The Stratford Evening Post With which is Incorporated “THE EGMONT SETTLER” (Established 1890) FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1936. A PACIFIC PORTENT.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume IV, Issue 38, 24 January 1936, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post With which is Incorporated “THE EGMONT SETTLER” (Established 1890) FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1936. A PACIFIC PORTENT.

— THE voyage of the flying-boat China Clipper across the Pacific is a portent of which we do well to take some note, remarks the Spectator. Isolation always has been, and to a large extent still is, the keynote of American foreign policy. Geography has always done much to make that possible, for the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other made both Europe and Asia relatively remote. But distance is slowly being annihilated by invention, and even while the China Clipper was winging her way on her six-day voyage from California to Manila, British and American experts were engaged at Wash ington in planning a regular trans-Atlantic air service. All this may mean little at the moment. Passengers by air across the oceans will still be few. But the development of aviation does not stand still. If it did there would have been no China Clipper. Great Britain ceased to be an island on the cfay when Bleriot flew the C hannel. The China Clippei s achievement and its consequences may be a matter of even greater concern to the United States State Department than to the United States Post Office. There is much to reflect on in fact that only six days separate American from Japan. And, may we add, there is much for New Zealand to reflect on also. Brevity. RANDOLPH CHURCHILL pleads for shorter speeches in Parliament: “Captain Fitz roy, the Speaker, recently used his rare opportunity of addressing the House of Commons to give it some much-needed advice. ‘Shorter speeches, more debate’ was the keynote of his words. “His speech was a cry from the heart. The Speaker is the only permanent and immobile audience M’ s.P. possess. All the other members can escape to the bar and smoking-rooms when the oratory reaches its more lamentable depths. “The Speaker s appeal will find a ready echo in the Press Gallery, whose denizens, though less chained to their chairs than he, are often compelled to listen hour after hour to tedious, disjointed, and irrelevant dissertations,”