OUR LONDON LETTER

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1929, Page 16

OUR LONDON LETTER

NEWS FROM THE HOMELAND. GIPSY PROPHECY. London, May 23. (From Our Own Correspondent.) The common story about Lord Rosebery’s triple college “boast” is utterly alien to his perfect urbanity and the truth. This was a gipsy prophecy made in his infancy, but it fulfilled itself. He married a Rothschild, won the Derby three times, and was for a brief peno Prime Minister of England. But then, when the world was easily in Jus giasp and he in the plenitude of his powers, the bi» arena seemed to irk his soul. He suddenly shook off the dust of it for ever, and retired into private life as a country squire. His last incursion into the lists was a tilt at Mr. Lloyd George’s party war-chest, Lord Rosebery suggested it was tainted with the traffic of honours. Had he lived a fortnight longer, he might have won his fouith Derby with Midlothian. But now that horse is scratched, because the new rule allowing an entrv to stand after the owner’s death does not apply till next

THIRTEEN YEARS OLD.

Thirteen years ago last Monday summer time was first used in this country. Despite the almost fanatical opposition of a small minority, including one or two “vested interests,” it remains perhaps the biggest boon conferred by Parliament in our time. Yet it needed the Great War, and the holocaust of the terrible Somme fighting, to make the noliticians realise its simple expediency. Lacking that abnormal impetus, Mr. Willett might have pegged away at his hobby for a lifetime without convincing the House of Commons. None of the horrors predicti . as the result of its adoption, more particularly to cur milking cowe, has actually materialised, and Mr. Willetts best memorial is to be found in our decreasing national C 3 symptoms. Outdoor sport in this country for the masses should regard May 21, 1916, as the date of its Magna Charta.

BOOM THE AIR.

Judging by convincing facts now available, there should no longer be any doubt about the reality of the aeroplane’s coming challenge to the. motor car. Not only are the civil aviation organisations steadily growing, but municipal aerodromes are gradually spreading all over the country. At the same time we have the significant' factor of a rapid growth of aircraft firms to compete for the big orders now being placed for new machines. Already there are, moreover, 800 private persons holding pilot licenses, and the number will, before the year is out, probably be well over a thousand. At present the accepted rate for hiring an 80-h.p. two seater is 30s an hour. This includes everything, and works out at about 4Jd a mile. But the enthusiasts of civil aviation confidently promise soon that the cost will be reduced to a democratic 2d a mile.

OSCULATORY RECORD.

Survivors of the old House of Commons, who find themselves in the new one, will regret that Mrs. Hilton I hilipson is not of the party. It would be invidious to suggest who, but members could better spare one or two other lady M.’sP. that the vivacious little lady who was formerly Miss Mabel Russell, of stage celebrity. There is an interesting rumour that she is returning to the footlights. A year before the war ended Alisa Mabel Russell married Lieut. Hilton Philipson, then serving with the Scots Guards, and she has two sons and a daughter. She shares her husband’s interest in tennis, golf, and motoring, and has a charming place at Esher, in Surrey. At the dissolution meeting of the late House of Commons, moved by the sentiment of adieu, Mrs. Hilton Philipson actually saluted, the Father of the House of Commons in. his t hchair with a farewell kiss. This is a record that may endure. The only thing ever before kissed in the House of Commons was the swearing-in Bible.

DESPERADOES FROM AMERICA?

Scotland Yard is on its mettle. Last week-end motor bandits “pulled off” a score of robberies without being caught’, and it has been decided to do somethingThe Flying Squad cars are as easily recognised as a county bobby in his uniform and boots. But now, taking a lesson from the “Q” boats that hunted down the German submarines, these official vehicles are being heavily camouflaged. A common-looking taxi or baker’s van may really be an 80 m.p.h. Yard car with wireless and several saturnine detectives aboard. Though Londoners may admire this official enterprise, they feel it looks too much like Chicago. We may shortly have bright young people • aking up night parties to watch “Q” cars chasing motor robbers, with Brooklands’ thrills laid right on to the West End. I hinted weeks ago that, since New York and Chicago “cleaned up,” London might become the American desperado’s happy hunting ground, and it looks true already. OUTSIDE THE PALE. An income-tax official told me to-day, I thought not without a certain note of pride, that this country not only has the highest rate of income tax, but almost certainly the lowest percentage of evasion. He admitted, however, that some people still manage to keep out of the meshes of his department. These are, apart from isolated causes of evasion by fairly well-to-do people, mostly folks engaged, in curious businesses which it is impossible to audit properly. It may astonish those who have not read their Sherlock Holmes to know that street mendicants and theatre-queue performers are in this category. Some of the street musicians of London, who look Bohemianly “interesting” and poor, live in nice little villas and keep a maid. But it is quite impossible to inspect their bank accounts.

THE MISTRAL.

While sympathising with Dr. Eckeuer in the misfortunes which have overtaken him on his second attempt to fly the Atlantic from Friedrichshafen, one cannot but wonder what induced him

to take the Graf Zeppelin on such a southerly route. The Mediterranean, and especially that pocket of it whien lies between the Spanish coast and Corsica, is one of the stormiest expanses of water on the face of the globe at this time of year. Steamers that have made their way across the Indi in Ocean, in the teeth of the monsoon, frequently find that the worst moments of their voyage are encountered here. Tne mistral, like the monsoon, is wind 'im modulated bv anv variety between gusts and lulls. It is’of ever* higher velocity than the monsoon, and, coming off the mountains, it has a slant which proves particularly irritating to the water it blows upon. What effect it must have on the envelope of a giant airship is difficult to imagine, but there must have been many anxious moments on board the Graf Zeppelin before the tussle with the mistral was finished.

REGISTERING COMPANIES ABROAD.

The new Companies Act, with the additional obligations imposed upon directors, is likely to give impetus to an existing tendency to incorporate companies in the Dominions instead o in London. Large corporations, which require subsidiary companies for. convenience of management, are waking up to the fact that great economies, can be effected by forming these companies outside England. Kenya Colony is one oi the most popular places at the moment, so much so that copies of the cn Companies Ordnance are tempoiaiily unobtainable in London. It is possible to register a company in Kenya, with a capital of £1,000,000, at a cdst of about £BO, instead of a total of over £lO,OOO in London. The company so formed is still a British company, and entitled to British diplomatic assistance abroad, and can operate in England with even greater freedom than an English company.

BROADCAST CINEMAS.

Nothing is nowadays outside the bounds of scientific probability, so we must be ready to accept the latest rumour from Harrow, where Mr. Baird and his coadjutors in television necromancy work out their magic. The claim is that a cinema film has already been transmitted through brick walls quite efficiently, and that shortly we may have films broadcast by means of ordinary televisors. So the cinema proprietor, as well as the theatre manager, seems to be rather up against it. The prospect opens out of simultaneous broadcasts from some central studio all over London and the country of popular cinema programmes. In an age when our platform orators address a d° zen different audiences at once, even broadcast cinemas may seem comparatively tame, but the scientists must really get a better word than telecinematography for their new wonder. Why » ot the "tellies?”

RUBBER OPTIMISTS.

There are two schools, of thought amoncr those who operate in raw rubber, or deal in the shares of rubber estates. There are those whb see no hope of real prosperity for years, and will not agree that there is any prospect of the raw material passing the shilling-a-pound. line. There are others, more optimistic, who already see a small boom on the way. At the moment the optimists are in the majority. They see in the rise of just over a penny a pound, since last month, to the present level of nearly the first indication of an all-round improvement, a"d they are gteatly cheered by the new record of American consumption in April. They. prophesy that American consumers will before lono- be swallowing 50,000 tons a month, and that then the glad day will have come when consumption exceeds supply.

STARS IN THE MAKING.

I wrote in this column last week that H. W. Austin was the main hope of British lawn tennis—a youngster with all the makings of a champion. It is comforting, therefore, to find no less an authority than “Big Bill” Tilden confirming that view. Tilden, who is one of the greatest players and most airesting personalities of the last decade, has just written a book, under the quaint title “Me —the Handicap, in which I came across the following: “In ‘Bunny’ Austin, England has a great star in the making. He has one of the most beautifully produced games and varied styles in the world. He needs experience and seasoning i» the fire of stem competition, but, if he comes through it a great champion, as I believe he will, °his influence on English tennis will be tremendous. He may do for England what Cochet and Lacoste have done for France.”