Postblogging Technology, August 1954, I: Alert and Eureka

R_.C_., 

The Lakehouse,

Twenty-five hundred years after the invention of the Chinese
abacus, this abacus-like device has turned up on the frontiers
of electronics. Its similar purpose: to help businessmen
with their arithmetic. The network of black magnetic
beads smaller than a postage stamp, is one of a number
of input-output "memory" units in the new "702" electronic
calculator built by International Business Machines. The
702 was designed for the world of commerce to help handle 
the vast quantities of sums involved in figuring business
payrolls, inventories, production schedules. 

Nakusp,

Canada

Dear Father:

And just like that, our business trip-slash-family vacation to Toronto in August is over, and we are back in blessedly cool Toronto. As far as I can tell the Super-Viscount will not be high-winged. On the one hand I'm not surprised since I think of high-wing airliners as a British affectation. On the other hand, the Lockheed C-130 is the closest plane to the Super-Viscount, and it is high winged. This is admittedly because the Air Force actually needs high wing cargo planes, but the C-130 could have been competition, and now it's not. The Super-Viscount is not going to enjoy the same kind of clear field that is giving the Viscount its enormous sales, but there doesn't seem to be any American competition in sight. It is, essentially, just the Britannia. 

James is unfortunately not with us, as he flew out of Toronto on Navy business bound for an undisclosed location that is certainly not Hong Kong, where he is certainly not going to be interpreting in a very urgent meeting about Koumintang pirates. 

I'm sorry that we weren't able to meet during our trip, but look forward to seeing you at Christmas. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

The Economist, 7 August 1954

Leaders

"What to See in China" Even though Clement Atlee says he knows eyewash when he sees it, the Labour delegation visiting Red China seems unaware of how awful Communism is, and, at worse, might be contributing to Red disinformation networks. 

"Tory Terriers"  The twenty-eight Conservative backbenchers who voted against withdrawing from Suez had many reasons for it, but we have to remember that even though they are led by Julian Amery they are not extreme rightists in the way that Bevanites are extreme leftists. They're just anarchists, and there's a lot of that going round the Conservative Party these days. Meanwhile, France seems to be on the mend under the leadership of Mendes-France, although he is going to find it hard to fix the economy with a four week deadline. 

"Housing --Illusion and Reality" Yes, MacMillan has built all the housing that Labour was never able to build (by building the homes smaller, remember!), but, really, is public housing that good an idea? Because there are various things wrong with it! 

Notes of the Week

"Mr. Attlee's Success" The Suez withdrawal vote can be credited to Attlee, who especially enjoyed turning the  "scuttling" line back on Churchill. Now he needs our help to get the TUC back in line on German rearmament. 

"Disquiet Over Defence" Now that we're talking about H-bombs, the Army has an atomic plan, which is to pack all the troops and tanks in helicopters which the RAF has to give them, and also rationalise the army's arsenal again. We're still waiting for the RAF and Admiralty "New Looks."

"Siam Next on the List?" China is starting to say mean things about Siam on the radio and complain about Bill Donovan, so expect a Communist insurgency by next week sometime. You know where not to expect a Communist insurgency? Tunisia, where Mendes-France's "home rule" plan is the cat's meow, although look out for those settlers. You know where it can be expected? Morocco! It's a wild frontier of racial, urban/rural and linguistic division. France needs to tell the Moroccans that they can't govern themselves because they're too wild and all. 

"People on Assistance" The number of people receiving national assistance payments, or anyway the cost of payments is up, because of more old people needing more money. The Labour Party wants to revise the Food and Drug Act,we're still worried about the shortae of science teachers, it's a wonder how our relationship with Iran has improved since we overthrew the anti-British premier and imposed a pupper. When the Tories and Churchill talk about "peaceful coexistence" they are forgetting that Communism is bad, there won't be any trouble in Cyprus if we don't let people make trouble there, the fuss about Joseph Cort, Antoni Klinowicz and the SS Jaroslaw Dabrowski sure was silly, East Africans should stop worrying that the East African High Commission is a stalking horse for political unification of Uganda and Tanganykia with Kenya, I am sparing you the latest news about the EDC which is related to Italy is moving to ratify it, the primate of Montenegro has been thrown in jail because Communism is awful, there doesn't seem to be enough advertising money for all the papers, radio stations, and now television that wants it, The Economist tells John Costello not to be a stupid Irishman and to get back to doing what the country is good at, which is growing potatoes. 

From The Economist of 1854, "A Gift for Russia." When The Economist tells its own story it is careful to avoid mentioning that it crusaded against public health for at least its first twenty years, but here's a real jewel, which seems to be objecting to garbage removal and suggesting that "Mr. Chadwick" (Edwin Chadwick) likes tyranny so much, he should go to Russia. They're always going to Russia, doen't matter the century or the government. 

Books

Keith Feiling's Warren Hastings finally gives us the biography of the most heroic Briton and "servant of Bengal" ever. John Slessor's Strategy for the West explains that it it means all atom bombs all the time, and no aircraft carriers because they cost precious bomber  money. Hazel Kyrk's The Family in the American Economy offers a full treatment of the role of the family in American life, which seems to her to mean a full account of the American economy, and of economics in general, which seems to the reviewer to be biting off far more than a single book can chew. Hitler's Europe, a survey of the decade by the Toynbees, and the latest volume of

The scope of Kyrk's project can be explained
by the fact that it was a textbook for Home
Economics courses, and a bid for "domestic
production" to be taken seriously. Here's
hoping!.

Documents on International Affairs, Vol II, Hitler's Europe are given a combined review. Neither are comprehensive enough for the reviewer. John Glaver's The White Desert pits "Man Against the Antarctic" according to the subtitle. It sounds like the Antartic won. Kenneth Poolman's The Kelly is a history of the "K-"class destroyer lost off Crete, which inspired In Which We Serve. That seems like a lot more attention than a very nice destroyer deserves, but you have to remember that the captain was Lord Mountbatten. James Fisher's The Adventure of the World and James Dandy's An Approach to Money and Banking get shorter notices. The first is for thirteen-year-olds, the second, says the reviewer is for thirteen-year-olds with birth certificates that say they are 55.

Letters

 Zenon Rossides, "Delegate of the Ethnarchy of Cyprus," explains that the Greek government is making a fuss over Cyprus because of the solidarity of the Greek-speaking peoples and not because of crass politics. Alfred Drucker hopes that administrative courts will be formed in Britain to rule when ministries seize land, as for example Chrichel Downs farm. Andrew Rothstein of the British Soviet Friendship Society points out that "peaceful coexistence" is, in fact, still part of Soviet foreign policy.

American Survey

"The McCarthy Dilemma" If the GOP keeps Congress in the mid-terms, McCarthy is the next President. If the GOP loses Congress, Styles Bridges takes old Tailgunner Joe for a ride, and you better know that Bridges knows how to handle himself around a pair of concrete galoshes. In the mean time he's squeezed in the back seat between two Democrat torpedoes who ain't saying nothing either way. Also, the Senate's advice to the President on the German treaty is that he should try it and see what they think later, because that is how you pass the hot potato when you are the Senate. Secretary Weeks is promising to spend some money to get the economy out of the recession that never happened and is already over. The new Selective Service act will send more men to the National Guard to bolster reserves, while plans to keep the shipyards afloat continue to float or possible sail, it is hard to tell when they could be just going in and out with the tides. The uranium boom out west is getting a bit crazy, especially in Utah, where the Utah Securities Commission is trying to keep a lead on it. Everyone in New York is excited over the next Governor.  

"Ultra or Only Very High?" There is room for twelve channels in a market in the VHF band, and 70 in the UHF, and originally fully 130 stations were proposed in the UHF band around the country, but because of the difficulties UHF stations have been having attracting audiences and advertisers, about half have already shut down again, and the rest are hoping for tax relief on UHF sets and a freeze on new VHF stations to help them get going. 

"Air Conditioned America" "[T]he most comfortable country in the world" has a new luxury-slash-status symbol. This allows us to take up two paragraphs looking down your nose. (I have been in London this month, and Toronto. LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU ENGLISHERS ABOUT AIR CONDITIIONING.) And we still have four to explain air conditioning! Central air conditioners may add 10% to the price of a new home, but in five years, half of all new homes will have them, and new homes without them will soon be unsellable. Same for office buildings and factories, although retailers have to factor the dependence of sales on weather in their planning. In shorter notes, some cuts to the foreign aid budget seem to be holding, and Congress is unlikely to further regulate the New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange notwithstanding the run-up in prices in the spring, which was clearly caused by speculation and not an actual shortage.

The World Overseas

""Royal Tour of the Canadian North" The Queen and the Duke are in Canada, travelling in the Far North, which evidently includes Kitimat. We get some explanation of where Alert and Eureka are, and the new Canadian policy of  getting the government involved in schools for natives. The Economist gives us a short summary of the players in Tunisian home rule and investigates "changing patterns of East-West Trade," which mainly means that Eastern coal and grain exports are continuing to decline and that some western economies are disturbingly reliant on Eastern exports. There is a £200 million oil boom going on in Australia (and New Guinea), notwithstanding the failure to find any so far.  

"Indians Share the Land" Our Correspondent in Bombay reports on "Bhoodan," the land reform movement being led by Acharya Vinoba Bhave, which consists of buying small parcels of land from landholders and redistributing it. Madras and Andhra states have joined in on the same lines. Denmark's socialist government is pretty awful. The agreement to give a bunch of money to the not-at-all-Fascist Franco government is mostly okay, except that the Spanish economy is so feeble that it would be have to think that it can muster the resources to build the air bases the Americans have paid for. "We're too poor to do the work you paid for" is quite the excuse! 

The Business World

A very long Leader explains the Iranian oil agreement, while a second one of equal heft explains how stock options are being abused to award tax-free compensation to executives. 

Business Notes

The first four notes cover various ways in which Britain is booming these days, from a dollar surplus to buoyant exports, but the fifth offers us a bit of fly for our ointment with Japan's accession to Gatt, and the sixth covers France's favourable deal to join the International Tin Council. The new Queen Victoria blast furnace at United Steel's Appleby-Frodingham Works brings British pig iron production up to 12 million tons a year, compared with 8 million in 1946. Appleby-Frodingham is a rare work that uses British ore, and gets its productivity from high pressure blowers ,having contemplated using gas turbines before settling on steam engines. Imports of Italian Espresso coffee machines are ballooning, with shipments of 25 to 30 a month of machines costing up to £800. Coffee Houses are installing them in numbers, of course, but so are restaurants and even hospitals. The Economist dips very briefly into the NPL symposium on high-speed computers, just published, with a plea for more consideration of their commercial possibilities. The Economist is not happy with the way that roadbuilding policy is being made in Britain. The International Sugar Council is having trouble stabilising prices because importers are not cooperating, and there is a worry that in practice the burden will fall on vulnerable exporters like Cuba. Jute consumption is up.

Flight, 6 August 1954

Leaders

"The Snarl Before the Bite" and "Power for Tomorrow" The Armstrong Siddeley Snarler is here, and its future is bright! Flight knows this because of, it goes on, things that happened years ago, before the war. (We used to use rockets for this and that, so we'll need better rockets later, and they're coming on from Armstrong Siddeley, de Havilland, and Fairey, plus five companies in the States, including GE, which has actually trialled a 20,000lb engine.) 

From All Quarters reports Thomas Dugdale and Oliver Lyttleton are finally out of the Cabinet, clearing the way for a minor shuffle and a new Transport and Civil Aviation Minister, J. A. Boyd-Carpenter, while Lennox-Boyd goes to the Colonial Office after his brief tenure at Transport. Bristol has increased its stake in Short Brothers, which is already producing Britannias, but needs more business after the suspension of a contract for 15 Comet 2s, which Flight is reluctant to admit is not going to be resumed. Bristol has also bought MacDonald Aircraft of Winnipeg. The dimensions of the Vulcan and Victor have been made public. They're smaller than giant bombers! Egypt wants to build jet fighters to build up its air force. Duncan Sandys says that there will be more Anglo-American missile cooperation in the future. The Pathfinders Club is having a Dambusters party. 

"Seamew Progress" The Short Seamew is out and about, no word on their equipment. 

It's summer, so an article about gliding follows. 

"Night Intruder: English Electric B. 8 Now Flying" Roland Beaumont says it handles adequately.

Here and There reports that two scientists who have been working on nuclear propulsion at Harwell have joined Rolls Royce, which has no further comment. Oerlikon is still trying to sell its anti-aircraft missiles, and has hired a wartime German ambassador to Japan to flog them there. Dr. Focke is in Brazil flogging domestically-made helicopters, including a three-engine design. 

"Across Three Oceans:Thoughts on Eighty-five Hours Intercontinental Flying: Q.E.A.'s Wallaby Service"

Flight recently flew across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean, and has some thoughts, such as that its legs are very cramped and it has come down with a cold. Actually, strike the cramping, as the DC-6 across the Pacific was almost empty and full sleeper service was available for "some" passengers. However, the Indian Ocean crossing to South Africa in a Qantas Connie was crowded and less comfortable, not surprisingly since it only runs twice a month, and that's what Flight is going to tell us about. It leaves Sydney too late at night, Flight thinks. Perth to Cocos is 1800 miles runs on ADF out of Geraldton and HF/DF from Port Headland, and the plane will have a three-hour "island" fuel reserve. Cocos has VHF/DF out to 600 miles, and DME at 15,000ft out to 150--200 miles from the field, which is good, because the weather around Cocos is usually cloudy. From Cocos to to Mauritius is 2670 miles, the longest overseas leg in the world, and is always flown at night, since astronavigation is necessary, and so is a day at a hotel after such a long leg in the air, followed by an uneventful flight to Johannesburg. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that  the American order for Canadian-made Grumman S2Fs for European air forces might be increased to 250 machines. Canadians say that the Orenda-powered Sabre is the fastest interceptor in the world after the F-100.  The USAF is still evaluating lightweight fighters like the Lockheed XF-104, the second Bell X-2 is ready to fly. DC-7Cs are on the menu, and so are rocket-powered helicopters from Rotor-Craft and Kellett, which are companies which can absolutely get a helicopter into production. Argentina is buying five pre-production Sipa 200 Minijets. 

A nice pictorial of the Boeing 707 leads into a feature on the Armstrong Siddelely pump-fed, liquid-fuel aircraft rocket, the Snarler, which said pump is externally driven. The article is quite long and detailed, the driven pump being quite a departure in rocket engines. 

"Jet Provost Performance: And Some Design Considerations" Percival put a Viper on its Provost trainer some time ago,angling for RAF orders to fill a gap between the Provost and the Vampire Trainer. People have been wondering if it can fly cheaply enough. Percival claims that the Jet Provost will run at £61/hour, and this will be a major saving on pilot training. 

"The Baroudeurs Advance" SNCASE's funny air support jets are continuing their development flying.

Correspondence

Stanley Brogden is upset that the thirty Russian trainees who are going to learn to fly in western Europe were shuttled from Prague in Vikings instead of good planes. T. G. Hicks of Power Jets is upset that some people call it "reheat" and others call it "afterburning." Derrick G. Beeton, D. G. Thorpe, J. D. Fage, A. L. Winter and H. A. Kofoed remember the old days, before the war. A.H.Y. wonders if airline pilots could use glider training. James Lawrie wishes that Britain had a proper planetarium. 

"EXERCISE HAUL" This year's major Nato maritime exercise involved helicopters, bombers, and Neptunes hunting submarines with sonobuoys.

Civil Aviation reports that the Gatwick Report is out. Gatwick was chosen as London Airport's alternative, but there are no convenient barrens and local resistance was fierce, so a commission was delegated with the job of of putting the decision off. Time's up! Everyone in aviation likes Gatwick, and West Sussex County Council admits that every other site would attract the same resistance, so Gatwick it will be. Aer Lingus lost money last year, IATA is trying to advance air safety regulations past the DC-3 roadblock again, Douglas wants to put turboprops on a DC-7, perhaps the new Rolls-Royce that is going on the super-Viscount. Have we mentioned Silver City Airways in the last week? Silver City Airways is still flying its regular services, and that is definitely news.  

The Economist, 14 August 1954

Leaders

"No More Crises" This will be the third year in a row in which Britain has not had a current accounts crisis in late summer. Does this mean that things have changed fundamentally from the 1945--51 period, or is it just a run of luck? No, it was Labour mismanagement, although even so the bad days could return during a world slump, since the current favourable currents account situation is due to the high price that British exports are fetching.

"United Nations Audit" Looking at ten years of the UN, it is doing the best it can. A second major Leader catches up with the current fight between the Tory government and local councils, about which you are no doubt mad keen on the details I am not going to give you. 

From The Economist of 1854, "Essential Toil" finds that there are some 265,000 people working in the coal fields of Great Britain, that it is awful work, done by awful people, since why would they be down there otherwise, and we should definitely have grateful thoughts about them. 

"Truce in Babel" "Peaceful co-existence" is just Red misinformation, since actually they are coming for us with guns blazing with their disinformation. Especially when they say mean things about British rule in Africa!

Notes of the Week

Various important people are out and about, or not. Malenkov is touring, and The Economist wants Attlee to go along with the rest of the delegation to Tokyo to keep a lid on Bevan. Dr. Otto John has reappeared to tell the world that the reason he went to East Germany is that he believes in East Germany. West Germans are very embarrassed. Mendes-France will either get his European treaty or he won't. There is obviously a question about whether his government will last if he doesn't, but there is also the question of whether he gets Tunisian home rule through. His economic policy seems admirable and the fact that the National Assembly will allow him to rule by decree is remarkable, although The Economist is dubious that it can be funded. Aneurin Bevan is coming off the National Executive of the party as a follow-up to leaving the Shadow Cabinet, but the magazine doesn't think that he'll get much out of it, because Attlee has outmanoeuvred him on Asia. Wages and strike news follow, while the magazine perceives the possibility that everyone will back down and leave poor Goa alone. 

"Egypt, Iraq, and Defence" Egypt is angry at Iraq for not supporting it vigorously enough in its negotiations with Britain over withdrawal from Suez, while Iraq is upset that Egypt doesn't see why Iraq needs guns and allies to defence its oil against enemies like Communism and even Iran. The tripartite treaty between Jugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey seems fine. Malta's premier is in London to pitch a plan for a "Maltese Ulster," which is a dead letter on its face as there is no way that there will be pay parity between UK and Maltese civil servants, but which might be adjusted, since the alternatives are probably worse. 

"A Thousand Babies" 1147 babies were born in May and June of 1947in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. A year later, 44 have died, 127 have moved away, and all the rest are covered in an enormous study by Dr. James Spence and his colleagues at the department of child's health at the University of Durham and Newcastle's public health department. Poverty, overcrowding, and neglect led to various adverse outcomes. 

"Fewer Hands to Fewer Ploughs" The summer agricultural census shows a bit of an embarrassing surplus of pigs, and a further fall (of 13,000 to 507,000) in farm labour. The Government, which wants both more food and cheaper food, cannot offer a wage increase, so I guess we are left hoping for more productivity. The floods in North China are much worse because Communism is bad, and everyone is agog in admiration at Bao Dai's decision to actually return to Viet Nam and do something about being emperor there. 

"Helmets Against Sombreros" The violent purge of Colonel Castillo Armaz's irregular supporters by the Guatemalan army is further evidence that everything is getting back to normal there. The Economist is happy to see that the electricians' strike failed. The idea of "moving towns" by sending the surplus population of overgrown cities to other towns has no possible flaws. 

Letters

Stanley Wright, writing from the High Commission for Refugees, explains that what refugees need is the money needed to reestablish their lives in their new countries, and not the legal right to work in the refuge countries, which they actually already have under the 1951 Convention subject to local obstacles. Philip S. Mumford suggests a British-Greek condominium with joint citizenship as an alternative to Enosis. "Revenue Q.C." explains the law of stock options as the writer understands it. Two writers explain how "peaceful coexistence" actually means that Communism is awful. Hammond B. Jenkins offers the usual excuses for the 'relative success of individuals in Class I in following their father's career,' as demonstrated statistically in a recent study described in The Economist. It's because talent is genetic! R. L. Weir writes to explain that the problem with paying for excess baggage charges under currency exchange limits has been resolved.

Books

Maurice Duverger's study, Political Parties is an an attempt to develop a general theory of political parties, and seems a bit too focussed on France, and too ambitious. Francis Newsam's The Home Office is the new introduction to the workings of the Ministry from the Royal Institute of Public Administration. Allan Bullock has edited The Ribbentrop Memoirs, and is, not surprisingly, "blandly preposterous." Joseph Schumpeter's Economic Doctrine and Method is the long-awaited translation of Schumpeter's early, major work on the intellectual history of economics. Theodore White's Fire in the Ashes: Europe at Mid-Century, and Constantia Matthew's A Stranger in Ireland do not get a joint review, but are the same sort of book, and the reviews come right after the other in a  relatively long Books section. White's book is meant to explain Europe in Nebraska, while Maxwell uses three centuries of travellers' accounts to "dip into" Ireland. Brian Fitzgerald's Daniel Defoe is the life of, as the subtitle puts it, a "Great Liar." That said, Fitzgerald seems more interested in a social history of the times than the way in which Defoe's flood of "misinformation," as we say in a more enlightened age, was so copious that it turned into literature. Harold Raynes' Principles of Insurance is a very worthy book. 

American Survey

 

"Foreign Aid Yet Again" Congress is fighting over foreign aid again. There seems to be some progress on farm price supports, and the Committee To Take The Heat On Ditching McCarthy is now official and the rest of the Senate can come out of hiding. The Eisenhower Tax Bill, which is a complete revision of the tax code, makes significant changes in the way that corporate taxes, depreciation, and corporate profit carrybacks, is very much the one thing Republicans wanted out of this Congress. The "independent" auto makers are all in trouble, not just Studebaker, and this is a large part of the explanation of the current troubles of the industry notwithstanding their small individual production, although Chrysler is showing signs of weakness, too. Senator Kefauver's primary victory in Tennessee doesn't so much show that the GOP is in trouble in November (which The Economist sees as less certain than it seemed in the spring) as that the string of liberal successes in the South means that if the Democrats take the Senate, it will be with a more liberal caucus. Cheaper consumer credit seems to be buoying consumer spending, surprise, surprise. It turns out that no-one knows why the price of coffee went up in the spring,  and the FTC is going to do hardly nothing about who knows what. Coffee traders are off the hook! American is on strike, Congress won't let Alaska and Hawaii in this session, Congress hired a Negro pageboy, (a Shorter Note, but still worth a Note), and the courts have sided with Texas in giving it jurisdiction over offshore lands to three leagues vice three miles. 

The World Overseas

"Strike and Boom in Germany" This seems to be one of those cases where the headline tells the story in as much detail as anyone not affected by the Hamburg transport and Bavarian metalworkers' strikes are concerned. The Economist takes one look at the draconian sedition laws in Cyprus, and, like a good newspaper, points its finger at the Cypriot press and laughs. They are, after all, greasy foreigners who want to separate from the Empire and join a foreign country. Ridiculous! Also, there seem to be Turkish Cypriots, too? Plus all the Cypriot nationalists are either left wing or extreme right wing (especially the greasy foreign Church), and that's not good! Clearly the British have learned their lesson from Suez, Ronnie said in her sarcastic voice. The appointment of the new Australian cabinet shows the Prime Minister at his best because he has broken with the Labour precedent of letting the caucus elect the Cabinet, which was dumb. The second year of the Schuman Plan shows that it is working out in spite of being too bureaucratic. Communism is awful Part One Million (the Soviets are persecuting religion now!)  The Japanese really do not like atom bombs, radiation, H-bomb tests, suspect American intentions, and will pay a premium for "radiation-free" clothes and soap as well as food. Canada would rather not participate in the trucial commission in Indo-China because they know they'll end up crossing the Americans for nothing gained. The new Canadian Prime Minister is old, just like the last one, and unemployment is too high for comfort going into an election, while farmers are upset at the Wheat Board. Canadian negotiations with the Americans over the St. Lawrence Seaway include guarantees that Canadian ships won't be waylaid by Koumintang pirates out of Plattsville or whatever other craziness the land of McCarran comes up with, which Americans affect to think is insulting.

By John Ward - https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1829469,
CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116383501

The Business World

"Specialised Ships" The special Leader on specialised ships is illustrated by a line drawing of the MV Southern Cross, since it won't be launched until Tuesday as of press time. The Economist is struck by the fact that it is the first liner with no room for cargo, that its machinery is located aft, leaving the premium midsection for paying passengers, and the fact that between speed and the absence of cargo to offload, it will make its cost back by making four sailings a year, which is a vote of confidence in the Antipodean emigrant market. The Cross also symbolises builders' movement away from the wartime emphasis on standardisation and big blocs to more specialised tankers (crude, fuel, bitumen, liquid gas, even wine), ore carriers, colliers, and so on, which will take trade away from tramps. It also pays to build specialised ships bigger to capture a larger share of the trade of iron into one port or oil into another with fewer hulls, with Ore Chief, being built in Japan for an American company, being 66,000t. We conclude by saying that tramps still have a future if well managed. 

Business Notes

There are fifty-year 3.5% bonds on the market, which is so remarkable that The Economist has to meditate on them for a few paragraphs. Then pause for a Note break, meditate some more, and then meditate for another Note about a specific "Eternity" bond issuer, Anglo-Iranian. The market is very excited about how much money is going to be made from Iranian oil over the next fifty(surely not!) years. The unsurprising news that Capital is taking up the full 50 Viscounts is very big news. Weybridge will strain to produce 90 Viscounts a year, but it would cost millions to lay down a new line elsewhere. Coal imports of about 2 million tons will be needed to keep winter stocks at a safe level and American coal continues to be cheap, while it should be noted that Britain still is in an overall coal trade balance surplus. More cars are selling by hire purchase than ever, the Folland Gnat has flown, and might be an export success given Western Europe's need for an air defence fighter cheaper than the Hunter or Swift, there is more money for housing from the banks and the Building Societies, BEA's mooted closure of its Renfrew maintenance facility is bad news for the community and good news for the company's bottom line, Cable and Wireless making provision for full depreciation of assets ought to be a good example to other nationalised concerns like the Post Office, tea prices are up, beer profits down. 

Flight, 13 August 1954

Leaders

"Capital News" More celebration of the Capital Viscount sale. 

"Unworthy and Misleading" Flight and various people it wrangles in are upset about the leak of a draft report to the Senate Appropriations Committee to the effect that military-aid funds have been diverted to producing airliners, albeit only by generally strengthening the industry. That was the point of mutual aid, Flight protests!

From All Quarters reports that the Martin B-57B is quite something. Sir Miles Thomas has visited Saunders-Roe at Cowes and repeats that BOAC will buy the Princess if it is miraculously given a turboprop that will make it economical on the Atlantic run. Walter Dornburger is talking about a Mach 14 manned rocket that will make a proper 10,000 mile bomber, flying at 80,000ft and making course alterations by waiting for the Earth to turn under  it. Canada is spraying spruce budworms with DDT from the air, which is definitely news. The Second World Parachuting Championships is happening next week. Experiments with a second-generation, high pressure FIDO continues. SFECMAS is pleased that its Gerfaut single seat, delta-wing interceptor prototype has achieved supersonic flight in level flight at 34,000ft. 

Have you heard that Capital Airlines has bought more Viscounts? Here's two-thirds of a page!

"U.S. Self-Criticism" The report mentioned by the Leader gets a bit more mention, as does Harold Stassen's vigorous refutation. We also get more details on the rocket helicopters. The Grumman F9F-9 Tiger has achieved supersonic speeds in level flight, and the vertical takeoff fighter prototypes haven't really progressed this month. 

Here and There The editor of Flight has flown a B-47, and will report next week. Viscounts are setting speed records on European services. The Dutch are building a chain of airfields across northern New Guinea for defensive purposes. Avro is going to show off an electronic response simulator at Farnborough. The Women's Engineering Society are offering a £150 scholarship for a private pilot seeking an Instructor's Certificate. Silver City Airways! Air France managed to not have a very bad accident when a Super Constellation made a forced landing at Preston, Connecticut. 

"Far-North Exercise" The RAF Flying College is flying Hastings up to the North Pole to gain experience in high-latitude flying.Flight hitches a ride to go see Santa. There not being much to say, a half-page is left for pictures and an investigation of "Those £25,000 Bomber Pilots," which is the average cost of the average pilot up to the point of joining a squadron. 

"Supersonic Interceptor: Two-Sapphire English Electric P.1 Flies at Boscombe Down" Apart from pictures and some general fluff about how how much English Electric had to do to develop the plane, and the fact that it has two Sapphires, there's not much to say. Also, the USAF is developing a "crash programme" to speed up the delivery of good jets when national production falls in half from its current 8000 aircraft/year in 1957. 

"Air Support Demonstrated"

Flight went to a demonstration put on by the Home Guard and the Combined Cadet Forces, involving paratroopers jumping out of some US C-119s, a Canberra and a Hunter, which seems to have made an effort to be as loud as a full flight of Vampires. 

"Logistic Lockheed" The Lockheed C-130 is ready for taxi trials. It is quite the plane.

Aircraft Intelligence reports that Armstrong Siddeley is showing off a reheat Sapphire Canberra, that pictures of the Folland Midge have appeared in an Italian magazine, that the 707 does not have particularly thick wing skins, that the B-52A's tail turret is only armed with 0.50s, and the prototype North American TF-86 has been lost in a takeoff accident. 

A two-page pictorial spread shows off the planes they fly. Another, partially-blacked-out pictorial shows off the Hunter. 

"Auxiliary Power in Aircraft: Some Thoughts on Early and Modern Practice: Promise of the Small Gas Turbines" British builders haven't shown much interest in auxiliary power units in the last few years, perhaps because of a fire in the auxiliary gas engine of a flying boat set a bad example. But one would be absolutely keen for getting a plane powered up for flight, and if it were a small gas turbine it would be even better! 

After more gliding, we get "Britannia Bulletin" gives us a progress report on the Britannia. There have been no foreign sales of Britannias yet, but Bristol is very hopeful given the success of the Viscount; it will depend on it being as impressive in BOAC service as the Viscount has been in BEA service. 

"Harwell's 'Dimple'" The UKAEA reports that Britain's first heavy-water reactor is operational at Harwell, and has been nicknamed the Dimple. It will be useful for lots of things, but mainly for developing a larger heavy water reactor, wanted to produce the high neutron flux needed for some research. 

Correspondence

Jeffrey Quill has some unusually relevant thoughts about years ago, before the war, relating to preserving a Spitfire for history, unlike Nial Palmer and P. M. H. Lewis. C. G. Vokes writes about engine exhaust silencing, which he used to work on years ago, before the war. E. Southern wants more support for flying clubs.

The Industry has advertorials for a Goodyear annular-piston disc brake, a precision revolution counter from Plessey, and Seculate anti-condensation compound for British Lead Mills is perfect for aircraft cockpits. Civil Aviation reports that BEA has given an official statement that it would like to close Renfrew, but will defer to the Ministry of Transport, which is herewith invited to take the blame for cutting all those jobs in Glasgow. The American Airlines strike gets a mention, and the new ATAC appointments, too. An Avianca Constellation has been lost with all aboard in a collision with high ground soon after takeoff from Lagens, Azores. The first Qantas Super Constellation has flown into London. Central African Airways has ordered five Viscount 700Ds. 

  Fortune's Wheel is happy some guy mentioned them on the radio and that the economy is on the mend from that recession we had for no particular reason thank Heavens its over and we never have to think about it again! Other people say that all the famous people are reading Fortune. Those people are right! 

Business Roundup reports that the recession is definitely over and this is going to be the second-best business year on record and there are signs of hiring in Detroit and interests rates have spontaneously gone down easing the borrowing situation after the Administration decided that easy money wasn't such a bad thing after all. 

  

On the other hand Senator Byrd says that the Democrats are going to fight the Administration over the debt limit again this year, so I know we're all looking forward to that circus! Exports are also up, although expect a flood of Japanese imports as their balance of payments turns precarious with the end of Korean War spending. Steel is doing well, too, although what about those Justice Department charges against United Fruit for monopolising bananas, laid "the same day the recent revolt in Guatemala ended"? 

Business Notes From Abroad reports that Washington may have begun "an agonising reappraisal" of the political and military strength of Western Europe. Western Europe is booming, so it is strange to be sending them money, but the Europeans don't think that they can ever get to full convertibility without American stabilisation funds that are not forthcoming. The British are on about how they can't have convertibility without bringing unemployment back, but on the other hand let's go look at those Dutch reclaiming all that land! Dutch labour gave in on  a 5% wage cut in 1951 to make their exports more competitive, and now they're up 8%! Also, it turns out that East-West trade is some kind of mirage. 

Leaders

"Can U.S. Influence Match U.S. Strength?" Uncle George would love this spread. The picture of the IBM 702 "chip" that I pasted up as the cover of this letter is opposite the editorial text, so that the long quote that I partially extracted runs down beside the FORTUNE logo to the title head. As far as I can tell (the actual editorial is an Economist-style ink cloud) is that SEATO really is so a good idea. Shorter Leaders are unimpressed with New York's Summer Festival, which everyone seems to be ignoring, scolds Americans for not saving enough, reports suggestions that the way to get ahead of social spending is to hire more psychiatrists to stop the crazy people before they axe murder their relations or run for office, tell us yet more about the New York railroad wars, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the ongoing debate on whether business school is worth it, and notes with concern that the citizens of Los Alamos are surprisingly unhappy about the decision to knock down the security fences and make the town an open city. Americans should not be the kind of people who become happy with "seclusion, restriction, and suspicion of strangers."

Charles V. Murphy gives us "America's New Strategic Situation," explaining at greater length that "the U.S. world system of strategic alliances is under serious stress and strain."because the Western Europeans won't do what we want (mainly, go on fighting in Indo-China, but the Bevanites sound like they might kick our B-47s out of England). The thought is that they are "vulnerable to Soviet nuclear blackmail," and the U.S. needs even more bombs --but also those bases, at least if an attack on the Soviet Union is to be effective. 

Richard Austin Smith gives us a company profile of Phillips Petroleum, which is the vehicle for Henry Luce to send some money by way of a modernist painter this montt. I hope they don't fell as thought the compromised their principles by painting oil derricks! 

Gilbert Buck and Sanford Parker collaborate to give us "The Consumer Markets: 1954--56"

Arthur Burns thinks that the US can raise its GNP from $360 billion to $440 billion over five years, (not surprising when the year-over year population growth is from 159,900,000 to 162,700,000) which means that the future of the consumer markets is that you'll be able to shovel out any old stuff and nonsense and make good money. 

"The Great Uranium Rush" is on about the uranium rush, "Movies for Business" tells us about how movies are made out making documentaries for business. I don't think there's much to say about Daniel Seligman's contribution to the "Does Business Know What It's Doing" series, "Are Business Conventions Worth It?" 

Robert Sheehan, "What Makes Motorola Roll?" Motorola makes radios and televisions and managed to whether the downturn in TV production during the recession, and will launch a 19" colour TV next year. Motorola's position in two-way FM communications also gets a discussion. An unsigned profile of Harmon Eberhard of Caterpillar follows. 

Francis Bello, "Climate: The Heat May Be Off" Meteorologists, we're told, have a new theory about climate fluctuations, led by MIT's Hurd C. Willett. The theory is that the variations follow sunspots and such, and that the "widely advertised U.S. temperature uptrend, which dates back at least fifty years, has definitely halted and probably reversed." He forecasts a ten-year-long cooling trend with cooler summers and fewer "balmy winters." Even if this prediction doesn't work out, week length forecasts might be possible given the predictability of solar events. Interested, Fortune looked for someone who had actually done a study, found that no-one had, and did its own. It turns out, according to Fortune editorial a branch of Luce Publishing, that the average U.S. temperature has risen 0.7 F in the last 60 years, that that the trend peaked in 1939, and has been in reverse at the same rate since. Regionally, average temperatures have risen most in the South at 2.6F, then the Southwest, and has actually fallen in the Northwest winters. 

Skating on the Thames in the winter of 1886

However, as much as people talk about how the winters of old were colder, it would take "very sensitive skin" to detect it, and meteorologists laugh at recent laymen's "frightening extrapolations of the consequences of a continued rise," notably in William J. Baxter's Today's Revolution in Weather, which, noting the worldwide retreat by glaciers, predicts an "accelerating worldwide rise in sea levels." The estimate is that sea level increases since 1850 have been about two to three inches, and that even in the postglacial climactic optimum, when temperatures in Europe were five to six degrees warmer, sea levels were only a few feet higher. Fortune goes on to explain Milan Milankovich's theory that ice ages are caused by the precession of the Earth causing the accumulation of ice and snow in the Northern Hemisphere during cool summers, which increases the Earth's reflectivity, and increases cooling in one of those cybernetic feedback mechanisms. The Smithsonian is clear that the amount of solar radiation has not changed over the last sixty  years, so if the Sun is heating us up, Willett theorises that it must be intermittent ultraviolet bursts causing heating in the upper atmosphere. Walter Orr Robert, at the Colorado High Altitude Observatory, is looking for evidence of these bursts.
 

Eugene Black of the World Bank gets a profile.