The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 8

THE MANCHESTER" GUARDIAN, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1932 8 COURT PERSONAL OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENCE debtors. The words would bear that meaning; they may, of course, mean something much less hopeful. one wonders, what the effect of these persistent repressive measures is likely to be on the minds of the unemployed) Useful and Economical CHRISTMAS PRESENTS Very Choice Selection BAXENDALE LTD, Miller St, Manchester reached by the two Houses of the United States Conn-ess on the independence of the Philippines in ten years' time. The United States is to retain its naval and military rights in perpetuity, and it is proposed to negotiate a treaty -with foreign countries for the "perpetual neutralisation" of the islands. (3) BY PRIVATE WIRE.

3ome of the London boroughs have recently bought land in Essex for still more dumping-grounds. Old and New Plays for Christmas Among the Christmas absentees appear to be "The Private Secretary" and "Charlie's Aunt," but "When Knights Were Bold haB survived and Mr. Bromley Challenor will once more be in armour at the Fortune Theatre for matinees beginning on Boxing Day. At the same house there is a revival of Mr. Garland Anderson's play about the colour bar called "Appearances, which had a long run at the Royalty a year or two ago.

All the profits from this venture are going to the unemployed, so the charitable may take a Christmas box to give a Christmas D0X- "Where the Rainbow Ends-' continues its unending reappearances at the Holborn Empire. "Peter Pan" will, as usual now, be at the Palladium, with Miss Jean Forbes-Robertson as Peter, and Mr. Milne's adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's story "Toad of Toad Hall" has deservedly become one of the Christmas regulars. This LONDON, Thursday Night. Mr.

Lloyd Georges Quarter of an Hour Mr. Lloyd George had a belligerent quarter of an hour to-day, and the fighting, to use the words of the old communiques, was on all fronts. It shook the House up a good deal while it lasted, and, what is more, nobody appeared to Tesent it. When Mr. Lloyd George spoke in the debts debate a week ago, though he was much less polemical then, he met with check after check from hostile Tories.

To-day when he was really laying about him no one minded. There is a feeling abroad that, however much there may be to be said in general for the doctrine of Cabinet secrecy, the performance of Lord Hailsham and the Lord Chancellor yesterday was rather overdone, and I think by reaction the House almost approved the way in which Mr. Lloyd George mocked at that portentous commination service. Toys versus Coal The negotiations which have been going on in Berlin between delegations representing the British and German Governments on trade matters have been adjourned until January. According to information which reaches me, the negotiations are not prospering.

Indeed, I am told they are perilously near breaking down, though every effort will be made to save them from doing so when they are resumed next month. The position apparently is this. The German Government is prepared to enlarge the German quota for British coal, but what she asks in return is a preferential duty for German toys in the British market. The British Government will not give this compensation. It is not prepared to expose the British toy industry to the competition of the very efficient German toy manufacturer, even in return for a bigger German market for British coal.

What the increases in the German demand for British coal would amount to one does not know, but the production of British toys for which the Government appears so solicitous amounts (as was shown at a recent inquiry) in value to only a little move than 1,000,000, even when sporting equipment and juvenile bicycles and such things are all thrown in. It is held that it would not represent anything like that sum if the criterion was toys properly so called. To understand Germany's demand for preferential treatment for her toy industry it must be remembered that, having been shut out of the United States market, the British market is now the only considerable one left to her. The Defence of London Although the building of the block of offices on the site of Carlton Gardens is still in full swing, despite the efforts of the Minister of Agriculture to get the operations suspended, the efforts of those who are anxious to save one of London's last bitr nieces of town plan ning are not being relaxed. Arrangements were sec on iooi in- day to form a stiong committee to defend the Mall from the piecemeal vandalism of the Crown Commissioners.

Mr. J. C. Squire, editor of the London Mercurv. who did so much to save Wren's City churches from the housebreaker and Stonehenge from the bungalow and the Olde Englyshe Tea-shoppe, is taking an active part in the formation of this committee.

The first meeting is to take place soon after Christmas. The whole fate of the Mall now depends upon the speed with which its defenders can act. Every day the pink steel girders are being hoisted into position and the concrete is being lowered into the vaBt hole which the Commissioners have bored into the Crown property, and the rattle of cranes and the shouting of foremen seem to crow louder and louder. Vandalism is rapidly getting a vested interest on the site, and every day adds to the amount of money that is being poured into the yawning hole and consequently to the difficulty of saving the faubourg. But the City churches and Stonehenge were sa'ed, and history may well repeat itself.

Another Anti-Damping Move As you explained in a recent article, one of the oldest and most unsavoury scandals in London government is the dumping of the rubbish on the unoffending districts outride. The chief dumping-ground of London boroughs anxiouB to get rid of their rubbish is the marsh land near the Thames in Essex. The colossal dump at Dagenham, which smokes and smells day and night, is notorious. There have been negotiations and conferences between the local authorities for a long time past, the aid of Government has been invoked in the attempt to get proper regulation of the dump nuisance, but nothing much has been done. Now the Essex County Council is promoting a bill to make it unlawful for outside authorities to deposit refuse in the county without the consent of the Council and the local authorities in the dumping area.

There is precedent for this move in the success of Surrey in obtaining powers to control the dumping of London rubbish there, and Essex, which suffers more than Surrey, is at last trying to protect itself. The nuisance is becoming worse, because CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR HOLIDAY ARRANGEMENTS. OFFICE HOURS. MONDAY, DEC. 26: CLOSED ALL DAY.

TUESDAY, DEC. 27: OPEN 9 a.m. to 5 30 p.m. MONDAY, 2: OPEN 9 a.m. to 5 30 p.m.

THE GUARDIAN MANCHESTER, FRIDAY, December 23, 1932 TO-DAY'S PAPER SPECIAL ARTICLES In Advent t8 Richard Arkwright 8 Gramophone Music 7 Liverpool University 7 A Metropolis of Antiquity 1 The Halle Concert 11 Centies for Unemployed: Bury and Rochdale 6 Winter Visitors 0 A Bookman's Notes Book Reviews 8 Wireless Programmes JO CORRESPONDENCE A Menace to Civil Liberties (Lord Allen) 18 Housing Policv (Canon T. Shim-well and Gradwell) 16 Secondary School Fees (Mr. A. S. Firth) 16 Japan in the Near East (Mr.

O. Haber) SPORT on page 2. COMMERCIAL INDEX on page 12 HOME Mr. Lloyd George, who spoke on unemployment in the House of Commons yesterday, criticised the Premier for being absent from Monday's debate on unemployment. If Mr.

MacDonald was well enough to travel to Lossiemouth and to broadcast a speech from there he ought to have been in the House. He was showing that he had no sense of his great responsibility. (4) Mr. Lloyd George replied in the House of Commons yesterday to statements made in the House of Lords on Wednesday during the debate on Cabinet secreev. He declared that if there were any more partial disclosures of matters which occurred whilo he was Prime Minister ho would, without hesitation, take the responsibility of publishing the whole transaction.

(4) Sir J. Gilmour, the Home Secretary, replying to further protests in the House of Commons yesterday about the imprisonment of Mr. Mann and Mr. Llewellyn, said he had no reason to think that justice is not being carried out," and he did not propose to release them. (4) Sir Samuel Hoare, Secretary for India, stated in the House of Commons yesterday that "the evidences of goodwill in India seemed to show that we were at the beginning of a new chapter." (4) More totalisators were in use last night at greyhound tracks on the nonprofit-taking system.

(3) Lord Irwin, replying to a Welsh deputation yesterday on the question of higher secondary school fees, made an offer of certain concessions. (16) The question of the legality of the totalisator on greyhound-racing tracks was mentioned yesterday during the inquiry held lv Mr. H. Stewart, an Inspector of the Ministry of Health, into the right of the Manchester City Council to refuse sanction for a proposed grevhound-racing track at Chcetham Hill. (12) Dr.

H. Spencer Jones, Astronomer at the Cape of Good Hope Observatory, has been appointed Astronomer Royal at Greenwich in succession to Sir Frank Dyson, who will retire on February 28 next. (9) Disturbances occurred at Glasgow Green, Glasgow, yesterday afternoon during an unemployed demonstration. Ten constables were hurt, and two are stated to be in a serious condition. The police made a truncheon charge.

(9) At the Head Masters' Conference yesterday there was a discussion on the school certificate and matriculation. Dr. Norwood, of Harrow, said that out of every 16 people in secondary schools only one proceeded to the university, but the education of the other 15 was conducted on exactly the same lineB as if matriculation at a university were the one and only goal. Freedom was needed to give a school education more suited to modern needs. The first, step was to divorce the school certificate from university matriculation, (5) FOREIGN Our Paris correspondent reports that THE CHRISTMAS PARTY AT SANDRINGHAM The King and Queen, aocompsnied by Princess Elisabeth and Princess Margaret, left London yesterday for Sandringham, where they will spend the Christmai holiday.

Princess Elisabeth, who was wealing a caped, fur-trimmed coat of old gold, and a tam-o'-shanter to match, was carrying a. little black bag as she walked along the platform at King's Cross, smiling at everyone. By her side toddled het little sister, cosily dressed in a saxe-blue coat shaped hke her sister's. After the two Princesses had entered their coach, Princeis Eliiabeth again stepped 011 tn the platform to be introduced to Mr. William Whitelaw.

chair-man of the L.N.E.R., to whom she smilingly proffered a little white-gloved hsnd. Shortly after shs had rejoined" the train the King and Queen arrived on the platform. The Queen was chatting to Sir Ralph L. Wedgwood, chief general manager of the company, and the King was accompanied by Mr. Whitelaw.

The Queen, who was wearing a long black coat with a fu- collar, immediately entered the train, and the King, who wore a long dark oercoat and a bowler hiu, joined her a few moments later. As the train steamed out the two Princesses waved to station officials, who, caps in hands, returned the compliment. PRINCES' HELP FOR WINDSOR UNEMPLOYED The Princo of Wales and the Duke of York, as residents of Windsor Great Park, have both given generous donations towards a fund started by the Commissioners for Crown lauda for the relief of unemployed in Windsor and district. Sufficient money has now been raised to start men in regular work immediately after Christmas. Preference will be given to men who have not been able to draw unemployment pay ind they will bo provided with work which win improve the amenities of the park.

Three hundred and forty men employed on the Crown lands at Windsor have all agreed to give a weekly contribution towards the fund and it is hoped to have about fifty extra men in regular work until the end of March. PRINCE GEORGE IN BED WITH FEVERISH COLD It was officially stated at York House, St. JameB's Palace, yesterday that Prince George, youngest son of the King and Queen, is suffering from a feverish cold in the head. He is remaining bed on his doctor's oiders. Last night's report was that the Prince was going on well.

The cold developed on Wednesday night after Prince George had attended, with the Prince of Wales, a staff dinner of the Duchy' of Cornwall at Duchy Office in Buckingham Gate. Sir Stanley Hewett, the King's doctor, saw Prince George at York House yesterday morning. It is understood that the cold is in no way a serious one. Piincc George was to have attended the opening luncheon of tho Olympia Circus yesterday. It would have been the first royal visit to a circus, with tl(0 exception of a visit by Prince Arthur of Connaught last year, since Quccm Victoria attended the Olympic Circus in 1887.

THE PRIME MINISTER Among the Christmas cards Mr. MacDonald has received is one from the King. Another has come from the Lobby correspondents of the House of Commons. Tha Prune Minister's Christmas card is a reproduction of the picture The Gentlo Shepherd," by David Wilkie. Mr.

MacDonald went for a walk at Lossiemouth yesterday. He was wearing a heavy overcoat, and his cough appeared to be troublesome. JONES IN THE PEERAGE The 1933 edition ol Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage," which is just published, includes in its preface comments a note on the elevation of Mr. Leifchild Stratten Lf if -Jones (now Lord Rhayader) to the peerage, which, it was said, was the first occasion on which the surname of Jones had entered those Debrett comments that this was not the case, as in 1628 the son of a Jonea who was Archbishop of Dublin was created Lord Ranelagh, a title which became extinct in 1885. The present Bishop of Sodor and Man (uho, however, has neither seat nor vote in the Bouse of Lords) is also named Jones.

The total number of honours within the scope of Debrett conferred in the post twelve months amount to upwards of 320. DR. KENNETH GIBBS RESIGNS Dr. Kenneth P. Gibbs, of the Old Rector-, Hatfield, has resigned from the Archdeaconry of St.

Albans after 23' years. Dr. Gibbs has not been in good health for some time, and he has been ordered by Sir Thomas Hordet a complete reit for two months. Dr. Gibbs feels in these circumstances that he cannot continue as archdeacon, and has tendered his resignation to the Bishop of St.

Albans, who has regretfully accepted it. Dr. Gibbs, who is the fifth son of the first Lord Aldonham, was ordained to the curacy of St. Andrew's, Wells Street, London, in 1880, and was appointed Archdeacon of St. Albans in 1909.

He was made Prolocutor of the Lower House of the Convocation of Canterbury in 1625, and vice chairman of the House 01 Clergy of the National Assembly, of which he became chairman in 1929. In that year the Lambeth decree of Doctor in Divinity was bestowed upon him by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Dr. Gibbs has been chaplain to the King since lBZL DR. AXEL MUNTHE'S GIFT Dr.

Axe! Munthe, the author of "The Story of San Michele" and (he persons! friend and medical attendant of the lite Queen Victoria of Sweden, has informed King Gurtav that in memory of the late Queen he is giving his revenue from this book to be distributed by the King for the benefit of blind people, Laplanders, and animals. The King has accepted the task of administering the fund, and as a first instalment Dr. Munthe has 'sent the King 100,000 kroner (approximately 5,000) together with a letter from Capri, in which he urges that there ought not to be any attempt to force on the Laplanders the doubtful blessing of civilisation and the evil eye of obtrusive tourist. He also declares -that he would like to write another book if by that means there could provided food for all the birds that now famish in Sweden in winter time. MR.

WILLIAM HOWARTH After his recent illness Mr. William Howarth, formerly managing director of tho Fine Cotton Spinners' and Doublers' Association, hopes to be able to leave his bed this Christmas. Mr. Howarth underwent several operations' at a Manchester nursing home this year. Since leaving the nursing home he has been convalescing at his home at Bolton I The Government, he bravely announces, is not to be intimidated; demonstra tions will defeat their own object, That is not self-evident.

Repression is more likely to do so. The decent working man," as he says, wants work, not demonstrations. But if he does not get work, and he comes to believe that the Government is not helping him to get it, and his liberty to demonstrate appears to be in peril, in whom is he the more likely to trust the agitators who are sent to gaol on trivial charges or the Government that appears to ransack the Statute-book for means to stifle revolutionary opinion? Monetary Reform in Practice The House of Commons discussed for some four hours on Wednesday a private member's motion for "repealing those enactments which "still tie this country to that the gold standard system in its national "aspect." The motion was talked out, yet perhaps at that very moment the enactments in question were being rendered quite illusory by a simple little operation in Threadneedle Street. Mr. Hore-Belisha, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, defended the present currency arrangements against the tirades of several monetary reformers by claiming that, after all, even though the Bank of England note issue is limited to the equivalent of its gold holdings and a legally established total of Government securities, yet there is in it a flexibility, a pliancy which eliminates the danger of a currency shortage for trade purposes.

He was referring to the power of the Treasury under the Act of 1928 to alter the maximum of Government securities valid as backing for the currency a power which the Treasury used once in 1931 (raising the maximum from 260,000,000 to 276,000,000, which it still is), and in many people's opinions in and out of Parliament it might have used it again at the present juncture to offset the effect of the American debt payment. But the monetary reformers always cast doubt on the Treasury's willingness to use this legal power of expanding the potential currencj. On that very Wednesday night, however, the cashier of the Bank of England was recording the fact-published to-day that during the previous week 2,000,000 of currency notes have been returned from circulationan entire contrast to the experience of earlier years, when the public has withdrawn some 7,000,000 of additional notes for Christmas needs. The explanation is simple the joint-stock banks have changed their established practice and have transferred a portion of their own paper-money reserves to the Bank of England. As they possess at least 40,000,000 such notes oTer and above their ordinary till-money reserves, the process can probably still be carried a bit farther.

The Bank and the banks have the sanction of the Macmillan Committee for considering such a further centralisation of reserves as a means for widening the Bank's issue powers. Yet the Committee added this observation Its adoption would jrreatly mitigate the practical evils of continuing the present fixed fiduciary system but it would not meet the point of principle it would merely provide a means of rendering the existing system of regulation a dead letter, without estab lishing any right principle in its place So really the introducer of the motion has altogether what he wants on the negative side. Our currency is no more tied to gold internally than it is externally. It is tied to the wisdom or caprice of Threadneedle Street. Hoover-Roosevelt A stranger, on having the United States Constitution described to him, would say, like the man in the story when he first saw a kangaroo, "There ain't no sich thing a remark which may be made with the less offence in that the stranger would certainly have said no less about the Constitution of our own country.

Mr. Hoover desired co-operation regarding war debts between the outgoing Administration, which is his own, and Mr. Roosevelt's, which comes in on March 4. He would have liked to have a delegation representing both parties which would have dealt with war debts, World Economic Conference, and armaments as related questions. Mr.

Roosevelt declines the proposition and will be committed to nothing for two months and more. Even had he agreed he could not have committed the new Congress, and one can understand his fear that, while Mr. Hoover had the nominal responsibility for the proposed negotiations, he himself would have to foot the bill which a suspicious Congress might present to him. The question is how much can be done even without open co-operation. Since the American mountain would not come to the European Mahomet, Mahomet went to the mountain.

It would be regrettable if Mahomet now found that the mountain had disappeared. Things are not as bad as that. Mr. Roosevelt promises to "consult freely" if Mr. Hoover will conduct "preliminary explorations" through, the ordinary Government channels.

That is by no means what we had hoped, but if it were carried out to the full it might mean that the ideas of Mr. Roosevelt and bis advisers were the real influence guiding the discussions. In that case Mr. Roosevelt, when he entered on his term of responsibility in March, could begin not with an investigation but with a policy which had already been fully discussed, though not by him directly, with the The Situation in India We are at the beginning of a new chapter in India," Sir Samuel Hoare said yesterday in the Commons, and everyone in this country will trust that he is right. There has certainly been some recent evidence both in India and at home to support the belief.

But Sir Samuel's further statement that at the beginning of the new year the emergency ordinances "would no longer be required" is liable to mis interpretation. It might be as well to make the position clear. What the statement certainly does not mean is that the special powers exercised during the past year under these ordinances are to be withdrawn either as a whole or in any considerable part. All that is happening is that these powers for combating civil disobedi' such as the "no rent campaign and the like powers which include the censorship of the press and the right to imprison without trial, are mostly being transferred into thf ordinary legislation of the country. During the paBt few weeks both the central Government at Delhi and the provincial Legislatures have been busy passing a series of Acts, variously entitled "Public Security Bill," Criminal Law Amendment Bill," "Special Powers Bill," the effect of which will be to carry on these extraordinary executive powers, some for one year, but mostly till 1935.

This fact Sir Samuel Hoare omitted to mention, unless his statement that the provincial councils "practically all welcomed the suggestion" that theBe powers should be imposed on the Legislatures rather than on the Governor General is accounted a mention. Undoubtedly it is an im provement that these extra-legal safe guards should now be the charge of Indian Parliaments and possibly within their own responsibility to repeal or retain when the new Constitution is established. But that does not mean that the present authorities in India are suddenly to dispense with government by ordinance on January 1 next. School Fees The Board of Education reserved to itself an ample discretion in the working of Circular 1421, and there are now signs that it is going to exercise its discretion (under Lord Irwin's guidance) in a more liberal manner than was expected when the circular was first issued. A few days ago it was announced that the Board had adopted the scheme submitted by the Manchester Education Committee, although the normal fee proposed is only six guineas, as compared with the nine guineas laid down in the circular.

And yesterday Lord Irwin told a deputation representative of Welsh education authorities that they might, if they found it advisable to do so, disregard the suggested increase which had been placed before them "for their guidance by the Board." The Board is certainly administering the circular with an extraordinarily wide dis-retion," and one may, without injustice to Lord Irwin, attribute some part of its new liberality to the vigorous and almost unanimous protests which the circular aroused from education authorities all over the country. But in one respect the change of front comes too late. Many education committees as Mr. A. S.

Firth points out in his letter, published on another page have already prepared and submitted their Had they been able to foresee the attitude which the Board was to take towards Manchester and towards Wales, they would in many cases have revised their own plans. Can they do so now? There is a certain justice about the way in which Manchester's bold disregard of the terms of the circular has been rewarded. this is a case in which the sins of the city fathers ought not to be viBited upon the children. DEATH OF SERVANT OF GARIBALDI Her Master's Last Words Leghorn-, Thttrsijat. The death has occurred here, at the age of 83, of Filomena.

Natal once the domestic servant of Garibaldi and the last of a little group of people who saw the Liberator die in 1882. Filomena entered the service of Garibaldi in 1877, and followed him and his family in the wanderings of the last years of his life. After his death she remained in the service of the Garibaldi family till she was too old to work. Descendants of Garibaldi were present at her deathbed. Filomena loved to tell of the scene as Garibaldi lay dying on the Island of Caprera before an open window facing his beloved Nice." As the watchers waited silently around the bed there was a whirr of wings and two little birds alighted suddenly on the window-sill.

A woman turned to drive them away lest they should disturb the dying man. Then Garibaldi uttered his last words Do not frighten them. I know who they are. Thev are the souls of my beloved daughters, Rosa and Anita." The birds were still on the window-sill when Garibaldi died. Renter.

THE REV. J. BENNETTS The funeral of the Rev. John Bennetts. of Loveclough.

Rossendale, retired Wesleyan minister, who died on Monday, took place yesterday at Crawshawbooth. He was 70 years of age and spent 42 years in the ministry, retiring in 1929. The circuits he served included several in East Lancashire, Pontefract, and, Glasgow. In his early years in the ministry he worked in the West Indies mission field. Six Weeks' Respite The House of Commons rose yesterday for six weeks' holiday.

It will be a welcome respite for the Government, and Ministers are but human if they are glad to get away from their critics. It is only a short month since the new session began and Parliament entered on what the Prime Minister described as a very strenuous session with very important legislation." The signs of strenuousness are not yet visible, and the chief impression that has been given is that the Government is prepared to do anything to avoid addressing itself to the most urgent domestic question of unemployment. The criticisms of Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Lawson yesterday were well-founded.

Most people who heard the Prune Minister broadcast speech must have been struck with dismay that after all thepe months of continued depression the Government has nothing to suggest but to ask private individuals to subscribe their pennies and search out their old clothes for the help of the unemployed. The Minister of Agriculture offered two lines of defence. One wa3 the curiously equivocal one that everybody who heard Mr. MacDonald must have realised that his was the speech of a man who needed a holiday the second was that it was not an announcement of Government policy but merely a talk in a series arranged by the B.B.C, Major Elliot's ingenuity calls for admiration, but Mr. Lloyd George's comments on the meagreness of the bankrupt's assets were rather more to the point.

Charity and voluntary effort are excellent in their place. They are badly needed, but they are not enough, and if the Government imagines that it can long continue to rely on them it will get a rude awakening. A striking and rapid recovery in trade is not to be expected. The unemployment figures may show a slight seasonal fall this week, but, as the Minister of Labour is constrained to admit, this will be followed by a much sharper seasonal rise in January. The prospects of international economic co-operation have become less good with Mr.

Roosevelt's refusal of President Hoover's suggestion for immediate discussions on debts in preparation for the World Economic Conference. It may be months before a beginning can be mr.de in positive action on currency and exchange policy and the lowering of trade barriers. In face of this what is the Government doing 1 A month ago the Prime Minister compared it to a Council of War which sits, plans, consults and produces proposals without delay." It is also, he said, "blazing a trail." But unless the supreme art of war and of path-finding consists in sitting still, the Government has yet to begin to justify itself. It has not only no ideas of its own but it devotes itself steadily to trampling on those of others. A conference is to take place at Geneva next month on the proposal, strongly advocated on the Continent, that international action should be taken! to shorten hours of work so as to absorb a greater quantity of labour.

So far the British Government has declined even to discuss the possibilities of the suggestion. Its representative (alone among Government representatives) voted with the employers against any conference being held, and unless its policy has drastically changed the same obstructionist tactics will be continued. But in one direction at least the Government's activity has been spirited and its vigilance unceasing. Lord Brentford has not lived in vain, and Mr. MacDonald, who fell in 1924 because a Communist leader was not prosecuted, is in no danger of suffering political extinction because of any similar weakness on the part of hi3 present Administration.

The prosecution of the Communist agitators haB been carried on with a thoroughness that would do credit to a better cause. Mr. Lansbury's speech in the House yesterday and the letter from Lord Allen of Hurtwood in our columns today call attention to the dangers to civil liberties that lie behind the recent prosecutions. In the Mann and Llewellyn cases the authorities (for whom the Home Secretary yesterday assumed responsibility) raked up a stray clause from the Seditious Meetings Act of 1817 which was directed against the processions of Reformers to Westminster. In the case of Mrs.

Duncan they go back to an Act of 1360, which concerns, among others, those mediteval ghosts, night-walkers, and eavesdroppers. In the Elias case the indictment charged the man with inciting persons "to cause discontent, "dissatisfaction, and ill-will between different classes of his Majesty's and to create public against the peace." It is not creditable to the Government's lawyers that the only way they can conceive of dealing with awkward people like the members of the Unemployed Workers' Movement is, on the one hand, to burrow in the obscurer shelves of a legal museum, and, on the other, to use a form of words which, interpreted strictly, might be held to prevent the legitimate expression of p'olitical feeling. The Home Secretary did not meet these criticisms yesterday. All he was concerned about was countering the threat of the Communists to use "mass force" against the Government. This, considering their numbers, sounds a little empty and is a reflection rather on the ability of the police to control a London crowd than on the gravity of any situation they might create.

Has the Home. Secretary considered, year it occupies the Royalty at matinees, and Mr. Frederick Burtwell will be once more puffing out his chest as Mr. Toad an exercise which he performs, with the maximum of pomp and circumstance. Pantomime has never mode so wide an appeal in recent years as it will this Christmas.

In addition to the suburban houses. Kino's, Hammersmith, Brixton, and Wimbledon, it holds four WcBt End theatres. At Daly's is "Mother Goose," at the Scala "RobiuBon Crusoe" (with Miss Ella Retford), at the Lyceuin ''The Sleepips: Beauty," and at the Hippodrome "Dick Whittington," with Miss Fay Compton and Mr. Leslie Henson. A Translator of the Scriptures Dr.

Robert Kilgour, who retires from the position of editorial superintendent of the British and Foreign Bibie Society which he has held for 24 years, is not going to be content at the age of 65 to be idle. He has been appointed officiating chaplain to the Scots Guards and other Church of Scotland and Presbyterian troops in the London district. For nearly a quarter of a century he has superintended the London and Foreign Bible Society'3 work of translating the Scriptures. Ho himself was one of the two translators of the Old Testament into Nepali, and it is his boost that in hip time in the superintendent's chair the number of languages in which some portion of the Scriptures is available has increased from 412 to 625. I do not know anything which better indicates the expansion of missionary enterprise in the last quarter of a century," he said, than the fact that the number of languages into which portions, New Testaments and complete Bibles, have been translated has increased in each case by 60 per cent.

Some portion of Scripture is now available in a language which they understand to four-fifths of the human race supposing everybody could read." The translations had been undertaken, said Dr. Kilgour, largely by missionaries, with the help, of course, of indigenous Christians, and the number of these who undortake this work is now greater than ever before. Women missionaries are also doing much more translation work than ever before. Dr. Kilgour looked proudly round the library the holiest book- room in the world," he calls it, with its 18.000 volumes printed in hundreds of different tongues.

Asked to point out the greatest treasure of them all, he unlocked a 'glass case, which is wheeled every night into a strong-room, he said, and took out a yellow fragment of papyrus, part of a Coptic version of St. John's Gospel, written in the fourth century a.d. Beside it lay the woven linen bag in which it was found ten years ago in a cemetery in Egypt, where it had probably lain for 1,500 years. A Tenants' Dinner I Antiquity is thrust upon many things in London, but in none so gracefully as on the Bush House property, which occupies the main site in the half-moon of the Aldwych site, on which the London County Council once thought of erecting their headquarters. Bush House now occupies the centre of the site, and its two wings cover the Aldwych side.

The budding of the two wings on the Strand side to make the great of the original scheme awaits more prospeious times. To-day Bush House had its annual audit dinner, at which in the ancient manner the tenants are regaled after having paid their rent, as is the custom of this establishment. The population of this building is about 6,000, and the heads of the businesses at this dinner are about 200. Three-fifths of the building is in St. Clement Danes parish, and a collection is a fair barometer of trade, for in this international office, with its large proportion of American, Mexican, French, Russian, and German businesses, the tribute to the little church in the Strand must be the easiest of all in which to make economies.

Mr. Ralph Peck, the manager of the con-. cern, was as frank and witty as ever in diagnosing the situation and in encouraging all his tenants to work hard and spare no effort to make plenty of money in order to keep him and his assistants in their posts. He disclosed a side of the capitalist system which must have puzzled and worried the tenants of the Russian interests in hi3 remarkable tenantry. AT THE COMEDY invention, unlike the sketches which dealt in tired-our.

jokes about the Englishman's love of cricket and his gentlemanly good form. It was curious that after humour of this kind the cast should finish the evening by singing "God Save the King." But you never know what will happen in revue. There is some justified mockery of Mr. Noel Coward in a song called "Destitute Debutantes," but on the whole the mockery is of far less account than the dancing, and in this department Mr. Walter Criaham showed a remarkable flexibility.

The lighting, -too, was ingeniously contrived and controlled. "Ballyhoo" is full of sophisticated dancing and less sophisticated fun. Just when there seemed to be a chance that somebody would be amusing the lights went out and he was suppressed in order that somebody might come and dance. No doubt the management knew best. He would not have been amusing after aU.

LB- REVUE the fauI-Boncour Uaomet s. policy on war debts, as outlined in the Ministerial Declaration read to the Chamber and Senate yesterday, envisages active but prudent steps to reopen negotiations with the United States. The Chamber voted confidence in the Government by 365 votes to 215. (3) Mr. Roosevelt has announced that he will not join with President Hoover in appointing a war debt commission and asks that the President should not commit him to any policy.

Mr. Roosevelt is against linking the problem with the Disarmament and the World Economic Conferences, as Mr. Hoover wishes to do. The President has promised to comply with the wishes of the President-elect, and it is assumed that no commission will be that no commission will be appointed. The position is explained by our New York correspondent.

(9) The tariff on all goods imported into Holland is to be increased by 30 per cent. Only last July Holland joined with Belgium in a treaty for the progressive reduction of tariffs, but this cannot be ratified at present. (5) Our Berlin correspondent reports press comment on the National Athletic Board, and mentions one of their camps, which a German newspaper says "is like a Prussian barracks yard all over again." (3) Complete. agreement has been Loiroox, TmrEsnxr. Mr.

William Walker's revue "Ballyhoo," produced at the Comedy Theatre to-night, is full of sketches which endeavour to reach the point so quickly that one begins to wonder whether there was any point, and the swift raids on wit left one perplexed as to whether it was wit after all. Th! lean and angular French comedian Leon Morton was there, bnt he did not seem able to make his effects in English, bis face being always considerably more explicit than his tongue. The whole show sadly needed a playe who knew how to put things across." The second item, for instance, was a song called "Strike up the Band," but the young lady entrUBted with this sonorous number could hardly have shouted dewn a penny whistle, so gently did she invite to melody. The best feature was the dancing and the lighting. Mr.

Frederick Ashton's ballets and the dances arranged by Mr. Buddy Bradley showed real signs of.