OUR LONDON LETTER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18382, 28 September 1929, Page 13

OUR LONDON LETTER

FEATS OF BRITISH AIRCRAFTDEVELOPING THE AIR MAILS—PLANS FOR A NEW CALENDARFAMOUS RIDER’S FATAL ACCIDENT. (From Our Own Correspondent). LONDON, Aug. 15. The Princes and Air Travel. The Prince of Wales, who flew cross the Channel from Le Touquet one afternoon this week, was escorted out to sea by a squadron of five French aeroplanes. The, duty of providing air escorts is already fairly frequently laid upon the Royal Air Force, and it is one that is certain to become more frequent in the future. With the increasing use of the aeroplane we must expect to see foreign sovereigns, heads of States and Ministers arriving among us by air, and the R.A.F. will be required to systematise the courtesies it is called upon to render, according to rank and precedence, as the armies and Navies of all countries have long since done. There will be a sovereign’s escort, a simple Royal escort, and differing escorts for Prime Ministers and plenipotentiaries. At present the strength of an air escort is decided by the Air Council, as occasion arises. By the way, it is very possible that the Prince will soon add himself to the list of private aeroplane owners. Up to now he has mostly used Service machines, except when flying to the French seaside, when international good manners require that a military plane shall not be used unless special permission is sought—a trouble to which the Prince would not wish to put the authorities. The Prince’s thought of buying a machine shows how much he has taken to air travel. British Fleet Changes. Admiralty Fleet orders announce that the constitution of the battle squadrons of the Mediterranean and Atlantic Fleets after the transfer of four battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class to the Atlantic Fleet in November next will be as follows:—Mediterranean Fleet—First Battle Squadron: Queen Elizabeth (fleet flagship); Revenge (flag of Vice-Admiral first battle squadron and Vice-Admiral, second in command Mediterranean Fleet); Royal Oak, Royal Sovereign, Ramilies, Resolution. Atlantic Fleet—Second Battle Bquadron: Nelson (fleet flagship), Rodney, Barham (flag of Rear-Admiral second battle squadron), Malaya, Valiant, Warspite. Third Battle Squadron: Emperor of India (flag of RearAdmiral third battle squadron), Marlborough. The Warspite will remain on the Mediterranean station as fleet flagship until the return of the Queen Elizabeth after a long refit. It is a striking commentary upon our rapidly ageing cruiser Fleet that in the next three months the Cardiff, Ceres, and /Calliope, of the 3rd Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean, which are all due for long refits, will be relieved by ships of similar age, the Curacoa, Calypso, and Curlew, which have just completed a similar process. All these ships are over twelve years old—the Calliope is over fourteen —and they all saw good service during the War. The continuous hard steaming and knocking about in heavy seas that they suffered during their two or three years War service counted twice that period in the life of these little ships. That they stil.l go on speaks volumes for

(.heir design and construction, but they are only ships of about 4.000 tons armed with 6in. guns. There is a disposition on the other side of the Atlantic to count these ships as first-class cruisers. That they are “first-class” of their type when in full commission no one can deny—but by no stretch of imagination can they be called modern cruisers. A New Flotilla Leader. The Codrington, which was launched from a Tyneside yard the other day for the British Navy, is a flotilla leader as the type was originally conceived — a torpedo boat destroyer with rather larger accommodation for a senior officer and his staff. She has a length of 332 feet, a displacement of 1,520 tons, while engines of 39,000 shaft horsepower give her a speed of 35 knots. Her armament is five 4.7 in. guns, a battery af anti-aircraft and machine guns, and eight torpedo tubes, and she differs only slightly from the big destroyers of the A class which are now completing. On the other hand the new French “flotilla leaders” of the Valmy type have a displacement of over 3,000 tons at full load, a speed of 36 knots, and a battery of six 5.5 in. guns and unmerous smaller pieces, in addition to six torpedo tubes. The French ships are really cruisers, swifter and of greater fighting power than our war-time light cruisers, while every British flotilla leader is precisely what her predecessors were, the leading ship of a destroyer flotilla. Yet when for purposes of a disarmament conference the naval strengths of different nations have to be compared, the French and Americans will probably demur if we argue that our flotilla leaders should not be reckoned as equal to those pf other nations. Probable Army Reductions. As the upkeep of the British Army on the Rhine has been charged against German Reparations, the impending revoval of our 6,000 troops from Germany to Home stations may not appear to save British taxpayers’ pockets. The cost of the troops will still come on the Army Estimates, even if the Reparations go to the National Exchequer. But it cost less to maintain a soldier at a Home station. Moreover, there is a strong presumption that the withdrawal of the Rhineland brigades will be followed by a Government attempt to reduce the active strength of the Army. The argument will be that if our military obligations are reduced by the evacuation, we can do with less men under arms and need not wait for the Geneva Disarmament Conference before dispensing with one or two battalions and batteries. The withdrawal of British troops from Egyptian stations to the Canal zone may offer another pretext for urging the Army Council to accept reductions of the standing Army. In the War the defence of the Canal was partly undertaken by the Navy. Since the War that of Irak is wholly entrusted to the Air Force. These are useful precedents for Mr Snowden to cite. Fate of a Great Mansion. Dorchester House, that early-Victor-ian palace in Mayfair which for so long housed the magnificent Holford collection of pictures and books, has reached its last days. All the : sumptuous internal fixtures and decorations, including the great marble staircases, chimney-pieces, mural paintings, carved and panelled Viennese mirrors, and costly walnut bookcases, have now been sold. It is believed that about £BO,was spent by the original owner on making it one of the richest homes in London, and there were valiant efforts made to save it from destruction. These, however, failed, and the total realised for the treasures which are now to be distmantled was £3,950. It was hardly expected that the bidding would be as low as that, but the cost of removing the marbles and other fixtures will be very heavy and the risk of damage considerable. Many of the marble chimney-pieces were held in high esteem by artists, but the chief of these were the two elaborate examples by the sculptor Alfred Stevens. One of these has been acquired privately for the Victoria and Albert Museum, and for the other Sir Robert McAlpine paid £315. The great marble staircase, one of the stateliest of its kind, must have cost thousands of pounds to construct, yet the stairs, balustrades, wall-linings, balconies, and archways when sold in sections went for an aggregate of a little over £3OO. Rich people now live in flats and hotels, and prefer lifts! No bids at all could be secured for the Roman tessellated tiling. Beautiful walnut bookcases with painted panels and gilt enrichments brought an average of £9 each, and Viennese mirrors in Carved Italian walnut moulding averaged £42 apiece. In the hall and on the balconies were semi-circular painting upon which artists had expended laborious work, but only £BO was realised for thirteen of these, while £SO was paid for eight others which decorated the lantern in the roof of the hall—two of them being attributed to Sir Coutts Lindsay. It may well be asked to what purpose these dismantled treasures will be put by the purchasers. Most of them will be used to decorate hotels and large country houses, and some of the objects are destined to go to America. Even masses of stone coping and iron balustrades were among the purchases, as well as iron gates and railings. Prices for such lots ranged from 85 to 140 guineas. When Dorchester House is demonished within the next few months the site in Park Lane—one of the finest in Mayfair—will be used for the erection of a sumptuous hotel.