A Letter from London

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20128, 23 April 1928, Page 10

A Letter from London

Special Correspondent.

All Rights Reserved.

LONDON, March 4. Whitehall Bombshell. The francs case has been a real shock to Whitehall. Not that the Cabinet’s action is more drastic than expected, but because the affair offends a great tradition. With the single possible exception of the prc-War German regime, )no Civil Service in the world equalled I ours for efficiency and integrity, and, though it is probable even the Whitehall standard is not now quite up to pre-War, the recent law court disclosures caused an immense sensation in Government offices. Those who regarded a Board of Inquiry of the nature appointed by the Cabinet as inadequate were probably mistaken. No investigators were likely to bo more thoroughgoing, more uncompromising, or to get to the bottom of the episode than one composed of distinguished Civil Servants imbued with the tradition and amour propre of their caste. Unfortunate Effects. The most unfortunate effects of tho whole affair are its inevitable public repercussions. Not merely in this country, but still more across the Channel, outside rumour is bound to exaggerate the unhappy business, and to distort its ramifications. It is easy to imagine, even if tho Paris newspapers left anything to the imagination at all, how the Boulevards paint a picture of British public offices engaging in wholesale speculations, with all the special information at their disposal, in French currency just at a cruelly critical moment in our War Ally’s struggle to reestablish it on a sound basis. Actually the Whitehall operations can have had not the smallest influence on that gigantic gamble, in which so many people were engaging frcnziedly on both sides of the Channel and Atlantic, but French public opinion 'will not recognise that fact. The chief victim of the ‘‘francs case” is really Sir Austen Chamberlain, the Foreign Secretary, who must resent it bitterly. The “Statutory Declaration.’’ That the Parliamentary Socialist leaders were in possession of a document which they believed reflected on Mr Gregory of the Foreign Office I knew soon after last general election, and I heard the less responsible members of the party gloatingly predict that it would be produced at an appropriate moment with deadly effect. They were disappointed as years went past and no use was made of it. The reason is now made clear by the report of the Board of Inquiry. Air Ramsay Macdonald and others satisfied themselves that the matter was not worth pursuing. Indeed, it appears that if Mr Gregory’s advice had been followed the famous Zinovieff letter would never have been officially published. Thus the animosity which extreme Socialists have been cherishing against him was totally misdirected. Prince Lichnowsky.

Another famous actor in the drama of the war has left the stage. The news of Prince Lichnowsky’s death at the age of 68 is a reminder how many years have sped since he figured in the poignant crisis of August 1914, when lie and his wife shed tears on bidding adieu to the Countess of Oxford, and “Margot” was so much abused for calling at the German Embassy to say good-bye. His pacific attitude then and earnest endeavour to avert the impending catastrophe greatly angered the ex-Kaiser and his entourage, and tho Prince returned to Germany in some disgrace. He has since made clear in a published volume his conviction that the mailed fist policy of Germany caused the war, and that England sincerely desired peace. Even his own countrymen must now share his view that Germany in 1914 had everything to lose by pursuing her fatal policy of shock tactics. Only six months ago the Prince paid a visit to London and renewed old friendships. Forgotten Seaman.

It may be the feminist element that explains a sharp contrast between tho tragedy of Nurse Cavell and the drama of Captain Fryatt. While the former has aroused wide popular sympathy, the latter is well-nigh forgotten. There is no monument in London to the heroic seaman, as there is to the heroic nurse, and happily nobody has yet attempted to film his story. Captain Fryatt was just an ordinary merchant skipper, earning not much more than a ■ busman’s pay, who received the eulogy of Parliament, and a gold watch from the Admiralty, for his skill and gallantry in getting his boat, the Brussels, away from a German submarine, and saving passengers and crew. But the Germans laid wait for him. Rounded up one night by twelve destroyers and taken in triumph into Ostend, Captain Fryatt was tried by court-martial for “defending himself” against a German U-boat. An Empty Threat. The trial took place at Bruges in July 1916, and the stout-hearted master mariner, who comported himself throughout with fine courage and imperturbable coolness, was sentenced to death. The official German statement, described him as one of the British Merchant Marines “franctireurs, ” though his vessel carried no gun or arms, and his offence was merely manoeuvring his ship to save those aboard from being torpedoed out of hand. His gold watch and Parliamentary eplogy wore brought as evidence against him. He was shot the same afternoon, and the calm manner of his deportment before the firing squad outfaced the German War Lords. He was murdered for doing his strict duty with unusual efficiency and bravery. Lord Oxford declared his case to be an outrage on all civilised tradition, and that, no matter how highly placed, his munderers would be punished. That was 12 years ago! Fantastic Leningrad.

Moscow’s fantastic proposal to prohibit all writing on military affairs or [history is in curious contrast to the Soviet’s practice of keeping revolutionary history ever before the minds of 'the youth of Russia. A lady who has recently arrived here from Leningrad

tolls me that the subject to which is devoted the greatest amount of time in the curriculum of a Soviet school is a kind of catechism of the Bolshevik revolution. Almost every day in the calendar commemorates some dead of glory, and woe betide the scholar who cannot instantly quote Joed for date. To keep the memory green—or red—after school days, almost all the streets of Leningrad have been renamed. Thus the former Nevski Prospekt is now the street of October 23. This nomenclature proved disheartening to an old country woman who recently visitad the city and wanted to find her way to the Kazan Cathedral. The man who directed her told her it was quite easy. “This is. July 15,” he said. “Walk straight ahead until you come to October 23, then turn to your right.” ‘‘lt’s too far,” said the old lady. “I’ll go back home. ’ ’ Getting a Move On.

Everybody crowdod round Lieut. Webster’s seaplane at tho Industries Fair. It looks a grotesque mechanical toy to have won back the Schneider Cup with an average speed of 281 m.p.h., but since last September at Venice, Major Bernardi, on an Italian seaplane, has achieved 296 m.p.h. Interest in Webster’s “bus” revived today on the news that, early next month, with an untried duplicate of his machine, Lieut. Kinhead, R.A.F., will go all out above Southampton Water to take the shine out of Major Bernardi. His ambition is an average speed of over 300 m.p.h. and the R.A.F. men are confident he will do it. Five miles a minute looks a terrible speed—though even in a car Captain Campbell has nearly four —but it is a joke to what our highbrow air experts have long dreamed of, when once we solve the twin problem of breathing and propeller adjustment in aircraft flying high above the denser atmosphere. New York in under six hours is about their idea. Tennis Star from New Zealand. The Davis Cup ties thio spring will be of added interest, because so many of the nations from far overseas have expressed the desire to play in the European zone. Australia, New Zealand, Chile, the Phillipines, and Argentine, as well as India, are all fighting out their preliminary battles in Europe. I imagine that E. D. Andrews, who is taking a post-graduate course in law at Jesus College, Cambridge, will be a member of the New Zealand team. Ho won the New Zealand lawn tennis championship last year, and, on arrival at Cambridge, took first place in both singles and doubles at the Freshman ’s tournament. Since then he has represented the University against Oxford at squash rackets. Mr Andrews has recently been on the Riviera, where at the Juan-les-Pins tournament ho won two first prizes—the doubles in partnership with that remarkable Canadian veteran, Col. H. G. Mayes, and tho mixed doubles with the famous AngloAmerican, Miss Elizabeth Ryan. New Zealand, by the way, are drawn against Portugal in the Davis Cup. Over in Paris

The Parisians have always been proud of the amenities of their historic city, and are delighted, without being at all surprised, that its fascinations over-

come visitors. Thus it is growing to be the custom for all our Paris Ambassadors, after serving at the Paris Embassy, to take a flat in Paris as a permanency after their official recall. Lord Derby has one, and so will Lord Crewe I bciievc. Will the new Ambassador, Sir William Tyrrell, similarly succumb? If so it will be a triumph for the gay Parisians, who will see in Sir William their stage notion of John Bull confirmed—minus only the terrible protruding teeth! Sir William is a small man, though sturdily built, and his monocle is part and parcel of his abounding personality. For Paris it will embody the comforting sang froid of John Bull’s end of the Entente Cordiale. Not the First.

Though the roll of women barristers is now growing quite a considerable one, and includes some brilliant ladies, they have not yet made much show at the courts. The greater interest is, therefore, taken in Miss Enid Rosser, who is engaged as junior to Air Roome in the Crown prosecution on the Essex murder charge. She is young, attractive, and quite able, but her appearance in due course at the Old Bailey, when the main trial takes place, will not be a record. A most chic and charming Parisian lady barrister. Maitre Odette Simon, has figured officially at the Old Bailey. This was when a friend took her to see the trial of Mme. Fahmy, the sensationally beautiful Egyptian charged and acquitted for murdering her husband, and Sir Edward Alarshall-Hall had the happy idea of getting her to act as interpreter. A Handy Man.

Air Peter Brook, whose mystic novel. “The House of Cheyne,” aroused Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s interest, is a lucky man. Strikingly handsome in the slim aesthetic manner, with a face like a high-brow K.C. he enters the literary arena well equipped. Like the late Sir Walter Besant, who was a banker, Mr Brook owns a prosperous business concern that ensures him against any of the worries of most young literary aspirants, and he has travelled half round the world, in his earlier days, as a forecastle hand on a tramp steamer, thus graduating in the best, even though least conventional, romance school for an ambitious novelist. So the late Joseph Conrad, Captain David Bone, and, to hark far back, the inimitable Charles Afarriott, are not the only old salts to take to splicing yarns instead of the main brace. Fountain Court.

Central London has no more charming and peaceful spot than Fountain Court, which, all lovers of Dickens will remember, was the trysting place of Tom and Ruth Pinch. But it has attractions which owe nothing to the novelist. The splashing of water and crooning of pigeons with a distant undertone from the traffic of Fleet Street provide a soothing harmony to the ear, while the eye is delighted by the Tudor architecture of the Afiddlc Temple Hall, the green sward of the lawns and beyond them a glimpse of the Thames and its shipping. Just now the fountain is silent in order that its basin may be cleaned—an overdue operation to judge by appearances. As usual when anything of the kind is going on it attracts a little crowd of spectators, for there seems to be nothing more enjoyable to the Londoner than to watch other people working.