A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 85, 4 January 1935, Page 7

A BACKGROUND TO THE NEWS

Titles of Honour

The following are further descripions of titles bestowed in. connection with the New Year Honours: BARONET The present position of a Baronet, a rank intermediate between the Peerage proper and the Knightage, dates from 1611 in the reign of James the First, who sold the honour to obtain revenue. It is linked with the nobility by virtue of its being hereditary and being conferred by patent alone. In other respects it has much the appearance of a specialised order of Knighthood. A Baronet has no coronet or robes. The wives of Baronets are Baronetesses, but the word is scarcely ever used; they are styled’“Lady” without any Christian name, or “Dame” with the Christian name.

PRIVY COUNCILLOR A Privy Councillor is chosen at the Sovereign’s will, and no patent is necessary; the required oath taken, he becomes a Councillor for life or for the life of the Sovereign, though subject to removal or resignation. The number, which at first was only about 12, is ’ now indefinite. On the accession of a new Sovereign the Privy Council must be reconstituted, or newly sworn in, within six months, and any member who does not present himself for reswearing within that time forfeits his membership, though not the style of “Rt. Hon.” The members of the Privy \ Council range down from the first Prince of the Blood Royal to private gentlemen possessing no title except the dignified one of “Right Honourable, 'I which is conferred by the membership itself. St. John of Jerusalem.

Lord Bledisloe has been a Knight of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. This Order had its origin in Jerusalem and Acre, as an international confraternity for the relief of Crusad- > ers, and was later sovereign in Rhodes ‘ and in Malta, where its Knights kept galleys and galleons, to attack the Barbary Corsairs and to prevent the spread of Turkish rule in the Mediterrranean, from 1530 till 1798. Like other ancient Orders of Chivalry the Order of St. John had also Priories and Commanderies in the different countries of Europe, those in England and Scotland being dissolved at the same time as the monasteries. In 1830, it was decided to revive the confraternity in England in conformity with the reformed religion, for the purpose of performing ambulance and other charitable work, and in 1888 a Royal Charter of Incorporation was granted. Membership of the Order does not confer any rank, style, title, or precedence. The work of the British Order is the control of the St. John Ambulance and Brigade, and of the British Ophthalmic Hospital at Jerusalem. King George V is the Sovereign Head and Patron of the British Order, and H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught is its Grand Prior. Italy and Abyssinia. »

Italy is having trouble with Abyssinia. At the bottom of the trouble is trade, and the differences are of long Standing, Italy complains that Abyssinia breaks the trade conventions which exist with Italy whenever it suits her purpose to do so. Italy is chiefly concerned in trade with Abyssinia through Eritrea, on the north-east, and Italian Somaliland, on the south-west. For this reason she would like to connect her two'colonies by a railway line running through Abyssinia. Italy’s relations with Abyssinia will always be difficult while her present handicap continues. Whereas France has a railway from Djibouti!, in French Somaliland to Addis Ababa, and the British have a fairly accessible port at Zeila, in British Somaliland, there lies between Italian Eritrea and Abyssinia, the inhospitable Danakil country in which Menelik of Abyssinia overwhelmed an Italian Army in 1896, a disaster which the Italians have never forgotten. Britain’s Food Supplies.

It is stated that the Empire now supplies just 50 per cent, of Britain’s total imports of food stulls. In this connection the following figures are interesting. They show that, while imports from the Empire and foreign countries are tending to an equality, the gross totals show a great decline in value since 1929. In the following figures (000,000 omitted) imports from foreign countries are given first, and from Empire countries second. 1929, £345; £l9O-; 1930, £297; £178; 1931, £260; £157; 1932, £213; £160; 1933, £187; £153. These reduced totals are due to the lower prices for primary produce, and to Britain's more intensive farming schemes. The British wheat crop for 1933 was about equal to the highest previously recorded; the yield of potatoes was 10 cwt. per acre above the average; the output of milk has shown a continuous increase since 1924; and poultry-keeping, and the egg yield, have shown remarkable Increases. With the exception of cattle there was a slight decrease in live stock in 1933 compared with 1932. Latvia.

The unnamed consul allegedly concerned in a plot against Stalin is said to be the ex-Latvian Consul-General at Leningrad. The Latvian Republic, once a part of Russia, includes the great ice-free port of Riga, which has gained prominence as the chief centre from which news about the impending collapse of the Soviet system has been assiduously circulated in recent years. Latvia- is predominantly an agricultural country, and more than twothirds of her total population depends directly on agriculture for a living. The population is under 2,000,000, and includes a strong Russian minority of about 14 per cent., and substantial fractions of Jews aud Germans. The majority of the people are Protestants, but there is a Roman Catholic minority of nearly 25 per cent., and the Orthodox Greek Church has also a considerable number of adherents. Latvia lost nearly 40 per cent, of her population during the war and the period of acute disturbance which followed it. Her leading exports are timber, flax and butter, and she needs to import cereals. Her chief source of imports is Germany, and Germany also takes the leading place among her markets, followed by Great Britain and Russia. Latvian industries were severely damaged because all the available plant, including most of the rolling stock of her railways, was removed to Russian territory during the war or destroyed in the course of the civil disputes. The collapse of Germany in 1918 was followed by a Bolshevik invasion of Latvia, and thereafter by a devastating and tangled civil war in which Bolsheviks, Germans and Latvian national forces were intermingled. Only after the Russians and Germans had been driven out with the help of the Allies was Latvia In a position to settle down. Her politics have continued to be dominated by fear of Russia,