The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 8

THE MANCHESTER GUARDIAN, TiiUKSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1940 8 AN INTEREST IN THE BALKANS: BY LOW ANTI-TANK GUNNERS IN TRAINING Life and Work in Northern Village GUN-LAYING AND FIRING PRACTICE IN DISUSED CONSERVATORY From our Special Correspondent lesson in the open-air life, for 118 youths recently called up were carrying out physical jerks in the cold and with every appearance of rude health. For the time being these young men live and work separately from the older gunners of the Territorial Army in the same field artillery regiment they are given a toning-up course in which fresh air and physical exercise play a large part before they go on to the specialised artillery training. Their older comrades are quartered in the village not far away, one of Widespread Security The assets of the Woolwich Equitable Building Society consist of thousands of mortgages secured on properties all over the country, cash and Trustee Securities. Shares are issued in denominations of 50 each (half share 25). Assets 40,000.000.

Reserves total 1,950,000. 3)2 YIELD TAX FREE WOOLWICH EQUITABLE "HONEST. BENITO, WElRE ONLY WARMING OUR HANDS1 (By arrangement with the "Evening Somewhere in the Northern Command, Wednesday. In what was once the conservatory of a country house that enjoys vistas of hill, woodland, and valley in the North of England young gunners are now learning the use of the antitank gun. In the place of ornamental palms or prize orchids that used to be there, a platform covered with sand now represents, in miniature, 800 yards of country over which the gunners shoot at two miniature tanks.

These targets, two small pieces of frayed and punctured wood which once had the shape of tanks, are manoeuvred "across country" from the back of the conservatory by means of an arrangement of wires and pulleys. The young gunners take up then-posts at the anti-tank gun a light gun firing a two-pound armour-piercing shell, which is also at the back of the conservatory they take aim and sight their gun, and when the order Fire is given they fire, but they break no windows in their glasshouse. It is not the gun that goes off but a small air-rifle firing a small lead pellet. The air-rifle is fixed to the anti-tank gun's sights, and its accuracy of fire is in some not all respects a test of the pupils' skill. Of course the test is by no means complete, and there remains much that can only be learned by actual gunnery; a shell's trajectory, for instance, is quite a different thing from the pellet's trajectory.

But this device does enable the students of anti-tank gunnery to get some skill in gun-laying before they go south to the real gunnery range. HOME AND WORKSHOP This house, requisitioned last autumn after years of disuse and now serving as home and workshop for an anti-tank unit, was one of the artillery training centres in the Northern Command visited yesterday by a party of press representatives. In the same county, at another of the freakishly turreted and gabled country houses of Victorian England, we arrived in time for an object- GERMANS NEED NOT STARVE IN MANCHESTER By Staff Correspondents Wednesday Night. A Skating Carnival In spite of the censorship of weather news, one may mention the Fancy Dress Ice Carnival which is being held in Manchester to-morrow, for it is to be at the Ice Palace. In previous years one carnival has been held in aid of Manchester Royal Infirmary and another for Salford Royal Hospital this year there is only one, and the two hospitals are sharing the profits.

A variety of special displays and competitions has been arranged, the most notable being an exhibition by Cecilia Colledge, and PILOT BOAT SINKS AFTER COLLISION Men's Narrow Escape From our Correspondent Fleetwood, Wednesday. When their 37ft. pilot boat was involved in a collision in the River Wyre at Fleetwood early to-day two pilots had a narrow escape, for within two minutes of being rescued their boat plunged to the botfm ot the river. The pilots were Samuel Edwards, of Pharos Street, and Reginald Salthouse, of Hesketh Plane, both of Fleetwood. We- were making our way across the river when there was a terrific crash and we were flung across the deck," Edwards said afterwards.

"We immediately began shipping water, and in the darkness we could see that the boat was almost cut in two. The crew of the trawler that was in collision with us acted promptly and threw ropes over the side, which we managed to grab. In the scramble for safety I was injured, but was able to haul myself up the rope." A member of the crew of the trawler said the pilot boat was not seen in the darkness. The Manchester Academy There are three good reasons why this year's spring exhibition of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, to be opened by the Lord Mayor at the City Art Gallery on Monday, should attract a record attendance. In the first place, its broader basis should result in greater variety and aesthetic interest.

Secondly, a quarter of the receipts from sales will be divided between the Lord Mayor's Red Cvoss Fund and the Artists' General Benevolent Institution. Finally, many artists who depend on their sales for a livelihood are now in dire need, and art-lovers who wish to see and buy good pictures when the war is over must accept the responsi bility for keeping the artist as such alive in the meanwhile. University Women The Manchester Association of University Women, determined to con tinue as far as possible its pre-war cultural and other activities, has substituted for its annual dinner a lunch that will be held at the Grand Hotel on Saturday, with Mrs. Corbett Ashby as the chief guest. Miss Weddell, principal of the College of Domestic Economy and president of the associa tion, will receive the guests, and as Mrs.

Corbett Ashby has an engagement in Rochdale in the afternoon and Mr. Churchill will be speaking at the Free Trade Hall lunch-time has been advanced a little. Among the meetings that the association has held since the war began there was one to hear two refugee university women and another at which members narrated some of their experiences on war-time jobs. Another similarly informal tea-hour meeting is planned to allow of talks about evacuation experiences. The association is ready, without formality, to welcome at its meetings university women from other districts who happen to be in the city on work or those from abroad who are now exiles in this neighbourhood.

Reform Club Visitors Two interesting engagements are tin in An 41.. Kii'nn1 TVITW1 of the Manchester Reform Club. On mesday Sir William ueveriage is coming to a luncheon to speak on the subject of Federal Union. Sir Norman Angell has promised to address a similar garnering on ieDruary to- tine iua iiv I uttii for Sir Norman's address, but it is understood that he intends to propound the question Shall it be a better peace next time It is a question on which Sir Norman, whe is widely believed to have inspired President Wilson's "Fourteen Points," should be well worth hearing. those northern villages that grow naturaxxy rrom a countryside of long hills, deep valleys, grey stone walls, and lean moorland.

Here thev settled soon after the war began, some of them old soldiers and some who joined up last spring or summer, clerks, solicitors, engineers, and colliers in civil life. They have taken their batteries of 4.5-inch howitzers and eighteen-pounder guns up the hills and deployed them over the moors they have acquired much of the formidable array of physical dexterity and technical knowledge that an artillery unit must have. FIELD WORK In the first week of the year snow kept their guns down in the valley at times, but on those days they have gone on with their work in the fields, learning to move, place, and lay their guns, maintain communications through their signal units both by "flag-wagging" and by field telephone, handle ammunition, interpret and implement orders. Before long they will have a different gun, the formidable new 25-pounder, and will complete their training by learning to operate that too. Although they are billeted in a village, these men are not scattered among comfortable private houses but are looking coldly after themselves.

One of the buildings where they live used to be a bank, another a chapel; one is the parish hall. The quartermaster keeps his stores in an Oddfellows' hall. They have a dining-room in one inn, a lecture-room in another. Their cookhouse and some of their washing-benches are out on the feast ground." They are learning a different way of life as well as a technical new job. REOPENING THE SCHOOLS Progress in Manchester The reopening of the schools in Manchester is to proceed as quickly as possible, as progress is made with the work of providing defence shelters.

At the end of last week 19 elementary schools, one central school, three secondary schools, and three junior technical schools were open. The elementary schools provided places calculated on the basis of A.R.P. shelters constructed for just over 6,000 children. Actually over 8,000 children enrolled, so that eight of the nineteen elementary schools had It adopt a two-shift system. At the other eleven work was resumed on the normal curriculum.

On Monday twelve other elementary schools were opened. At these enrolment is still in progress, and the relevant statistics are not complete. Last week 1.351 pupils enrolled at the three secondary schools. Altogether there are 182 elementary schools in the evacuable portion of the city, and of these 141 have now been scheduled for reopening. infantry officer in the last war.

Sir Walter said "I suppose there were always about halt a dozen things then that I wanted to know about the Germans opposite me. If I wanted to know them it cost lives, trouble, and time. My job now is to see to it that, while I ensure and permit people to speak the truth as they see it. thev leave out just those things which the enemy wants to know. We sit there not to prevent people saying what they want to say, not to interfere between the public and the truth, but to provide an ally which every honest and patriotic pressman welcomes.

We are there to help the public to get the truth and to help the press to do their patriotic duty of giving the truth to the public without danger to the State." Sir Walter described German propaganda methods as getting a grain of trutn and then surrounding it by whatever you like to say." and he continued The best lie. as everybody knows who has cross-examined a witness, is one wmcn nas got enough trutn around it to make it sound oossible." "People have complained to me that it is a strange thing that the Germans always have the news first. They do have something first, but when a communique comes out from one of our Departments of State I may complain that it is slow, but I have seldom had to complain that it was not true. We must bear with a little slowness in order that what the world gets from us can be relied upon as representing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the MR. CHURCHILL'S SPEECH Dr.

S. Litauer, of the Polish Telegraph Agency, who is president of the Foreign Press Association in London, said: "I think ah the neutrals are in peril just the same as we are. The speech the other night by the First Lord of the Admiralty was a very refreshing expression of the British point of view. Even if the neutrals pretend to be very cross I think in their hearts they think dinerentiy. BUILDING SOCIETY General Manor' T.

auraw, Chitf OJfia Equitable Home, Woolwich. SJB.18 RANCH OFFICES 1 MANCHESTER Century Hwm, 9. St. PatWt Sauuv (Tele: Centra! 0313 LMOOIMa in mwt tawiw. MdraM Ml AppUeatian.

MR. COPPEL'S NEW COMEDY Believe It Or Not London, Wednesday. That credibility is not the point of Mr. Alec Coppel's comedy at the New Theatre is made clear by. its title, Believe It Or Not." It is ingenious of the clever author of "I Killed the Count" so to disarm us, but when any other point is hard to seek we are not so easily disarmed.

We are set asking questions far too early in the evening. Why did Dick and Janet employ the nasty blackmailing manservant anyhow? And why did not they, either individually or jointly, sack him in the middle of the second act? Janet, in her husband's absence in Paris, had stayed out all night at the end of a party at Tilbury. The manservant awaited her return at seven in the morning, a scarlet notebook in the pocket of his green baize apron. Dick spent his three nights in Paris sipping bedroom champagne with a graceful lady who proved in the end to be his manservant's wife. Fortunately Dick had so much charm that the lady on the last night went farther than her husband had ordained.

There was some question of a mole, borrowed, if Mr. Coppel does not mind one's suggesting it, from Shakespeare's Cymbeline." So the revelation of the mole took all the wind out of the blackmailer's sails, and the curtain descended on Dick and Janet bickering with a deeper mutual understanding. Mr. Griffith Jones, Miss Judy Kelly, and Miss Coral Browne played the smart and flimsy little comedy with skill and easy assurance, and Mr. Roland Culver, whether in a white jacket or a green apron, polished glasses and polished off cheques with equal dexterity.

A. D. "THE WIZARD OF OZ" London, Wednesday. "The Wizard of Oz," which comes to the Empire on Friday, is said to have cost Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer a million pounds to make, and looks it, for it goes in for nine thousand players and the most bright and shining Technicolor. But every now and again in its hundred minutes of running time the serried dollars fail to conceal the charm and fancy of Frank Baum's 40-year-old Kansas fairy story.

It is the players and not the setting that make the film appealing. Judy Garland is a deliclously wide-eyed little girl in a fairy tale, now awed and now rebellious, a sort of Middle Western Alice. The very idea of a cowardly lion, a brainless scarecrow, and a heartless tinman is enchanting, and the make-up experts have made them convincing. Jack Haley is a good tinman, Bert Lahr a lion of some personality, and Ray Bolger the beau ideal of a man of straw. His uncertain knees are almost the best things in the picture.

Frank Morgan as Professor Marvel and the wizard manages to resemble both W. C. Fields and Lionel Barrymore at the same time. The film is wholly pleasing and could have been much more than that if the director had had to rely more on imagination than on money. Trick photography would have been more amusing than the use of dwarfs, and a fairyland can be more impressively portrayed by light and shadow, soft focus, and camera angles than by expensive sets in the bright colours of a toffee shop.

It is these grandiose buildings more than anything else that make the film seem stagy. But Victor Fleming has made, with living people this time, the most delightful film of its kind since Disney's "Snow White." Obviously children's entertainment, as "Snow White was, it has, of course, been given an A certificate by the British Board of Film Censors. C. R. SIR JOHN REITH AND THE B.B.C.

From our Wireless Correspondent London, Wednesday. No decision has apparently been taken as to the extent to which broadcasting is to be used by Sir John Keith, the new Minister of Information, in his campaign to secure greater safety on the roads in the blackout, which was announced yesterday by the Minister of Transport, but I was informed to-day at the B3.C. Liaison Department that the matter was under discussion. Tne appointment of Mr. R.

E. L. Wellington, Assistant Controller of Fro- -grammes at the B.B.C., as Director of Broadcasting Relations at the Ministry of Information, is welcomed at the B3.C, where it is felt there win now be a much more powerful link between the corporation and the Ministry, and the two organisations will be able Jo work together with greater faculty ac)d smoothness. END OF STAY-IN PIT STRIKE 160 Men Dismissed From our Correspondent South Elms all, Wednesday Night. The stay-in strike at Upton Colliery ended to-night.

The last fifty of the original 260 strikers came out of the pit at eight o'clock after officials and all the committee-men of the Yorkshire Mine-workers' Association branch, with the exception of Mr. Joe Quinn, the delegate over whose dismissal the trouble arose, had gone down the pit and appealed to the men. A "bombshell" was dropped during the afternoon when the management announced that 160 strikers would be dismissed. The men's leaders gave an assurance that they would open negotiations with the management for the reinstatement of the strikers. The re-employment of Mr.

Quinn is to be considered later. A meeting of all the employees was arranged for to-morrow afternoon. Five of the eight men who went down the pit at 10 p.m. on Monday were among the last batch to come out. They had spent 46 hours at the shaft bottom.

All our food had gone." said one of the men. The last snack went about noon to-day, but there was plenty of drinking water as we had taken five or six pints with us. There was a determination to stay longer if no step was taken for the reinstatement of Mr. Quinn, but we yielded to the persuasion or tne branch officials after they had emphasised the anxiety that was being caused ro our women-iouc. Ate Ponies' Bran About sixty of the strikers had left the pit at 2 p.m.

One man who, it was stated, collapsed from exhaustion was carried out on a stretcher. Another man, showing a handful of bran, said some of the strikers had taken it from the stables of the pit ponies and had been eating it. They alleged that the management had refused to allow food to be sent to them. The management, in their first statement to-night, admitted that thev had refused to allow food to be sent to the men. who had stayed in the pit bottom or rneir own accord.

Trie statement added that the strikers were only a few paces from the cage, at which a man was waiting for them to say they wanted to go un. The management also admitted that pickets had been stationed at various points to prevent men from going down another shaft to mix with the strikers. The management confirmed the report that 160 strikers had been dismissed, saying that thev hart ceased to be employed on their own account. PUBLIC SAFETY AND PERSONAL RIGHTS The New Bill in Eire The maintenance of public safety mignt in certain circumstances necessitate abridgment of personal rights said Mr. Maguire, K.C.

(for the Attorney uenerai). tne Supreme Court, Dublin. yesterday, during the hearing of argu ments concerning the validity of the Offences Against the State Amendment BUI (Eire). 1940: The bill has been referred to the court by President Hyde for a decision on the question whether it is repugnant to the buiuuiuuuu or amy oi lis provisions. The Act which was aimed at suppressing the ULA.

was declared unconstitutional last December by Mr. Justice Gavan Duffy, who ordered the release of one of the men held in prison since the Act was passed. Mr. Maguire said the greatest latitude must be allowed to Parliament, and one could foresee circumstances in which if conspiracies were allowed to develop and reach such a state that they might involve Eire in war or something of that kind their result would be disastrous He argued that the expression in the Constitution that no citizen should be deprived of his liberty save in accordance with law meant in accordance with existing law, and with such law as might be passed from time to time. In reply to the Chief Justice, he agreed that he meant in accordance with law made from time to time that was not repugnant to the Constitution.

The arguments were adjourned. Richard Freeman (53), a tailor, of Bolton, was sentenced to four years' penal-servitude by Mr. Justice Singleton at Lancaster Assizes at Lancaster yesterday for the attempted murder of Mrs. Sarah Coulton, wire of Herbert Holland Coulton, a rtna operator, of Adrian Street. Bolton.

The Nazis' Choice There is no reason to feel ashamed of our blockade. There need be no starvation in Germany if the Nazis feed the people, not tneir guns. There are goqd solid signs that our economic campaign is beginning to taite enect These three points were made last night by Mr. Ronald Cross, Minister of Economic Warfare, in a broadcast on his Ministry's work. "Germany is a totalitarian country, and each German has his place on that economic front which we are attacking," he said.

"To relax our attack would merely prolong the war and increase the loss of life. "What is moie ycu cannot separate foodstuffs from industrial. raw materials. Bakelite is made from milk, sugar from trees, high explosives from fats, alcohol is a motor fuel. And I could give you many more examples.

I want to make it absolutely clear that there need be no starvation in Germany, no matter how long the war may last. Germany is nracticallv self. sumcieni tne xsazis use tneir plentiful foodstuffs to feed their Deonle. not their guns. Fats to feed the people or fats ior explosives to leeo tne guns It has oeen a real and paimul choice for the German people.

It mar become more painful yet, but it is the Nazi Government which has made that choice and win nave to unmake it. It is they, not we, who starve the German women and children. We have no need to feel asnamea oi our economic war. I am more concerned lest you think it inenecuve. Mr.

Cross showed that there need be no fear on this score. Our economic attack had gone a long way towards destroying uermany overseas trade, and it was making her trade with her neutral neighbours more difficult every day. No figures could show the volume which had not left port for fear of our contraband control. Just compare the immense volume of goods shipped in peace-time from overseas to Germany or from Germany to overseas markets with the volume of her present overseas trade. Then you will begin to appreciate what our con traband control has achieved.

In Germany to-day," he added, the use of railway engines is restricted owing to shortage of lubricating grease. Even their hghting aircraft the lubri cating oil is now used for many hours longer than we should consider safe. In Brief Miss Kav Stammers. Britain's No. 1 woman lawn tennis player, was married at St.

Peter's. Eaton Square, London, yesterday to Mr. Michael Menzies, who is a second lieutenant in the Welsh Guards. The King has approved the recommendation -of the Home Secretary that Mr. G.

R. Blanco White. K.C., be appointed Recorder of Croydon, to succeed Mr. R. F.

Colam, K.C, who has resigned. Mr. Colam, who is 80, held the Recordership at Croydon for nearly forty years. Monthly Star Maps for the year have again been issued bv the Scottish Provident Institution the twenty- seventh of the series. With stiff cardboard back, the volume comprises 24 coloured maps and a map of the heavens in hemispheres, tables, and notes for each month.

Exports of rags and old rope may be curtailed owing to the demands of paper mills. It is explained in the Board of Trade Journal that in order to maintain essential supplies of oaper the mills will be compelled in future to use increasing quantifies of home-produced raw materials, and exporters of rags, old rope, and other waste are advised to bear this in mind. When two brothers farming in Derbyshire were summoned at the Manchester City Police Court yesterday for supplying milk not of the quality demanded it was stated in their defence that the excessive water content was due to the inability of the defendants to buy oil cake and enough Indian meal to feed their vaSk. herd. The defendants" were John and Frank Mellor, of Greenhead Farm, Buxworth.

They were fined 10 and ordered to pay coats. Members of the East Lancashire Territorial Association paid their annual visit to the Lord Mayor of Manchester at the Town Hall on Tuesday, and on thm occasion the Lord Mayor (Alderman G. Harold White) revived the custom which had been in abeyance for some years of entertaining bis visitors to lunch. Among the visitors were Sir Warren Fisher. Sir William Coates (chairman of the association, and a number of official representatives of the Royal Navy.

WHY WEATHER REPORTS ARE FORBIDDEN Sir Walter Monckton Explains another by a famous professional skating pair, Potts and Gregory. Then there will be the usual amateur competitions, and the ordinary skater is asked to go to skate and to watch. As two hospitals are sharing the proceeds, the organisers are anxious that the carnival shall be, if possible, bigger than usual. The Mounting Death-Rate Last week 679 deaths were reported in Manchester a total that has been exceeded only once, in the last week of November, 1918, when influenza accounted for 384 of the 682 deaths. Last week's total, however, included only 24 deaths from influenza.

More over the city's population has declined since 1918 at that time, therefore, 682 deaths represented a rate of 46.1, whereas last week's death-rate works out at 48.12, the highest on record and the records go back to 1875. The annual rate has declined steadily from 28.5 in that year to a level of 12 to 14 in the last decade. It may rise above the birth-rate for the first time this year. Deaths from bronchitis (181), heart and blood vessel diseases (261), and pneumonia of all kinds (38) are largely responsible for last week's swollen total. The average weekly figures for these diseases are about 8, 40, and 14 respectively, though higher figures are, of course, normal in winter.

Of those who died last week 316 were 65 years old or over. Reunion Nearer School When the Northern luncheon of the Old Millhillians' Club is held in Man chester on Saturday the members will be assembling much nearer their old school than is usual. Mill Hill was evacuated, at the beginning of the war. to. St.

Bees School in Cumberland. This was probably one of the longest journeys taken by any large school, and one result of it has been noted by a master who is an Old Mancunian. When the boys came North, he says, most of them discovered for the first time that half the population spoke like he did. concerned could also be accused of travelling too quickly under existing conditions, although there would be no question of him exceeding the speed- limit. Mr.

Howard also stated that many motorists still fail to screen their side lamps properly, and also had their compulsory headlamp mask wrongly fitted, or there had been tome tampering with the diffusing screen. When the new speed-limit became operative motorists who conformed with the regulations and tne new 20 m.D-h. law ought to be able to go about their normal business without any serious in convenience and still prove less of a destructive agent than thev had been. He further said that motorists, particularly drivers of transport and public service vehicles, have had good reason to complain oi the use of torches by pedestrians. The police would now use the powers given them to see that torch-users complied witn tne regulation MOTORISTS THE REGULATIONS Salford Police to Take Action After Final Warning Sir Walter Monckton, Director General of the Press and Censorship Bureau, paid a tribute to the press at a luncheon in London yesterday of the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers.

"If I had not got the friendliest relations with the press," he said, "they could make a fool of me every day and every night, pillory me in every paper, and have me out in a week not that I would mind going back to the-Bar in some ways, but they don't." Explaining why weather reports are forbidden, Sir Walter said: "I have had a good deal of correspondence about hiding the fact that the sun has been shining so warmly during this last month that we have all taken our coats off and are walking about in our shirt-sleeves. "I am advised by the departments concerned that if you give information about the weather in this country for some days on end, for a considerable period after that it may be five days or a little more an intelligent meteorological expert can forecast with reasonable accuracy what the weather is likely to be in the days tnat follow. INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM Dealing with the war. Sir Walter said he did not feel so much that it was freedom or truth that was in peril, but England and the people who thought like "11" people who were peril. and he went on "A fundamental principle of anybody who has my job must always be an annreciation that one of the central efforts we are making in this war is -to preserve alter ana through the war the freedom of individual men and women to speak the1 truth as they see it.

What we tn Arnht for is that individual nhm chould be retained." After mentaooini that fie was an As a final warning to motorists Salford police are to issue a pamphlet which will summarise all the regulations with which roae-users hav now to comply. The pamphlet widely distributed, ano after trie motoring public has been given tune to become familiar with the new regulations police action will be taxen against all offenders. In making thik statement to a Manchester Guardian'' representative yesterday the Deputy Chief Constable (Mr. R. Howard) said they did not want to faring offenders before the courts, but unless motorists showed themselves willing to ro-operate there appeared to be no other alternative.

An of reports of accidents that hail nnmmwi hTiiw black-out made it quite clear that many motorists not Deen driving at a spera? would gpaKle them to md tip witnin their range of vision. There had been Several aroMont. mhu-h tmAeA to show that although the primary cause was a.