LONDON LETTER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20649, 25 June 1935, Page 10

LONDON LETTER.

“ Backwoodsmen ” Invade Parliament. DEFENCE OF TRAPPING. (Special to the “ Star.*’) LONDON. May 31. Parliament this week saw one of those rare musters of ‘‘backwoodsmen.” That is the name given to peers who take little or no interest in politics and never go to Westminster except to vote on some question which touches them very closely. The question which brought them out of their country retreats was young Lord Tredegar’s bid to make eteel rabbit traps illegal. The bill wac, of course, defeated. Its oppoi>»rts admitted that great suffering was often caused to animals caught in steel trap*?, but argued that thk? kind of trapping was the only way agricul- ! ture could be protected from the depredations of rabbits. Incidentally, this may be one of the last times that Westminster is invaded by the noble “baek«?woodsnien.” Reform of the House of Lords, advocated by many influential Consei vatives, may before long be accomplished. One aspect of the reform w6uld certainly be a much smaller Upper House, confined to peers taking an active part in politics. The “backswoodsmen” would disappear. Make Better Goods. A really novel (if rather Utopian) solutiou to the world’s economic and unemployment problems has been put forward by Sir Raymond Uuwin, the famous architect. The idea is simplicity itself. “Make better goods,” lie says, ‘‘and there will be work for everybody.” Sir Raymond thinks that mass production is the root of our troubles. If, instead of producing goods quickly by machinery, we concentrated on quality, making each article a work of *art, there would l>e employment enough for all the world's workers. Sir Raymond Unwin thus attacks the problem from the opposite end to many economists; they would like to see work done more - • quickly and spread out among all workers, so that everyone would have more leisure. Air Force and Army. The rush of recruits to join the enlarged Royal Air Force has proved that the R.A.F. is much more attractive to the modern young Englishman tfiau either of the other two services. Tho thousands of applications from overseas show that men in the Dominions and colonies feel the same. For several years past the Army has not been able to get enough men, in spite of a lowered standard of physique. To-day the R.A.F. recruiting officers are besieged by applicants described by officers as “the finest body of men who have ever volunteered for any of the service* in time of peace.” The Army autTioritics make no comment on this state of affairs. But a retired colonel was overheard to remark in his club the other day that there would “soon be nothing left of the Army but the officers* mess and the band.** Traveller and his Passport. Passport regulations since the war have caused fcn untold amount of delat', annoyance and expense to travellers. Neglect of Fome minor formality may cause a tourist to be held up at a frontier and sent back home. This actually happened recently to a man who had travelled all the way from Europe to Canada. Ho presented his passport when he bought his ticket from the steamship company. They sold him the ticket, but did not draw his attention to the fact that his passport was not in order. When he reached Canada he was not allowed to land, and had to come back to France. So this week, in Paris, the traveller sued the steamship company’ for £I3OO damages for this fruitless trip; he contended that they ought to have noticed the fault in his passport. Rut the Court decided that it wa6 the traveller’s duty to attend to his owr passport, aud he lost the case. 40,000 Dangerous Motorists. Mr. Hore-Belisha, the Transport Minister, reveals that 10 per cent of the motorists who undergo the compulsory “elementary driving tests’* fail to pass them. There is. perhaps, nothing very 6urj. rising about that. If everyone could pass the tests there would be no need to have them at all. But a little calculation shows how dangerous the English roads have been—and still are. Every year some 400,000 new motor* ists have been voming on to the roads. The Minister’s disclosure shows that at least 40,000 of them are not competent to drive, yet, until the official tests started three months ago, there w r as nothing to prevent them taking the road. The tests have many critics, but they have at least served to show (in Mr. Hore-Belisha’a words) “the perfectly needless risks to public safety previously run.” Every r.ew motorist now takes expert lessons in driving, which was not always the case before. No. B.A.’s for Convicts. Educational work is a prominent feature of English prison life nowadays. How far it lias advanced was indicated the other day when a convict serving a long term in Larkhurst prison asked leave to sit for ♦he entrance examination to London University. The prison authorities raised no objection, but the University declined the request; it would have been necessary for a board of examiners to go specially to the prison to examine the man. More than once convict* have applied to *it for London degrees, but their requests have been turned down for the same reason. They are, however, encouraged to study while in prison. For example, Hatry the financier, who is serving 14-years for fraud, has become a proficient Spanish scholar. He is credited with an ambition to start life afresh in South America when he is released. Boys and Girls in Gaol. Sponsored by no le©s a person than the Lord Chief Justice, a movement m growing in England to deal more humanely with young people who break the law. The Chief Justice declares that it k s mistake to send boys and girls under 21 to prison at all. Few people realise how many boys and girls are actually sent to terms of imprisonment in England to-day. In one year 2253 boys and 127 girla have been so sentenced. Nearly half of them had never been convicted before, and so could not be thought of a* hardened offenders. Many were sentenced lor (rifling offences such as sleeping out, | breaking the highway law© and so for to.