OUR LONDON LETTER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 9 May 1925, Page 7

OUR LONDON LETTER

CHANCE FOR STATESMANSHIP (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, March 12 Although no one is very optimistic that immediate results will follow from Mr Chamberlain's visit to Paris and Geneva, there is a strong feeling in diplomatic circles in London that we are nearing the real crisis of European politics. Goi - many’s offer to participate in a defensive pact opens a great opportunity lor statesmanship. Although our foieign sccretarv has had a long interview with M. Herriot, and is to see him again when lie passes through Paris on his return journey from Geneva, the Irenc. l newspapers do not indicate much enthusiasm. Germany cannot complain, after the “Scrap of Paper” incident, if Franco d B a little sceptical of her protestations. Nevertheless there can he no real peace settlement unless France and Germany agree, metaphorically speaking, to shake hands. What will hasten this happy consummation more than anything else -will be the decline in the value of the franc, which has just suffered another . spectacular collapse. “AS I WAS SAYING” Tho House of Commons scene was amicably settled this week and might, perhaps*, with a modicum of more tact all round, have been happily avoided altogether. It was rough on Mr Austen Chamberlain, whose careful periods, pi iinarily addressed to the European Chancellories, was rudely interrupted by Mr Kirkwood’s Clydeside rasp. When the up-1 roar was over, and business was resum-. ed an hour later, Mr Chamberlains opening words were: “As I was saving !” One writer recalls the story of the 16th century Spanish poet who was arrested by the officers of the Holy Inquisition in the. midst of a lecture at Salamanca University. The poet de Leon was nearly five years in priscon, but, on ills release and return to Salamanca, resumed his lecture with the words: “Gen-j tleinen, we were . saying the other j day—!” A much nearer parallel, was Mr j Joseph Chamberlain’s, which probably j Mr Austen had in mind. When MrJ John Dillon was suspended, after a fearful scene, for calling him a “d—— har/, Joe began again: “As I was saying!

THE BUILDING OF WARSHIPS ! The issue of the annual official Return of Fleets, which appears earlier than usual, has some timely figures. Its lists of war vessels of all classes building and projected total 352. A year ago the number was 228. France and Italy are the Powers which show the greatest in- j creases.. France has in her list 35 des- ' trovers and 59 .submarine?. Slic- looks rather to torpedo craft and aeroplanes for her future defence, but she has also nine cruisers in the list, or more than any other Power except Japan. Out of all the 552 vessels, Great Britain has 20, a reduction of four on her total of a year ago. These include eight cruisers (three delayed from war programmes) and four submarines. The only nation with less war vessels under construction ■ is Germany, which is building one cruiser and one destroyer for replacement purposes in accordance with the terms of the Versailles Treaty. GENERAL “X” and MR “A” If one- may judge by all the adverse criticism heard on every side, the practice adopted by the courts of seeking to preserve the anonymity of divers distinguished personages is causing an infinite

amount of mischief. Everyono understands the kindly chivalrous spirit that animated the judge in adopting this at- : Guide in the case of General X., but j nowadays it is literally impossible to | maintain secrecy of this kind. Within a few hours at most the identity of tho ■general was common property in Meet Street. So was the identity of Mr A. Even if the secret, is not revealed instantjy in our public prints, it is promptly cabled to America, and in a little more than a week it can be read in Pall Mall smoking-rooms in heavily-leaded typo by anyone who cares to pick up ono of tho Now York dailies. j . CHANGES AT MONTE CARLO Visitors just back from tho Riviera speak rather critically of the new order of things they found prevailing at Monte Carlo. Uwav's a rather garish place with a prodigal display of gilded mirrors, the natural beauties of the famous resort, art- now rather disfigured by what one habitue describes as “advertising run .stark staring mad.” At the casino itself, too, there seems a disposition to freeze out the small man. Apart from paying for the luxury of going in (as a preliminary ,generally, to paying still more to get out) the minimum stake has been raised from five francs to ten francs. Tho general cost of living has gone up in just about the same proportion. DOING” THE WATER CHUTE Though the Earl of Balfour and the Earl of Oxford arc what might be called intellectual heavyweights, neither is a hi'di-brow, and they have always had much in common. A correspondent writes me of an incident that took place in the House when they were both plain “Mr.” The debating battle bad raged, and it was dinner-time when Mr Balfour and Mr Asquith exchanged a whispered word behind the Speaker’s chair. Thev left the House together, leaving the issue of the debate to others. At Westminster the two got into an undeigiound train, and together they might have been seen, a little later, careering down the water-chute at Earl’s Court.

i SQUASH RACKETS FOR THE | PRINCE S One familial feature that will greet ! the Prince of Wales on the “Repulse” when he boards her for his tour will he the squash rackets court, this was on i| le “Renown’ ’and its transfer to tho haltle-ciuisor for his South African tour will serve the useful purpose of providing exercise for the Prince and his staff. Tim Prince likes the game, and though the court is on (he small side, it will bo brilliantly lighted, one powerful light being fixed in each top corner. RIOT'OF MODERNISM .An oiu-osLablished firm of legal booksellers, who have been in their present, premises in the centre <>l the law world off the Strand for seventy years, are allowing themselves a riot of modernism. They are actually having the telephone installed. The business of selling law books is largely local, and barristers and solicitors usually call on the booksellers to inspect the books they contemplate having. Nowadays, however, when so many commercial houses supply managers and buyers with law books and everyone has to know a certain amount of law, the market is more, widely scattered —and a telephone would be useful. The elderly salon an, however, secretly thinks the innovation hardly respectable. A CROSS-WORD SERMON Friends who have come hack from llio States assure me that we in England leave liardlv started to know what the

cross-word puzzle craze means. In .Alm i rica, they say , cross-word puzzles have k become as vital as food and air. The climax, however, was reached a few weeks ago, when a fashionable New York parson announced that on the following Sunday he would preach from a text contained in a puzzle. The church was packed. In the nave the parson had erected a black-board with a puzzle on it, and throughout the whole of the first part, of the service everyone was hard at work with .paper and pencil. The sermon was then preached to a record oqngre^ation—most of whom had their interest concentrated on the, text, by the work they had done on it. | tirpitz ; Tho uncrowned king of London waiters abdicated last Saturday, when Signor Conte Viarcngo bade farewell to the Monico, where he lias been an institution for forty years. He returns to hi si own sunny Italy, where, in the appropriate atmosphere of l he vineyards lie may dream of the- libations of wine he has dispensed to the merry crowds from Piccadilly Circus. A man with flying Dundreary whiskers, lie was known to habitues’before. the war as “Krager”; after the war he was nicknamed variously “Tirpitz” and “The Corkscrew King.” This latter title he bore by reason of a wonderful patent lie put. upon the market. He was a great, character. Take him J for all in all, we shall not see his like again. , THE MOBY-DICK Miss Tenyson Jesse, the author of “Quarantine,” has been yachting in the Mediterranean, and has, I hear, just finished a new play. She does a great deal of her work cruising in the southtTii sons aboard /the Moby*Diolv, wliicli sometimes she brings round to Southampton water. Here the little boat swings at anchor near an old mill, which Miss Tennyson Jesse has transformed into an admirable summer cottage. The accommodation for guests is not very ample, but when the house overflows, as it often does. Miss Jesse and her sister turn gipsy, and live in a caravan outside the front door.

FIRST EDITION MARKET Contemporary values in the l'irsf Edition market are interesting. The fact that John Calsworthy heads the list will create little, if any, surprise, seeing how steadily his public has been growing in recent'years, but the name of Anthony Trollope as a good second is rather unexpected. He comes immediately before the following redoubtable names in the order give, namely: W. M. Hudson, Rudvard Kipling. Joseph Conrad, and 'Thomas Hardy. Trollope was one of that fairly numerous band of writers who pursued literary lame while remaining an official in the. Post Office. He lias been dead over 40 years, and his works have been coming to a larger public slowly’ GIUMMETT’S PRACTICE 1 was discussig the recent Test Matches this week with an old-time cricketer, who toured Australia himself in his time. Indeed, he holds one of om Test records, being the only cricketer alive with centuries to his credit in four countries, England, Australia, South Africa and America. He was telling me that lie remembers Grimmett as quite a boy. Even then he had made something of a name locally, and it is almost inexplicable that lie should have taken all this time coming to the fore. In point of years he is almost a veteran, for he must l>e somewhere in the neighbourhood of 45. Ifc practices bowling, some tunes for hours on end, in his own baik garden. CRICKET OR GOLF? 1 hoar great accounts of (lie growing golfing prowess of M“ Carr, Hie popular captain of the Notts. "County Cricket Club. He has lieen playing a good deal at Walton Heath and is'driving the ball a prodigious distacc, well over 300 yards, in fact. The number of famous sportsmen who have gravitated to golf would make a formidable list. Gilbert Je.ssop wsa a scratch golfer very soon after his name ceased to figure in the county averages, and 11. L. Doherty, of la.wn tennis fame, was on the plus mark within less than twelve months of taking tho game up. On t!ic other hand, W. G. Grace never cut much of a figure on the links, and Ranji’, though, he tried hard, never got beyond the stage of topping the ball along the ground.

OPERA AND ITS ORIGIN Royal Opera is again promised for the season at Covent Garden. Meanwhile the experiment of using the famous house as a dancing establishment while Olympia serves other purposes seems a success. And the very folk who bemoan the "come down’ ’air their wails from the dancing floor. The transformation is completely satisfying. A fresh floor has been laid on a level with the stage, and the lower tier of boxes ie used for sitting out. The orchestra is placed behind scenes which recall some palatial setting for Melba and Caruso s past triumphs. In the interval lady players replace the gentlemen. With thoughts of those summer nights when, from the back of the balcony, say, one sat and stewed and imbibed thirst-assisting lemon-squashes—while at an angle of 45 degrees one caught, an occasional glimpse of the stage from the cosmopolitan crowd one trips it now to all the latest fox trots, one steps, and waltzes, with extracts at times from the operas themselves to help revive, old memories. And with strains from the Pilgrim’s Chorus in “Tannhauser” comes the realisation that as all opera originated in the song and dance, history is only repeating itself at Covent Garden to-day. QUEUE ETHICS The Reandean management at tho St. Martin’s), where Frederick Lonsdale’s poignant comedy “Spring Cleaning” still draws popular houses, talks of reforming tho theatre queue. ’The hired place warmer is to he abolished, and each queueist made to stand in bis or her own 1 wots. It is a noble impulse, but I fear impracticable. Some selfish profiteer, who does not scruple to commit the dou bio human indiginity of hiring someone to keep his place in heaven until tho curtain rings up, and of thrusting upon decent folks the intimate association of mercenaries, will take the case to the Law Courts —where incidentally tho hireling queue system attains its ignoble apothesis whenever an unsavoury cause oolebro is “on” and Reandean will lose. Our law holds no ukase against queue demoralisation. The Romans did not foresee the point. (All Rights Reserved.)