FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 106, 26 July 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN” HORATIO BOTTOM LEY Horatio Bottomley was once a popular hero, and many people will be glad that he ’■. to be released from gaol after serving five years of a sevenyears sentence. Indeed, many among those who suffered by his reckless gambling with other people’s money —even among those whom his speculations ruined—hoped at his trial that he would not be convicted. But fraud had entered into his transac-

tions, and the big man had to go into “retirement.” Among one of Bottomley’s successful ventures was the founding of “John Bull.” Doubtless he would be glad if he owned that paper now, for it has a circulation of over a million copies weekly, and is a very profitable proposition. But despite his imprisonment, and his 67 years, Horatio is said to be confident of his ability to reinstate himself with the public. As there are many people who will gamble on almost anything, there is little doubt that, knowing the genius of the man, there will be found those with faith and money to back his new ventures. LOOKING BACKWARD It Is sometimes unkind to refer to the past. An Australian newspaper, which is naturally silent concerning some of Australia's early histoi-y, recently discussed the American “twang,” apropos of the alleged Americanisation of Sydney. Then it was revealed to many who had not known it before that before the War of Independence many thousands of English convicts were transported to America. They were blamed for the "twang.” Doubtless some of their descendants are among “the best families” to.-dav, just as is the case in—well, perhaps the other place had better not be named. And, anyhow, the transportation of convicts to Australia was finally ended when a body of free men (some of them ex-convicts too —they may have been sent out for stealing carrots or shooting hares) lined a certain foreshore, and threatened armed resistance to the landing of a fresh shipload of broad-arrowed gentry. You’ll be very unpopular in Australia if you mention the convict days. One newly-imported Governor did so once—quite innocently referring to “the old stain, now happily obliterated,” or words to that effect. He learned a lesson in tact which he ixever forgot. RUBSIA’fi UNEMPLOYED

There is a .gentleman at Riga, in Russia, who doesn't appear to like the country or its institutions. He is the correspondent of a London newspaper, and he has, almost daily, some nasty things to say. His latest report is that the unemployed ill Russia number 1,400,000. This seems a formidable indictment of Russian misgovernment—until the figures are analysed, when it is seen that, as the population of the Soviet Union is roughly 140,000,000, the percentage of unemployment is 1 per cent. England, with 1,000,000 unemployed in a population of under 40,000,000 woulaseem very much worse off. Even New Zealand would be glad to have only 1,500 unemployed in a population of 1,500,000. It seems a pity that this young man of Riga cannot work up something more thrilling regarding Russian iniquity.

“ HUSH-HUSH ” POLICY Another instance of the fact that “no man is a prophet in his own country” (when that country is England), was given in the unheralded return to London of two very gallant airmen, Carr and Gilman, who, in a most adventurous flight, almost succeeded in establishing the world’s long-distance record. As it was, when forced down among the sharks in the Persian Gulf on their flight to India, they had covered 3,425 miles, which was only 185 miles less than the distance flown by Lindbergh in his journey from New York to Paris. Apparently the Air Ministry, w-hich had so signally honoured the American airman, did not think it worth while to announce the impending return of Carr and Gilman, and there were only a dozen people to meet them at Victoria Station—mostly pressmen. It is a strange attitude on the part of the Government air authorities. Other Governments afford every aid and encouragement to these men, but while the British Government fetes foreigners, it (in the words of Colonel Darby, head of one of the largest aircraft concerns in England), “gives neither official encouragement nor even official interest to record-breaking attempts” by English airmen. This is all the more strange when it is remembered that an Englishman was first to fly across the Atlantic.