LONDON LETTER

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18465, 17 May 1928, Page 6

LONDON LETTER

Liberals Jubilant. Oswald Mosley Annoyed. Pomp and Splendour. Battle-cruiser “ Torpedoed.’’ The Social Round. An Underground Waterloo.

(Special to the “ Star ” from Reuter’s Agency). LONDON, March 15. Two striking political phenomena have manifested themselves during the past week or ten days. One is the Liberal revival which now appears to be a fact to be reckoned with by all political parties, and the other is the extraordinary loss of all interest in its own business by the House of Commons. There has never been such a dull time in the House of Commons within the last twenty years. There may be a little stir over the Zinovieff letter and a little flutter of excitement over the Rudget, but, for the rest, the House of Commons is completely apathetic. For years private members have been agitating for more time for the discussion of their own little schemes, and have been protesting against a succession of tyrannical Governments which periodically raided the time which should have been at their disposal. This session, owing to the light Government programme and the general rearrangement of business, private members have been left in undisturbed possession of the sittings allocated to them, but after all their outcry they have been unable on several occasions to “ keep a house,” although the presence of forty members only is necessary for that purpose. Not only that, but the Government is constantly getting through its allotted business in less than the allotted time.

Liberals are devoting too much attention to their plan of campaign in the country to waste unnecessary time in the House; Labour is extraordinarily quiescent, and practically puts up no fight at all; while Ministerialists seem content to be silent. Old Parliamentarians are rather puzzled at the strange atmosphere of indifference which seems to hang over Westminster, and many good Conservatives are concerned at the present situation. The symptoms are not altogether healthy. In about a year’s time the Government will be appealing to the country but there seems little or no indication among Ministerial troops that they are preparing for the engagement. In so far as this calm at Westminster is a reflection of the peaceful spirit of industry—a spirit which is emphasised by the appearance of Mr J. H. Thomas and a director of the London, Midland and Scottish on the same platform at a meeting in Derby to discuss German railway progress—it may be welcomed, but it is not altogether a good sign for the Party in power when the House appears to have decided to take to its bed in anticipation of its inevitable demise next year. Naturally, Liberals are in the highest spirits over the results of the recent by-elections. Mrs Runciman’s victory at St Ives was a real triumph, and for the Liberals to hold Middlesborough with both a Tory and a Labour candidate in the field was a genuine success. A Parliamentary Contretemps. It may be wondered whether Mr Oswald Mosley was more discomfited on Wednesday night when he was to move a resolution on national finance than the manager of the catering department of the House of Commons. Mr Mosley is said to have prepared the oration of a century, and his wife, Lady Cynthia Mosley, had come down with a number of friends to listen to it. Unfortunately the House “ counted out ” on a previous motion by a Conservative member. They were all naturally hurt about the dramatic collapse of the business and the consequential loss of opportunity for Mr Mosley to tell the country Jiow our financial troubles could be solved. For a long time after the House rose Mr Mosley’s annoyance the absorbing topic of the Lobby. He had every reason to be exasperated because his own party could have saved the opportunity had they chosen to do so. The other much-worried person that night was the Refreshment Manager who is in charge of the arrangements for providing M.P.’s with physical sustenance. He had dinner ready for them at six o’clock and a whole staff of waiters waiting to serve them. Imagine his feelings when, with the soup bofling, the fish and joints all prepared, the cries of “Who goes home?” resounded through the corridors. What, after all, was the lost oratory of the member for Smethwick and his projected assault on the Chancellor of the Exchequer compared with the chaos throughout the Ministry of the Interior? Could there be a more exacting task in the world than the provision of meals for these uncertain, undependable members of Parliament? It is being unkindly suggested that the Labour Party were not particularly anxious to hear Mr Mosley’s views on finance, and that the Labour Whips did not trouble to keep a house for him. The Afghan Royalties. The King of Afghanistan is absent from his native country for the first time in his life, but he is being welcomed as a man who, even in a remote land, has shown deep appreciation of Western ideas on human progress. His enthusiasm for education has taken practical shape. Under his rule engineers, architects, and school teachers have been encouraged to enter Afghanistan. He has founded girls' schools and raised the status of women to a higher point than in any other strictly Moslem country.

This movement for Western training has extended in other directions of which the party of young Afghans now in Birmingham for police training provides an illustration. The King is credited with a striking aphorism regarding education of the young: “ An Afghan boy is worth two men,” he said. “ While boys can be developed and trained, a grown man in many cases is only fit for the scrap heap.” A monarch holding these views, and possessing power to put them into practice, may transform a nation in a single generation. The King is not content only to preach the virtues of hard work and study. He himself has been known to ride fifty miles over mountainous country, drive a high-powered British sports car from his new palace at Dar-ul-Aman to Kabul, and there engage for several hours in affairs of state. People are tempted to regret for King Amanullah’s and his Queen’s sake the twist in t>e weather that has brought winter back, but it is really mistaken sympathy. They are used to the cold in Afghanistan, and will be able to put up with it here, though Queen Souriya will be glad of the fur coats she has brought. London gave the Royal visitors a warm welcome, and apparently the clerk of the weather felt it his bounden duty to show them a series of samples of English weather. They arrived at Dover in bright March sunshine, travelled through a snow-clad Kent, reached London on a January day, while this morning they were shown a November fog.

The State Banquet. Amid all the pomp and splendour of the State banquet given at Buckingham Palace last night by the King in honour of his guests, there was struck a note of sympathy which was truly English. The scheme of table decorations was carried out entirely in daffodils. Among the dull richness of the gold plate, the scintillation of the glasses, the massiveness of the centrepieces, the daffodils shone, simple and sweet as an English garden, redolent of an English spring. Amound the table in the banqueting room were ranged members of the King's bodyguard of the Yeomen of •the Guard, dressed in their picturesque Tudor uniforms of red and gold with Elizabethan ruffles, and carrying pikes. They seemed to symbolise Merrie England, and were a reminder to the guests of the antiquity and continuity of the traditions associated with our Throne. A special topical interest surrounds a magnificent new carnation exhibited at the Royal florticultural Society's fortnightly show. The flower is to be named after the Queen of Afghanistan, if she gives her permission. It is five inches in diameter—as big as a saucer —and is the largest carnation ever grown. Its colour is an exquisite blushpink, and it has retained the delicate perfume that is so often lost in show varieties.

“ Liveliness ” in the Mediterranean. An extensive naval force of eightytwo vessels of the Mediterranean and Atlantic Fleets is now engaged in exercises in the eastern approaches of the Straits of Gibraltar. A few days ago the battle-cruiser squadron had a warlike passage from Malaga to Gibraltar. On board the Repulse, demolition was carried out as a harsh preliminary to war conditions. All hatches and scuttles were closed, cabin fittings dismantled, wooden doors taken off hinges and pictures and plate taken down and laid on floors. Men wearing white working rig and carrying gas masks took their action stations, the triple 4in gun teams standing by for the first shoot. A formation of six torpedo-dropping aeroplanes dived from the sky ahead, swooped down upon the Hood, zoomed away into the clouds and disappeared. Later they alighted on the top of the Furious, or the “Covered Waggon,” as the aircraft carrier is called, which received them while steaming at full speed, with two destroyers hovering in attendance in case of accidents. The big job was the firing of the Isin gun. The three huge turrets of the Repulse revolved to port, each pointing two enormous guns seven miles across the sea to where, astern of the Snapdragon, could be seen a tiny square object—the target. The Hood started the firing. A gigantic flash of flame came from her side, a cloud of bro.wn smoke, a crash, and' an awful screaming as the projectile was hurled from the ship. The Repulse was shaken by an explosion as if it were a toy ship being pushed roughly into the Round Pond in Kensington Gardens. A few caps shot into the air, and up to the top of the ship puffed a reeking cloud of cordite fumes. She had fired. The target became surrounded by pillars of water a hundred feet high as the straddling shots spurted up weird edifices from the sea. Unfortunately, the Repulse followed up her successful shoot by being “ torpedoed ” before reaching Malaga. Five submarines, looking rather like snails as they lay on the surface some miles off, launched a daring attack on the battle cruisers, and it was adjudged that the Repulse was hit. The Social Round.

It is the dress show season in London, and the parades at West End salons are thronged by society people. If the forecast of one of the most important and the most carefully studied dress shows proves true, this year’s ballrooms are likely to see a jewellery revival. Some distinguishing jewelled ornament—a buckle, a shoulder strap, a chain—is the really important feature of every evening frock. Not merely jewels are worn with the frock, though earrings and bangles are much in evidence.

A chain of square-cut rubies or a strap of enormous crystal squares is an essential part of its design. Among the new dances that have come to London this year, the Baltimore is receiving most attention. In its original form it was too intricate for the ordinary dancer, but a simplified form has been arranged and demonstrated. The Baltimore, which at present requires special music, is considered to be an advance towards the long desired ballroom dance which would combine the best qualities of the fast and slow fox trots. Its steps are something like the Charleston done to quick time music, with a lot of small steps in between done at a slow fox trot tempo. In spite of its American name, the Baltimore was devised in England. The stupendous dramatic fantasy, “ Back to Methusaleh,” is attracting Shavian enthusiasts in their hundreds to the Court Theatre in Sloane Square. The performance begins at six o’clock, and does not finish until after eleven, although the play is being given in parts. The interval of an hour and a half allows for dinner, and has the effect of sending the audience back to the theatre in a happy mood, with their minds prepared for another stimulating dose of Shaw’s brilliant and satirical eloquence. A Revival of Shipbuilding. With the launch of the Canadian lakes steamer Troisdoc from Messrs Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson’s shipyard at Wallsend, an outstanding week in the Tyne shipbuilding was concluded, as seven vessels have been put into the water during that period. This record has attracted considerable attention to the Tyne, and has emphasised its importance as a shipbuilding centre. Throughout the whole of last year shipyard work on the river proceeded without a hitch, and shipbuilders and shipowners made frequent reference to the splendid spirit the men were showing in co-operating with the employers to put the industry once more on a normal basis. In the various speeches made at the launching ceremonies, an optimistic note, was struck in regard to the future, pan ticularly by Sir William Seager (president of the Chamber of Shipping of the United Kingdom) and Sir A. M. Kennedy and Mr A. B. Gowan. The belief of those qualified to judge is that if there is no disturbance in the indtistry or other leading industries which might react on shipping and shipbuilding, the position will slowIly but steadily improve. Among the visitors during the week was Sir Joseph Isherwood, the well-known inven-

tor. During the past few years Sir Joseph, who is actively identified with oil tanker construction, has placed many orders on Tyneside. Sir Joseph is confident that another revival will take place, although he recognises that the shipbuilding industry still requires stimulus and encouragement. The Troisdoc is the fifth Canadian lakes steamer which the builders have launched in five weeks. The order includes seven vessels, and it is expected that the others will be launched before the end of the month. The vessels are 255 feet in length, and intended for the carrying of grain.

An Underground Waterloo. Out of sight of the bustling throng, work is proceeding steadily on the construction underneath Piccadilly Circus of the most up-to-date underground station in the world, a station which, when it is opened next Christmas. will be ready to cope with fifty million passengers a year. This has been a five years’ job, costing £500,000, but a pipe subway, which is little larger than an underground tunnel and which the public will never use, is a vital appendix to the main scheme. When a man in the street hears that a booking-hall, 15,000 square feet in extent, is being made underneath Piccadilly Circus he wonders—having in mind the maze of railways and mains and cables underneath central London—how it can be done without making a great upheaval. He remembers that when Piccadilly was up last year, crowds watched the workmen in the hope that their picks would strike a water main, and the thought of the interference caused by such a tremendous undertaking as the new station at the Circus is staggering. The problem was solved in a clever way. The engineers gathered together all the mains and cables underneath the Circus, and placed them in a speciallymade pipe subway a third of a mile long. Work on the new station goes on night and day and it is all done by hand. The rejection of mechanical aids is on account of the confined room for working. There will be seven entrances to the station at points round the Circus, giving on to a booking hall and shops, then on to a common landing. It is all being designed to keep people moving. Lifts are out of date for underground stations, and eleven escalators are being installed. Hidden beneath each escalator is a stone staircase used by engineers for repair work, but these will not come into general use except in an emergency.

Famous MSS. to be Sold. Keen literary interest will be aroused by a sale at Sotheby’s next month that will include notable manuscripts of Thomas Hardy, Burns, Lewis Carroll, George Borrow, Kipling, and a diary which contains the earliest written account of how Shakespeare met his death. This diary, written by the Rev John Ward, vicar of Stratford-on-Avon, within twenty-five years of Shakespeare’s death, is being sold by the Medical Society of London for the purpose of replenishing its library with medical books. Among other references to Shakespeare it states that out of the proceeds of his plays he “spent at the rate of £IOOO a year,” and after a merry meeting with Drayton and Ben Jonson, “at which it seems he drank too much, he died of a feavour there contracted.” The most remarkable manuscript in the sale, however, will be that of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” which is being disposed of by Mrs Alice Pleasance Hargreaves, who was the original “Alice” of the story, and for whom it was written privately by the author with no idea of publication at all. The MS. is beautifully written, illustrated with pen and ink sketches and decorative headings, and bound into a little book. As first edition copies of “Alice in Wonderland” now, fetch high prices, the manuscript is sure of provoking very high bidding. A large collection of first editions and manuscripts of Thomas Hardy is the feature of the library of the late Mr Clement Shorter, who was an assiduous collector. The Hardy MSS. include the verses on “The man he killed,” and there is a great deal of Johnsoniana and letters of Dickens, Barrie, Shaw and others. A Loss to Aviation. Service aviation can ill spare such an exponent as Flight-Lieutenant S. M. Kinkead, whose pursuit of speed in his monoplane off Calshot Spit had such a tragic ending. Like all brave airmen—the D.S-O-, D.S.C. and D.F.C. testify to his conspicuous gallantry'—he was essentially a modest, self-effacing man, as was shown by his attitude when he returned to Croydon as a member of the successful Schneider Cup team last October. During the reception of # the team by Sir Philip Sassoon, Lieutenant Kinkead withdrew into the background. He met the congratulations showered upon him with a bFoad smile and wave of the hand towards Flight-Lieutenant Webster. “Don’t praise me,” he said, “Webster did all the work.” Yet the first returns suggested that Kinkead held the speed record off the Lido with a lap at 289 miles an hour. This was later revised to 275.80 miles, leaving Lieutenant Webster as the winner with 284.14 miles an hour. The late airman had had bad luck with his monoplane ever since he took it to Southampton Water. The weather had been unfavourable, but he had a short flight during which his machine reach ed a speed of 300 miles an hour. This fatality in high speed flight is compared with that of Parry Thomas in high speed motoring. Incidents like these, shocking as they are, do pot arrest the movement from which they spring, and just as fresh records have been made in motoring since Parry Thomas lost his life, others will carry on the effort in which Kinkead has gone down. There are questionings, however, of the wisdom of engaging in these terrific trials of skill and endurance in the air at a time of the year when weather is so treacherous. Webster achieved his record in the calm of a Venetian morning. Kinkead has met his fate on a March day in England, when snowstorms were about.