CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 12 September 1935, Page 14

CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

PREPARING FOR POLLS PLATFORM TALENT SCARE. COMPARISON WITH PAST. (By Air Mail—Special to News.) London, Aug. 15. As they survey their resources for the coming general election, all parties realise that they are deficient in platform talent as compared with a generation ago. The Prime Minister is no orator, though he has an unrivalled knack of “getting it across” to his audience, whether in the House of Commons or elsewhere. Mr. Chamberlain is good, but not inspiring, and so is Mr. Runciman in much the same vein. For real “spellbinders” one has to go near to the bottom of the Cabinet list, and select men like Sir Kingsley Wood and Mr. Ernest Brown. Of course, r the most effective of all is Mr. Churchill, but. he will support the Government with reservations, and will be busy in the defence of his Epping seat. Among back-benchers Mr. Herbert Williams and Sir Henry PageCroft are first-rate on the platform, although they attract small audiences in the House. ? Opposition Resources. Nor are the Opposition parties any better off. Sir Herbert Samuel, though be has an unsuspected gift of humour which he uses with frugality, is better in Parliament than on the platform. Mr. Isaac Foot is excellent, especially with a Nonconformist audience. Few of the others could attract 500 hearers outside their own constituencies. The Socialists are amply provided with speakers who can repeat the party commonplaces, but have few who can appeal effectively to the “almost persuaded.” Mr. Lansbury’s fervour commands respect, but his front bench colleagues are toilfully dull. Their best orators are for the, time being outside the House—Mr. Herbert Morrison, Mr. Tom Johnstone, and. Mr- Wedgwood Benn, all of whom will have hard battles of their own to fight. Mr. Maxton surprasses them all in power of popular appeal, but from his official Socialism has more to fear than to hope. Rebound.

I have always been a little sceptical when people talked of the killing strain of Ministerial duty. Tay Pay once asserted that all Cabinets of more than three or four years’ duration were assemblies of tired men, but it did not convince me, knowing how assiduously all Ministers are coached and nursed by their expert civil service chiefs, that being a Cabinet Minister is really a tiring job. But the case of Mr. Ramsay Macdonald almost persuades me to

change my view. Since Ramsay Mac exchanged the role of Prime Minister for the sinecure of Lord President, he has altered his appearance in the most astonishing way. He has, in fact, renewed, if not his youth, at all events his active middle-age. He looks, and acts, like a different man since the cares of the Premiership slipped from his shoulders. Last time I saw him close up he seemed at least ten years younger than he looked in the latter months of his former office. But maybe the old job, as head of a National Coalition, was peculiarly trying. Way To Do It.

For lessons in diplomacy our politicians might study the relations between Southern Rhodesia and Portuguese East Africa. By means of frequent personal contacts between the responsible statesmen on both sides of the border, . the happiest official contacts are maintained without notes, costly formal conferences, or other irritants. Here is a sample of “diplomacy” during the last two weeks in July. The Rhodesian Minister of Finance paid a short visit to Beira, in Portuguese East Africa. On arrival he dined at the Residencia—the Governor's official quarters—and the next night was the guest of honour at the Beira Club, • where the Governor and the leading business men did him as well as the Portuguese always do such things. A week later the Governor of the Portuguese territory and his lady went to Rhodesia and opened an agricultural show. And so it goes on. The slogan of this unofficial League of Nations is “Don’t draw up protocols, come up and see us sometime.”

Entente by Air? The Irish Free State Government’s proposal to start an air service between Dublin and England is more noteworthy even than it seems. If this service gets going, as it almost certainly will, it may be assumed that it will link up by way of Liverpool and London, with a possible connection by iy of Glasgow. The scheme will have to be approved by our Air Ministry before it can be sanctions between the Dublin' Government and London. Th'e question is whether, once contact is thus officially established, better relations will not almost inevitably <Bisue in other directions of mutual interest. Feeling is fairly strong on both sides of the St. George’s Channel that it is about tune somebody buried the hatchet, and that the old relations were renewed with advantage all round. It will be quite romantic if Mr. de Valera thaws out under air pressure. In the Blood.

Our Indian Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal Sir Philip Chetwode, has the figure of a junior sub, but he is sixty-five, and for that reason his recent illness caused some anxiety. Sir Philip, who is a Brass Hat with distinct personality as well as an experienced campaigner, was Lord Allenby’s right-hand man in the great drive against the Turks in the East. It was he who planned the dashing advance on Gaza and Beersheba that made possible Lord Allenby’s de-

cisive coup that captured Jerusalem. Whilst he was engaged on the Gaza operations Sir Philip suffered agonies from severe toothache, but he did not allow that to upset his clear and quick thinking. It was appropriate that Sir Philip should win his greatest renown in tire Holy Land, because an ancestor of his was knighted on the field by Coeur de Lion during a Crusade. Sir Philip’s London home is the St. John’s Wood villa built and exotically decorated for himself by the late Sir Laurence AlmaTadema, R.A., whose patrician beauties and marble halls were so much admired by Victorian collectors. Recruits and the Dole.

The army authorities are advancing all manner of reasons to explain, and suggesting all kinds of expedients to cure, the consistent shortage of recruits. We are now, in some branches, accepting men for the army who are under five feet six in height. One suggestion is that the lack of an attractive walking-out uniform detracts from recruiting. Another that too little is known outside of the modern soldier’s pleasant conditions of life. But somehow I fancy an old recruiting officer, with whom I recently discussed this subject, was far nearer to the truth. In the old pre-war days it used to be said that nine recruits out of ten joined up for “bread and boots.” In other words they were down and out. Nowadays the unemployment dole tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and consequently the army gets only such youngsters as really are drawn to soldiering for its own sake. Public School Reactions.-

There are signs of a change of fashion in public schools. In spite of the economic blizzard more parents than ever have been applying since the war for admission for their boys to the more famous institutions. The sons of the new rich, including no doubt a proportion of war profiteers, have invaded them. Consequently the latest reaction on the part of some of our oldest patrician families is now to choose other schools for their offspring, and particularly one of the newer establishments which has received considerable cachet from royal patronage. The fees are heavy. But notwithstanding this, or perhaps even because of it. this school is rapidly becoming the most fashionable of all. At the same time some of the older but less-talked-of public foundations are now getting the sons of families whose names have old associations with more famous schools. At tire Milk Bar. The last place on earth I should have imagined a milk bar would do well is Fleet Street. Reasons of professional amour propre prevent me stating my reasons. But the Fleet Street milk bar, first of a whole London series, seems to be prospering from the word “Go.” Crowds line its bars all day, sipping yeast-milk, pineapple-milk, orange milk, and all sorts of cold, soft drinks. It is not an American but an Australian idea. Milk bars have been going at Sydney and elsewhere downundcr for three

years. The Fleet Street venture has no connection with the Milk Board. The amusing thing is to see well-known Fleet Street men, after the other licensed bars are closed, propping up the milk bar and trying to look rmselfconscious. As one habitue of the street observed, as he toyed with an apricot milk, “The attitude’s the same anyway!” I wonder whether frequenting bars is just a habit, and it really makes no difference what the tipple is.