LETTER FROM LONDON

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1933, Page 12 (Supplement)

LETTER FROM LONDON

BRITAIN’S COMMERCIAL POSITION. TRADE BALANCE RECTIFIED. (From Our Own Correspondent) London, January 19. From the preliminary survey of the Board of Trade figures for 1932 it is evident that the Government has cause for considerable satisfaction in the measures it has adopted to restore our balance of trade. In addition to the monthly statistics for December it is now possible to ascertain that over the whole year our visible adverse trade balance has been decreased by a matter of 135 million pounds. That, in effect, means that that this adverse balance has now been reduced to the almost negligible total of 25 million pounds, for it must be remembered that at the time we went off the gold standard the visible balance against us was estimated at 160 millions. Even if tariffs are not yielding quite as much revenue as their most eulogistic advocates prophesied, it will be difficult now for their opponents to deny the sound service they have performed in the cause of our national financial stability. w PRETENDERS RED AND PINK. Amongst the Labour Party’s front benchers just now it is amusing to detect a growing and rather hectic rivalry. They are beginning to recover a little from the chastening effects of their general election debacle, and are coueing themselves into an ambitious belief that sooner or later the combined effects of bad times and persistent propaganda must bring them back into office again. In this conviction a number of them are assiduously manoeuvring for Mr. George Lansbury’s shoes. It is fairly obvious that neither Mr. Henderson nor Mr. Lansbury is to be seriously regarded for the next Socialist Premiership, and prominent lieutenants shape their deportment with a view of securing the succession for themselves. Some are going Left and Red, others slightly Right and Pink. We have Mr. Tom Johnson, perhaps the ablest of them all, telling the faithful that we have touched the limit of taxation. FROM TANKS TO HALBERDS. One can imagine no greater contrast in occupation than that which will fall to the lot of Field Marshal Sir George Milne—recently made the recipient of a peerage—when he takes over his new duties as Constable of the Tower. During his tenure of the appointment as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir George Milne was particularly concerned with the mechanisation of the army. All the latest types of tanks had to be aproved by him, and every new device, making for the modernisation ♦ of the army, had also to be passed by him. But as Constable of the Tower, he exchanges the machines of the army of to-day for the obsolete weapons and costumes of mediaeval times. As he inspects the Tower armoury preceded by the quaint-ly-clad custodian of the ceremonial axe, he will probably reflect somewhat whimsically on the change. SYNTHETIC ECHOES. When one listens-in on the wireless to some very resonant voice, the impression is that the speaker is addressing his world audience from a hall of peculiarly echoing properties. That, however, is not the' case, as was explained to me today during a visit to Broadcasting House. That resonance is, in broadcasting parlance, “a synthetic echo,” added at the will of the controller. The speaker, in all probability, is talking from one of the “dead” studios, where the walls are entirely opaque to sound. His voice as it enters the microphone is divided, so to speak, into two streams, one being carried down to the basement, where it comes out through a loud-speaker into a special reverberating chamber. This' is the manufactured echo, and it is brought back again, and mixed with the other voice stream in such proportions as the controller deems desirable to provide just the right touch of scintillation before being transmitted to the ether. PRIME MINISTER AS GUEST. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, as the King’s guest at Sandringham, will miss the best recreation his Host has to offer there, for he does not shoot, and cares little for fishing; but so long as there is a good library indoors, and plenty of open country around, the Prime Minister needs no other entertainment. At the age of 66 he is still a great walker, and though Sandringham cannot offer him mountains to climb within as easy reach as at his native Lossiemouth, he has the sea near at hand, and glorious woods to explore; as well as numerous golf courts within motoring distance. He will appreciate as much as anything a study of the fine agriculture in the neighbourhood of Sandringham, for he has not forgotten his boyhood days on the land. SHIP’S PAINT. The Merchant Marine Commissions of. the French Chamber and Senate no longer believe in the old adage about not spoiling the ship for a ha’p’orth of tar. In fact, now that they have had a time to consider the fire disasters of the Georges Philippar and L’Atlantique, they have come to the conclusion that the less enamel and varnish used in the decoration of a liner the greater will be the safety of the vessel against outbreaks of fire. The real trouble is, of course, that modern decorative effects are attained not through the good old-fashioned mediums of white lead and linseed oil, but by means of nitro-cellulose compounds mixed in highly inflammable varnishes. The French Merchant Marine Commissions now recommend that all these modern combustible paints shall be taboo on board sea-going vessels, and that wood-work for constructional purposes shall be strictly reduced to a minimum. The new recommendations will rob French passenger vessels of some of their brightness. No one will regret that, if it prevents them from showing so much brightness when they catch alight. THEN AND NOW. If the next century brings as big changes in travel as the last did —and everything points to even more rapid progress—England will be a very small island in 2033. To-day London can get down to Brighton and the sea by six electric trains every hour, all making the journey in somewhere about the sixty minutes. In November 1832, the year of the Reform Bill, Mr. Walter Hancock aroused immense excitement by making the journey in the first steam coach, the Infant, in about seven hours. By 2033 I suppose air coaches will be doing it in ten minutes, But progress in travel speeds has been perhaps less remarkable than in travel comfort. When tire first train was run betwen London and Brighton in 1841, third-class passengers travelled standing up in open trucks. It was esteemed a great luxury when the directors had a few tunnels lined with galvanised iron to keep the water from dripping on these unfortunates. EMPIRE COTTON. It is a long time ago since influential Liverpool men. including Lord Derby and the 'late Sir Alfred Jcnes of shipping fame launched the big idea of

Empire-grown cotton for Lancashire mills. I now hear that an expert authority on cotton cultivation is getting ready for the Government a detailed report on the potentialities of cotton-growing in Egypt and Soudan. It would be an immense boon to this country and to cotton cultivating parts of the Empire, if we became independent of foreign supplies of this raw material for one >of our • biggest home industries. We might save enough on our American cotton bill to help pay part of our American War Debt. The finest quality cotton does not come from the West, but from the East, and I gather that practical experts are quite enthusiastic about the Empire cotton prospects. T.P.’S MISTAKE. The Exchange division by-election in Liverpool, where Colonel Shute is in a straight fight with Socialism, gives less anxiety to G.H.Q. than East Fife, where four Richmonds are in the field, one of them a popular novelist who espouses Scottish Home Rule. Exchange division occupies much the same position in Liverpool as the City does in London. It is the commercial division, but with a strong proletarian annexe. It was knowledge of this fact that led T. P. O’Connor astray when addressing an Exchange election meeting for a Liberal candidate soon after the War., He noted the workaday look of his midday audience, and genially mentioned how, to save money, he had ordered no new suit since Armistice Day. Puzzled by the icy silence of the meeting from that point on, he sought the reason after it was over, and was told that half his audience were tailors’ workpeople. WASTED ENERGY. One way and another Scotland Yard will have cause to remember the Chalk Farm affair. Probably in no other case on record have such tremendous energies been expended on searching for a “wanted” man. A huge force of detectives and plain-clothes police was mobilised on this task, and last week there was a police watcher on every tram car that passed down the London Embankment. Whilst an intensive beat of. Essex countryside was going on, the “wanted” man was sitting quietly in his room at Southend reading children’s annuals. And it was in no way due to all the special police efforts to discover him that the missing builder was finally run to earth. I believe the same is true in a large majority of similar police quests. Outside chance generally supplies the clue that all the patient and methodical Yard work falls to strike. The arrested man’s collapse from poison symptoms in his cell, after being thoroughly searched, and his subsequent death, complete the official discomfiture. THEY KNOW A BANK! The Thames Conservancy and Canada House, two diverse but most eminently responsible authorities, have been caught out by a recent communication from the Ministry of Agriculture. This missive urged the Thames Conservancy to take steps to eliminate, under stringent bylaw, all Canadian pond weed from the river and watercourses under their jurisdiction. This was the first word the Board had ever heard of such a growth, and the Canadian Government’s staff in London was equally at a loss. But they know all about Canadian pond we»d at the Ministry of Agriculture. Its official or scientific description is elodea Cadadensis, or water thyme, and it is the favourite diet of the musk rat. Once that fact is recognised, the object all sublime of the Ministry’s mysterious order becomes plain. They want to starve out our latest vermin pest. But has the musk rat no alternatives in its menu? Surely it is an a la carte feeder? SPLENDID ISOLATION. One man who attended the private view of the Royal Academy’s Winter Exhibition deserves a D.S.O. with bar. Time was, of course, when any function of this sort at Burlingtpn House was recognised as a really dress occasion. A few dare-devil artists from the wilds of outer Chelsea might roll up in lounge suit, but everybody else wore correct morning dress as for a garden party, and all the ladies were in their very smartest clothes. Since the War, however, things have been gradually changing. Less and less formality in matters sartorial, in spite of agitated protests and stinging satire from Saville Row, has marked private view occasions. On the present joyous occasion one solitary man arrived In the once regulation topper and morning suit He looked “alone the villian of the earth,” and like Enobarbus. obviously “felt himself so most.” One well-known Bohemian artist inquired, in his hearing, “Who’s the undertaker?” BOARD OF GREEN CLOTH. In the metropolitan area under the administration of the L.C.C. there are 7,566 public houses. Of these licensed premises, however, six derive their authority, not from the L.C.C. at all, but from the Board of Green Cloth. I question whether, in all London outside Court and College of Herald circles, there are a dozen people who know what the Board of Green Cloth is. It has a romantically mediaeval sound, and its constitution probably justifies its aura. It is composed of a committee of the Royal Household officials, and has control over all royal servants except those personal to their Majesties. In former 1 days it dealt magisterially with, all offenders against the law who came “within the verge of the Palaces.” To this interesting if archaic body belongs also the privilege of licensing these six .public houses all in the Buckingham Palace neighbourhood, who come outside the aegis of the L C.C. CONTRACT BRIDGE. For the international duplicate contract bridge competition in Berlin this month a strong British team is travelling to Germany, with Colonel Beasley as its captain. German, Austrian, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian, and other national teams have entered. As duplicate differs profoundly in its psychology from ordinary contract bridge, and most of our Continental competitors have had longer practice at it, I am not backing the British team to win, but they will probably be well placed. As a matter of fact, with the one exception of card-table manners, I find the Continental players generally better than our own. Bue even our own contract bridge engenders considerable heat. Modem bridge seems like the late Lord Haldane found artillery theory—as controversially furious as theology itself. NO CHANGE! The sartorial fiat has now gone forth from Savile Row. The 1933 tailoring will not differ materially from that of 1932. Certain small details and intimate gadgets may be introduced, by which a tailor’s cutter could “date” a suit, but ,to the untutored secular eye a “last year’s” will, except for wear and tear and shimmer, be indistinguishable from the latest thing. Single-breasted lounge suits, mostmostly in blue, brown, or grey, will be worn, and whether the coat will have two or three buttons is to be left to the fancy-free discretion of the customer, no 'doubt after due professional admonition from the expert who gives him the onceover with the tape measure. So far as cut and style go, there will be no change. What relief this news will bring to man|kind. And how dull such a situation | would appear to the feminine mentality. Men may nnot be so sartorially diversified as their sex equals, but at least they 'are not blackmailed by their tailors. _