NEWS FROM LONDON BRITAIN’S “STUNNING BUDGET”

Southland Times, Issue 23828, 27 May 1939, Page 13

NEWS FROM LONDON BRITAIN’S “STUNNING BUDGET”

Cabinet Of 23 Is The Largest Since The Great War

By

Air Mail from TREVOR ROSS

LONDON, May 7. IjSTITH the Budget, conscripW tion, and Herr Hitler’s speech, it has been an exciting week. For a whole fortnight the Fuhrer has kept the world guessing his reply to President Roosevelt, and in the meantime there is not a nation in Europe that has not had to review its position and study its own best interests afresh. “No more secret diplomacy” was the cry after the Great War. There are many who would be glad to be rid of the noisy diplomacy that has been substituted for the ambassador’s despatch bag, and there is a good deal to be said for the suggestion I heard the other day that we should tell the dictators plainly that we shall heed no more speeches, and if they have anything to say will they please put it in writing. But the answer to that idea is that there is safety in blowing off steam, and that we are unlikely to have a war while there is so much shouting going on. .

ception as Mr Leslie Burgin on his appointment as Minister of Supply. Some of the papers were positively rude to him, and even the most complimentary could only say that he would be judged by his work. His inclusion in the Cabinet makes it the biggest since the war, with 23 members. The appointment of Captain Euan Wallace, who succeeds Mr Burgin as Minister of Transport, comes at an inconvenient time for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for Mr Wallace was his Financial Secretary, and would have taken a big share in pushing the finance measures consequent on the Budget through the House of Commons. _ Sir John Simon, however, has a bright hew lieutenant in Captain Crookshank, who indulges in both jokes and a top hat, the latter- the only one now consistently seen on the front bench. Mr Geoffrey Lloyd, who gets promotion, was one of Lord Baldwin’s discoveries, and looks younger than his 37 years. Mr Chamberlain is certainly putting responsibility on some of the younger men, and we must get accustomed to their names and views. A man to watch is certainly Oliver Stanley, who at 42 is an outstanding president of the Board of Trade. There is the usual talk in some quarters about big guns outside the Cabinet, but who are they? When it comes to names, the only ones heard are those of Churchill, Eden and Duff Cooper. Eden’s stock is by no means high at present, and Duff Cooper is not a man

misgivings about these new fountains. There is to be, at one end of the basin, a fantastic sea-woman with two seababies, and a companion group with a sea-father and babies, all in bronze. They will face', across the basin, a bronze bust of Jellicoe. The second basin, matching this, will honour Beatty. New pumps will supply an immensely greater volume of water, the central jet rising between 30 and 40 feet. The design does not seem to conform to modern taste. ' Mermaids have no thrill for the present genera- 1 tion; which is hardly likely, either, to take any interest in a sea-momma and a sea-poppa and their progeny. And what these sea families have to do with' Earls Jellicoe and Beatty is beyond guessing. However, as Sir Edwin Lutyens is connected with the affair, we must reserve final judgment, though it can never be forgotten that he designed the Nurse Cavell memorial, which has no admirers.

Golf In The Streets

A “round” of golf through London streets from the City to the West End, even on a Sunday, is a feat that seems to deserve more publicity than it has had. The player, Mr R. Sutton, a stockbroker, accepted a bet of £5, a golf bag and set of clubs from Mr Toby Milbanke, brother of Sir John Milbanke, that he would not be able to complete the course from the southern end of the Tower Bridge to the top of St. James’ street, W., in under 2000 strokes. Actually he took 142 and won the wager. “I played my round with a putter,” said Mr Sutton. “At the first ‘tee,’ Tower Bridge, I was fortunate to find an urchin who was willing to accompany me all the way. Although he did not have to do any carrying, he proudly, if grubbily filled in my score card and was extremely useful looking for the ball, watching out for traffic and similar tasks.”

Spinsters Mast Wait

THE stunning Budget shows how the national expenditure here is soaring, and in private conversation one hears again the old taunt that Governments can always find money for war measures but not for social services. It is, of course, undeniable that a quarter of the money spent on rearmament during the past two years would have made England a better land to live in, but would the taxpayer have stood for the expenditure for that purpose? And it must always be remembered that much of the present rearmament is work that ought to have been done long ago. It is unlikely that any nation in the foreseeable future will be able to economize at the expense of national defence and the democracies especially will have to be continually on their guard. There can be no entirely care-free days while there are men and peoples in existence greedy for power and envious of their neighbours. All this moralizing apart, there is something very ironical in the appearance a day before the Budget of a long Government report on why spinsters have to wait until the age of 65 for old age pensions, whereas widows get them at 55. The cost of pensions for spinsters at 55, would be only a trifle (in these days) of £4,400,000 a year, rising to £5,800,000 in ten years. But it Seems that if this claim was conceded, then claim of other classes of insured women (other than widows) could hardly be resisted, in which case the cost to the nation would be £14,000,000 a year, rising to £18,000,000. The Government committee admits that life for elderly spinsters is “somewhat harder” than for pensioned widows. It has plenty of sympathy to offer, and with that, it seems, the spinsters will have to be content —unless they adopt militant methods. The New Bishop SO a family man, Dr Fisher, Bishop of Chester, is to succeed the 81-year-old bachelor Bishop of London, Dr Winnington-Ingram, and live in Fulham Palace with its hundred rooms. Mrs Fisher, mother of six sons, whose ages range from nine to 21 and who are all at school or university, said, “Those hundred rooms will be something of a problem. I intend to visit the Palace and study it before I make any plans.” Dr Ingram solved the problem by living in only awo of the rooms, one of which he used as a bedroom, the other as a study. Both rooms were plainly furnished, for Dr Ingram, an abstainer and a non-smoker, has always been a simple-lifer. Even so, he has found the official income of £lO,OOO a year not enough to meet the high expenses of the bishopric, and will probably be better off on the £lOOO a year he will get as retirement allowance. Dr Fisher, whose present stipend is £4200 a year, has long been marked down for the succession. Only in his fifty-second year, he will be able to meet the exacting physical demands of the diocese, one of whose chief problems has been the mushroom growth of new suburbs without churches. Fulham Palace as it now stands, dates back to the time of Henry the Eighth, but for many centuries before that, as a simple manor, it was either the home of the Bishop or an appanage of the See. The Palace has no architectural pretensions and, surrounded as it is by works and humble dwellings, is not regarded as one of the “sights of London.” Cabinet Changes COINCIDENTLY with the new Australian Cabinet, which has had a good deal of Press notice, there have been a few cabinet changes here. Surely no Minister ever had such a chilly re-

Mr Sutton said that he played the full round with the same ball, hitting no pedestrians or vehicles, and doing no damage. Apart from negotiating the slope of Southwark Bridge, which had to be topped in one, his greatest hazard was the hill at St. James’s street. By this time, however, the ball was no longer as smooth as at the beginning, and did not roll back very far, so that he reached the eighteenth “green,” the steps of White’s Club, with less difficulty than anticipated. Mr Milbanke accompanied Mr Sutton throughout the game. He explained that he mentioned the figure of 2000 strokes as he imagined the police would stop the game at once.

who will ever be popular with the masses. Churchill remains an enigma. He seems to be content in the role of author and critic. There are any number of able peers, but it becomes increasingly difficult to fit them into democratic government.

Scale Of Fines

MOTORISTS welcomed a report this week that London magistrates had agreed upon a scale of fines for comparable offences, but it appears that Jhis ideal is not yet reached. What seems to have happened is that the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, after consultation with the Home Office, set out the average rate of fines inflicted in the London courts over a given period, and suggested that these might form the basis of future fines. The Chief Magistrate explains that the complete discretion of the courts is unaffected. “Neither I nor anyone else can interfere with that discretion. Every case has to be dealt with on its merits.” The actual penalty, he explains, can be arrived at by increasing or decreasing

“Vatnishing Day” THE televising for the first time of “Varnishing Day” at the Royal Academy, which opens to the public on Monday, revealed only one artist actually varnishing his picture, but gave an interesting view of the Academy in work-a-day dress, with ladders, workmen and artists everywhere as the 8.8. C. camera explored every room. In addition to this innovation, the panjandrums of Burlington House have been broadminded in their admission of pictures of topical interest. One, called “Why War?” shows an old man sitting in a room furnished in Victorian style, staring before him. Beside his loaf and teapot on the table lies a gas mask. James Gunn contributes a portrait of the Prime Minister with—not an umbrella but a red attache-case. Oswald Birley shows portraits of Mrs Chamberlain and Earl Baldwin. One of George Belcher’s portraits is a serious portrait of an elderly clergyman. MrS Flora Lion has a portrait of the Duchess of Kent in a black crinoline gown. A portrait which both men and women will probably admire is David Jagger’s striking full-length of Mrs Robert Foster, fair-haired American wife of the crack amateur golfer. She is shown wearing a chalk-white dull crepe clinging evening gown with a fine silver fox fur and no jewels. The only colour notes in a symphony of white are her scarlet-tipped finger nails and some crimson carnations. Kay Bethell, a Bloomsbury brunette, aged 22, is in a daze over her “amazing luck” in having two portraits hung while she is still a student at the Academy. “One,” she says, “is painted over a frightful thing I had the nerve to send in last year.” It was returned, so Miss Bethell decided to economize and paint something better over the old picture. Naval Memorials A big area of Trafalgar Square in front of the National Gallery is now boarded in for the new fountains, about which I wrote some time ago. The change was really inspired by the necessity of memorials for Earls Jellicoe and Beatty, the two outstanding naval figures of the Great War, and it was considered appropriate to have these in the area where Nelson stands on his high column. Trafalgar Square, therefore, will be more than ever dedicated to the Navy. But there are

the basic figure at the magistrate’s discretion to suit the circumstances of the particular case. Since this explanation, the newspapers have been trying to discover what is the basic figure, from a study of the fines imposed. But what are you to make of this example of fines in one court, for obstruction:— Time, 2 hours 20 minutes, two previous convictions, 15/-. Time, 1 hour 5 minutes, no conviction, 15/-. And the driver fined £3 for exceeding the speed limit still finds that he might have got off for £1 or even less in another court.