LETTER FROM LONDON

Taranaki Daily News, 11 February 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

LETTER FROM LONDON

TOPICS OF THE TIMES. EUROPE AND AMERICA. (Special to News.) London. December 15. ■ The latest news from Geneva is that Mr. MacDonald has succeeded in his diplomatic salvage, and that Germany’s defection from the Disarmament Conference, which would have knocked the bottom out of that project, has been averted. This may have a very direct bearipg on the debt question, since the American Note again links up debt remission .with disarmament. If Europe hammers out a convincing pact of pacifism, America will have one reason less to refuse to listen to commonsense about war debts. But the most important fact in the American Note, though it has attracted least notice, is Mr. Hoover’s agreement to allow war debts to be discussed at the Economic Conference, now nebulously postponed till next Spring. It was America’s refusal to do this earlier that completely kiboshed everything. Gradually the world seems to, be coming to its PERSIAN TROUBLE. The Government, I hear, is hopeful of coming to some agreement with Persia without taking the dispute to The Hague. The warning that we intend to adopt that course if Persia makes no withdrawal from her present attitude is not one that is calculated to cause alarm to an Oriental Government. The Asiatic loves litigation. The prospect of the long-drawn-out proceedings that might ensue once the matter was brought before the Court of International Justice probably appeals greatly to the minds of the Shah’s Ministers. Were that the sole tenor of our Note our hopes of a change of front on Persia’s part would be poor indeed. The business end of the Note, however, lies in the reminder that we shall protect our rights in the event of a molestation. In this era of the League of Nations the style of drafting an ultimatum has been sadly cramped. The hint, however, is conveyed in terms clear enough to alarm Mr. Lansbury, so it may not be lost on Persia. SOTTO VOCE. What queer notions some people seem to have about • well-known personalities in public life. I note that one London paper comments, with facetious surprise, on the fact that Mr. Stanley Baldwin, when whispering to Mr. J. H. Thomas on the Treasury Bench, was heard in the Press Gallery to call the Colonial Secretary “Jim.” Equally astounding, is the fact that Lady Astor, when she addressed some private request to Lord Cecil, called him “Bob.” I question whether, even in stiff Victorian days, eminent people gave each other elaborate handles to their names when conversing privately. Everybody who knew him well enough called Lord Balfour “Arthur,” ahd nothing else, and does anyone imagine Margot addressed “my husband” as Mister Asquith or Lord Oxford? When Lord Derby encounters a near relative in the lobby at Westminster, he sings out his Christian name, abbreviated to domestic usage, in accents that-reach the outer precincts. ■» THE WHIP HAND. Something more than mere misogynism explains the anxiety aroused by the steady encroachment of women as taxgatherers. They are now well entrenched in every department of Somerset House, and are no longer restricted to assessing taxation. An increasing number of women are being made chief collectors, both in London and the. country, and it is said, not without some justification, that women officials are far more tyrannical and red-tapey than men as a rule. With taxation at its present dizzy height, and bad times still ahead, this psychological factor at Somerset House may make all the difference imaginable. Many business men resent having to reveal the, proportion of taxation paid reveal all their business figures to women, and it is urged that, taking the proportion of taxation paid by the - two sexes, already women hold a far too preponderant number of posts. ' Sex equality is working out paradoxically. PULP. It is part of the British Constitution that all Parliamentary ballot papers must be jealously preserved “for a year and a day.” At the expiration of that statutory period, the yotes cast at a general election are no longer treasured in the muniment room at the top of the Victoria Towel- at Westminster. This week the punctilious authorities have been carting away the papers marked, during the. national voteslide of the last general election, by the 22,100,000 electors who returned the present Ministry to office. They are brought forth by attendants in bags, and removed in vans from the pavement outside the House of Lords. Compared with this mountain of ballot papers the Irish Sweep looks like a village yaffle. What happens to the papers is interesting—and perhaps a cynic might think symbolic. They are removed to some factory or mill and reduced to pulp. DRIVE-AS-YOU-PLEASE RAILWAY. The flight of the Chinese troops out of Manchuria into Soviet territory, by means of the Trans-Siberian Railway, recalls the exodus of a corps of Russian naval cadets over the same strip of railway in the autumn of 1917. That corps, to which I happened to be attached, had an adventurous journey right out from Petrograd to Lake Baikal, but its greatest difficulties began only after it had passed the eastern shores of that inland sea. By then Messrs. Lenin and Trotsky had already completed their coup, and telegraphed instructions to hold up the corps, prevent it making its way to Vladivostok and the sea. Railway officials refused to supply the officers in charge with locomotives, and at every •station, where a change of engine was required, the cadets had to commandeer the most likely-looking machine, get up steam, and drive their own train over the next section of line. As the railway then was a single track, the possibility of meeting an up-train somewhere midway between stations lent peculiar excitement to the journey. PIGEONS. Feeding the St. Paul’s pigeons is now one of London’s recognised amusements. Sentimental excursionists up from the country love to. stand under the shadow of the-famous cathedral and let the birds flutter up their arms and on their shoulders. It gives them that St. Francis of Assisi feeling, and friends take snapshots, of them. Though the pigeons are a worry to him, and do considerable damage to Wren's masterpiece, the spectacle must afford Dean Inge some ironical entertainment. An elderly individual in an ancient overcoat, his pockets bulging with pigeon food, makes a good living out of retailing handfuls of com to the sentimentalists., Winter and summer year in and year out, he is at his post. He supplies the corn, and the sentimentalists supply the manna. But the contrasts between their beatific glow and his our blase commercialism is as funny as anything in London town,

“ROCKET” EXPRESS. ‘ . The most thrilling experience was the night we confiscated an. old tin-pot “Rocket”, at Verkhni Udinsk. It was the best thing on wheels our cadets could find, but came near to bursting before it shifted the heavy train out of the station and along the wild strip of railroad to Chita. By about midnight we came upon a curving decline that runs sharply downwards for many miles towards the valley of the Amur. In the darkness, not knowing the line or its gradients, the- mid-shipmen on the footplate felt the load behind them relax, and rejoiced accordingly. They piled on steam, and before long thatx train was roaring on its way eastward in a manner which broke all records of Siberian expresses. Soon they discovered that the antiquated airpump on the engine was incapable of supplying the vacuum for the brakes. So did the officers behind in the train, and orders were given to other midshipmen to man the handbrakes in each coach. The groans and screams of these rusty appliances were appalling, but they did little to slacken the speed. Only a timely interval of up-grade saved the train and the cadet corps from a glorious smash. CHALLENGE FROM WALES. Tire display of Welsh tweed cloth held in London has, I am told, given both the Irish and the Scottish manufacturers furiously to think. Most people regard tweed cloth as' a monopoly of Irish and more especially Scottish make, but time was when Wales did a considerable business in this particular line. Half-a-century ago the Welsh’weaving industry was a thriving concern, but it has dwindled sadly in recent years, and districts that once made tweed to the extent of about £50,000 a year are now producing less than £5O worth. It is claimed in the principality, however, that the real Welsh tweed is not inferior to, but even better than, the cloth made either on Irish or Scottish looms, and, now- that hard times .have overtaken the Welsh coal industry, it is probable the weaving industry will at least endeavour to.stage a strong revival. L.G. would be the very man to give it a helpful bodst. HARLEY STREET MEMOIRS. Dr. Greville MacDonald, the Harley Street throat specialist, who has just published his memoirs, has a strong literary strain. His father was George MacDonald, the poet-novelist, who had a >big public in the ’seventies of last century. Dr. MacDonald’s boyhood was spent in a thoroughly literary and artistic atmosphere, and at six years of age was the model of Munro, the sculptor, for his “Boy Riding A Fountain,” which is still an adornment of Hyde Park. Amongst his earlier memories are some of Ruskin and Lewis Carfoll, otherwise Charles Dodgson. In his book Dr. MacDonald advances a most interesting view about Ruskin’s domestic tragedy. As . a Harley Street man, he knOw Sir Morell Mackenzie, the specialist who was called to Berlin to examine the Kaiser’s father, and he also assisted the great Lister in some of his first King’s College Hospital demonstrations. ALDERSHOT TATTOO. Bookings are "already brisk, I am told, for next summer’s Aidershot Tattoo. This arresting fact may well be pondered by pacifists and internationalist fans for what it may be worth as an index to human psychology. • This year’s show was witnessed by half-a-million spectators, and next year’s will not fall short of that record. The performances start on June 10 and end on the 17th. The theme will be “King and Country,” with a dramatic episode from the siege of Delhi as the “piece de resistance." A military pageant will be included.in the tattoo programme, which will illustrate the growth of arms right away from the brave days of single combat down to the latest tank arid aeroplane developments. There will be torchlight drill by 500 picked men, mass mounted bands, and, always a great feature with the' British public, despite the comic paper jokes,.a concentrated bagpipe oratorio by pipers from all our famous Highland regiments. BATTERSEA’S ORIENTAL. DREAM. ' London’s skyline, more perhaps than that of any other great city, presents unending diversity of architectural types. I rubbed my eyes in astonished unbelief, however, at the silhouette that presented itself as I • was walking in' Battersea park a few mornings ago. There was sufficient low-lying fog to blur out most of the immediate surroundings, but the sky above was clear, and tinged with saffron-coloured sunlight. Suddenly, as it seemed high above the clouds, there appeared the misty outlines of two colossal pagodas. Storey upon storey they towered into the sky, while flanking them, hardly less unreal and mysterious in form, loomed a gargantuan silver cupola. Neither the Celestial City nor the banks of Irrawaddy have such wonders to present to the traveller. It was some seconds before I assured myself I was looking upon the erformous chimneys of the Battersea Power Station, still encased in tier upon tier of scaffolding, and that the great dome behind wa? nothing but London’s newest and largest gasometer. Realisation, however, did nothing to spoil the majestic beauty of the picture. WRONG PEOPLE. A Fleet Street friend showed me recently a bad half-crown. He said it came to him as part of the loot of a successful rubber of contract bridge in a club that shall be nameless It looked a perfectly good coin to me, ahd rang wrong when bounced, and my friend pointed out that it also felt wrong. When gently fingered it gave an oily, instead of a hard, feel to the hand. I said ’he seemed to be an expert. He sighed, and slipping the spurious coin into a handy pocket, said he Was “getting on.”* Then he told me he had done just what nine people out of ten do. He tried to pass it off on the L.G.O.C. But the conductor promptly handed it back, remarking, “Your mistake, sir; never try a wrong ’un on a busman. We’re too used to ’em. Always rub ’em oh our punches.” I left my friend gazing speculatively at a rushhour cafeteria. OLD IZAAK. I met a Fleet friend a night or two ago who told me he had been in the doctor’s hands. He developed symptom's that alarmed him a little, and the doctor, an able but somewhat eccentric general practitioner in whom he has great faith, diagnosed the trouble as in the "appendix region. Happily he had taken it early, and an operation, though cheerfully recommended by his doctor as “getting it over finally,” was not imperative. The trouble yielded to treatment. The doctor told the journalist he had a collection of appendixes, and showed him one shrivelled object. He stated that he collected them, not for any medical reason, but because his< hobby was fishing, and they made excellent bait. Though this sounds very like leg-pulling, the Fleet Street man is convinced the doctor was speaking quite seriously. He even added, when telling him about the gruesome bait, tha f his wife refused to eat any of the fish he caught. BUSKERS. 1 observe that staid statisticians report a decline in' the number of London’s street buskers. A busker, in case the reader does not know the term, is an adventurer who makes what living he may by giving public entertainments or selling charms or other esoteric commodities in the street. No doubt there are

fewer street conjurers and musicians than formerly in London,’ partly owing to the dole, arid partly to the traffic. But I still see strong men breaking chains, - a nigger declaiming Shakespearean soliloquies, and various minstrels beguiling West End theatre queues. In these days, however, such work ought to rank as “dangerous occupations,” because many of the performers get run down during their shows. One enterprising busker, who claims the right to wear an Old I Etonian tie, averages £3O a week during his “season.” NOT A TEAM. It is generally agreed that the better side lost in the England and Austria Soccer match. Many comparisons have been made by our leading Soccer critics, all to the disparagement of the EnglLh performers. But the main point of criticism remains that the Austrians were a team, whereas the Englishmen played like a scratch side. That strikes me, at any rate, as being .distinctly humorous, and so, I imagine, it must appeal to the English professionals concerned. England’s amateur Rugger sides generally get whacked by touring overseas’teams for precisely. the same reason. A team, average ability being equal, .will usually beat a mere aggregation of mutual strangers. And, relatively speaking, that isprecisely what our England Soqcef side : was compared with the Austrians; The’ latter have the immense advantage of having regularly played together as a side, and being, therefore, a real cohesive combination.. Given equal practice together. I would lay slight odds on that same English side. >

BRITISH NOTE’S AUTHOR. It is .an open secret itxj; civil, circles that the British , Note to. the United States on thri debt question wag written by Sir Frederick, s . Leith-Ros|;-. chief economic adviser to the Govenfe ment and until recently an .official of, the Treasury. His draft was revised the Cabinet, whose alterations, were ri-. markably few, and then returned to : Sii£ Frederick for' the final polish. -. As .British representative on the Finance Board of the Reparations Commission for - Ave years, and adviser to Lord Snowden at the two Hague conferences, he kas’ aQ unrivalled knowledge of international finance, and a man who, after a training at Balliol, served Lord Asquith as private secretary, needs no further schooling in the use of terse English. .