HOLD COUNTRY GOSSIP

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17116, 23 November 1929, Page 3

HOLD COUNTRY GOSSIP

ROTHERMERE REASSURES ALARMED 1 SHAREHOLDERS.

EXPLAINS WHY STOCK HAS 'S' SLUMPED. v ’ LONDON, October 3. Lord Rothermero explains, through his million-circulation publication, the secret why the shares oi his newspaper companies have slumped so acutely on ; ;tbe Stock Exchange recently. I' Shareholders, it seems, have become ■alarmed' lest his Lordsip’s leading company,' the Associated Newspapers, Ltd., £e called upon to fulfil a guarantee v/hich with tho Daily Mirror Co., it jointly gave for interest on £3,000,000 debentures raised last year for linane•'ing Northcliffe Newspapers, Ltd., a new company formed to provide Great Britain with a chain of evening newspapers in all the leading cities. Such a contibgehey, Lord Rothermere says, is so remote as to be out of the question, and ■he goes on to demonstrate that the Northcliffe Newspapers, Ltd., has been # “triumph and success.” He admits, however, that there is a balance on the debit side as the outcome pf the first year’s operations. Outlining the assets of the companies Bud their enoi’mous holdings through control of Anglo-N ewfound la ncl aud 'Anglo-Canadian companies, lie points out that these concerns have 6,000,(XX) acres of timber limits in Newfoundland and in Quebec province, and thdt pulpwood in this area is steadily becoming more valuable. The Anglo-Newfoundland Co., lie also discloses, is interested in mining in Newfoundland, and these properties ire aipong the world’s richest in respect of ainc-lead ores.

BIG SHARE HOLDINGS IN BEAVERRROOK’S PAPERS. *" Having explained how the AngloCanadian Pulp and Paper Co. controls important paper mills in Britain with enormous assets, and how the Daily Mail Trust, another of his companies, owns 4? per cent, of the shares in Lord, Beaverbrook’s Evening Standard and 49 per cent, of the shares in Beaverbrook’s Daily Express, he concludes that “it is tragically humorous” that his companies’ shares should be priced at auch low figures on the Stock Exchange, in vipw of the huge resources and reserves of capital behind them. STOCK MARKET IS BADLY RUN DOWN. “Hi© stock market, as a whole, is badly run down,” says the statement, “and when it is in that condition unfounded scares and rumors begin to circulate even about the soundest securities. Some of these are deliberately started by bear traders who have sold stocks short. Others have their rise in imagination in the minds of experienced investors. I am sorry to see that tiie apprehension set up by the Hatry crash and by the increase in the bank rat* is deluding some shareholders in my group of companies into throwing away their shares at prices which are much below their real worth. “Hie shares of Associated Newspapers stand to-day at one and three-quarters. Lost year they were quoted at two and a-hftU, yet the fact is that in the first six months" of the present financial year. Associated Newspapers made £70,000 more profit than in the correspond- £ last ybar. j “within a year or two, Northcliffe newspapers may be confidently counted on to earn largo profits for sharc-

:* ; A TALKIE HALT. ft % Tw first irresistible rush of tho talkies baa mot with a check. It might he said that this newest form of screen and disc entertainment has developed a slight impediment in its speech. In short, tho tallies are temporarily lacking in ideas and stars. No vqcal Charlie Chaplin has appeared. It is true that Mary Bickford broke into words, but appaiently, having heard herself, she has decided, like Hamlet, that the “rest is silence.” No golden-voiced Lilian Gish has spoken to pur hearts, nor have any of the famous “vamps” risked the seductiveness of recorded speech. But it is only a check. The screen has spoken, and it can. never be wholly dumb wain. The stars will emerge in time. Li tho interval the silent film will recover a little of its lost kingdom.—London Daily Express.

CHANGED LONDON NIGHT LIFE. REVELRY WITHOUT LAW-BREAK-ING. LORD BYNG'S CLEAN-UP. The successful campaign by Viscount Byng, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, against the alien proprietors of London’s underworld clubs lias completely changed the night life of tho vvest End ot London.

Many people are under the impression that the suppression of dozens of undesirable clubs lias emptied the West End of its former nightly patrons. This is not the case. At present thousands of people enjoy themselves by dancing and dining in the early hours of the morning, but tho profits are reaped by people wlm pay rates and taxes and conduct their establishments in a manner commended by the law. Dozens of night clubs, where high prices were charged for noxious beverages early in the morning have had to close their door, and persons who anticipated raids by the police have vacated them or turned them into all-night coffee shops. For some time these coffee shops were rpndcred very profitable because “fruit machines” were installed and the shillings which night revellers copiously emptied into them more than paid the expenses of the staff and left a. good profit for the proprietors. Some of these machines were showing a. profit of up to £6O a week each. Lord Byng recently gave a warning that prosecutions would follow if the machines were not dispensed with. Subsequently visits were paid to the shops and the machines were confiscated. EMPIRE’S LARGEST BUILDING.

In a near suburb of London there is a famous building in which the greatest of Britain’s national and international shows, exhibitions, and displays are held. This is Olympia. Horse shows, circuses, the services’ tournament, motor, radio, and. aero exhibitions, fashion shows, confectionery trade displays, championship boxing contests—these are but a few of the uses to which this spacious building is put. One cannot think oi any building in Australia put to such a diversity of uses. The nearest analogy would be if the Show Ground in Sydney were roofed in and enclosed as one building.

Already Olympia is a huge building. One feels dwarfed beneath its towering jroof and galleries. But it is to be still larger—the largest building in the Empire when present plans are Completed. A syndicate purchased the old building and adjoining sites. While leaving tho original structure, it is now adding wings and storeys which will make Olympia colossal. Construction is proceeding under pressure. For six months, with two daily shifts of workmen, 600 tons of steel have been erected each week, as compared with a normal London rate of 10Q tons. About 500 men have been employed on the work. All this hadi to be done in order to produce the necessary floor space for the London section of the British Industries Fair, opening in February next. Formerly the fair was held at tho White City, but it outgrew that space, and it was largely to accommodate the annual demands of the fair that the new Olympia is rising. It will be one of the wonders of London for next summer’s oversea visitors.

THE CASINO SPIRIT. Private gambling, most of it of a comparatively innocuous kind, is on the increase in London. This is directly due to the general return from Continental holidays. Casinos for some weeks had become something of a habit, and since they were missed when England was reached again there have been attempts, not unsuccessful, to renew the casino atmosphere in private houses. At the first few of tho autumnal parties it is now possible to indulge in ft mild game of chemin de fer or roulette, the latter being the favorite. Since some embarrassment to the host and hostess is apt to occur when the bank is broken, a small “syndicate” is usually formed, and sometimes the party itself is given by the “syndicate” as joint hosts. !

HIRING DANCE FLOOR.

“UP TO THE TABLE TOPS.” LONDON NIGHT LIFE NOVELTY. London now lias more cabarets and restaurant entertainments than any city in the world, and luxury restaurants are vying witli ono another in spending lavishly to meet the growing demand for fresh midnight attractions. Tho latest novelty is a huge rising floor, understood to have cost more than £IO,OOO, which will be “opened” on Monday in the centre of the Savoy restaurant.

It has been under construction for more than six months, mostly between 2 a.m. and 10 a.in., and no guest lias been aware of the change. To install tho. necessary machinery the floor of the whole restaurant—neaily three-quarters of an acre—was raised a foot during ono night. An official of the hotel said yesterday

"Guests who dine or supi in a restaurant three or four times a week now demand some striking novelty. “In this case to see the whole dance floor rise slowly to the level of the table tops in readiness for an entertainment provides a suitably remarkable impression. The floor, which is almost an entertainment in itself, has been finally tested and ‘rehearsed.’

“Restaurant entertainments will probably become more and move sensational and elaborate within tlie next few months.” READS UP. London is suffering from the worst “road up” spell it has ever known. An army of 60,000 men, equipped with 1000 lorries, 600 horses, huts, sentry boxes, red lanterns, automatic drills and concrete mixers have turned over 20 miles of London’s streets- -including some of the best known and the busiest—into shattered trenches and empty canal beds. There are about 140 different authorities in the metropolitan area who who power to knock the roads away from under our feet, and there has been a burst of activity among this autocratic band. London's “road ups” used to bo a music hall joke; now, if you happen to be in a hurry they make a tragedy. In addition to the traffic confusion and delay there is proceeding a pahdemonium of nerve-racking noises by day, and,' in some places, by night as well. Tho work is in several areas behind schedule, and the Strand, for instance, is likely to remain in a condition of chaos for another month. Hero night shifts are at work within the area of warning red lanterns. It is 16 years since there have been such doings in the Strand—the life of wood paving being slightly longer than in licet street—and it may be 20 more more before the new paving now going down is worn out. By that time Charing Cross station will have vanished to the other side of the river. The bright side of the situation is that the work that is being done on these vital roads—the Strand, Kingsway, Cockspur street, Southampton Row, Shaftesbury Avenue, Berkeley Square, make only a small proportion of those affected—is being done with great thoroughness. Although traffic is increasing so enormously, the new street surfaces will last longer in all cases. But too many “road up” schemes seem to have been sanctioned at onco in tho false hope that tho work would be completed during the holiday period.

OLD ENGLISH SILVER. Many American visitors to London this summer have made heavy purchases of old English silver, of which £1,000,000 worth is said to enter the United States annually. Tho latest craze is for plate made in the first year of the reign of King William IV, the purchaser stipulating, however, that it shall not be delivered across the Atlantic until next year. There are two reasons for this which commend themselves to the shrewd American business plan. First, William IV silver is considerably cheaper than old Georgian, an second, _ by next year, plate made in 1330 will have ceased to be “modern,” and will have become for tho first time in its history “antique”—that is, one hundred. years old, and therefore admitted into the United States free instead of having to pay 60 per cent, duty as at present.