OUR LONDON LETTER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19783, 26 April 1934, Page 3

OUR LONDON LETTER

GENERAL ELECTION RUMOURS MILLIONS SPENT ON SPORT (Specially written for “ The Timaru Herald.”) LONDON, March 22. More rumours of a general election are in the air. In certain political circles it is confidently predicted that the Government will appeal to the country before the end of this year. This prophecy does not spring from any supposed insight into the Cabinet’s plans. Those who believe an election is coming are critics of the National Government, and they base their prediction on what they hold to be the weakness of the present Administration’s position.

Briefly, the argument runs as follows: There are signs of trade revival and (according to anticipation at the moment of writing) the Chancellor will have a handsome Budget surplus. These two facts make this year ideal, from a Government point of view, for an election appeal to the country. For the critics have little confidence in the continuance of prosperity. They hold that trade revival is a temporary phenomenon. largely due to the fact that Britain was the first great country to “go off gold." Now that other nations, and especially the United States, have followed suit, Britain’s trade advantage will soon be lost. Similarly, the chance of reducing taxation and winning votes by ‘’Budget bribes” will not come round again. Arguing on these lines, the pessimistic critics believe that the Government will seize this favourable chance to dissolve Parliament and go to the country. If they delay another year they are lost. On the other hand, these prophets think that an election held now, following a favourable Budget, would send the National Government back with a small but workable majority. Mr Macdonald, it is believed. might retire with a peerage, and the new Government would be Conservative in all but name.

What We Spend On Sport. Britons spend a fantastic sum of money each year on the pursuit of sport. To estimate even approximately how much the public disburses on bets, admission fees, travelling expenses and hotels is, of course quite impossible. But some bold calculator has reckoned that sport enthusiasts will have spent about £500.000 in the week which began with the Boat Race and the Rugby International, and included the opening of the flat racing season. Oddly enough, the Boat Race—the most famous of the long list of sporting fixtures—was easily the cheapest, both from the point of view of the participants and that of the spectators. Oxford, who lost the race but beat the record, spent more on the event this year than they have ever done before. They had to build three boats and have two sets of oars. Yet boats and oars cost them only £370 in all. As for the spectators, there were about 250,000 of them lining the Thames—yet there was no money to pay for grand-stands or enclosures. No wonder that Tex Rickards, the American boxing promoter, once described the Boat Race as “the finest free spectacle in the world.”

Insull’s Odyssey. Samuel Insull, the “wanted” financier from Chicago, is now on his way to seek sanctuary in some as yet unknown Eastern destination. His melodramic escape from Greece, with dyed moustache and hair, and the story of how his ship was turned back to Athens after being chased on the high seas by a Greek warship, have made him seem more like a figure of “penny dreadful” fiction than of real life. In.sull is, however, a rather prosaic man ’of retiring habits. Even when he felt himself quite safe from extradition in Greece he refused to give any interviews. The only journalist who secured admission did so by disguising himself as a lawyer. Whether Insull will succeed in getting into Abyssinia (one of his possible | destinations) is still undecided. If he does he will be safe from the arm of American law, for the United States has no extradition treaty with Abyssinia. But Insull may find his voluntary exile dull. He might even consider it worth while to surrender and go back to America. With the aid of a clever lawyer, he could probably protract the laws delays for years, and meanwhile enjoy his freedom on bail. Despite the embezzlement with which he is charged, some Chicagoans still have a soft spot in their hearts for Insull; for in the days of his prosperity he was a great benefactor to the city, and presented it, among other gifts, with a magnificent opera house.

Sir Malcolm Campbell, breaker of world’s speed records, has apparently resolved to neglect motor racing for the more romantic pursuit of hidden treasure. Not so long ago he led an expedition to search for the fabulous booty supposed to have been concealed by pirates on Cocos Island. But apparently Sir Malcolm had no better luck than those who have tried before him; for now he is reported to be looking for other gold off the coast of South West Africa. This time the object of his search is a treasure ship, sunk by pirates hundreds/of years ago. Everyone will wish Sir Malcolm luck. But treasure-seekers have a habit of getting more excitement than gold. Scores of adventurers have searched every nook and cranny of Cocos Island and found not so much as a single gold coin. It is not even certain that pirates ever hid any booty there. Sunken treasure is a different matter. Everyone knows it is there—millions of pounds worth of it. But the problem is to raise it to the surface. Actual salvage is not only expensive, but a rather prosiac and boring business, as we have seen in the case of the recovery of the bullion from the sunken liner Egypt off the French coast. Trees and Men.

If there had never been any trees on the face of the earth, there would never have been any men either. This rather striking proposition was argued the other day by a London zoologist, Mr H. N. Milligan. His reasoning was ingenious. Man, he said, evolved from a monkey-like animal But no such creature could have developed had there been no trees from which it could swing, using both feet and hands. No trees, no monkeys; no monkeys, no men, he argued. Mr Milligan’s immediate aim, however, was to enlist our “gratitude” for the trees. Trees are being felled in Britain faster than new ones are planted; and at the present rate it will not be many generations before the country is almost tree-less.