OUR LONDON LETTER

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1926, Page 7

OUR LONDON LETTER

NEWS FROM THE HOMELAND. THE GUARDS. Loudon, Oct. 21. Last Saturday's poignant ceremonial of the Horse Guards Parade with its deeply impressive muster of past ami present Guards as well as the relatives of the fifteen thousand who sleep in France was a magnificent and moving spectacle. Nobody can do these things like the Guards, whose parade ground artistry is incomparable, and it is only too true that the unveiling ceremony was far more inspiring than the Guards’ memorial itself. This massive though rather squat sculpture has, it is true, something of the firm unyielding innuendo of the Guards tradition, but it lacks elan. The rear and side bas-reliefs are not so strong and grim as those of the R.A. memorial at Hyde Park Corner, and the five full-size figures arrayed with meticulous Guards precision in front have none of the drama and flair of the artillerymen round the latter memorial. They suggest the R.S.M. s inspiration rather than the artists’ and are quite machine-like. But perhaps it is fitting that the Guards 1914 memc a .iaJ should show such fidelity to the artistic sense of its Crimean one. Even in matters of sculptured and Guard} are "semper fidelis.” STUPID COMPARISONS. Britain will honour the Guards’ memorial, however, if not for its intrinsic worth assuredly for the incomparable valour and good soldiery for which it stands. In the Great War the Guards Division superbly upheld its highest standards in the field, and none made more gallant contribution to that tradition than those temporary Guardsmen who far outnumbered the pukka Guardsmen. Sometimes there was a tendency among other divisions to be jealous of the prowess always advertised where the Guards Division was concerned, and there were occasions when the prestige of the latter robbed less-talked-of divisions of their due and proper recognition to grim heroism in the front of battle. But other soldiers cheerfully recognised the way the Guards came in for the brunt of most of the best fighting, and if they smiled at the Wellington Barracks touch that took polish and brushes even into front-line trenches they saluted the steady valour of these “spit and polish” ’ soldiers when it came to the real thing, Yet it is a mistake to talk, as one Guardsman Major- General does to-day, of the Guards doing everything a ‘Thousand times better.” The best men in the Guards avoid all bragging, colossal though their pride in their corps d'elite, and comparisons between warriors who shared a common epic is rebuked by those silent acres that areJTor ever England” where sleep the legions of the bravest of the brave.

LOST COAL BUSINESS. There was an emphatic passage in the new discarded Coal Report which seems like being completely overlooked. According to Sir Herbert Samuel and his coadjutors on the Commission, unless our coal industry is thoroughly reorganised on modern lines, bankruptcy stares it in the face. That we shall now have "no such reformation of our basic industry is pretty evident, and, meanwhile, the long coal stoppage is curtailing in a serious manner even its existing markets. How far foreign producers have made good permanently in markets formerly regarded as our preserve remains to see. Perhaps more serious than even this is the extent to which other industries, once dependent on coal, are turning to other methods of fueling. And most serious of all, from the mere coal producer’s standpoint, may be the way the general public is seeking other methods of heating and cooking. Since the coal shortage first made itself really felt, and the retail price soared so fabulously high, there lias been an unprecedented rush in London for gas and electric fires and cookers as well as oil stoves. So overwhelming has been the demand that most companies are booked up Well ahead, and new applications have to wait indefinitely. There is perhaps one bright side to this. At- least it tends towards making London's atmosphere fit for heroes without gasmasks. RAMSAY MACDONALD'S HOLIDAY. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald left on Monday morning for a holiday in the Southern Sahara. Accompanied by Mr. Noel Buxton, M.P., and Mr. C. R. Buxton, he travelled overland to Marseilles and crossed to Algiers, whence the party will go by motor across the great “Erg Oriental” as far south as Bages, using a six wheel desert car for the purpose. The Socialist leader's absence, both from the emergency sitting of Parliament at the end of this month and from at least part of the autumn session, will no doubt be another offence to the more aggressive of his (followers. They will make no allowance for the fact that his health is still far from satisfactory. lie has never recovered from the double strain to which he subjected himself during his Premiership, and many of his speeches have given sign that his nerves are in a jangled state. On a long view of the party interest as well as his own, he is taking a wise step, but that will not save him from ‘misrepresentation. OUR FOREIGN COAL. Though most people are complaining bitterly of the effects of the imported coal we are now constrained to burn, possibly few know how serious!v it is affecting all sorts of things. I am told it is having the worst imaginable effects on our railway engines. Our drivers find that it is hard to in?/n tain adequate steam pressure with j/, } but, apart from the result on the punctual running of trains, it is choking up the engines. The Southern Railway has equipped itself with a number of specially-built locomotives. These were made to burn the best Yorkshire coal. Every engine is given one day off in seven for overhaul as a matter of routine, though in favourable circumstances this is perhaps hardly essential. But while using foreign coal two and sometimes three overhauls a week are necessary. The quality of foreign coal must be remarkably poor, or else we are being

dumped with sheer refuse. If the hitter is the truth, it is hardly a goixl advertisement for Continental coal. THE ASQUITHIAN MANNER. One thing everybody notes is that the Earl of Oxford's retirement conforms severely to the Asquithian dislike of theatriealisin. In similar circumstances Mr. Lloyd George's Celtic flair would have been quite unable to resist an obvious stage setting as the fitting occasion to burst such a bombshell. Lord Oxford deliberately scorns such sensationalism, and queers his own dramatic pitch by writing a dignified letter to the proper people giving away the denouement beforehand. This hatred of advertisement in an age of publicity has certainly handicapped Lord Oxford on the popular side. He is regarded as a ‘‘high brow,” and "a superior person.” And yet those who know him are aware that he is quite an unconventional personality, anil that his sense of humour is not without even a Rabelaisian touch on occasion. AND SOME SAYINGS. A famous editor once asked Mr. Asquith, as he then was, to write his career for a "How I Became Famous” scries. The brusque reply was that he would as soon think of dispensing with his trousers in public. Ou the occasion of his first Budget speech, Mr. Asquith staggered the prim Liberals by describing himself naughtily as “a demivierge.” And then there was the day when Mr. A. J. Belfour, still a Commoner and leading the Opposition, complained bitterly that Mr. Asquith had given priority over his tariff amendment to one- of Home Rule moved by Mr. John Redmond. Mr. Asquith’s retort is worthy to rank with “C.B.’s” famous “Enough of this foolery-.” He had not considered, he said scornfully, whether he had given priority to Mr. Redmond’s motion “or posteriority to that of the right honourable gentleman.” The House of Commons relished that gibe, but it was too subtle for the groundlings.

THE REAL LORD CURZON. Only those who really knew the man intimately, or who have read his more free and easy writings, realise how grotesquely wide of the mark is the accepted popular conception of the late Lord Curzon as a pompous prig. Today Macmillan and Co., publish, thanks to discriminating literary executors, a posthumous sequel to his lordships's "Tales of Travel.” This volume, “Leaves From a Viceroy’s Notebook,” is the real George Nathaniel at his brightest, and perhaps reveals a broad humour that may slightly shock unsophisticated readers. I cull one example of Lord Curzon’s agreeable rattle of anecdote and reminiscence. He cites the instance of “a young female relative,” who with insufficient caution chose as her favourite hymn for her wedding service, the one beginning: Days and moments quickly flying Blend the living with the dead; Soon shall you and I be lying; Each within our narrow bed. TnE RIVIERA KING. The Duke of Connaught will bo leaving in a few days to take up his winter residence at Cap Ferrat—'‘the handsomest and best dressed devotee of the Riviera” as some one has described him. He goes everywhere and attends every occasion for a hundred miles along the coast. Cannes and Monte Carlo he loves the most and there is no more popular man on the esplanade when lie takes his early morning stroll before breakfast. All the cabmen know him and gather round him in clusters, when he stops to chat with one of their number. The cynics avow that his popularity is explained by the cigars he distributes on these occasions. That, however, is a libel on the cabmen though the cigars do come out from his pockets like rabbits from a conjuror's hat. THE PRODIGAL PRINCE. Prince Carol, the heir apparent of Roumania who has been deprived of his title to the succession is, I hear, making overtures to King Ferdinand, his father, and the Queen, for a reconciliation. It will be remembered that Prince Carol left his wife some time ago. No member of the Roumanian royal family has received him since he quitted his country, but the fact that he was seen at the station when his mother, the Queen, quitted Paris on her way to America, indicates that there has- been a partial reconciliation with his royal mother. It is stated that the Prince intends to seek a reeoncilation with his wife in the near future. GERMANY’S NEW AIR EXPRESS. The latest German air development shows once more how. the best laid plans of mice and man gang aft agley. Restricted by the Peacg Treaty to lowpower engines, the Germans evolved all manner of ingenious and scientific devices to surmount this handicap, with the unforeseen result that they have made greater strides in aerial dynamics than any other country. Until the lapse of the Versailles restrictions a few months ago, they used three-motor monoplanes whose total capacity did not exceed about 590 h.p. Now the Junkers Co., builders of the fine allmetal monoplanes at Bessau, have constructed the first big German air express with unrestricted engine power, in which three engines develop more than 1000 li.p. This machine .lias not yet been seen in London, but will be used on the Berlin-Crovdon service.