OUR LONDON LETTER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20503, 22 August 1936, Page 6

OUR LONDON LETTER

WHAT RE-ARM? VENT IS COSTING PRODUCERS WAGE AVAR ON MIDDLEMEN (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, July 16. It sounds odd to hear the prospect of a substantial Budget deficit being claimed as a good sign, but that is the attitude taken by the Government’s more enthusiastic supporters. The reason for the prospective deficit is that more money will be wanted for the armament programme than the Government earmarked for it this year. Advocates of a strongly armed Britain are pleased about this, for it means that re-armament has gone ahead at a faster pace than was anticipated. The cost of the fighting services this year is now estimated at £200,000,000. Many taxpayers, however, are brooding a little ruefully over the figure, which means that every man, woman and child in the country will have to spend £5 on keeping pace with the armaments piling up in the rest of Europe. The Air Force, despite its rapid expansion, is still the Cinderella of the services, so far as finance is concerned. It gets only 28s of that £5. The Army is slightly better favoured with 325. But the.lion’s share, 40s, goes to the Navy, thanks chiefly to the huge cost of modern battleships. A battleship costs well over 300 times as much as the most expensive bombing aeroplane or the heaviest tank. Clever Crooks Puzzle the “Yard” A Portuguese pickpocket who was arrested at the Wimbledon lawn tennis meeting this week was deported from Britain—for the sixth time. Scotland Yard detectives believe this is not an isolated case, and they are wondering how deported foreigners manage to slip through the port guards and get back into England time after time. Anxiety is all the greater because the police know that the Coronation next year will attract hundreds of undesirables hoping to pray on visitors. What chance is there of keeping people out if well-known thieves can smuggle themselves into the country as often as six times?

So Scotland Yard is reviewing its methods and trying to find the loophole. One suspected gap is the daytrip or week-end holiday now so popular. Thousands of English people visit France and Belgium in conducted parties, and thousands of Continental visitors come here in the same way; and for these short trips passports are not necessary. The police suspect that criminals, both British and foreign, use these trips and have some system of exchanging the return halves of their tickets. Another probability is that foreign crooks stow away aboard cargo boats coming to British ports. On very short trips there is a good chance of a stowaway remaining undiscovered.

How to Keep Air Pilots Imperial Airways are disturbed over the faithlessness of some of the young pilots entering their service. Thanks to the big demand for commercial pilots, many of these men, as soon as they are fully trained, forsake Imperials for better paid jobs with other companies. Imperial Airways are one of the few firms which maintain a school for pilots. The students are mostly ex-Air Force men, who know all about military ’planes but have a lot to learn before they can pilot an air liner to India, Australia or Africa.

While they are learning this they get paid at least £6 a week, with progressive rises as they pass the various tests. The complaint is that many of these trainees, as soon as they are qualified, leave to join other air companies. Often they are smallish firms, unable to afford the cost of establishing training schools of their own, but willing to pay good salaries to qualified pilots. So they recruit their staffs from Imperial Airways men, who have been trained free of charge and paid well into the bargain. To stop this Imperiols are now going to make the trainees sign contracts to remain with the company for a certain period after they have qualified. “The King’s House” The way in which King Edward took possession of the “King’s House” this week was an example of his Majesty’s love of both privacy and informality. The “King’s House,” in Surrey, was built as the perfect example of modern domestic architecture for presentation as a Jubilee gift to King George. He did not live to see it finished, and this week it was formally handed over to his son.

In King George’s time the occasion | might have been one of ceremony and speech-making. King Edward simply walked round the house like a new tenant on a suburban estate, remarked, “This is very nice!” and thanked the donors. By the King’s command, no newspapermen were present. His Majesty has now to decide who shall be the first tenant of the “King’s House.” In all probability it will be some retiring Court official who served King George. Not the First Time Farmers and market gardeners are watching with not too optimistic interest the salesmanship of Mr LennexBoyd, M.P., for the agricultural constituency of Mid-Bedfordshire. He has opened a greengrocery shop in London with the idea of proving that it is possible to sell fruit and vegetables cheaply and yet to pay the grower a fair price. For many kinds of produce fanners are now being offered prices that scarcely pay for harvesting, while the London housewife still pays dearly for the same produce. Mr Lennox-Boyd says that the Covent Garden wholesalers make all the profits; and to prove his case he is trying the experiment of bringing produce direct from Bedfordshire, selling it in his shop and handing over the profits to the farmers. For the present his shop is crowded with buyers and the experiment seems to be going very well. Unfortunately Mr LennoxBoyd is not the first to try it. For a long time past numbers of small growers have been in the habit of bringing their produce into town once or twice a week and selling it from their own trucks. But that has not solved the problem of the big farmer. He still needs Covent Garden; and while he is glad to see Mr Lennox-Boyd’s practical protest, he does not regard it as a very

hopeful weapon for breaking the wholesalers’ power. Echoes of Disaster Youthful memories think of the Titanic’s sinking as something which happened very long ago, and many people will be surprised to know that as many as 256 persons are still being helped to-day by the relief founded at the time of the disaster. They are the widows, orphans and other dependents of men who were drowned when the great liner sank. The fund must be one of the most flourishing charities in existence. It still has a balance of over £300,000 — far more than enough to keep in comfort for the rest of their lives all needy relatives of Titanic victims. Last year £16,800 was distributed, which works out at just over £1 a week for each beneficiary. Year by year death thins the ranks of those who need help; and ultimately there will be ; mere handful of old people nominally heirs to the hundreds of thousands of pounds subscribed by a charitable public. But long before then, no doubt, the Titanic money will have been merged in funds for assisting victims of other disasters.