LONDON LETTER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 81, 5 April 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

LONDON LETTER

LONDON, Feb. 6. I “Other than Eton.’’ Is £3OOO fur tlx; education of a boy* “at a good public school oilier than Eton” sufficient? This is the question being asked by a number uf well-to-do parents who are interested in the terms of the will of the late .Mr George de Lisle Bush, a Gloucestershire squire, who left £3OOO for hi? grandson’s education. The answer is, t rom every source, “ample.” Butting a boy's education at a good, public school at £2OO a year, ail in, the sum of £30(19 would allow for at least £IU(Mi being spent on his University education. It is quite evident the testator thought it would, be insufficient if Eton —why nut Harrow? —was the school chosen. He meant no disrespect whatever to Eton, 1 am informed by a brother ofii- | cer of the testator’s son. He realised the plain fact that an Eton or Harrow education costs £450 a year for eight years, and this would leave only about £4OO to complete his education at the university. The Cancelled Warships. The two 10,000-ton cruisers Surrey and Northuaiberiaiid, which the Government have just cancelled, are vessels which were sanctioned under the 1929 programme. I’osl ponement of their construction was first announced in Parliament by Mr William Bridgeman—now Lord Bridgeman —when he was First Lord of the Admiralty. When the announcement of a further suspension of their construction was made by Air Alacdonald in .July last, in naval circles it became generally accept iml that they would never be built at all. Two more cruisers were also provided for in the 192!) Navy Estimales —one to be of 10.000 and the other of 7000 tons—and for the present no definite statement is available as to whether they are to be proceeded with or not. In well-informed quarters, however, it is taken for granted that the 10,000ton vessel will be abandoned, and that, in fact, no more cruisers of this tonnage will be laid down in the future. For Ever England. The proposal mnanating from Cun tinental admirers —tu erect a memorial to Rupert Brooke on the island of •Skyros—has the support of the three English party leaders, and will appeal to nobody more than his brother poet. John Alasefield. Where else should the first, week of July, 1914, have found them both but in aii old house in Berkshire? Never had England sreme<l so beautiful, “ami a little colony of lovely friends was there.” They read poems i. that old haunt of beauty, and wandered on the Downs. Masclieid remembers saying that the Austro-Ser-bian business might cause a European I war, with this country involved in it, but the others did not think so. They laughed. Then the old house became a billet for caxalry, and lheir clu./gers drank at the moat. “And the next time 1 saw them they were in Gallipoli, lying in rank in the sand under Chocolate Hill, and Rupert Brooke was in his grave at Skyros.” “Boom.” Like most service men on thei elevation to the peerage, Lord I’renehard. who was 57 tn is week, has taken his own surname for his title. His career has been as much a romance as that of the service with which his name is so inseparably associated. I'resumab.y his motto will Le “Ad Astra.'' A comparatively junior officer in the army, he transferred to the old Royal Flying Corps. He initiated and commanded the Independent Air Force on thu Western Front in 19.15, thus putting the brake on enemy air raids at home. Trenchard _s dictum was “the best defence is attack,” and he justified it. He is known throughout the Royaj Air Force as “Boom, because of his initiative, immense drivingpower, and inability to suffer fools gladly. As hon. major-general in the army, colonel, of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, the only airman to become marshal of the Royal Air Force (that service’s equivalent of field-marshal’s rank), cue feels that his retirement it* his 57th year was premature. Any-, how, his peerage has been thoroughly well earned. Robot Bookie at Last. The patience of the Belling Control Board m the fact of much auuse has been awarded. Within three months a perfect “Tote’’ uiacliine, such as wc have not yet seen in this country, should be available on all important racecourses. Two types have been devised, electrical.v worked and showing each individual bi t as recorded, which have the advantage oi portable and interchangeable parts. Hitherto the t difficulty has been that, with so many racecourses to cater for, it was prohibitive to erect a separate “Tote’’l on each. All now necessary will be | the construction of the outer casing I and signboard at each racecourse, ami the expensive internal mechanism can be carried from one to another, ami j adjusted by a staff of engineers. I Mail Robbery Epidemic. It is now patent that a confederacy of mail robbers is operating systematically in this country. It is probably one of the results of the recent round up of professional crooks in New York and Chicago. At the time this occurred 1 stated that the Scotlaml Yard people fully expected many of these desperadoes would migrate to London or Paris. A formidable list of mail bag robberies representing a considerable sum lost to the P.O. and the public, now confronts our authoriTies, and it is obvious that drastic changes must be made. It is no longer safe to handle mails so offhandedly as in the past, and the r e must be not only a stronger P.O. police, but closer and prompter liaison with Scotland Yard. Otherwise the British P. 0., which has been a model, will begin to rank with the Italian before Mussolini reformed

method of warfare? So far as the military’ experts who make pleas for it. are concerned, they arc mostly whip-per-snapper.- who saw precious little of the war. But when the President of the Society’ of Chemical Industry adopts this attitude, it is time for those who retain vivid memory of gallant comrades, blinded and in agonised struggles for breath, to speak out. Dr. Levinstein's statistics are, 1 believe, worthless. Scores of thousands of men, never ev en reported gas casualties, arc to day’ in misery and slowly • lying after only’ mild touches of mustard gas. Since then a far more deadly gas has been devised. Surely to poison the wells, always outside the pale <wC warfare, is less damnable than tu poison the air? Soldier-Parson. It is all nonsense to say, as some cxofricers and soldiers do, that padres arc never lighting men. An old Regular officer tells me he knows quite a number who were furious with their archbishops and bishops for not allowing them to cut out the dog-collar, and get into “Tommy’s kit,” especially the stalwart young clergy who were ’varsity athletes, rowing, cricket, and footer men. After all, the “Church, militant” is in a very real sense a lighting organisation. There was, too, the case of the late Rev. W. H. Wingfield, who died as the result of war wounds two years ago as a rector at Norwich. His first love was the army’. He retired as a major in the Royal Horse Artillery, took Holy orders, was vicar of a fashionable London church. He threw it up when war came and commanded a brigade of Royal Artillery on the Western Front. He had the reputation of being at ope and the same lime the greatest saint and the bravest man under fire in the army. Finally, he was desperately wounded. America’s Greatest Preacher. By the death of Dr. Charles Anderso.i, Bishop of Chicago, the Continent of America has lost her greatest preacher. A Canadian by birth and upbringing, like many other Canadians in Holy Orders in the Church of England in Canada, he crossed over the border into the U.S.A., and became in time the Bishop of Chicago in the sister communion uf the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. Dr. Anderson was quite recently raised to be presiding bishop of the Church in the U.S.A., a position equivalent to that of the Archbishop of Canterbury’ in this country, and as such would have been the “big gun” oi’ the American bishops who are Io gather this summer in Lpndou for the Landteth Conference. Many thousands would have gone to St. Paul’s Cathe- • Iraj to hear Dr. Anderson, whose pulpit oratory is world famous. He will be sorely missed by the Anglo-Catho-lic party, for he was the first presiding bishop in the U.S.A., who could be called a High Churchman. Blackmail S’euth Detective Inspector Bradley, who has just retiied after 32 years with the London police, joined the force as a young constable Irom rural Glouces-tcrsii-re. But he rose to command for some years the C.I.D. at Vine-street, and specialised in the sophisticated doing of the West. End blackmailers. He is joining a well-known private detective film run by another former Scotland Yard chief. Since the legal retribution process against blackmail was made less obnoxious to the latter’s victims by anonymity, this odious form of criminality has slumped somewhat, but there is still enough to keep private detective agencies busy. Scotland Yard usuaLy, unless there is a clear case for police action, recommend blackmail victims to try a private Lord Reading’s Tragedy. The death of Lady’ Reading, to whom he was genuinely devoted is a real tragctly lor Lord Reading. She was a h-dy id’ great beauty’ as well as rare intelligence, and she and her husbami mad< une ol the most strikingly hund.so.ii:- couples in London. Iler plucky tlctcimii.ution tu carry on at all costs in India, during Lord Reading’s term as Viceroy, undermined her health. The climate did not suit her at. all, and she never l.‘ciame used to it. Hl-health has been dogging her ever since, and gre-uly’ intenered with her eager plans fur superintending their new Mayfair I'oii.r’s decoration. A friend who went wit 1 , them tu America on the famous War mission tells me Lord Reading, amidst the pressure of huge financial business, never omitted to take choice flowers home to the hotel where he stayed with Lady Reading, and it was sometimes a little embarrassing to come upon them billing and cooing in the corridors like young sweethearts. Shuttles of Commerce, Last year we claimed the lion’s share of new shipping. The total tonnage launched from the world’s shipyards was 2.793,2 H», and Great Britain and Ireland built 1,270,587 or 54 per cent, compared with only 53 per cent, •luring the two preceding twelve months. Our nearest rival was Germany with 249,077 tons, but of this total 34 vessels were to foreign orders. Of the new ships launched last year 16 were 15,000 tons or over, and we headed the list with the. Britannic, 26,840, and the Emperor of Japan, 15,000. Foreigners still continue to favour motor vessels more than our shipowners. The gross tonnage of seagoing vessels, other than sailing, in 1914 was 421 millions. At the same June date of lasj year it was 62} millions. So the shipwright, is now over 20 million tons “up” on the U-boat. Of the 1,012 vessels built last year 31 were still windjammers, but that includes