LETTER FROM LONDON

Taranaki Daily News, 15 August 1931, Page 18 (Supplement)

LETTER FROM LONDON

NEWS FROM THE HOMELAND.

THE RESPITE

(From Our Own Correspondent.) London, June 25.

It will take probably some little time for the full significance of President Hoover’s proposal to Europe to be realised. On the face of it, the suggestion of a one year’s suspension of war debt payments, in order to give time to permit debtor governments to recover their national prosperity, may well be taken to indicate an optimism regarding the situation in Europe quite unsupported by the facts of the case. A year’s respite would, of course, be welcome to everybody, but no one, on this side of the Atlantic, at any rate, can be so sanguine as to imagine tl.at the slough of depression which now engulfs us can give way to an anti-cyclone of prosperity within such a brief period. The importance of the proposal, however, lies m the changed American view regarding wajr debt payments which it revea’s. There is a wide difference between suspension and cancellation, but the proposal of the one indicates the contemplation" of the othbr. A year may not restore prosperity, but in that period Europe, by the use she makes of her temporary freedom from burdens., can go a long way to dispel the suspicions which America still entertains of her. Germany, in particular, in the 12 months should be able to give an earnest idea of her real intentions —-whether it is really international amity she is longing for, or merely more “pocket battleships.” LAND TAX AMENDMENT. I believe that for the authorship of the amendment which made peace with the' Liberals on the land tax the Government is indebted to Sir Stafford. Cripps,: the Solicitor-General. He has shown ■ himself not merely a trenchant debater, Writ a skilled negotiator behind the scenes. I gather that it required some pressure, as well as skill, to more Mr. Snowden to make a concession, but he was forced to recognise that the alternatives were either the defeat of the Government or its early downfall, as the result of his own and other resignations. The Socialists might have faced the former course, if they had been convinced that the land tax was a good subject on which to fight All the advice they received was to the contrary. Their folloivers were much relieved that the less heroic att’tilde was adopted. LABOUR WAR MINISTERS. • One thing must be conceded. Mr. Macdonald has been most happy in his choice of Secretaries for The first Labour Minister, to go to the War Office was Air. Stephen Walsh, the small but very genial and able Lancashire miner. He was what the theatrical advertisers call “an instantaneous success” with the big army chiefs, and a much more popular personality with them than the late Sir Worthington Evans. Now Mr. Tom Shaw has quickly, established equally cordial relations with the Brass Hats in Whitehall, who respect his shrewd common sense, and enjoy his blunt humour. I believe Labour's Ministers for War would be the first to testify to an utter absence of “class hatred” on the part of military big wigs. And these trade unionists soon get thoroughly. intrigued by army problems. NAVAL GUNNERY PRACTICE.

The Admiralty has changed its mind about sending the battleship Emperor of India absolutely to the bottom, by the guns of the Atlantic Fleet. The original intention was to batter the guns of the Nelson and Rodney, to see how long this heavily-armoured vessel ship, primarily with the great, 16-inch could withstand a new devastating projectile that has been brought into being. A two-fold desire for economy, however, has supervened. In the first place, it has been decided not wholly to sacrifice the vessel's break-up value, which may be put at £40.600, after making due allowance for the pounding she will receive, and, in the second place, there will be a great saving of ammunition. On the whole, the decision, i- a wise one. No doubt the experts will be able to obtain sufficient' data concerning the effects of the new shell after a certain number of rounds have been fired, though some critics of the Admiralty will probably jump to the conclusion that the change of plans was dictated solely by the desire still further to restrict the expenditure of naval practice ammunition.

GENERAL PERSHING. The American Commander-in-Chiefs comments on the morals of his Allies are particularly inexplicable and offensive to people who served in the famous 55th Red Rose Division., It was with seasoned men of the latter, couth of ; C'ambrai in November, 1917, the Ameii- | can troops got their first introduction ‘ to front-line trenches. The 55th’s exploits a few months later at Givenchy, which earned honourable mention in French General Orders, hardly bear out General Pershing’s views. The 55th broke Ludendorff's last grand, offensive whilst Pershing’s Dough Boys were still gambling away their army equipment at Le Havre. CRUELTY TO HUNS. But the 55th's imperfect sympathy with General Pershing started befoie then. He came to the Ypres sector about the same time as Winston Churchill, during the Third Battle. He was making a personally' conducted tour of relatively safe areas, and was shown a big cage, for German prisoners which our R.E.’s put up on the low meadows opposite the Gold Fish Chateau. That was miles behind' the front line, and about half-way between 'Ypres and Pop. Our transport occupied the surrounding terrain and regarded themselves as well away from the Great War, despite occasional German shell and bomb strafs. When it was known, that Pershing found fault with the prisoners’ cage as being “in a dangerous position/’ the 55th transport drivers .speculated luridly as to whether the Yankee thought Margate would do. • CHANNEL TRAIN AGAIN? I' hear that negotiations are in progress, and are particularly serious on the other side of the Channel, between French and British railway experts with a view to developing ..the train-ferry project. Moshj that, during th© war, a- hHWfeiiy Service- was-

run from Richborough to France, and conveyed huge quantities of material, but so far the proposal to develop that system for passenger traffic has not made any headway. Apparently the French railway people, howe' er, now that the Channel Tunnel has been \etoed, are earnestly bent on instituting a cross-Channel train-ferry service, and, though the British railway attitude is so far no more than sympathetic, it may quite possibly be carried through. It would be rather fine to have French trains steaming gaily into Victoria and English ones into the Gare de Lyons and St. Lazare. DUCAL LABOURER. The Duke of Argyll has just return.'d to London from his ancestral seat, Inveraray Castle, where he has been much interested in the building of a new tower. with belfry, for a local church. He worked daily as a labourer, his job being the barrowing of granite blocks, and he evidently enjoyed it. The duke has abandoned the Presbyterian traditions of thc Episcopal Church in Scotland, of his family. He is an ardent member and keenly interested in archaeology. He is a bachelor of 59, and something of a recluse, and thc heir presumptive of his title is his nephew Mr. lan Douglas Campbell, who married Lord Beaverbrook’s daughter.

RED GEWGAWS

Thc history of the French Revolution is repeating itself to-day in Russia. Only things are moving more quickly now than then. I observe, from a copy of the Moscow News, a “five-day weekly,” that even the Sovie'. Commissars are now instituting decorations. These are fully as class conscious as any of the insignia sanctioned in the older courts of Europe. Recently 22 agricultural workers and 23 industrial ones have received the highest honour in. the Soviet Republic. This is the Order of Lenin and the Red Banner of Toil. Amongst the recipients —all decorated for working overtime, by the way —are swine-herds and several women farm labourers. British trade unionist- might, be interested in a bricklayer at Nizhni, whose photo the Moscow News publishes. He has made a record of 230 Q bricks in a day. The Soviet average, considerably above our own, is 1500. ROYAL ACADEMY BUSINESS. The Prince of Wales did not exaggerate the other day when he said artists .were amongst the first and the hardest hit by the trade slump. A comparison of sales at the present Royal Academy exhibition with those of even last year affords convincing proof that we have not yet' turned the economic corner. Last year’s sales totalled nearly £20,000. The present year’s, with only two more months of the show at Burlington House to run, amount to no more than £BOOO. Two factors help towards this depressing result. There is a sad dearth of American millionaires this summer in London, and the Chantry Bequest purchases so far include but one picture, Mr. W. McMillan’s “Birth of Venus.” This cost £lOOO. The average sale price of those pictures disposed of is about £35. NAVY WEEK. The programme for Navy Week in thc three big ports will be on a much more ambitious scale: than in. previous years, the Royal Navy being ben’ on giving the public ■ full value for its money. In addition to facilities for type of warcraft, visitors wiL be prothoroughly inspecting virtually every vided with numerous side-shows informative of the customs and traditions of the service. Each port is endeavouring to out-do the others in the attractiveness of its programme. The staging mouth will take some beat? g: In one of a “mystery ship” incident at Portsof the largest basins the public will be regaled with a realistic encounter between a “Q” boat and a submarine, and of an innocent-looking tramp into a will witness the swift transformation ship-of-war to the undoing o' h assailant. Over half a million people pat-

ionised last Navy Week, and a consul* crably larger number is expected this rear. SAUCY ARETHUSA. Those who know the Thames Estuary, and whofse river excursions are nob confined to upstream aboie Loud' will mourn sincerely- if the training-ship, Arethusa, disappears from her Greenhithe moorings. Since she. took that station, in a part of Londons river now becoming too crowded with traffic for her purposes, thousands of noys lull e left her to maintain high, standards of British seamanship on the worlds oceans. It will be a pity if she has to go, and the young seamen to find prosaic quarters' Built in 1849, and launched from Pembroke Dockvard in the merry month of June, the Arethusa was not only a new type of warship i- her way, but made big history. Sha. was the last British warship to into action under full sail—at the” bombardment of the Odessa forte in ’s4—and her light cruiser namesake in Heligoland Bight showed an equal “sauciness.” SENTINEL OF ITISTOHY. ’ The Bishop of Winchester will preach? in St. Sepulchre’s Church, the largest: and one of the. oldest ‘in the City of . famous seaman' and one-time Governor Smith’s tercentenary celebrations. This London, next Sunday, at'Captain John of Virginia, whose name is forever link-, ed with the romantic story of Princess' Pocahontas, is buried iii St. Sepulchre’s; The church was built in Stephen’s reign, and restored by WreiKaftcr the Great Fire. The original tower, baptistry, porch, and part of the .walls-, remain. Preserved in the church, which has seen Crusaders march past its ancient tower, as well as echoed tlie shouts that greeted the heroes of Agincourt, is the bell rung at midnight on the eve of a Newgate execution. Twelve funereal strokes were sounded, and next morning, when the cart set forth for Tyburn, the- condemned man was handed a nosegay, from the church porch. OCTOGENARIAN BRIDEGROOM. Sir Griffith Henry Boynton, the 82-year-old baronet who is to be married again, is the head of one of Yorkshire’s oldest families. The. barorietcy is a mere 300 years old, created in 1618, but the family makes the proud boast that it descends from a Bartholomew de Boynton, who was Lord of the Manor of Boynton in 1007, before the invasions of the “newcomers” from Normandy. In view of this, and of Sir Griffith’s renewed youth, it seems only fitting that the family motto should be “H tempo passa.” One of Sir Griffith’s nieces is Lady Cunliffe-Lister, who has a place at Masliam in Yorkshire.

KENT’S JUNE BARRAGE.

Some friends told me a week or' so ago that they had taken a remarkably cheap house for a month, but did, not mention where it was. It was a charming Georgian hoifse, most delightfully furnished, and they were to pay a rent of only 2i guineas a week during the ’month of June. I met them in town this morning, and they told me both where the house is, and why it was so cheap- It is in one of the villages in the Weald of Kent, and entirely surrounded,by orchards. .Scon after 5 a.m. every morning, Sunday nneluded, guns are fired off at ffive-fninutb intervals to scare away the birds, while small boya with wooden rattles and' shrill voices operate in a field of strawberries a hundred yards away. Sleep is impossible. In June, the most rural part of Kent is noisier than Piccadilly in the hands of roadmenders. THIRTEENTH CENTURY FARM. The oldest remaining farmhouse within five miles of Charing Cross is to go in a few weeks’ time. This is Cowhouse, or Avenue Farm, and it is just beyond the border of Hampstead towards Cricklewood. There has been & farm on the site since the XHlth century, and, the fields round about were farmed till just after the Great War.