The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 6

THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN, THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 1924. ment of contracts ruled by standards controlled in America, The United rose to power with Lord Rosebeby and which Campbell-Baxxermax did not STOP-PRESS NEWS. Guardian has the greatest interest and is the c. comment, but there is so far no fair and balanced criticism. 17.

WORK OF A WOMAN DETECTIVE. i MOSTLY HARD WORK LITTLfc EXCITEMENT." Government has escaped rather better that its predecessors. Its si'liemes have been very little different from theirs, but it has been rather happier in its time of living. Its first six months of office coincided with a sharp decline in unemployment, which, coupled with the better trade returns, gave promise that the depression was surely lifting. It also, one may not unkindly recall, encouraged the Minister of Labour in a rash ports.

They think that the dock workers will not obey "the Transport Union, and point out that in any case very little is coming from the Continent just now. The extraordinary thing is that there is no perceptible shortage in the shops, and there has been no rise in price. The explanation is that Covent Garden is being short-circuited. Machinery has been improvised by which a method of getting fruit and vegetables to the retailers from the growers is being used which cuts out Covent Garden very largely. Centres for collection and distribution are being set up in various States Department of Agriculture holds, however, that changes may occur in the physical appearance of cotton while it is in storage, and that in such circumstances substituted samples will represent their grades better than the originals do after the lapse of time.

It is for experts to say whether that is really a sound argument. There does not appear to have been any trouble through the decay or fading of master samples at Liverpool, and market men 6eem to think there need be none at Washington. Whatever may be said, however, as to that, there can be no doubt that it is desirable to eliminate everything which gives suspicious people an impression, even if-it is a groundless impression, that standards are not always properly used. A Menaced Market. The strike of the Covent Garden porters has not yet affected the London public, and may perhaps never cause its expected pressure on the -consumer, and through him upon the but it may seriously affect the market and consequently the porters themselves.

It is obvious that, if there is no way through a market, they are many ways round it, The salesmen are going out to meet their supplies half-way, and in other cases the producers are. dealing direct by motor transport with the retailer. It will be a pleasant paradox for the housewife if the strike that was meant to vex succeeds in blessing, and the establishment of a more direct passage between the farmer and the greengrocer would, by its elimination of middlemen, be a blessing to all parties except the last. One is constantly hearing the grower's complaint that his wares are heavily multiplied in price before they reach the kitchen, and the backwardness of English producers in organising direct co-operative distribution has long been criticised. The strike at Covent Garden, by prodding them to action, may thus have durable results of a scope extending far beyond London itself.

Central markets began as a common convenience, but it is at least questionable whether large modern cities do not lose as well as gain by the use of valuable land and valuable traffic space for collecting eatables in order t6 get rid of them A well -planned system of transport between the farm and the suburb ought to bring great advantages in freshness and cheapness of com modifies. It is ridiculous to denounce all middlemen in the lump, but there is abundant reason for supposing that we often pay for more of tbeir services than we need. If London manages to keep its larders stocked without assistance from Covent Garden a distinct hint will have been given to complainers about profiteering in fish and meat that their remedy lies not so much in Royal Commissions and public action as in self-help Furthermore, the community will have some useful practical experience on which to assess the value of central marketing in the supply of its foodstuffs. Life and the Films. Since the birth of the movies" the life of the walker in public places has been enriched by the appreciable chance that at any time he may find nimselt in presence of a scene of violence well carried through for the purposes ot the him.

Oliver Twist may be abducted, Dick Turpin mav rob a coach, or, in a suitable milieu, an early Christian may be thrown convincingly to lions, and nothing to pay for it all. When this kind of page began to be torn from the book of life by the art of the kinenia, simple souls among the public were apt to cut in and deliver Oliver from Bill Sikes or restrain the sympathetic jeune premier when, at the nadir of his fortunes, he rushed to throw himself from Waterloo Bridge. The public has learnt better now. In fact it has learnt so well that when a little band of roughs were, in all sincerity, beating and kicking a London policeman a few days ago a crowd looked peaceably on, apparently unwilling to inconvenience the supposed producers of this piece of naturalism. And really it is easier for most of us to blame them than to be quite sure that we should ourselves have done anything else.

Even before this new make of mirrors began to be held up to the face of nature, the Briton of tradition had more than the fear of death or mutilation to fight down before he could essay to stop a bolting horse or to deliver infants from the flames. He had also to overcome the awful consciousness that he was "making a scene," or at any rate grabbing a conspicuous part in a scene provided by other agencies. Hobatics may have had some such misgiving before he made his sensational offer to hold the bridge. Would he ever have held it at all if he had had some reason to fear that the Etruscan onslaught was all a put-up job, engineered by the D. W.

Griffiths of that age, and that he might be making orphans of the children of some honest super if he ran the gigantic Astub through the body More Unemployment. August in the laBt two or three years has been a month in which parties have been stirred up to take an interest in the unemployment outlook for the winter. Prognostications have been gloomy, and Ministers of Labour have been fair game to be shot at for the paucity of their work- finding schemes. This year the Labour live long enough effectively to correct. There is ever room in a great party for its Right wing as for its Left; only the balance should be adequate, and the rapid rise of the Labour party is proof enough that the balance needs adjusting.

That is the task before us now, and Lord Grey, with all his splendid qualities, could not help us. Who is to succeed him It should be the stoutest and ablest of Liberals among the peers. Lord Beauchamp has done distinguished and disin terested service as helper to Lord Grey, but there should be no question of a necessary succession. Lord Buck-MA8TER, again, is one of the very ablest of the peers, and he has Liberalism in his bones. The office is not too onerous even for one who has high legal duties in addition, and a succession of Lord Chancellors have been among the most active politicians in the Upper House.

The party can afford no second bests. It is happy in the richness of its choice. Mr. Buxton's Speech. It is natural for a Minister who has piloted a Bill through Parliament under considerable difficulties to take a hopeful view of its effects, and Mr.

BtJXTOjf was in a sanguine mood when speaking yesterday in Norfolk. We think he. is right. The Bill, no doubt, was seriously spoilt in Committee. Mr.

Alaxd's unfortunate amendment would not have been carried if all its suppoiters had understood what' they were doing. Lord Lincolnshire said in the House of Lords that 90 per cent of the Liberal party disapproved of that amendment, and it is probably i rue that there were comparatively ew Liberals who meant to disable 'the Central Board. An effective Central Board is essential to an effective system of county committees. A correspondent who had served on the old Wages Board pointed out in these columns last month that the Central Board had played a most important part toning up the whole system. Under the Act the Central Board is not without duties, but it does not control the committees.

We think that practice it will be found necessary to give it such control. Some observers held that even after the passing of the Acland amendment and ihe disconcerting consequences Mr. Buxton could have got a better measure if he had not been so anxious to come to a compromise with the Conservatives. That may or may not be true. But we agree with him that the Act in its final and disappointing form is certainly worth having.

For the Act sets in train the forces that will raise the agricultural labourer out of the depths into which lie has sunk since the old Wages Board was dissolved. Nobody who had any experience of the working of the Wages Board could fail to see that it had a great moral effect on village life; that the agricultural labourer was a different man when he knew that his wages were fixed and protected by a body in which his representatives sat as equals at a table with the representatives of his employers; that the old tradition of the labourer as a beaten class, without rights or union or spirit, almost lost its power over the imagination of the bad and backward counties. The new Act, if it falls short at many points, does at least set up this machinery again. The labourers, represented by their unions, will meet the employers, not in conciliation committees, which had a habit of melting away and were at the best ineffective bodies, but in committees with statutory duties and powers to enforce their decisions. The committees will be appointed next and get into their stride this winter.

They will at least remove the 1 orst wage scandals they will restore he status of the labourer, and they will stimulate the revival of village trade unionism. These are all important gains, and they are gains that will lead to others. Cotton Standards. There are, unhappily, no signs, as far as we see, that the cotton stardards dispute between the Liverpool market and the United States Department of Agriculture will be amicably settled in what remains of this month, and we may hear any day that Liverpool has taken action which will make future agreement more difficult. The "universal standards" which were agreed upon last year are in operation now, but it will presently be necessary to trade in futures for delivery in the next cotton season, beginning on the 1st of August, and it is understood that in regard to these the Liverpool market will settle contracts with others' than Americans by its own samples, as it has always done before this month.

The reason why Americans will have to be excluded is that their Congress has passed a law that, except in special circumstances, they must only deal in accordance with the new "universal standards." and they have cheerfully accepted that obligation. As Liverpool accuses the Washington Department of altering standards arbitrarily, it is important that those who wish to form an unbiased judgment should have a precise statement of the facta before them, and the Manchester Guardian Commercial" supplies one to-day, in Hb American Cotton Number, from the pen of Mr. Nicksos, secretary of the Liverpool Cotton Association. That the Department made certain changes in the sample boxes during the recent visit of English and Continental delegates to Washington appears to be beyond doubt, and the Liverpool market con siders that if such things can be done there is no security fox; the due fulfil- Our Berlin corresDondent savs it is evident that the Nationalists are preparing the way lOr ft Climb down on the London settlement. 171 Lord Grey's Retirement.

These anoears to be no doubt as to Lord Grey's intention of resigning his position as leader of the Liberal party in tne House 01 Lords, although no formal announcement has been made on the subject. With him a great name will disarmear from active politics, and one who in his day has heeri a great fighter will lay down his arms. The event, we are assured. has no political significance, and in a sense no doubt that is true. He does not withdraw, as Lord Rosebeby withdrew, because he dissents from the policy of important colleagues, nor does he claim release, as Mr.

Joseph Chambeblain claimed it, in order to be free to challenge the opinion of the country on ground where his associates still feared to tread. He may not, indeed it is known that he does not, agree with the mainritv of the party and its leaders on some not unimportant matters of policy, but such differences are to be found among the leaders of every party, and in his case they are certainly not the determining cause of his retirement. There is indeed quite enough, unhappily only too in the physical disability under which for nenrlv tn years he has suffered to account for his present decision. It is not the first time that he has been compelled for the same reason to seek rest, and when he accepted a peerage in 1916 it was in order to seek the rest from work and responsibility which the rapid tailure of his sight rendered imperative. The mischief happily was stayed, out it remains as a serious disability, and when, five rears lntpv he returned to active political life it was not because of any real imorove ment in his condition, but simply at me can ot what he regarded as his duty, to which it was impossible fnr him ever to be deaf, and in order that he might bring the weight of his authority and his high credit with men of all parties to the support of his party, then torn by dissensions and laced by overwhelming numbers.

It was simply an act of devotion euch as came naturally and inevitably to a man of his quality. The immediate need has disappeared, and he justly claims his release. In resigning his official position as leader of the Liberal peers Lord Gkey does not, we should hope, intend to relinquish his active interest in affairs or in the fortunes of his party. Membership of the House of Lords involves no necessity to take part in its debates, but Lord Grey is unlikely to join the ranks of the mere spectators, and there will be occasions when he will find it difficult not once more to play his part and when the country will gladly hear him. No man can have held the direction of the foreign affairs of the country for ten continuous years, as he held it, without acquiring an immense experience and forming weighty opinions on the great questions of He will at all times be sure of a respectful and deeply attentive audience alike in the House and in the country.

There are few men indeed in public life who can express a considered view on an important subject with greater grasp and cogency than Lord Grey. That gift belongs partly to His mind, but still more to his character. If his speech is direct and simple it is because he is himself direct and simple. If it is carefully reasoned and in a strange way convincing, it is because he never speaks on any subject without having thought it out not only with care bus with a singular detachment and be cause before attempting to convince others he has convinced himself. When Grey, the Sir Edward Grey of those days, spoke in the House of Commons it was with a kind of weiehty ingenuousness, a complete command of his facts and an easy marshalling of all the relevant material which carried conviction even to minds unwilling to be convinced.

There was something, too, in his commanding figure, his deliberate utterance, his contempt for all the flourishes of rhetoric and insincerities of debate which won admiration and almost compelled assent. He was not an orator, but he often succeeded where oratory would fail. Perhaps no other country could produce just that kind of figure arid that kind of speech unaffected, massive, restrained, confident. British to the cere. He disappearsrfrom the front rank of our politics, and with him disappears perhaps an epoch.

No man hailed with greater joy the promise of a League of Nations, yet his diplomacy and his whole outlook belonged to an earlier day, the day of alliances and counter-alliances and of the balance of power. He struggled desperately against the culmination of that policy in the greatest and most horrible of wars. Yet he did, and from his rather narrow standpoint could do, nothing effectual to prevent it, and it came and. overwhelmed him with us alL Perhaps no man in history has borne quite so crushing a responsibility, faced it so gallantly, and failed. Ho never belonged to the forward wing of Liberalism, anfl if Liberalism is to recover its strength and to become once more the powerful engine of courageous advance it must be in ways and through gifts other than his.

No man who defended -strenuously the iniquity of the Boer War could ever lead the Liberal advance, and Liberalism has even yet not fully paid the penalty of the Liberal Imperialism of the early days of the century, which Interviewed by a representative of the Indepcnilante Beige," M. HymaiiK, the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, declared with reference to the Iondin Conicienti; that- the Allied front hud been 'art1. American co-operation, had 'become an actual fait. "While awaiting general measures guaranteeing our security we are occupying the Rhine-land by virtue of the Treaty of Versailles. Agreement has been 4id wk mo UttiMittg u41fci or nee the atmosphere has cleared." A bill was presepted in the Reichstag yesterday providing for (1) the assent to the London Protocol of August 16, 1924; (2) authorisation to the MiUter of Finance to float a loan of 800.000,000 gold marks und (3) authorisation It the Government of the Reich to take measure with a view to the surrender of Statu railway bonds to the value of eleven milliards of go-Id marks and of bonds vo the value of live milliard gold marks under the law relating to the taxation of industry.

BAGS, TRUNKS, SUlT CASES, and all Travelling Goods. BAXENDALE CO. Miller St. THE FINEST TOOLS HAND, BENCH, AND MACHINE TOOLS. STARRETT'S AND BROWNE fc SHARP'S TOOLS.

JOHN NESBITT. 42, MARKET STREET. MANCHESTER. THE GUARDIAN. MANCHESTER, THURSDAY, AUG.

21,1924 TODAY'S PAPER. SPECIAL ASTIOLBB The Turn of the Wheel 14 Primo de Rivera 14 The Manchester Art Gallery 8 Iraq Assembly Dissolved 14 Politics at Bayreuth 4 Electrio Powermen's Dispute 7 Black Shirt and Red 8 Chess at Southport 8 The Shrewsbury Flower Show 10 Brighter Men 4 Book Reviews 5 XUTJSTBATZ0H8 The Queen in Northumberland 8 Oxford University Arctic Expedition 5 Army Manoeuvres 5 yOUTXOAXr- I.L.P. Summer School: Women's Place in the Community 10 Mr. Noel Buxton on Farm Wages 10 Sir L. Worthington-Evans in Belfast 10 Mr.

Wfieatley at Rent Act Conference 10 Blind Defectives (Mies Ellen Terry) 9 School Lectures on Alcohol (Ladv Astor, M.P.) 14 "Bolshevism in the Balkans" (Dr. T. Tchitchovsky) 14 Dismissal of Clerks by the C.W.S." (Mr. J. Jagger) 14 Labour Colleges and Communism (Mr.

J. P. M. Millar) 14 The Railways To-day (Mr. William Bnggs) 14 HOME.

Our London correspondent, writing on the effect of the interview with Mr. Snowden published by the "Manchester Guardian" yesterday, says that rumours of a split in the Labour Cabinet are plentiful, but beyond Mr. Snowden's criticism of the Pact there is no evidence of such a split. (7i An agreement between the British and Canadian Governments for the settlement of 3.000 British families on farms in Canada was signed yesterday. (7) Miss Bondfleld, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour, yesterday addressed the I.L.P.

Summer School on Women's place in the community." (10) Mr. Buxton, Minister of Agriculture, who addressed a Norfolk meeting yesterday, said ha was confident that the Agricultural Wages Act would be of great benefit to the labourer. (10) The building trade dispute negotiations, delayed yesterday by one section of the Liverpool workmen, will be continued today. Yesterday the Joint Industrial Council for the electricity supply iudustry agreed to appoint a special tribunal to examine the waxes dispute, the strike notices in the meantime to be suspended. The Covent Garden strikers declared yesterday that they would intensify the strike failing the opening of negotiations.

Mr. Bevin has sent a letter to the employers with the object of removing a misunderstanding and in the hope of securing a joint conference forthwith. (7) A woman detective gives in an interview her views of the special qualifications which many women possess for certain kinds of detective work. (6; There was an early demand for money in the London market yesterday, but conditions eased later, with balances available at 3 per cent. Discounts again showed an easier tendency.

The sterling-dollar exchange rate closed about jc. lower at 4.49, but French francs were slightly better at 83.45. The Belgian rate further advanced to 90 3-16. (ID American spot cotton prices were unchanged in the Liverpool market yesterday, with middling quoted 15.85d. Futures, however, finished 19 to 23 points higher.

The New York spot quotation was advanced 15 points, to 28.20c., futures finally being 10 points lower to 61 points higher. (12) FOREIGN. Our Cologne correspondent understands that two cases against Germans which came a French court at Diisseldorf yesterday, and in which the defence urged thai the amnesty covered such charges, are not likely to be proceeded with. (7) Oar Paris correspondent says the interview with Mr. Snowden in the Manchester THE QUICi: DISGUISE HANDICAP (From our London Staff.) Fleet Street, Wednesday.

Sir Nevil Macready's opinion that women can be very usefully employed as detectives is endorsed by Miss Maud West, the well-known woman detective, who for many years has had an office in the West End. Miss West belongs to a family of lawyers, and drifted naturally into an occupation which she finds extremely interesting. I think that some women are admir- ablv fitted for detective work, she said, and that they would be a great asset to the country. In some ways they are better fitted for it than men. If 1 wanted anv very subtle work done I should not put a man on to it, I should employ a woman.

They pay much more attention to small facts that a man wouldjbe apt to regard as insignificant, and will build up a case on them. They seem to have an extra sense, and though something they notice does not seem to have any value from a practical point of view in working out a theory, it does work out." Miss West said that women were not much use at shadowing. For one thing, they werc too easily recognised. Clothee made such a difference. Men's clothes were not so conspicuous, and a man had the advantage- of being able to carry a cap or a soft hat in his pocket.

He could also stand at tlie corner of a street for hours without anyone noticing him. If a good-looking woman did that' people would speak to her, and, even if she made herself up to look as plain as possible, they would still wonder why she was "Women act better than men. Many of the detectives have what thev are written all over them. Sir Xevi.1 Maeready wa-; right in saying that the woman detective must be able to pass as a society woman in evening dress, or, equipped with scrubbing-brush, as a charwoman. She must be able to do anything and everything.

Sire cannot, be kept always on one class of work, and she must be able to make quick changes. She must bo able to be Lady for live minutes and Nurse So-and-so the nest. An uneducated woman could not possibly do Playing Many Parts. I'or finding out things and getting into places a woman was better than a man. Miss West said that she herself had played all sorts of pcrts.

She had served behind counters, (had been a waitress and a nurse. She had served in hospitals and all sorts of institutions, and had been on the staff or stayed a. member or guest in clubs and hostels. Much of this of course, was to investigate the cases of pilfering that were so frequent. It was very important that the detective should be able to alter her voice, and one of the most difficult things lor a woman was to assume a man's voice.

She remembered once having to speak in a mans voice from a telephone in a place where people were passing to and fro and how hard the task seemed. But she did it quite successfully. xt t0 being a good actress, what other qualifications should a woman detective have Miss West was asked. She must have great tact, of course, and strong staying power as well, for much of the work needs any amount of endurance, long hours without food, and a great deal oi standing about. She must be able to recognise reople, and that is one of the first things she is trained to do." A sense of humour was essential.

"You must have a very keen sense of humour to carry you through and, of course, a genuine interest in your work. The work ie not sensational, as neople who eat the" p'ohr of a detective's life from the kinema imagine. There would, of course, he danger in criminal work but very little in ordinary work, and when there was any it came rnther a relief from monotonous investigations. Generally speakine, the woman detective's work was purely arid simply hard work, with vsrv little real excitement in it." The Blackmailer. One class of investigation for which women are claimed to be fitted is in regard to blackmailers.

"This is extraordinarily interesting," Miss West said, "because you do get some real insight into the curioui workings of people's minds. It is really what the blackmailer will think and do. Some of the cases are sad, as, fof instance, when the offender does not start with the idea of blackmail, but is pushed into it by force of circumstances. It may be that he is almost destitute tnd has lost everything of value except this one piece oi information which he threatens to use." According to Miss West detective work li one of the few occupations in which agd does not really since neople of all ages must be employed. It does not even matter when they begin, and she has found women who discovered a gift for it at middle age.

The number of people wha want to he detectives is astonishing. "Nevei a day passes," said Miss West, "without my getting letters from people who tell me that they have a special gift for this work, and that all their lives they have wanted to do it. I get shoals of letters in increasing numbers from men and women, hove and girls. They send me their photographs, and when they do not write they telephone. Why do they do it? They have rten to the pictures and they arc fascinated with th view of a detective's life." Miss West 6aid she had no idea what salary a woman detective employed by Scotland Yard would get.

but wae an expensive job, because such a variety of clothes was needed. It would be useless to wear' the same clothes again and again. There would be occasions when it would be fatal tc thD6fheme to go on wearing the same hat. One might have to go into a ahoD in the middle of a job and buy a new one. "A3 a detective you have to have heaps of cash tc do a case really VISCOUNT GREY'S RETIREMENT.

With reference to Lord Grey's retirement from the leadership of the Liberal party in the House of Lords (referred to in our London (fcrreapondence yesterday), the Press Association understands that the facts are as follows. Lord Grey was asked to undertake the position at a time when there difficulties between sections of the Liberal party. It was then understood that he would not be able to give full time to Parliamentary work nor a lead upon every question that might come before the House of Lords. There has never been any truth in the report that his sight had improved; there has been for the last six years no change in it. Its condition, therefore, continues to impose some limitation upon his political activity.

He feels that the time is approaching when the leadership should be taken by someone else who can give full time to it. The change, therefore, will, as far aa Lord Grey is concerned, have no political significance, and will nt i any way affcci Our Xewcastle correspondent telegraphs that, mtemewed yesterday at Fallodon, Lord Grey described the suggestion that-he wis at vanauce with Liberalim on the subject of keeping the Government in office li I pure myth." He now eela thai trJ iml hascome when the leadership should be token byaonieone who can fuui time to it The retirement will not in.any way ov engagement outside the House of Lords which do not impose undue strain upon him. moment to claim the credit for his nartr. But so long, at any rate, 11s it maintains orthodoxy in monetary policy the wisest of Governments can not hope to work these miracles of itself, or how will Mi1. Shaw explain the sharp setback disclosed in the alarming increase of unemployment in the last six weeks Between June 30 and August 11 the number of unemployed men on the insurance register rose by 64,000 from 761,000 to The unemployed women increased by proportionately less from 191,000 to 195,000, but there was an extraordi nary leap of nearly 12,000 in the number of unemployed boys and girls from 56,800 to 68,700.

These are disquieting figures, and they are worth close investigation. In part, no doubt, the rise is seasonal. Before the war a seasonal increase was usually expected between the end of July and the end of September or October. The in crease has begun rather earlier in each of the last two years, and the experience seems to have been repeated this year. If this view is correct we may look for recovery in the early autumn at the latest.

Certainly the wider political conditions which govern trade are more favourable than they have yet been since the trade depression began. OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENCE. (BY PRIVATE WIRE.) Londox, Wednesday Xight. The League Assembly. If the Prime Minister is going, as reported, to Geneva a day or two before the League of Nations Assembly opens it will enable him to become familiar with the rather complicated procedure that is inevitable in an in ternational organisation.

The official opening of the Assembly takes place at eleven in the morning on September 1, when an inaugural speech will be made by M. Hymans, Foreign Minister of Belgium, who presides in his quality of temporary president of the Council. The verification of credentials and the election of the presidents of the six Commissions which do most of the spadework of the Assembly will occupy one day, but the discussion on the Secretary General's report on the League's work since the last session of the Assembly-should begin on the afternoon of September 2. This discussion would give Mr. Ramsay MacDonald his opportunity of outlining the British Government's programme, and his alternatives to the Draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance which he recently rejected will be awaited with especial interest.

After this discussion the six Commissions get to work, and the plenary sessions of the Assembly have no great interest until the Commissions' reports are ready. Therefore it is generally expected that the Prime Minister will be able to leave after five or six days, but it may well be that the discussions in the Third Commission, which deals with disarmament, will be of such importance that he will prolong his stay. After he leaves the full delegates will be Lord Parmoor, Mr. Arthur Henderson, and Professor Gilbert Murray. The Assembly itself is likely to last for at least three weeks, and on no previous occasion will such important delegates have been present.

It is not yet known whether Signor Mussolini will attend, but besides Mr. iuacuonald and M. Hcrriot there will probably be M. Briand, France's ex-Premier; M. Benes, Foreign Minister of Czecho-Slovakia Count Skrzynski, Foreign Minister of Poland and important unofficial American and Russian observers." Manchester in London.

1 One feature of the August season is the high pitch of organisation now reached in what may be called mass visiting from the. North. It is usual now for the parties from Lancashire to follow a very close programme. Early this week, for instance, a party of 3,000 people arrived at Euston from Manchester by specials for a day round the sights of London. The" party arrived about, nine in the morning, and had a fleet of a hundred motor 'buses and coaches waiting for them.

After breakfast in Oxford Street restaurants the coaches, which were equipped with guides, set off on the regulation round, which always includes the Tower, St. Paul's, and Westminster Abbey, and usually ends the morning at Buckingham Palace, whence it is common for the North erners to walk down to St. James's and see the changing of the guard. The afternoon is often spent in visiting the big stores, where it is reported a good deal of money is being spent, followed by a walk round the principal streets, including a look at 10, Downing Street. ihe statistics of attendance at the chief show an extraordinary increase this August.

Two hundred and eighty-eight thousand people have been to the Zoo since the beginning of the month, an increase of 33 per cent over last August. The increase at the Tower has been 90, per cent. The British Museum is getting as many as 2,000 visitors a day. There are queues everywhere, especially at the north transept of the Abbey, as very few visitors seem to know that there is any other way of getting in. A record taken at the door shows that people go in at the busy time at the rate of thirteen a minute.

Short-Circuiting Covent Garden. The Covent Garden strike has reached a curious phase. The employers continue to refuse to negotiate, thinking they can wear the men out, and the strikers are doing all they can to exert pressure by breaking the ordinary transport chain that brings stuff to the market. The employers profess to feel easy about the attempt of the men to ks6 the dockers to hold up cross- Channel fruit and at the country near London tne Kentish growers, for instance, are using Maidstone, and these centres are linked up with London by an efficient road service which brings the stun: in with very little delay. it is certain that there is plenty of home-grown supplies even in Covent Garden, and the amateur porters are able to handle it.

Ihe market was distinctly busier to-da Vegetables by Motor. Both employers and workers are afraid that Covent Garden may suffer permanently from the success of the motor-lorry services between the growers in the home country and the shops. The fruit farmers stand to gain by cutting out the middlemen in this way, and if direct delivery was established it would be a bad day for the brokers and auctioneers and incidentally for the porters. A central clearing-house would always be necessary for foreign produce. The survival of the great market on an inconvenient site in the thick of London has often been condemned, and only last year a Board of Agriculture Committee reported that Covent Garden is quite inadequate to deal properly with the great mass of produce handled.

Building Extraordinary. Travellers into town by a suburban line are much excited by the astonishingly rapid progress made in the building of some suburban villas. It is exciting if only for the fact that there is a building strike on. The work is being done under none of the State schemes, but by our old friend the speculative builder, lie is converting a former tennis ground into streets of villas- Naturally, people wonder how he is able to do it at all. Inquiries from a sympathetic friend drew the information that, by offering a lew pence an hour above the ordinarv rate, this builder is not only able to obtain all the labour he wants but the work is done at a speed, and for the length of hours, that would surprise people who talk about bricklayers' "ca'-canny" and so on.

The houses are being built in pairs, and I am assured that the shell of each pair the walls and the roof is completed in a fortnight. These houses arc built to sell, and are sold, I am informed, sometimes before the foundations are laid. If the obvious question is asked what the trade unions have to say about it, I cannot give an answer. Mrs. Matters Porter.

Mrs. Muriel Matters Porter, who has accepted the invitation of the Hastings Labour party to stand in the Labour interest at the next election, was prominent among the milder militant suffragists in pre-war days. She was Miss Muriel Matters then, an Austra1-lian who did a great deal of' public speaking on the suffrage question but it was her exploit in the House of Commons that made the public talk about her. She was a member of the Women's Freedom League, which carried out its militant campaign on ingeniously inconvenient and troublesome rather than on destructive lines, and it was in the early days oi that campaign that she caused a great deal of worry to the House of Commons staff by chaining herself to the grille in the Ladies' Gallery. If she is elected she will have the pleasure of looking up at a gallery from which the grille has been removed and of admiring the grille itself, which now decorates another part of the House.

Mrs. Porter is an eloquent, emotional speaker, but it is not the type of eloquence that would be effective in the House. If she stands for Hastings she will probably have to oppose another woman candidate, for Mrs. Ogilvie Gordon contested the constituency last year and is likely to stand again. This will not be the first instance of two rival women candidates.

Last year Mrs. George Cadbury was opposed by Mrs. Barton in the King's Norton division of Birmingham. The Mystery of the Mersey Magnetism. The sudden discoverv that there is a spot on the Liverpool bar where ships' compasses are violently thrown out provides an interesting mystery, for although these temporary aberrations of the compass are not unknown they are not by any means frequent, and seldom if ever attain the proportions of the trouble on the Mersey.

There can be little doubt that the cause of it is that a ship has been wrecked there and her hull or gear has become strongly magnetised by the pounding action of the waves. It may be argued that the trouble is recent and that no ship has disappeared recently, but it must be remembered that the magnetic action would not take place unless wreckage, whatever it may be, were lying north and south, and that it may easily be an old wreck or even a small portion whose position has got shifted by the tide. There are several spots in the world where there is a force that disorganises ships' compasses, the best-known cnes being in the Gulf 0f St. Lawrence and at Cossack, on the Australian coast. These points are, however, well known and are clearly marked on the charts so that no harm is done by them.

QUEEN IN NORTHUMBERLAND. The Queen, with her host and hostess the Iuke and Ihichess of Northumberland and the house party yesterday visited Halne Priory, once the home of Carmelite Friars, and Brezlee Tower, in Alnwick Park. In the afternoon 'the Queen motored through the countryside to Bamborough, famous for its castle and as- the burial-place of Grace Darling, the Northumberland heroine of Longston Lighthouse. LORD PARMOOR. Lord Parmoor leaves London izt Geneva next week to represent Great Britain on the Council of the League of Nations and to act as British delegate to the Assembly.

He expects to remain at Geneva fox four, weeks, -the first since January..