OUR LONDON LETTER

Taranaki Daily News, 5 October 1929, Page 18 (Supplement)

OUR LONDON LETTER

•. ready-made opportunities. I i! ;• London, Aug. 22. : • ’ /admitting that the Labour adminis- ! Nation is showing great energy, they '■ nust aisp.'consider themselves rather •' lucky.; What may turn out their crown- ; aig triumphs, an equitable reparations ' lettlement, and a real measure of naval disarmament, are opportunities that come ! to them by mere coincidence. Conserva- ■ tires are not prepared to admit that Mr. ! Churchill would have handled the former less firmly than Mr. Snowden, or ■ that Mr. Baldwin would have been less responsive to- Mr. Hoover’s overtures than Mr, MacDonald. - Where Labour scores, however, is in haying.a less com- ‘ placent regime at the Foreign Office, ... .where Sir A listen. Chamberlain’s indiffer--erit<health may have hampered his pol.icy somewijat, and iiwinheriting.-ft great many pigeon-holed domestic schemes .which for .various reasons Mr. Baldwin’s . ■'Cabinet was content to let fie. If Mr. MacDonald can get a European financial settlement, an American naval agreement, and untangle coal and cotton, he may well be'quite content. AMERICAN EMANCIPATION LOAN? City people realise, even though the general public does not, how completely the war —or rather the war debts—change the world's financial orientation. And city people understand, as even well-informed outsiders often do not, what that dramatic change implies. Lombard Street would have had an apoplectic fit, any time before August, 3914, if anyone had mentioned the possibility of America arranging gold cred-; its for Great Britain. Yet this has happened, and, big finance ' Being the • mighty fulcrum it ip. in modern life, the fact gives New York a formidable, pull on Downing Street. This may be Harmless at the moment, but it cannot be safe. Some experts, whose names are not without weight in the city, suggest in whispers the possibility of a heroic remedy. DRASTIC APPEAL. As things are we have, counting capital and interest repayments, to, give America over £2,00'0,000,000 for the less than £1,000,000,000 our late Allies borrowed. on our guarantee. On the other hand, we are asking France and Italy to repay us, on account of our loans to them, actually less than the original sum involved. Why not start an American Emancipation Loan, which would certainly make great appeal to patriotic British people, and pay off the whole of our American debt out of hand? We should still have to pay the same rate of interest on the new loan, it is true, /but at least we should be paying it ourselves, and. the money would be circulating here to help in our much-need-ed industrial revival. At present it is merely stimulating America’s stockgambling orgy, and thereby impeding that revival. COMMISSIONS IN THE R.A.F. Under the short service commission Beheme, which has been introduced into the Royal Air Force to prevent what would otherwise mean stagnation in the promotion of those holding permanent commissions, a hundred young officers will be required in the course of the next few months. Service is for five years on the active list, and for four ■ dn the reserve. Accepted- candidates, during probation as pilot officers, will receive pay at the rate of £273 a year, which ie increased to £343 on promotion to flying officer, in both cases free rations, quarters, etc., being allowed. A substantial gratuity is made on completion of service, and while in the Force facilities are*given these young officers for study to prepare themselves for civil life, and assistance in seeking employment when they join the reserve. A strictly limited number are selected at the end of the five years for pernent commissions. AN EMPIRE BUILDER. Mr. Leo Weinthal’s “Life Story” of Sir Joseph Robinson —still aliye and kicking as a sturdy octogenarian —makes one realise how new is South Africa. Sir Joseph took . a considerable part in its creation as a thriving and populous Dominion. At 17 he was fighting Basutos. At 20 he was already a big personality amongst Vaal diamond diggers. Seven years ago he refused a peerage. These romantic careers, as the world’s uncharted regions vanish and the motor’s ihonk echoes in desert places, can never repeat themselves. According to Sir Joseph, anyone might have had all Kimberley at one time for £OOOO. When he struck tho gold reefs, and bought up cabbage patches at fancy prices, the vendors thought him mad. One sporting owner, to whom Sir Joseph paid £28,0'00 for land afterwards capitalised at £-1,000,000, gave a champagne party to celebrate the joke—and invited the lunatic. AUSTRALIA AHOY. By the end of this summer only one jink will remain to be forged in the all-red air route to Australia. By next spring the whole project will be ready . for practical working. But the still absent link is perhaps the most vital of all. At present tho airway ends at Karachi, which is an inconvenient spot from which to despatch a mail onward to Colombo or Australia, and the report is that, to make good the hiatus, a suitable site for a big aerodrome has been secured just outside Singapore. .This will be the jumping-off board for the final air link, from Karachi by way of Rangoon. Th.e remarkable record just put up by the Duchess of Bedford and her pilot suggests something of the possibilities that air travel will shortly bring within the vision of practical accomplishment. Tho world is rapidly growing smaller. -Eternity encompasses wj, but we are annihilating time. SEAPLANE'S ADVANTAGE. It is not so remarkable as it seems to outsiders that the seaplane, which is much the younger brother of the aeroplane, is already by far the fastest machine in the air. At . the present moment the areoplane speed record is about 280 m.p.h., whereas the seaplane speed record, which will certainly be beaten next month in the Schneider Cup race, is about 318 m.p.h. This is due to the advantage possessed by the latter,, in .the .crucial matter of landing, . which' is much safer at high speeds on water than, on land, with the result that the aeroplane’s potentialities cannot so ifar be .exploited at high speed in the /same way that the seaplane’s have-been.

Though our bright young R.A.F. captains talk confidently of putting up new records over Southampton ’water next month, their hush-hush “bus” is up against a formidable rival from America, for which its gallant pilots claim 4'oo m.p.h. GENERAL LORD HORNE. Lord Horne had no easy task in France. When eventual success camo his way on tho Somme, it was only after he had endured, when commanding the 2nd division, the somewhat bitter fruits of disappointment at tho failures of Aubers Ridge, Festurbcrt and Loos. His quiet demeanour, almost prayerful repose <of countenance, and ■ J mtle voice covered as strong a determination of• .mind and body as can be conceived. His friendship with. Haig ivas in no small degree built up because both men cherished higli moral and religious ideals; As an artillery man he. was always a conspicuous success, and even’ when he became an Army Commander his heart was with, the guns. It was due to him that the co-ordination of artillery on a wide front took place, and a supreme artillery adviser of each Corps was created to link together groups and batteries of artillery. By this the mistakes made in the actions of 1915, involving heavy loss to our troops from our own cun-fire, were obviated. o THE BAD OLD DAYS. If playing for high stakes is a feature of the summer gambling at the tables abroad, it is really, if the truth were known, small beer in comparison with the money lost and won in the social clubs of London a hundred to a hundred and fifty years ago. • In those days, both at White’s aijd Brooke’s, very large sums were at. hazard every night. Beau Brummel cut cards with Drummond, the banker, for £lO,OOO. Lord Stavordale, though a minor, lost £12,000 in one sitting. Charles James Fox, the famous, politician, dropped a fortune in an evening at Brooke’s. And other distinguished sailors, soldiers, politicians and landed gentlemen played fast and loose with fortune. A Colonel Mellish lost no less than £97,000 in one night, but was persuaded to take another hand, and won £lOO,OOO. And in those days, it must be remembered, the value of money was much greater than it is now. ' HALF MOON STREET. A large number of highly respectable bachelors. have read with horror of the attack on the tenant of a flat in Half Moon Street. This short street, which runs down into Piccadilly in the heart of clubland, is perhaps the smartest of all the streets in Mayfair where bachelor flats are to be found, and it is a street where normally life, runs very smoothly.- It is tho “apartments .de luxe” quarter of London, where civil servants home on short leave from abroad often rent minute flats at fabulous rents. I know one young man, at the moment, who is paying 10 guineas a week for a small flat of one sittingroom, one bedroom and one bathroom, with the attentions of an elderly and most experienced valet. TIRE PURCHASE DIFFICULTIES. It is still a trade secret, but I hear that many London houses are becoming nervous about hire purchase, and afraid they were carried a little too far on tho tide which has extended such facilities during the last five years or so. The introduction of the “no deposit” idea, which was reported on favourably from America, has not been such a success here, and there have been some heavy losses on contracts of this description. Under the old system, with initial deposits ranging from 10 to .25 per cent., the loss ration was found to be less than 1 per cent. With the introduction of “no deposits,” the loss ration has leapt up, and although it varies considerably, some shops show a loss of as much as 15 per cent. It is rumoured that hire-purchase finance houses are about to pull in their horns. If they do so,' some of the large shops will have to make changes. An actor friend confides with unconcealed glee that the advent of the “talkies”, is having one exemplary effect. It is completely euchring the film producer who. specialises, as so many apparently do or did, in bullying their unfortunate mimes like an old-style ser-geant-major hectoring an awkward squad. Tho shooting ordeal at film studios is no longer, for sensitive actors and actresses, nearly as bad as being shot at dawn in the military manner. On the contrary, the talkie is avenging those long-suffering mortals on the worst of their taskmasters. When a sound film is being taken, the director who even whispers is wrecking his own fortune. A squeaking boot or a jingling watch-chain can even do that. One genius, who resorted to scribbling abusive messages so as to cheat the microphone, found his pencil scratchings magnified into a machine : gun barrage.