Bench Grass is a blog about the history of technology by the former student of a student of Lynn White. The main focus is a month-by-month retrospective series, covering the technology news, broadly construed, of seventy years ago, framed by fictional narrators. The author is Erik Lund, an "independent scholar" in Vancouver, British Columbia. Last post will be 24 July 2039.
Postblogging Technology, May 1954, I: The Fall of Dien Bien Phu
R_.C_., Shaughnessy, Vancouver, Canada
Dear Father:
I shall be brief here as I am finding myself excitingly indispensable at work as the aviation world scrambles to find replacements for Comet 1s now and Comet 2s soon. I was not completely convinced by my professors' talk about learning to "think like a lawyer," but I find myself called upon to read a great many contracts. In fact, to make all the jokes about my useless schooling as completely obsolete as a Handley Page Halifax, some of them are in French! (I'd volunteer to read the ones in Chinese, too, but, first of all, there aren't any; and, second, it might raise suspicions.) It is nice to have help at home, but I am missing my ambles with James-James already! Your son, by the way, has been dragooned to Farnborough to give his perspective on a water tank they are building big enough to take an entire Comet fuselage so that they can prove that fatigue happens to Geoff De Havilland and other suspects.
And if you think I've gone a bit mad with the accompanying illustrations, we have splurged on a copying machine that makes producing them a breeze, and I might have gotten a bit carried away.
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
William Knowland allowing himself to be manoeuvred out of leadership of the Senate, 1958
The Economist, 1 May 1954
Leaders
"The Cork in the Bottle" Everyone is happy that the Prime Minister says that there will be no British military intervention in Viet Nam before everything is sorted out in Geneva, no matter what happens at Dien Bien Phu. It does, however, point out that the French are going to have to keep on fighting, since if they give up that will just bring an atomic war nearer because the Reds will be emboldened, etc, etc, Communists marching into Sydney next Thursday, an so on. (Literally: "[A] red tongue of menace [stretching] down to the shores of Australia.") Also somehow if we are faint-hearted and half-measured it will be like when we let Franco get into power in Spain. But some kind of truce might still be okay, but maybe France will fall apart if Dien Bien Phu falls. So many things to worry about!
"Taxing Personal Incomes" The Economist reads the report of the Royal Commission on the income tax for us at pretty considerable length considering that it calls for standing pat, but you do have to prepare the ground if you want to argue in the last paragraph that the typical Economist reader should get a tax break. Follows two pages on the prospects of the Liberal Party, because you have to talk about that in Britain if you write about politics.
"Atomic Politics" More atomic tests are coming, not because there is still some Eniwetok showing above water, but because we need better hydrogen bombs, and the British are having a fight over how and why Attlee "gave up" Britain's veto over the use of the atom bomb. There seems to be some need for a new agreement between the Americans and the British, but even The Economist can see that there is no chance of a new British veto on American atomic use.
Notes of the Week
"Gloves off at Geneva" The Chinese foreign minister made an annoying speech, all about what China wants. The nerve! Also, the North Korean position clearly implies that the Reds would also take over Germany if given their way in Korea, because the situations are practically the same. Also, Nehru is a great big nincompoop for not wanting to send Indian troops to Indo China, because everything is just like Spain, and look how that turned out. I'm feeling as though "How Spain turned out" changes by the paragraph around here.
"New Leader for the Left" It's Harold Wilson. Harold Wilson is the man. You can tell by the way that he is taking the lead on offering "bromides" on Indo China. The British are looking at local government budgets, The Economist notices that if Saigon falls, Casablanca is next. This is a reference to Bao Dai's stand, not to "dominoes falling." In other words, if Bao Dai is allowed to get away with full independence a noncommunist Viet Nam, North Africans will demand the same. If the French take advantage of his intransigence to repudiate him and draw a truce line that partitions Viet Nam, this might encourage Tunisia and Morocco to draw back from the Union. In Moscow it seems that there is a bit of a power struggle going on between Khrushchev and Malenkov.
"The Next Dominion" Gold Coast can hardly be denied self-governing dominion status any longer. And by that one means that "dominion" is being revived as an excuse to deny Gold Coast full independence. the Governor will retain some powers, and Nkrumah is encouraged to establish a Council of Chiefs so that things don't get too democratic. And it'll all probably collapse into incompetence and corruption, but, still, hope for the best and all of that. The Economist is worried that decontrol of food is just going to lead to farm marketing boards everywhere. On the bright side, there is a tidy little reform of grants-in-aid in the works, and Peron's hold on Argentina seems a bit shaky after the election, forcing him to arrest the opposition candidate, Crislogo Larralde. New Zealand is having a fight over the government's plan to borrow £12 million to pay for housing, which the Labour opposition has denounced(!) as inflationary, Prime Minister Holland says that the budget is strong enough to support the borrowing, and New Zealand needs houses. Authors and publishers are fighting over money, Ireland's election is very boring, there should be a study of legal earnings, the abrupt halt in Soviet purchases of Australian wool shows that the Reds are not to be trusted, and the London conference on preventing pollution at sea is to be welcome, since Britain is being unusually heavily hit by all the oil being washed out of tanks or lost to corrosion, leading to its beaches being gummed with oil and killing sea birds. It's nice that British shipowners have agreed to voluntary measures to reduce oil pollution, but foreigners will probably ignore it and so the beaches are doomed.
From The Economist of 1854, "Masters and Men" concludes that the strike resulting from the recent decision by northern employers to revoke the 10% wage increase won by the last strike is horrible. Yes, the poor are dying in the street, but look at those wonderful capitalists! They would increase pay if they could, but all that gold from Australia is pushing up interest rates and now they can't afford it!
Letters
Stephen King-Hall points out some of the less obvious drawbacks of a close, Nato-like alliance in Asia. It's not just a matter of Britain being dragged into a war with Communist China; It is Dulles not being able to say, "I'd love to, but the Brits won't come in!" Arthur Schlesinger points out that Senator Saltonstall is pro-McCarthy, not anti-, as he pretends to be in recent comments in the press. Pat Sloan of the British Soviet Friendship Society goes to bat for Lysenko, who is clearly on the way out in Russia. "Local Government Official" denies that the government of Ulster is anti-Roman Catholic, citing various things that Belfast has done for Catholics, like paying for schools. D. G. McDonald of the Chessborough Manufacturing Company points out that Vaseline is a brand name, and stop using it to refer to petroleum jelly. Also, if I'm not mistaken, The Economist makes a dirty joke. ("Romance by the jar.") D. H. MacKenzie reminds everyone to check for hidden charges when dealing with travel agents.
American Survey
"McCarthy Versus the Army" a page-and-a-half boils down to McCarthy's Gallup rating falling from 50% to 38%. So much for McCarthy, and let's forget about whatever these hearings might be about.
"Industry and the Atom" The Bill to amend the Atomic Energy Act will clear the way to building five experimental atomic power reactors. The Senate is working overtime to clear up the scandal at the FHA and sort out the Wool Bill, which actually extends price supports for the five main cash crops, which expire at the end of the year, in a more flexible form, it is to be hoped. One Bill that is through is the highway development bill, which allocates a billion dollars as matching funds for state highway development, much needed public works, along with another bill that might allow the government to fund new buildings and replace all the temporary structures "disfigur[ing]" the Capital. The highway bill is far short of what is required, with the President talking about $8 billion a year, and experts, $40--50 billion to keep up with economic growth, but it is a start. The 5% pay cut accepted by workers at Willys Overland is a hopeful sign for the future, according to The Economist, which isn't in any danger of taking a 5% cut any time soon. In return, Uncle Henry guarantees continuing 40 hour per week employment, and if there's anything you can say about Uncle Henry, it is that he is a man of his word, Ronnie said with a straight face. And speaking of our interests out west, there is a long piece about the proposed tariff to protect western lead and zinc producers, which will hit Trail very hard if it goes through.
The World Overseas
"Secrets of the Soviet Budget" Estimated revenue of 572 billion rubles, and expenditure of 562 billion leaves a very narrow surplus reflecting budgetary pressure, but it is not clear where. Defence spending as a proportion of the budget continues to fall, with an absolute cut of 10 billion rubles cutting the defence share to 15% of the budget or so, but atomic expenditures may be hidden under other headings. About a third of spending is undisclosed, but grants to industry and social services are little changed.
"India and the Foreign Settlements" India wants to annex Goa and Pondicherry, both of which lose money for their colonial masters, never mind the smaller enclaves, which are hardly viable at any level, but that doesn't mean that they will go quietly, and Salazar seems more interested in goading Indian communists than negotiating. A $100 million loan to the ECSC gives the European Community some dollars to work with. Kuwait is a nice place, won't Iraq please leave it alone. The standoff in Lima over Haya de la Torre's sanctuary in the Colombian embassy is over, with Senor Haya allowed to leave for Mexico and giving President Odria a chance to reform Peru's economy along lines more appealing to British investors. A "journal" of the first two days at Geneva catches us up a bit more, and Chou En-lai is on a tour of Germany.
Spring Books
Volume 6 of Churchill's The Second World War gets the lead, very long, somewhat skeptical review focusing on doubts about whether the Prie Minister could really have saved eastern Europe with American backing. James Wechsler's The Age of Suspicion is his explanation that he cooperated with HUAC in order to save truth, liberty, and the left. Herbert Morison's Government and Parliament: A Survey From the Inside, explains why Herbert Morison should be the next prime minister. H. C. Jackson's Sudan Days and Ways is about how British administrators were the best thing to ever happen to Sudan. Compton McKenzie's Echoes is a compilation of the radio presenters' best stories about long ago days before the war. Bernard Darwin's Golf gets a column and a half because you just can't talk about golf enough. Dorothy Hartley's Food in Britain is about making food and eating it, thank God, not about why it doesn't cost enough and shouldn't cost more. A bit more of Hartley and a bit less of "Oh no, subsidies" and maybe we wouldn't all dread the "lamb" and brussel sprouts! Noel Coward's Future Indefinite is about what Noel did during the war, no names except Rebecca West, the one he didn't sleep with. (I assume.) John Middleton Murry's Jonathan Swift tries to unravel the "riddle of Swift," which is actually quite a good riddle, if you care, and I know you don't. Julian Huxley's From an Antique Land: Ancient and Modern in the Middle East is paired with Stuart Perowne's The One Remains: A Report from Jerusalem to make for a good compare-and-contrast look at the colourful Middle East of antiquities and Huxleyan insights and the present situation in Jerusalem, which is about living people (mostly refugees expelled from Israel and living in "lice-ridden caves") and not roseate ancient ruins at all.
Deborah Kerr, dressed by Martin Amies in The Grass is Greener (1960)
The Economist offers one of those oblique judgements about how all the ill-informed people should read this before having opinions that is usually an excuse for not doing anything about said lice-ridden domiciles. C. S. Forester edits The Adventures of John Wetherell because evidently he hasn't published enough books this year. G. P. Gooch's Catherine the Great and Other Studies is fine history, it says here, although nothing in the review persuades me of that. Percy Muir's English Children's Books ought to be pretty much reviewer-proof, but then they find this reviewer. Who, again, might just be in a bad mood because of the quality of the stories their child insists on at bedtime, and I can agree with that! There is a Dictionary of English Furniture out, for those that care, a life of Josephine Baker by A. S. G. Butler, Carnot (the Elder) by S. J. Watson, and Palmerston by W. Baring Pemberton. An autobiography of Hardy Amies is what The Economist imagines to be a "philosophy of couture," a look at the founders of Methodism by Mable Richmond Brailsford, John Lough's Introduction to Seventeenth Century France. which the reviewer and I agree in praising, V. S. Pritchett taking another look at Spain, J. H. Fingleton on cricket, E. W. Martin on the English village, an edition of the Torrington diaries (that's the Byngs of "pour encourager les autres" fame), Michael Swan on the great ruins of Teotihuacan, Cameron Hawley on business, J. H. Simpson on schools, J. F. C. Fuller on "the decisive battles of the western world," Carleton Mitchell on sailing, and Bernard Wall on an obscure Nineteenth Century Italian writer, which the reviewer has decided to persuade us is an important book, probably on a dare.
The Business World
"Profits from Liners" The specialist press has covered this better, but here The Economist notes that the fall in profits to British shipowners since the end of the Korean War is still continuing, but liners are doing better than tramps, even though the long term trends in passenger shipping are not encouraging. The fleet still does need to be renewed, however, which is good news for builders. A much less lucid Leader on the British money supply follows, which finds the relationship between its size and inflation to be mysterious, and then, after hashing out the numbers, admits at the end that in this world of cheques and credit, the number of bank notes in circulation has very little to do with the total amount of money available for buying and selling, so why are these numbers even important any more?
Business Notes
Financial news leads off, followed by the latest on the attempted takeover of the Savoy, followed by a puzzler about how steel prices are publicised in Europe versus the Continent, as apparently the British do a better job of distinguishing open hearth structural steels from Bessemer, which is of interest to those who care whether they are building with higher quality open hearth steel or not. Engineering exports are up, we're told in a piece barely longer than The Engineer's coverage. A longer and more thoughtful bit (after a brief discussion of the Mexican devaluation) lays out the role of innovation in exports, according to the Board of Trade, which finds £288 million in engineering exports as being in "new" goods.which evidently includes refined petroleum as well as planes. The Economist worries that not enough of them were developed by private British business in a pristine and immaculately non-American way.
Girl is swole!
"Marking Time on the Comet" The Economist approves of De Havilland suspending all work on the Comet. A sigh of relief can be heard from Hatfield! "How much of its technical lead the company will lose" is uncertain, it goes on. For crying out loud, what technical lead? They built a passenger version of the Vampire and dared the Ministry of Supply to say no! Is it falling out of the sky? Well, how many Vampires are still flying? However, there's a political angle, because the men working on Comet 3s at Shorts in Belfast will have to be laid off almost immediately, as there is no work for them until Seamew and Britannia production commence. The world's sugar surplus is so large it is being stored in barges in Rotterdam and Antwerp. Oil prices (actually, paraffin, but it has a knock-on effect) are up. The film industry is surprisingly buoyant considering all the pessimism expended on it. Car exports are "buoyant," nickel prices are up.
"C" license: The Scammel Crusader
"Road Haulage and the 'C' License" What are commercial vehicles up to on British roads? The statistics are not very complete, so it was nice that during the brief period of road transport nationalisation that the Road Haulage Executive and Railway Executive of the Transport Commission did keep track, and provided statistics that made up the data for a paper given to the Royal Statstical Society this week. It appears that the large "C" license lorries of the RHE were much more efficient and carried much longer loads and had good ton mileage numbers and what that means we don't know because we don't have any more similar series.
Leaders
"Out of this Nettle . . ." The crash of a fourth Comet is bad but it's probably not that bad. Also, hats! Okay, to be fair Flight is introducing a general history of 603 Squadron later in the issue, but it is its choice to summarise all the "hats" information about honorary commanders and cap badges and such.
From All Quarters reports that the royal tour is almost over, with the Queen and Prince Philip squared away on an Argonaut (DC-4) for a lap around Africa. Hawker Siddeley's purchase of Canadian Steel Improvements is explained as a move to get into American titanium production. Flight is told that the Vought F7U-3 is a very safe plane with excellent low speed handling for no discernable reason since it has no tail! Air Vice Marshal Allen is joining Dunlop because he is 55 and it is time to cash it in.
Flight takes a ride in a Provost (and later the Beaver).
Here and There reports that four Vampires are being sent to Kenya as reinforcements. New RAF equipment on show includes a smaller, flat-pack parachute, and 2682 aircrew have been trained in Canada under the Nato programme.
"In On the Ground Floor" Flight visits Air Service Training and concludes that "the flight simulator has come into its own." Nowadays they look just like a cockpit with outputs that show an instrument flying track, and even a machine to buffet the stand. The advantage of the AST50 that Flight saw is that it was entirely mechanical and pneumatic, and so lacks all the "black boxes" of a conventional electronic simulator that take up an entire room to themselves. It is also easy to maintain. Never fear, though, AST does make conventional electronic simulators, most recently for BEA's Ambassadors and Viscounts.
"Airfield Visibility Assessment: American Experiments with Automatic Observation Equipment" We get a summary of the American Weather Bureau's experiments with "transmissometers" and "ceilometers" at Washington National Airport, which have been going on since 1951, and which are intended to give accurate visibility numbers to guide pilots on incoming flights. The principles for calculating ceiling height automatically are laid out briefly.
"Ranger of the Northlands: The Avro Canada CF-100" A pictorial with a blurb, I mention it because it has a discussion of how the plane's nose-mounted air-to-air rocket armament works.
Aircraft Intelligence reports that British experiments with the Proteus 705 aboard Ambassador testbeds continue, that the USAF is receiving its first F-84Fs, while the navy is receiving Douglas Demon F3Hs, and experiments with the turboprop XF-84H continue. Marchetti is reported to be working on an "executive transport" with two Avon engines, while Spain is developing a fighter from a Messerschmitt design. The multipage unit history of 603 Squadron Royal Auxiliary Air Force ends on a half page which is extended with a slightly longer discussion of the "record deliveries" received by the RCAF in March of 150 aircraft, which really is a lot! Also, Ryan is working on its "Firebee" target drone and Brazil is starting to fly its Meteors.
"Airline Engineering: Precis of a Presentation to the Chester Branch by R. C. Morgan, Chief Project and Development Engineer of BEA on 'Practical Experience of Airline Engineering" Which, in spite of the long title and the three pages of text and two pages of discussion, doesn't have much to say. Airlines should hire engineers for new equipment testing and troubleshooting and service development! As on review this isn't boring enough, Flight is off to the Physical Society Exhibition to look at the new aircraft instruments at the Kelvin and Hughes booth. Ooh! Ah! (One can reduce the friction in ball races by rotating two in the opposite direction to almost cancel out the frictional torque.)
"Seconds for mince pie!"
Civil Aviation reports that Trans-Canada will receive its first Super-Constellation next month.
"Fokker's Twin-Dart Friendship" The Fokker F. 27 Friendship is a light transport with overhead wings. The article goes into a bit more detail, from which it sounds as though Fokker has a winner on its hands. For a look at the other half, Sir Miles Thomas assures shareholders that the Hermes transports the corporation is flogging off on anyone who wants them will only be used for services that BOAC doesn't want to undertake. Recent objections by BOAC staff who are opposed to the sale and to changes in Government trooping policy, are nonsense, and there will be no strike, as threatened by ground crew.
The Industry reports that aircraft manufacturing plants use a lot of gas, and that Rolls Royce's turbine engine testhouse has now been silenced.
Correspondence
Hamish MacLaren and J. C. Brooke share anecdotes and facts from the old days, before the war. J. C. Neilan has opinions about the sources of turbulence, G. L. Miller sticks up for draughtsmen, and "Pedantica" is sure that if they try building a wooden single-control aircraft design it will definitely work this time and bring aviation to the masses and not be a pointless exercise in reckless homicide like all the other times.
The Economist, 8 May 1954
Leaders
"Alliance in Danger" The British appear to have noticed that Dulles is an idiot (fortunately an idiot who has flown off to Italy to stir up trouble over Trieste because he is upset about developments at Geneva) and that the Administration is incompetent, and to the extent that the British public notices, it's bad news because they'll all vote for Bevan.
"Towards Longer Schooldays" A survey of the situation concludes that Britain won't be able to raise the "school leaving age" from fifteen to sixteen until about 1965, because in spite of improvements in teacher recruiting mainly due to better accommodation of married women, the overall population expansion has severely delayed implementation of the 1948 Education Act.
"Auguries from Bonn" The month is likely to see the fall of Dien Bien Phu, of the Laniel government, and the isolation of Bideault at Geneva. And it might see the Assembly "killing outright the policy of European integration" by rejecting the EDC. Which is why Adenauer's speech to the Bundestag is so important, because he said that European integration is good, so that's good. Now off to survey the landscape of German politics and find that everything is awful! Also, Britain should spend more money on information services abroad and it is appalling that more people in the government don't recognise that.
Notes of the Week
"M. Bidault in No Man's Land" Here's what French politics looked like before Dien Bien Phu fell! It did not look good then, but it's probably fine now, because Mendes-France can actually run the country, unlike Daniel Laniel, who can't put off a non-confidence motion forever, even with Gaullist support. Mendes-France probably won't last, because he has his eyes on North Africa, too, but give him a few months and he'll do some good, and maybe tell somebody off about this "fight to the clast Frenchman" hogwash. Tje British, meanwhile, seem stuck on the idea of the "free nations of southern Asia" guaranteeing the settlement in Indo China, whatever it looks like. (Partition, as in Korea, seems improbabl because there is not a clear geographical divide between Bao Dai's state and the Viet Minh.) Back in Britain, Labour is falling apart, too, and The Economist thinks that the Television Bill isn't being debated adequately.
The Istanbul Greek pogrom, 1955
"The Tibet Region of China" India and China have signed a treaty in which India renounces its positions in Tibet in return for trade and pilgrimage rights. The Economist thinks that it is the right thing to do but wants to stick up for the national right to autonomy of the Tibetan people that will surely be recognised some day. The Turkish government has been reelected, and that's probably good except their majority is too big and that's likely to lead to trouble. The local elections are swinging to Labour, which is only to be expected. The Economist is pleased that the Government isn't going to be allowed to dismiss atomic workers for their political views without a review, with something like the case for non-political dismissals, and transfer to non-secret work where possible. There is talk of protection for British forestry. Eltham School will remain open, which is a victory for parents and teachers but a disaster for the London County Council's comprehensive plan that would have sent them to the new school at Kidminster. The Press Council has been put through the wringer in its first major test, a dispute between the editor and a movie reviewer at the Daily Sketch.
"Fish-days for Russians" The Russians have missed their targets for meat production and there will be many meatless days this summer, Trade Minister Anastasi Mikoyan warns, ostensibly because farmers are retaining stock to fatten them up for sale at higher prices in the fall, making Khrushchev's reforms responsible, as opposed to anything else. The rest of Europe is upset at the size of the German surplus with the EPU, and the "anti-British and anti-colonial" People's United Party has swept the elections in British Honduras, just like pessimists predicted. They're not going to be allowed into the executive council, because they're probably all catspaws of the Communist-influenced Guatemalans, but maybe when they turn out to be responsible Nkrumahs rather than irresponsible Jagans, and will come around to cooperation eventually.
From The Economist of 1854 comes the breathless revelation that unions are bad because they are really about demanding power in the workplace, and there are masters, and men.
Letters
Desmond Banks of the Radical Reform Group has opinions about the revival of the Liberal Party. The Portuguese Embassy is upset at the allegation that fascist Portugal is running Goa like fascists. James Stewart of the Coal Merchants' Federation has opinions about pricing mechanically mined coal, which produces fewer of the arge coals prefered by domestic users and railways. W. J. Gleeson of London takes on "Local Government Official's" "deliberate misrepresentation" of the amount of anti-Catholic discrimination in Northern Ireland.
Books
G. Rattray Taylor, author of Sex in History (1954), which sounds like every cliche about the subject all between two covers.
The review of S. M. Ferguson and H. Fitzgerald's 's Studies in the Social Services is subtitled "The Women's War." The review turns out to be mainly about maternity with a special emphasis on single mothers, who, it turns out, were badly served by social service. (Ronnie is shocked!) Joel Seidman's American Labour From Defence to Reconversion is a solid history. E. N. da C. Andrade has a biography of Sir Isaac Newton, which seems good enough for a "Brief Lives" volume. Milton Friedman of the University Chicago (One-two-three strikes and you're out!) has Essays in Positive Economics, which the reviewer seems to think is wrong,but which needs refuting. The naval historian, C. Northcote Parkinson has War in the Eastern Seas, 1793--1815 is a solid history of 23 years of nothing happening that only falls down when it is asked to treat something that didhappen. And that's about it!
.
American Survey
"President and Press" The President's latest solution to the McCarthy problem, which is to commplain about how the "New Deal columnists" and "bleeding-heart left wingers" of the Washington press corps created McCarthy, and they should just stop, gets an unfavourable review, which goes on to point out that it was the Administration that accused President Truman of condoning treason and which first used confidential FBI files for character assassination. And it matters because the road to peace in Indo China runs into a giant roadblock in Washington in the form of many Washingtonians' will to go to war with China, never mind the Viet Minh. I mean, it's one thing to support that nonsense from the opposition, but once you're in power, this whole "Stop holding me back, Anthony!" act gets pretty old. If Anthony holds Ike back so fiercely that he can't go to war with China, it might be that the alliance is broken to save America from Knowland's war.
There's lots of things to dislike about Henry Luce, but not his willingness to run a spread because it's pretty, and who cares if it doesn't make sense
"Too Easy Money?" The new Treasury issue might be at too low rate, but it is not enough to cause inflation unless the country suddenly finds itself at war again. Hint HINT. Speaking of which, Exercises FLASH BURN and TIC TAC 54-7 (and the failure of the Korean talks, and the threat of another brushfire war) seem to show that the Army cuts under the New Look might have been premature. Like everybody else, The Economist notices that McCarthy's ratings are down and that there is no way that free trade America is going to embrace free trade. It also reports on the upcoming decision on the Communist Party's First Amendment-based appeal of the Internal Security Act.
"Hawaii's Expanding Economy" Visitors are surprised to find something on Hawaii besides coconut trees and sandy beaches. Actually, it has a half-million people "of diverse racial backgrounds" and a rapidly expanding billion dollar economy. There is one car for every three people and a television for every ten. Eighty-four percent of the population are American citizens. Sugar, followed by the navy, are the biggest contributors, although tourism was worth $43 million last year. This introduction to Hawaii brought to you by the "Why the Heck Isn't It a State Oh, No, I Said 'Racially Diverse' Out Loud" Department.
The World Overseas
"Uganda Turns a Page" Now that Owen Falls is open, can an indutrial revolution in Uganda be far behind? Maybe. Unless politics gets in the way, follows an explanation of the tribal makeup of the colony. Speaking of which, it is off to Indo China to survey its resources: Rice, also rubber, mainly in the south. Though there may be some ore bodies in the Tongking hills, notably coal, but also lead, zinc, tin, antimony, manganese, wolfram, gold and iron.
"Notes from Australia" The election is less than a month away, and the coalition only needs to lose eight seats to hand victory to Labour, which is growing less likely due to the healthy economy and the Petrov affair, which has revealed a widespread Communist spy ring in Australia. Arrests will surely keep the matter front and centre through the election and reinforce Prime Minister Menzies' call to outlaw the Communist Party. Dr. Evatt (of Labour) has been making the case that it is all just propaganda, but has not made a good impression. Trade with Japan is also likely to be an election issue, and so does wheat prices stabilisation, since the Australian surplus is so large they're running out of places to put it. Recent relief from inflation is also good news for the government, which is also tempted to use the Royal Family politically by pushing for a royal residence (to be used during visits) somewhere near Canberra. And in New South Wales, miners are upset at the threat to coal from gas, oil and hydroelectric.
In London, The Daily Worker is calling an Empire conference because all the subjects of the British Empire have a common cause in anti-imperialism, and the second installment of the "Journal of Geneva" gets up to 5 May and mostly covers the rapid failure of the Korean talks.
The Business World
Long Leading articles on London's recovery as a financial centre with some thoughts about widening the range of arbitrage on unofficial exchange values for dollars, and "new thinking" on the EPU that is even more inexplicable to non-financial people.
"Unilever Across the World" What to expect in Unilever's annual report? Overall health, but the article turns to a discussion of the sale at a loss of the Harriet Hubbard Ayers cosmetic subsidiary in the States before overtly asking whether there will be an unpleasant surprise when the report comes in due mainly to losses on margarine sales, already noted in Germany and the Netherlands, and possibly in Britain, too.
Business Notes
Finance, finance, the ECSC, talk of reducing the down payments for a house to encourage home ownership, the risks and rewards of building homes with "hot" money, the public revelation of Windscale with its eery lack of "industrial" activity except for the "ritual safety precautions against the invisible hazard of radiation."
"Windscale and Beyond" It is noted that Windscale was built without access to American information and represents a "major act of faith." There is a little more discussion of the safety precautions, which mainly involve keeping all the potential radioactive contamination inside. Windscale was originally built on the assumption that maintenance would be impossible due to the high radiation, but revised health precautions allow exposure to high radiation provided that the average exposure over time is kept to safe limits, and tracking out radioactive debris in your shoes is a great way to turn a brief heavy exposure into a real health risk. The next step is the completion of Calder Hall, which will raise steam and double British plutonium production.
"Saudi Arabia's Tankers" The tanker fleet that Aristotle Onassis is going to operate for Aramco, the Saudi Arabian-American joint venture, is terrible and bad. New management promises to make the British Industrial Fair less boring (cc. The Engineer), industrial output is at record levels in Britain and abroad, coal prices are up, there are too many regulations about product standards to export to Western Europe, finance, finance, export credits to Brazil, British shipbuilding prices are too high.
Leaders
"The Usefulness of Gliding" I am sorry, but I do not see it. And the second Leader is on sport gliding!
From All Quarters reports that Britannia will be arriving off Cowes in time to greet the returning royal couple. Canberras are fast, and trials of the latest Martin-Baker ejection seat use a mannequin that is made to be the "average man," which is good for some jokes. There are still pilots who like to fly around to golf courses and talk about it in public.
E. H. Jeferson, "Building the Hunter" Mr. Jefferson actually gave his talk to the SAE, but Flight will summarise it here. The Hunter required 3250 tool designs and 40,000 jigs, tools and fixtures. Their manufacture was put on super-prioirty to break the production bottleneck and get Hunter production going in three countries. Hawker could not find enough skilled toolmakers, so many of the rough tools were made by skilled fitters, instead. This was not good enough for production jigs, however, and many of those were eventually found in Italy. Hunter production was broken down into three units, which complicated the division of production into multiple factories. Many subcomponents were made in Holland and Belgium to make the production deadline. Certain machined components for the wing and fuselage were made of machined high-alloy steel, for which American machine tools like the duplex drilling machines from Hydrotel, Hufford and Sheffield stretch-forming machines, Onsrud spar millers, Farnham rolls, Vernon brake-presses and Pines benders were invaluable. All Hunter production lines were set up with emergency dispersal in mind.
"Helicopters in War: An Appraisal of the U.S. Army's Experience of Rotating-Wing Transport" Helicopters were very useful in Korea and shine in exercises, but not in a way that revolutionises war just yet, the latest exercises in Fort Bragg pending.
Here and There reports that the Viscount is about to receive an American CAA, and that the 3 Viscounts being procured by the RAF to replace its Vikings will be 700Ds, that among the things being airlifted into Dien Bien Phu were half a ton of ice a day for the camp hospital, that while the RAF has suffered 416 jet aircraft accidents in the last two years, only a "very few" have been caused by engine disintegration. Major General Roscoe C. Wilson is the new commander of USAF 3rd Air Force in Britain.
H. F. King (compiler), "The Two Rs: A Commemorative History of Rolls-Royce Aero Engines" After a brief biography of the two founders and a time line of Rolls Royce developments is laid out, the reason for the "compiler" credit becomes obvious. This is a compilation of short writeups of Rolls Royce engines from the Flight archives. So if you want short descriptions of the Eagle, Hawk, Condor, Kestrel, Buzzard, "R," Goshawk, Merlin, Peregrine, Griffon, Exe (and others, notably the Pennine but also an unnamed diesel), Vulture, (second) Eagle, Welland, Derwent, Nene, Trent, Clyde, Avon, Dart, Conway, and "unnamed turboprop," here it is! Actually, some of them are not so short, with the Merlin getting three pages, really the least this engineering accomplishment of steady design development deserves. A neat accompanying pictorial illustrates Rolls Royce's success in holding down frontal area growth over the years.
Aircraft Intelligence reports that the Douglas F4D-1 Skyray and F-100 are in production in America, the Breguet Provence and Dassault Mystere in France.
John Yoxall, "The Queen's Squadron: A History of No. 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force" At this point I have to admit to confusing the 23 April for the 1 May issues and summarising the wrong number. Too bad, you're getting it, and not the 1 May issue. (You're missing yet another brief description of the Nomad, and a much more interesting account of the T-56 on a mockup of a C-130 nacelle being flown on a Constellation testbed at Lockheed. Looks like Allison finally has it right!)
Flight flies the Piper Apache and watches the Ryan Firebee in action.
Correspondence
G. S. Hislop and D. M. Davies have thoughts about high altitude turbulence, J. R. Anderson is i nterested in Hafner's recent work with "convertible" helicopters, which he believes have been perfectly practical since 1942, even though the Air Ministry won't listen. D. J. B. Nicholls is upset that local authorities keep trying to shut down his local airfield just because it is a vast, unused expanse of concrete runway in the middle of good farmland. J. P. Herriott recalls the old days, before the war, as do W. W. Warner and G. E. Welbourn. R. F. O. Smith reports that there actually are plenty of opportunities in engineering aviation in Canada, so don't listen to the malcontents.
The Industry summarises the Bristol annual report, checks into KLG's sales organisation in America, prints an advertorial for the Minchom "Sempun" magnetic flaw detector for 'on the job' inspections, and for Wynstruments new air-dampened vertical accelerometer. Flight also visits the British Industry Fair under a separate header and picks out six of over a thousand exhibits for special attention before advising that you really need to see them all.
Civil Aviation discusses "The Comet Situation." The remaining Comet 1s have been flown back to Farnborough under "permissions to fly," and will do any future test flying out of Farnborough. De Haviland has curtailed Comet 2 production and transferred staff to other aircraft. BOAC is confident that it will not have to buy aircraft to replace the Comets, and spend precious dollars doing it, although a complicated swap scheme with Qantas for Constellations has been ruled out.
Business Roundup is pretty sure the "nine-month decline in business has ended." Various indicators show a recovery in business confidence, but unemployment, while relatively low, is a problem, and will continue to be too high, because productivity is continuing to rise at 2.5%, which, while down from the 3% annual rise in WWII, will require the economy to create 1.5 million jobs to replace those eliminated by productivity, and another 900,000 to cover the growth in the work force. However, productivity may grow even more quickly in the next year since it has been down recently in spite of high capital investment that might lead to increased productivity gains. This is in line with potential Administration plans to continue anti-recession moves, which can balance continuing defence spending cutbacks. Unless Indo-China blows up! There is good news for us, in that metals prices are recovering, which will reduce protectionist pressure, and inventories are falling, which is good news for manufacturing.
Business Notes from Abroad reports that Europe has not followed America into recession for some unknown reason before plumping for "Europe seems to have learned the importance of monetary discipline." How about, "Because Europe didn't torpedo its own economy by playing to the hard money crowd?" I mean, it's not like American politicians have anything to teach the Fourth Republic about hard money, but at least no-one made it worse! Speaking of France, Robert Schuman is telling everyone that France needs more business rationalisation and adaptation and devaluation so that it can enter even more Europe-wide trade agreements. In Britain, it is noticed that full employment is leading to empty shops because British factories can't add a second shift. "If only we had more unemployed so that we could hire them to work evening shifts can't possibly make sense even to the writer, so I notice that they put the "full" in "full employment" in quotation marks. East-West trade is likely to increase, and the list of strategic materials will be revised, but it is not clear who is going to do the revising. Also, with the increasing Soviet emphasis on consumer goods it isn't clear that the Soviets can increase their foreign earnings enough to buy all the nice things that Soviet citizens want, especially considering the sterling-balance crisis and consequent gold exports of the fall. There are likely to be more limited convertibility schemes and "hard-topped convertibility" before the hard/soft currency distinction finally falls, whenever it does. Even the Swiss can't manage it!
Leaders
"The Sound and the Fury of Robert R. Young" Have you heard enough about the takeover of the New York Central? You have not! You will sit right at this table and you will eat this serving of "railroad trouble" I am glopping on your plate or no playtime for you!
The farm lobby battle over whether our fighting men and women will eat more butter or more eggs continues. HOw big is the Air Force, exactly? We ask because of this month's article about LeMay's management problem at SAC. Excerpts of Wilson and Talbott's recent press conference about SAC are printed "in complete confidence that their publication will not help the Russians. It is, in fact, highly uncertain that the conference helped the press." And I agree. 120 wings? 147 wings? 257 wings? It depends on how you count them. Which you shouldn't, because the Air Force doesn't! Russia, it is said, has hidden unemployment. Savings are going up, but not thriftiness. Farm incomes are pretty high these days, "which knocks out one of the legs for farm price supports," but there is still a farm poverty problem, concentrated in farm labourers and "subsistence" farmers in the South.
Not only did he take over the NY Central in a proxy fight, he was the longtime owner of Pathe (but not British Pathe)
"The Ambitious Consultants" reports on how management consultants manage their business.
Buffalo station
Herrymon Maurer reports "The Central Rolls Again," because I'm worried you're not getting enough New York Central in your diet.
"The Changing American Market, X: The Rich Middle-INcome Class" Eighteen million households have $100 billion a year to spend thanks to a cash income after taxes between $4000 and $7500. Two-fifths of them are in that position because more tan one member of the family is working, and most of them are still working in manufacturing --the growth of white collar jobs, while significant, has been overstated. "More than four million" of these households are headed by professionals and proprietors, nearly half of households in those occupation groups. Mechanisation, which has led to more high-skilled jobs, has also driven up wages. That said, unionisation probably has something to do with it, too.
After an article about Senator McCarthy's fundraising drive through Texas that shows strong suppoprt for him amongst Texas oilmen, and that McCarthy has become a very important figure in state politics. However, it also finds that they've been cooling on him since the hearings started. Then it's on to John McDonald's "General LeMay's Management Problem"
SAC is a large organisation that stages a complicated annual wargame and has bomber crews on the front line, which means constant training and readiness flying in big, expensive airplanes, and constant training on electronic simulators when they're not flying, which is confined to 40 hours a month by the cost of flying --up to $700/hour. It is also afflicted with a 20% annual turnover, which makes it awfully hard to maintain its professionalism. SAC wants everyone to know that this is because SAC personnel are constantly being posted around its 32 bases across the country and beyond. (Fully equipped SAC bases
are known to exist in Thule, Greenland, in Morocco, and Britain. B-47s simply don't have the range to attack Russia from the continental United States, although they do have an amazing range for jet bombers and their fast ferry speed is being touted because they are stationed at home in peacetime and will deploy to overseas bases for war in emergencies. It is also because they get so much training that the public sector snaps them up. This leaves SAC just a bit undertrained, says here, which I find a bit alarming considering what their job is! SAC is responsible for a fixed investment of $1.8 billion at home and $1.5 billion abroad, has b2000-2500 tactical aircraft, an operating budget of $848 million, twenty percent of Air Force officers and 17% of Air Force enlisted personnel, and 40 wings of the current 117, 44 of the projected 137 wing Air Force. (See "How Big is the Air Force?") The fleet includes 250 B-36s, and will get enough B-52s to equip 7 heavy bomber wings, each of 30 aircraft plus spares. If you're wondering how it is to carry all those atom bombs for its massive all-out attack on Communism, it has 500 F-84Gs equipped to carry a "small atomic bomb." The B-52 will soon be supplemented by the even faster B-58.
Gilbert Burck, "The German Business Mind" Germans need to start being more competitive and businesslike, and more Germans agree with that than you would think.
Duncan Norton-Taylor, "Why Don't Businessmen Read Books?" Some people say that businessmen are too dumb to read books. In their defence, Fortune points out that they read mysteries, management books, the Bible, and Kon-Tiki. So clearly they're not dumb, just middlebrow. So you know who I blame? Publishers who get rid of their back pages, which at least can reach the middlebrows. (Ronnie glares in the direction of Mr. Henry Luce.)
I guess it would be emasculating to say that they spell off the operators, too
"Bell Labs' 230 Long-Range Planners" Bell employs 230 "system engineers" at Bell Lab, whose sole job is to warn that if you go to Thebes, you will kill your father and marry your mother. Or possibly that the company will eventually need 1.5 million operators. That doesn't seem like a good reason to pay 230 engineers, but it turns out that they check phone quality and worry about allocating frequency space to radio, TV, and microwave relays. Oh, and they're involved in Bell's most cherished project, long distance direct dialling, which Bell has been working on since 1933. Okay, I'm convinced, that is long term planning! Long distance dialling requires adding three numbers to a seven-number local code, which sounds easy enough, but is enormously harder in an electromechanical relay system. The equipment of 1933 couldn't handle it, so new machinery was needed. And that's even before taking automatic tolling of long distance calls into account! Since there is no way of avoiding errors, there is even a system that automatically annotates a bill where an error occurs with an error code to help a human sort it out. Next up, worldwide direct calling, then "televisiphone," if it turns out people want it --right now in the lab it is very low quality.
No comments:
Post a Comment