LETTER FROM LONDON

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

LETTER FROM LONDON

NEWS FROM THE HOMELAND.

TRANSFER' OF INDUSTRY.

(Special Correspondent.) ; -London, • December 11.

A committee of Ministers is still examining schemes for the transfer of industries from tho more prosperous South to take the place of depressed trades in the North. The buildings arc available and there is an unfortunate superabundance of workers, but owners are reluctant to move to districts where local rates arc high and the restrictions of tho trade unions more stringent than in the South. The Government has consulted many industrial leaders, but so far'has received little encouragement. The high rates which have driven trades awav from the east end of London arc a deterrent to migration to other areas where the same evil prevails, and thus the depression tends to become more and more concentrated. High rates mean more unemployment, which in its turn drives up the rates. NEW WHEAT MOVE. There is a. rumour in Paris that arrangements are being made for a vast new European organisation, which is ■to buy ali the wheat required by millers in. every important European country. There seems some little doubt whether ■English millers have yet agreed •to come into the scheme, but they are believed to -be included In it. It has been felt for a long time that some such -organisation was required, as. an answer to°the tendency in the wheat-producing countries for the producers to present •a united.front to the world’s buyers. ■This is an established fact in Canada, ■the . Argentine, and Australia, which gives the exporting houses a tremendous superiority over the individual miller with his limited resources. NEXT VICEROY? Rumour is possibly correct for once in making Lord Gorell the successor Mr. Ramsay, Macdonald ’has in mind for Lord Irwin as Indian Viceroy. Son of a famous lawyer and Divorce Court (President, Lord Gorell is a good example of the sound mind in the sound ibody. At 46 he is of spare--athletic (figure, and his intellectual featuies accentuate the highbrow note with rimless pince-nez. He played cricket well enough in his younger days to get into the Oxford XI., and to-day he is no rabbit on a golf course. He wore a ■Sam Browne in the war, and was responsible for the British Expeditionary •Force’s educational uplift. For .a while he had a seat as sub-editor on a London -newspaper, and he writes quite readable novels of the thriller genre. His Socialism is free from any class hatred, and- purely a theoretical • attitude. indianisation prospects. ■ The first step towards definite Indianisa.tion' of the Indian Army must, it is understood in the highest military circles- be the formation of an Indian Sandhurst. That this is now certain to eventuate as one of the results of the Round Table Conference is not denied even by the strongest opponents of the ■scheme. For it is useless to expect ■lndianisation to be a success, er en within a hundred years, at the present rate of progress. What will be, it is thought, tile probable sequence of events, will be the formation of an Indian Military College on the lines of ■Sandhurst during the next two or three years, at which youths from the native ■States, as' well as from British India, will be educated for the King’s commission. With a start of 100 cadets at the college, it should be possible by 1955 ■ to have 50 per cent, of the junior ranks in the Indian Army filled by native officers. '" DIPLOMATS’ SEARCH FOR SKULL.

An incident which is said to be eausin" worry and amusement to the diplomatic heads of Europe was alluded to in the House of Commons the. other evening, when Mr. Charles Williams asked The Foreign Secretary whether 'Article 24'6 of the Treaty of Versailles had been fully carried out. The majority of members, who were probably ’unacquainted with the nature of Article 246, were intrigued to hear Mr. Henderson making reference in his reply to a missing skull. This naturally led to inquiries, and it seems that among other things the article stipulates that the skull of a Tanganyikan chief, which ■it was believed had been taken by the Germans to some museum in Berlin, should be restored to the natives of that territory. The skull is highly venerated in Tanganyika, and the natives are most anxious to recover it; but while the German Government is most anxious to fulfil its obligations under the article, the skull cannot be traced and German diplomats do not believe it wao ever sent to Berlin. No efforts are being spared to discover the whereabouts of the skull, and attempts to trace it have involved considerable iu-ter-eomm unications between European diplomatic departments. A story in circulation has it that the Germans-, anxious to. be obliging, though declining to accept responsibility, have forwarded to the Foreign oflice three skulls for “Uncle Arthur” to take his choice. ' 'SOCIALISTS AND OPERA. „ I am told the Government's opera 'subsidy, which has given such joy to '•Chaliapin and the musical world, is bitterly derided by the Socialist groundlings. On every platform that Labour, members of Parliament appear upon thev find themselves furiously heckled on‘this subject. At the. Whitechapel by-election it was made the mo&t of by the Socialist mutineers, .who cracked all sorts of jokes'on the subject. The East End proletarian democrats were sarcastically told that when they ask lor bread the Labour Government gives them a trombone. It is vain for Mr. •Snowden's friends to argue that the subsidy is “only a little one,” and, on its 8.8. C. flank, thoroughly democratic. .The opera subsidy may be the last 'straw that breaks the camel's back. It. has certainly given its quondam supporters the hump. BELGIUM'S VISITATION.

The death fog on the Aleuse, and our own blanket of “London particular,” have fortunately dissipated, but the terror of the former has set Londoners thinking furiously of the hitherto unsuspected peril that is present in these winter visitations.' Acrid throat and smarting eyes, we are all familiar with when the chill pall of waste gases settles down on up, but that it can be so death-dealing in its effects has never before' been conjectured. The cause of the Belgian disaster, though still a mystery, is ascribed as solely fog. The .effects as described remind me vividly of the horrors I witnessed, during the great plague at Harbin in 1910, The ■victims of that scourge, choking and breathless, literally coughed out their lungs. The fact that so many Chinese collapsed and died in the streets was due to the stoic endurance of that raee, enabling the victims to carry on their ordinary vocations until seized by the final fatal paroxysm.

RECRUITING CAMPAIGN. ■Howevor-reluctaiitly- on the -Socialist Ministry’s' part, I hear the recruiting slump--is,- directly after.. Christmas, to be countered by a- vigorous campaign on the part of recruiting sergeants. Among the attractions proposed will -be one really sensible-concession. It is henceforth, going to .be no mere official fiction that a, recruit may nominate his own “mob.” It has always been a big inducement that a man joining.-up had as-,-surance of . serving. -with, his own townies, but latterly this has been a good deal weakened in actual practice. A further step in prospect is raising the physical standard for those branches of the Army, like the Tank Corps and Engineers, which already attract most recruits, so that men may be garnered in greater numbers by the gallant but unpopular P. 8.1. HUSH-HUSH PLANES.

We may- shortly have- the R.A.'F. annexing the R.N. s title of the Silent Service. Experiments by experts in aerodynamics have, without any big change ■in engine design and solely by fixing tubes, to the exhausts, obtained astonishing results. Silent flying will, 1 am told, cease to be any novelty at all within the next-12 months, and by 1932 an aerial roarer will be a positive cuiiosity. This will certainly add to the amenities of passenger, flying, because -the difficulty of talking, phis the-scare of a sudden engine ishut-off. have been big handicaps in the way of popularising air lines. But the advent of the ■silent bomber, in the event of the League of Nations sustaining a puncture, will add immensely horrors of civilian life.; It will Literally be a case of “bolts from the blue.” FUEL FOR THE NAVY. The movement which is afoot.to induce the Admiralty to assist the coal industry, by reverting to coal as the staple fuel for the Royal Navy is not likely to succeed. Apart from the prohibitive expense of. displacing oil, which is in almost universal use,-there are the considerations of the better steaming results, obtained from the use of the latter,' and the much smaller -stoking complements required, to say nothing of the simple and cleaner process of refuelling. The Admiralty, however, is embarking on experiments which will be- watched with keen interest, and which if successful, will be of great benefit to the coalfields. It has given

orders to several firms, engaged in -low ■temperature carbonisation of coal, for some 180. tons of oil extracted from the British product, and this is to be put forthwith on a number of warships of various types for a thorough sea-going -test. The cost of this tost oil is about (£9 a ton. WINSTON. Father Time is a rare.iconoclast. Only . yesterday the lobby gossips called Mr. Churchill the enfant terrible of. politics, and even to-day they refer to him usually as a precocious juvenile. ■Yet Winston has just kept up his 56th ■birthday. Except in the matter of a slight stoop and more than slight baldness, Mr. Churchill keeps marvellously fit, and no doubt,owes this gift partly -to his soldiering days and polo, and -partly to his later indulgence in the healthy' activity of' bricklaying, which -was how , Ben Sayers acquired his extensor prize-fighting muscles. . He has had a wonderful, life' even so far, and ■who knows-what may be yet in store? iWinston. nowadays has suddenly developed an oyster-like Parliamentary .pose* -He is' generally, suspected of waiting to •see how some of the cats —fiscal and otherwise —jump .'next. - WITTY AND WISE. Lord Darling celebrated his Slst birthday this week. He /keeps amazingly fit for an octogenarian, though not fitter , than his legal senior, Sir Edward Clarke, whose youthful tenacity rivals that of the late Lord Halsbury.. Lord Darling still rides in the Row on fine mornings, and his spare figure is more like an old cavalry colonels than a judge's. It is a commentary on contemporary judgment that, when first raised to the Bench, Lord Darling’s appointment was viewed as rather a political scandal. He lived that well down. No judge of his long service had fewerdecisions reversed on appeal, and his inimitable judicial humour made thfe 'law reports quite human documents whilst he sat as a judge. When Liird Reading went to ' the United States, (during the war Lord''Darling, acted as understudy to the Lord Chiefship.

LORD CHAMBERLAIN'S SMOKE BAN

There- are not many more confirmed smokers’ in London than I am, but 1 confess the Lord Chamberlain’s ban on ■smoking in theatres .affords me unmixed satisfaction. All the tobacco smoke I need on an evening 'at the play

I' can get' in the foyer between tartf acts. And it is incongruous to think of smoking .during any. capable performance of “Hamlet” or ‘'The Skin Game. At music-liall shows, revues, or musical comedies it may be different, but, now that we have sex equality arid the ful-ly-licensed female smoker- has arrivedg I rejoice that the Lord Chamberlain hasi put his foot down emphatically on smoking in., theatres. The feminine devotee of My Lady.’Nicotine-H? apt to ba careless. I have seen a ’ fair smoker, in stress of emotion at thqj play, stub her cigarette oh al gentleman's 15-guin.* e’a . trouser .‘knee, SARTORIAL CYNICISM. Professor Elugel, -w.bose/'“Psyehology of -Clothes” is'one of 'the most fascinating books I have (read : fof some time, is not without his.-scholarly cynicism. He shows how antique areeall our very latest mod.es. Ladies -in... ancient Crete were wasplwaistgd. Hobble skirts appear in prehistoric cave drawings. But tho niostjintrig-uing fact Professor Flugel asserts is. that the .' primary object of clothes haS always'- beep, not protec* tion, but sex attraction.-/In this respect . women, however, ,hp.ve. been far more . subtle than men. - 'tAt /first both sexes dressed- to be decorative, and attract each other, but towards the end of the Middle Ages the ladies, always bent on making the best of both worlds, introduced the first decolletage, thereby, in the, professorial view, reinforcing the lure of clothes by a still more primitive .appeal. “RARE AND REFRESHING.” The scientist-is doing his best to give us the food our palates like. Many strange specimens of fruit 'have been arriving in this country for our fruiterers to examine and give their opinion on. One of these has met with considerable -success iso far. It is a cross between a tangerine and a grape-fruit, and experts who have 'critically tasted it declare that it should command a good market. There is-only one" tree, however, arid so it- will .take some-little time before the grower can cultivate, thq'fruit on a commercial ‘ scale. -ThF taste, is distinctly ' tangerine,:, with a slight bitter tonic .taste of. and would quickly win a place as a breakfast dessert. Another curious fruit is a pcap which has a kernel as large and hard as a golf ball, bub 1 tastes like cream flavoured, with a touch of -walnut. It is, in outward appearance, something like the avocado, which’ already comes into thir country from Madeira.