CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, 9 November 1935, Page 21 (Supplement)

CURRENT LONDON TOPICS

LABOUR GENERALISSIMO APPOINTMENT OF MR. FINDLAY. IMPORTANT WORK IN SIGHT. (By Air Mail—Special to Daily News). London, October 3. It is a not unhopeful sign for industrial peace during the immediate future in this country that the new chairman of the T.U.C. is Mr. Alan H. Findlay. There are several big wage controversies looming in the near offing, including the perennial one concerning coalminers, and the new T.U.C. chairman's known moderation and wide-visioned outlook should be of vital influence in assisting a reasonable settlement of these troubles. Mr. Findlay is a Londoner and has had a pretty varied practical experience in the ranks of industry. He is now an official of the Pattern-Makers’ Union. Of a really striking physiognomy and figure, he is one of the least assertive of T.U.C. members, but, as his firm chin and eyes suggest, possesses a touch of granite in his mental make-up. Once settled in any course, he is not easily shaken.

Question of Accent. A literary friend of mine has just had a new experience. She has been talking into the microphone—which all hardened experts flippantly call “the Mike.” It was not a broadcast occasion, but at the making of some gramophone records of musical selections. These are, however, to be broadcast on the wireless in the Irish Free State, and Dublin was most emphatic about the voice that announced each of the separate items. My friend was chosen, though she is a Londoner by birth and education, because her voice and accent seemed to the gramophone people best to answer what their Ipsh clients demanded. The interesting point is the nature of those demands. They banned both the 8.8. C. accent and the clipped county huntin’ accent, though they did not want an Irish voice. What they wanted, Dublin stated, was a pleasant, unaffected cultured voice that spoke the King’s English like King George himself. Rather a royal tribute from such a source!

Atlantic Airway Plans. Preparations are steadily going forward for the establishment of the longanticipated Transatlantic air service. Technical advisers of the ?DirectorGeneral of Aviation have been surveying the route, and I hear that Port Botwood has been recommended as the most convenient air port at the western end in Newfoundland. So far as the eastern terminus S is concerned, if airways can logically be said to have- such things, there was a report that Lough Foyle, Londonderry, had been chosen, but the probability is that it will be either on the Clyde or the Mersey, and the more likely selection seems to be that at Liverpool. But there is as yet no date fixed for the inauguration of this new and important airway development, which when it is established will be the most vital in existence. Talk of experimental flights next spring is idle, since the specially designed aircraft ordered for the Atlantic venture by Imperial Airways will not be ready then. Perfect Fit.

Henry Peter Hansell was palpably the Wordsworthian happy warrior. A bachelor to the end, and characteristically correct even to the Psalmist’s allotted span, the tutor to King George’s sons has been gathered to his Oxonion fathers at the age of 71. He did only moderately at Oxford himself, whether in study or hi sport, though rather better in the latter than the former. But his personality, by its splendid normality, impressed itself on the Oxford of his time. The task of tutoring the next King-Emperor and his brothers fitted him like a glove. His vicarious triumph was in stamping his impersonal personality on illustrious youth. It enabled him, too, to renew in middle age the first careful rhapsody of Oxford college residence and life. What that meant only old Oxonians can tell. When Armaggedon came, Mr. Hansell became an A.B. at 50. The Prince’s tutor as a bluejacket set the seal on Britain’s 1914 spirit.

Exit Max. Unless the whole affair had been a frame-up, there was never a doubt about the fight between Max Baer and Joe Louis. The 21-year-old negro evangelist, who was an amateur until quite recently, convincingly disposed of the bombastic and clowning night-club proprietor in four decisive rounds, and it is obvious that in him America has another, and perhaps better, Jack Johnson. A powerful fighter with a devastating punch in each hand, Louis is also a first class boxer with abundant ringcraft and stamina. Opinion differs whether it is fair to pit a white against a negro in the ring, owing to the practical invulnerability of the latter’s skull. Our bluejackets used to hit Jamaica rioters, not on the head, but on the shins, with their boat stretchers, not out of any humanity, but because of this fact. It is fairly certain that Louis has the beating of any white champion America can now produce, and our European champions are hardly in the same street. It remains to see now whether, unlike Jack Johnson, Joe Louis can “carry corn.” Nurmi. At the age of 38, long after most athletes have abandoned the strenuous life for a middle-aged spread, Paavo Nurmi, the famous - Finnish runner, is retiring from the track to devote himself to training compatriots for Olympic honours. Even including the immortal Greek who bore the news of Marathon, Paavo Nurmi is beyond doubt the greatest, long-distance runner the world has ever known. As he started his track career at the age of 15, he has been in active training for the incredibly long period of 23 years. Those who have seen him in his heyday, pacing along watch in hand with the completely stoical look of an automaton, will never forget his amazing supremacy. Nurmi is not an ingratiating personality. He holds himself too aloof, and is too unresponsive for that. After winning an exhausting long-distance race, against the world’s best champions, Nurmi used to trot around another lap or two just for exercise.

Wapping Fire. It is a long time since Londoners, ever avid of spectacular shows free of entertainment tax, enjoyed such a treat as the Wapping warehouse fire. Immense crowds, numbering one woulu think millions, assembled along both sides of the Thames to watch the battalions of firemen fight the flames, but London Bridge, the span of which commands an unrivalled view of the scene of action, was the popular grandstand. Only the utmost efforts of the police kept that vital artery open for wheeled traffic. Dense clouds of smoke rolled up from the blazing conflagration. and it was thrilling to watch the ebb and flow of the deadly conflict between the brigades, by land and water, and the devouring demons that gripped the doomed warehouse. At tea-time next day spectators were still lining London Bridge, and river engines directing countless jets on the smoking ruins. A fireman told me it might burn for a week,