CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1935, Page 21 (Supplement)

CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

■ i i ■ . ■ .: IS IT QUIXOTIC, OR WEAK?

BRITISH POLICY IN ABYSSINIA.

OFFER TO CONCEDE TERRITORY.

(By Air Mail—Special to News.) London, July IL It is hot surprising that strong resentment is aroused, amongst .those Who cherish the British tradition, by the disclosure of our offer to square the ItaloAbyssinian trouble. That, offer was, Mr. Anthony Eden tells us, to get Abyssinia to make territorial concessions to Italy by giving her as compensation a strip of British Somaliland. This may sound rather chivalrous, even quixotic, but is it not in reality a bad break with honourable . tradition? Lawrence of Arabia change’, his identity because he felt we had broken faith with those Princes of the Desert whose valiant help he enMsted to assist Lord Allenby so powerfully in his decisive drive against the Turks. But this Somaliland gesture looks even less defensible. In Ethiopia slavery still flourishes. Yet apparently we were ready, in our pious fevour to keep the Geneva peace, to hand over to that country Sopiali tribes living under our free ensign. There is not much moral glamour about that sort of pacifism. Explosive Ginger.

Whatever view one takes of Mr., Lloyd George and his. New Deal, it cannot be gainsaid that he does’ liven, things up. His old-style coruscating onslaught oh -the National Government, how it will not let him in; may perhaps be rather ■too sweeping fOr disciples; who believed they were merely invited to help him ginger up policy. His ginger resembles dynamite. Enlivening though hte-erup-. tion is, it raised weighty: and anxious problems. Mr. Lloyd George represents himself as an up-to-date Glncinnatus, reluctantly enticed ’ back jfrpm . His lonely furrow. by 'the urgent soli.Cia.tion. of his Free Church friends., K But’ihiS .reluctance looks a bit too efithusiasiic -convincing. The .’question politicians' have to face , now ’S how Tar he be able to command popular support ehough to split the r National Govejmriiei)|’B i votes in the constituencies, and ithdifCby .either secure the . iretum of ahbtheir-Socialist Ministry, di*, if not that, giVe' .himself that piVotal Casting vote,'in the House of Commons which has .long been his dream. ■ ■ ' • <

Anti-Air Raid Drill.. ' Hie Government has made good progress with plans for the general organisation of precautionary measures such as would have to be taken in the event of air raids. The Home Office is preparing a circular upon the subject, and this will be issued during the present month to the local authorities of the principal centres of population tnroughout the country. Later, a series of conferences will he held between Home Office representatives and the local . authorities. It is emphasised that the whole plan is educational and for the enlightenment of the public, and bears ho relation; to any existing international situation. Precautions against air attack cannot be improvised, and it Is only by timely preparations that the‘public can be saved from panic in the event of any unforseen outbreak of hostilities. The circulars, therefore, will define what responsibility must be taken by the Government; that which falls on the local authorities, and, finally, the share which must be shouldered by employers and by the general public. The first stage will be-to attempt to familiarise everybody concerned with the general lines Of organisation. Demonstrations may follow after the conferences, but in the first instance, at any rate, those will :be purely voluntary on the part of the public, and there is .no question of eompulfiion for which there is no legal power at the moment. Those Tudors. The installation ritual of the Order of tlie Bath, at which the aged Duke of Connaught presided in the Abbey, is the fifth since, after over a century’s interval, it was revived in the year before the war. Henry Seventh’s Chapel, with its riot of joyous carving by unknown Tudor masons, was the perfect setting for heraldic blazonry which, thanks to the' Order of the Bath, perpetuates a vanished epoch of knightly chivalry in an age of poison gas. The Chapel has been renovated and cleaned, arid the Tudor stonework now stands forth in almost pristine strength. With what Zest these 16-crintUry masohs did their work and plied their chisels. Visitors never pick out the details of the carving. Mr. Lawrerice E. Tanner, keeper of tlie Abbey Muniments, tells Us how remarkable it is. There is St. Matthew reading holy script with the aid of a pair of Tudor spectacles, St. Wilgefort With the beard sent her when she prayed that her beauty might riot prove a snare to her, and St. Duhstan holding the devil’s nose with formidable pincers.

Modern Viking. Pneumonia has carried off Lord •Afapthill in midsummer at the age of 66. His capable career in politics and affairs, which started as private secretary to Joe Chamberlain, was preceded by a Still more successful rowing record. He was captain of the boats at Eton, rowed in Winning Oxford' and Leartdcr eights, and won both, the Goblets and the Diamonds at Henley. Sensational divorce proceedings, in which a younger member of his family was concerned, rather embittered his later years. Lord Ampthill looked, before he grew stouter and became slightly pontifical, like one of those old Viking chiefs who, horned helm on head and battleaxe in hand, formed the apex of the Norsemen’s fighting triangle. With his giant stature, huge breadth of shoulder, and pointed torpedo beard, he Would have made a perfect model in that role for any painter., Or he might have played, without any make-up, the stage part of old Alan Quattermain’s baronet friend, Sir Henry, to perfection. He was peculiarly a pre-War figure. The genre is almost extinct. Rather Cruel. Tire late Lord Danesfort, whose father was a distinguished Bishop, was a notable example of a lawyer, eminently successful at the Bar as a junior, who never did much cither as a K.C. or an M.P. He was popular both at the Bar and in the House, but neyer quite made a hit. His brother, the late Professor' S. H. Butcher, was also an M.P,, and, on the whole, even a more likeable personality. He was a famous Greek scholar, represented Cambridge University at Westminster, and displayed a sWeet toleration in politics which was never a distinguishing feature of Lord Danesford. Yet I was present at .a University luncheon on one occasion when even S. H. was rather brutal. His fellow University member, a well known K.C, and prominent back-bench M.P., Was delivering a speech, in the course of which he quoted Greek poetry, interrupting himself to glance smilingly towards his confrere, and remark that he used the Greek with some diffidence in the latter’s presence. “I beg your pardon/’ interposed S.H., “I thought you were talking Yiddish!”