CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 8 September 1934, Page 14 (Supplement)

CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

THE NATIONAL DEFENCES LARGE INCREASE IN AIR ARM. SUBJECT TO MODIFICATIONS. (From Our Own Correspondent). London, July 26. Whilst attention will mostly be concentrated upon the increase which the Government proposes to make in the R.A.F., the statement simultaneously presented in both Houses of Parliament leaves .no doubt that there is to be a general review of the whole system of our national defence. Any necessary expansion in the army and navy, it may be presumed, will be disclosed in due course through the estimates for these services. What is most notable about the five years’ Air Force programme is that ‘ the Government has attached _no time-table to the course of construction, and should European conditions demand it the 41 additional squadrons may be put into commission in a much shorterspace of time. The question of personnel is the most pressing, as it takes longer to train the men than to build the machines. For this reason, I gather that the Air Ministry intends to start recruitment and training almost immediately after the forthcoming Parliamentary debate. The programme envisages the strengthening of our home defence force to a total of 75 squadrons, which means, as each squadron is to consist of 12 machines, that the country will have 900 planes of all descriptions for its protection. Numerically, this will not bring us up to parity with some other European States, but in effective strength we shall be placed in a sound position as compared with the existing air forces of any other country, and the proposals are always subject to modifications should developments elsewhere demand them.

Naval Tete-a-tetcs. The naval conversations which were terminated here a day or two ago have, it is to be feared, not led far. towards providing any definite plan of limitations for discussion at the 1935 conference. The conversations have been conducted on the bilateral principle, and though they have disclosed many satisfactory mutual understandings and agreements, the trouble with this method. is that whilst one may see eye to eye with ones vis-a-vis, one can do nothing without knowing what the other fellow outside the discussion is going to do about it, The bilateral conversations have been between Britain and France, Britain and America, and America and France, but there are the two “other fellows” who have not yet been brought in—ltaly and Japan. It seems to be a case of “two’s company, three’s none” multiplied twice over. Britain and France find no difficulty at all in formulating their naval requirements, but France is hesitant because of Italy. America also finds it easy to agree with Britain, but cannot clinch any proposals because of doubts as to Japan’s intentions. So far, Italy and Japan have shown no marked desire to join the bilateral caucus, and hence the decision to suspend conversations till October. By then circumstances may be more propitious. They cannot well be less than just at present, when statesmen of all countries alike are anxious to'be away on summer holidays. The Duke’s Staff.

The staff for the Duke of Gloucester’s Australian tour , seems altogether admirable. His chief of staff, Major-General R. G. H. Howard-Vyse, is an organiser and leader of outstanding ability. During the War he was chief of staff of the Fifth Cavalry Division, and also occupied a similar post with the Desert Mounted Corps in Palestine. When the duke was at Weeden School of Equitation a close friendship was formed between his Royal Highness and the G en ” eral, who was commandant of the school at that time. In selecting Captain Arthur Curtis as his private secretary, the Duke has invoked the services of another personal friend. He was private secretary to Admiral Earl Jellicoe when he was Governor-General of New Zealand, and later was military secretary to Lord Stonehaven when he was GovernorGeneral of Australia. Captain Howard Kerr, a fellow officer of the Duke’s in the Hussars, has been his equerry for ten years, and accompanied his' Royal Highness on the Garter mission to Japan. New Waterloo Bridge.

Owing to’ the unforeseen structural conditions the demolition of bld Waterloo Bridge will take rather longer than expedted. Rennie had a trick of filling up the hollows of his piers with clay ballast, a material exceedingly obstinate in the handling. Taking everything into account, the old bridge may not be down and out for two years. Meanwhile, however, eager discussion goes forward as to the design of the new one which will take its place. The probability IS that Sir Gilbert Scott’s design, executed two years ago at the request of the L.C.C., will be adopted in its main features. These comprise five fridge arches, carrying six distinct lines of traffic, but it may be decided to make the central arches wider than designed originally in order to make river traffic easier. Care will be taken to tone the new bridge into the general riverscape. N.R.A. Chairman.

Lord Cottesloe, chairman of the National Rifle Association, has long been one of the most enthusiastic and skilful competitors at the Bisley rifle meetings. I remember seeing an amusing inciaent in which he was concerned many years ago. He was squadded with a Territorial major, who in civil life was a solicitor in a little Scottish town. The “Tommy who was acting as register-keeper called merely the surname of the marksmen, as was the custom. The solicitor insisted that his rank, full name, and regiment should be announced. When the “Tommy” proceeded to call out in stentorian tones “Major the Honourable T. F. Fremantle,” of such and such a regiment, the gentleman in question quietly remarked: “Fremantle is good enough foi - me, my man.” The rebuke to snobbery was effective. Railway Centenary. Next year we shall celebrate a notable railway anniversary. On August 31, 1834, the Royal Assent was granted for the first section of the Great Western Railway. This section was from Bristol to London. Later the promoters developed the railway in the opposite direction, from Bristol to Exeter and thence on to Cornwall. Germany, too, has an anniversary in the railway world next year for it is 100 years ago since her first railway was opened. In this centenary, incidentally, this country can claim some interest for the first engine to draw a German train was the product of the immortal George Stephenson. He built “Der Adler” ("The Eagle") which was bought by the Germans for 24,000 marks. I understand the Germans intend to build a model of the first tram and run it over the original section of line between Numberg and Ludwigsbahn. London’s Ordeal. The R.A.F. manoeuvres are taking place this week. .This year the scheme is to test London’s air defences, and for four days we have a matter of four hundred planes zooming over our sleepless roofs about midnight, reviving wartime nights of terror, Tire last test took place

two or three years ago, and resulted in the overwhelming success of the attacking squadrons, which were far too fast and spry for the defenders. Some authorities hold that there can be no secure defence to air attack, but on this occasion the defenders are better equipped, and a stronger ground defence system will be in working. Last time the Air Ministry, not to mention Woolwich Arsenal and Whitehall, were officially destroyed. With the proposal now made for a big increase in our R.A.F. I cannot see the brass hats allowing the defenders to have the best of things this time either. Law Asserts Itself.

The law may, as the worthy Mr, Bumble declared, be “a ass,” but it knows how to look after itself. On Saturday last it set out collectively, in the person of Judges, K.C.’s, and Junior Counsel, for a trip on the Thames. Two steamers had been chartered for this legal outing, and, very, sensibly, the voyage was not up the river, but down through th- famous London Pool and Greenwich way. Lunch and tea were served during the trip, and juniors of my acquaintance tell me the Temple always on such occasions does the thing handsomely. But this Thames version of a liner trip was not solely or even mainly for enjoyment. That was incidental—the reward of judicious merit. The real reason for the legal picnic was to enable the gentlemen of the long gown to embark and land at the Temple landing on the Embankment, which is practically never used, but to which the astute lawyers were thus pegging out their ancient rights. Vampire Superstition. Except perhaps among some debased African tribes, I imagined the vampire superstition, common in mediaeval days, had completely died out. A writer in the Wide World tells another story. Priests in Carpathian villages have great trouble in combating this superstition even now. Only last year, in one village, peasants dug up the body of an old woman, supposed to be a vampire, and took elaborate precautions to prevent her haunting them. They cut off the head, stuffed the mouth with garlic, drove a stake through the body, and nailed iron horseshoes to the feet. The latter ritual sounds particularly revolting and brutal, but the intention was simply to let the villagers hear the ghost vampire coming If, despite the other precautions, she did haunt them. It will take some time to level up all Europe to the internationalists’ millennium. Sun as Pacifist. Owing to the drought it has been decided not to hold the annual field manoeuvres of the Eastern Command, but to substitute less ambitious brigade exercises. It does not follow, unless the position becomes far more desperate by next month, that the Eastern Command’s example will be followed by either the Southern or the Northern Command. In fact I hear that the Army Council mean to hold the usual field manoeuvres in both those cases if at all possible. Tire Southern Command will be engaged on Salisbury Plain next month, and the Northern, will be centred on Hull. As the drought is no less severe in the other areas than in the Eastern, it may be assumed that special circumstances affect the decision to cut out the latter’s full training. The interest in the Southern Command’s manoeuvres is largely mechanical; in the Northern’s it is strategical. Country Mansions. Lord Lothian’s plea that country mansions which have historic or artistic interest should be preserved in public hands comes from an authoritative quarter. He has recently handed over Newbattle Abbey, his beautiful residence near Edinburgh, as a centre for adult education, and the other day he presented one of his smaller houses on the Scottish borders to be used as a youth hostel. He still owns a lovely, if much too large, place in Norfolk, Bickling Hall, and though it has lost some of its literary treasures, which were sold in New York a year or two ago to pay death duties, it is still a place of great interest. Lord Lothian, as Mr. Philip Kerr, was for many years behind the political scenes as private secretary to Mr. Lloyd George, and his friends regretted when he resigned the Indian Under-Secretary-ship to follow Sir Herbert Samuel into the political wilderness. Potato Blight. I understand that the Potato Marketing Board has in preparation a really big push on the dietetic front. It is, in short, launching a great eat-more-potatoes crusade. Booklets are to be distributed by each of the seventy thousand potato growers in Great Britain, and everything possible done, including much-needed but tactful advice as to cooking, to boom the potato as the emperor of vegetables. In particular will the slogan be driven home that potatoes are not fattening. It isjthe theory that they are, in conjunction with the modern slimming habit, that has been the blight of the potato’s young life. Why not take the bull by both horns, and boldly advertise potatoes as a slimming diet? Fat people will find they lose more weight, and gain more health, by knocking off machinemade bread than-potatoes. Trainmed Out We in London have the privilege, for an expenditure of one shilling, of travelling all one day on the trams. I have met hardy adventurers who wanted to tell me,., with full details, exactly how many miles they had “done” to the bob. A colleague informs me that in Liverpool they go one better than this. Twopenny all-day tickets are issued to children, entitling them to ride the clock round on the trams, and are exceedingly popular with workaday mothers. When the youngsters are not at school, they are parked out on the trams, the Liverpool Corporation supplying not only the transport but reliable nursemaids in the form of harassed conductors. As a result the trams are rather uproarious at times, and littered with evidences of juvenile picnics which range from empty bottles to scraps of food and paper. This, I should imagine, must be good for Liverpool taxi drivers. Blithe and Bonny.

A book is being auctioned in London this month, together with the valuable library of a former Falkirk worthy, for which it is claimed that it makes the first literary allusion to the game of golf. Henry Adamson was the author of this work, published at Edinburgh in 1638, and on the second page is a verse filled with what I regard as the true zestful philosophy of golf. It reads: And yee my clubs, you must no more prepare To make yon bals flee whistling in the a ire. No doubt about the accuracy of the drive, you observe, no slice inferiority complex, just a blithe and bonny conviction that it was always straight down the middle and clear of all bunkers. That was the spirit that animated the fathers of the game. Threepence-in-slot Coffee. The latest American bright idea to invade London is the automatic coffee machine. This is not, as some might perhaps imagine, a new method either, of grinding or cooking coffee, but a genuine coffee-delivering automatic machine. You walk boldly up to a contrivance that resembles any normal penny-in-the-slot chocolate machine, and insert twopence plus a penny—the former for the coffee, and the latter for the milk. So the patron can have either white or black coffee as he or she prefers. One tap marked A, doles out the coffee, strong and hot, to the extent of a cup

filled to within one inch of the rim. Tap B adds the necessary milk if it is required. . Interest on the part of connoisseurs will centre on how the brew, the convenience of, which at any old hour is obvious, compares with the concoction served by the street coffee-stalls. The latter, in my experience, is coffee extract —out of a bottle. The Acid Test.

There is much support foi- the suggestion that we ought to rely °n a professional team for the Test games with Australia. The logic of this view is strongly enforced by the fact that, for donkey’s years, the Gentlemen have invariably been badly beaten whenever they meet the Players. If we attach such tremendous importance as we appear to do to winning the Ashes, it seems silly to play so many amateurs, when the team superiority of the professionals has been so consistently demonstrated. I know one keen amateur who is making a level bet that Sussex will beat the Australians. He may or may

not be right in his view, but the reason for it is significant. He is prepared to back Sussex simply because that county team is now an all-professional side, and captained by another professional in Maurice Tate. It will be interesting to see what happens. Personally I rather prefer Yorkshire’s chance.