nothing for his pompous manner and heavy language.” They even burgled his room at the hotel, and stole his dinner jacket and evening dress trousers!

THE LATE LORD BRENTFORD Lord Brentford’s death at the age of 67 is.no surprise to his friends. He has been confined to bed practically ever since he got back from his trip to the West Indies in search of revivifying sunshine. He was suffering from serious heart trouble of which there is almost an epidemic just now in London. Probably his manifold activities, business, political, and social, contributed to “Jix’s” ailment, for he was an energetic, restless soul, and had not the gift of otium cum dignitale. He will be missed in . the Parliamentary swim, though he seemed always to wear rather a comic aura even there. To this several subtle factors contributed—his nickname, the play made by cartoonists with his big collars and his unliumorous seriousness in all matters. One remembers him best, perhaps, as the champion of the motorist. He was an enthusiastic car connoisseur. Had lie driven less and walked more lie l might- have added

a few more years to his life. BANKER FIRE-EATER Not the least aggressive personality in Captain von Papen’s new German Ministry; which is prepondei antly Junker and boasts a record number of military monocles, is Dr. Hjamlar Schacht. Owing to liis father’s great admiration for a famous old-time American journalist,

Dr. Schacht, who is Finance Minister, lias Horace Greeley as two of his Christian names. He was a provincial branch, bank manager when the War came along, but President of the Reichbank until a few years ago. He had to be removed from that important post, corresponding to our own Governor of the Bank, because of his uncompromising views about reparations. AIR AIELLON S HABITS A friend, who has been, to New Orleans, is much amused that a. society of women there lias protested against Air Mellon, the United States Ambassador, following the custom of the country in which he is stationed in the use of alcohol. When my informant visited New Orleans, his party was met by the Mayor, and conducted to the principal hotel, where, in a private parlour, “highballs”, “gin fizz”, and other potent refreshments were provided in abundance, while a police inspector did sentry go outside the door to see that there was no interruption, and the police band on the landing played “How dry I am.” The women Prohibitionists of New Orleans might turn their- attention jo places nearer to their own home than London. Afy correspondent adds that tho only ‘dry’ house lie visited during two months "in the United States,. was that of Pr. Murray Butler, who is an ardent opponent of Prohibition, but, as

a matter of civic duty, practises it. SUBURBAN AMATEURS Last night in Leicester-square I stood a-d watched a long queue of men and women parading between sandwich boards. All the hoards denounced the supply of war munitions to Japan, and the general ’isnuendo was that a wicked' British capitalism is egging Tokio into an alack on Soviet Utopia. Anything more ridiculous it would be impossible to imagine than that theory, _ but these sandwich amateurs tramped aiong, looking equally self-conscious and selfrighteous, with all the solemnity of fanatics. They were all of the same suburban genre, and identically the same people who attend Red Communist festivals London hoard school culture, i lus a suburban inferiority complex, lias a lot to answer for.

PUNGENT CONTRAB <VND Smugglers who attempted to run seve,al tons of gorgonzola cheese across from Italy into France must have been even more daring than the opium traffickers of China. The chief difficulty of disguising a contraband consignment of opium is the smell, but in the case of gorgonzola all subterfuges must he fu,.ile. For sheer strength of odour opium, of course cannot approach the celebrated Italian cheese, yet its peculiarly acrid smell is recognisable at a considerable distance to anyone who has once made its acquaintance For this reason the wily Chinese and foreign smugglers of the drug are always inventing new devices- to -mask tho -telltale perfume.

FISH BARRAGE Curiously enough, the odour leaks out even from hermetically sealed tins, and the false-bottom trick and receptacle hidden inside some harmless looking consignment of tinned goods eland little chance' of eluding the vigilant eye and nose'of the foreign examiner in the Chinese .Maritime Customs service One of the best dodges ever practised—and one by which doubtless many cwts of opium were smuggled before it was detected—was to mould the opium in the form of roes inside the bodies of dried fish. The immensely punganl odour of tile fish drowned the smell of the opium, and at the same time set up a sort of gas-har-rier against- inquisitive foreign officials. E. V. LUCAS, C.B. Since he is well known to many Fleet street people, we are getting a lot of gossip about Mr E. V. Lucas on the strength of his C.B. Mr E. V. Lucas has a post that disconcerts some of his friends. He refuses to make appointments in the humdrum way, hut fixes his by odd minutes. Not at 4 o’clock, or 4.15, or 4.30, but at, say, 4.12 or 4.27. When somebody he knew was knighted a few years ago, E. V. L. sent him a not of congratulation, which consisted of the frutral words. “Aly dear Sir!” That is not, as some claim, a record for brevity. In his own book, “The Gentlest Art” which consists purely of epistolary specimens ancient and modern, Air Lucas quotes Herbert Spencer’s witty response to a hostess, who wrote asking whether he would dine with her on a riven night. The reply was, “Won’t IT” COUNTY HOAIES Sir Eric Hambro’s rueful criticism of his ancestral home-down in Dorset has caused many of our great landowners seriously to think. Alilton Abbey is one of the show places of the South of England. But it has 67 bedrooms, and, as Sir Eric Hambro says, “What can one do with sixty-seven bedrooms nowadays?” The only solution is to .shut them up. Even if finances permit of keeping them all in a habitable state, it is impossible to get servants to do the work. Some of our big landowners arc solving the problem pulling part of their houses down, and reducing them to more measurable proportions.. Others are . seeking to let them for conversion into big hoarding schools or countryhouse hotels. Alilton Abbey itself may possibly he taken over by some of the Benedictine monks, if suitable terms can be arranged. It would he an appropriate arrangement. The mansion stands on the site of an abbey founded nearly a thousand years ago.

world over as a place where you can pick up unexpected bargains. I know of one instance where a lady, anxious to get a particular shade of coloured beads, purchased a row of black ones for a few shillings which were afterwards identified in Bond Street as particularly fine black pearlfc which were valued at several thousands of pounds. It seems, however, that in some .respects the market has an unenviable reputation. Stolen goods frequently find tlier way to the stalls, and the police keep a speciallysharp eye on the market when they suspect that the proceeds of any recent burglary may find their way there. For this reason all stallholders are expected to display their wares as prominently as possible. If any arc hidden away out of sight there is an immediate enquiry, and woe betide the stall-holder who leaves special articles behind in his truck, or, as frequently happens, in some old crock of a perambulator. So rigid is the rule that officials go round from time to time to ask stall-holders in effect if they have “anything to declare.”