Postblogging Technology, January 1955, I: The Crash of '55

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

Well, here I am, a young mother and unemployed, like, apparently, very few other women in London right now. I do miss my job selling turboprop airliners to Canadians, but the higher calling of secret diplomacy to stop WWIII was more important, I suppose, even if the actual work was done by the American voter, who seems to have been more motivated by the recession than the atom bomb's red glare. 

You shouldn't worry that I will get bored, though, because a good economy turns out to be a good time to  make movies. The lads in Bray have the rights to a movie version of that runaway BBC serial. After some going around and some waving of the latest Economist talking about the difficulties exhibitors are having finding non-pornographic "X" rated films to show, they have decided to do the movie version as an "X" release. Given the fuss over the BBC 1984 adaptation, it's pretty clear that  you don't have to be get very gruesome by old Hollywood standards to warrant an "X," and it is hoped that it will bring in the teenagers, who apparently have time on their hands from all quitting school at the stroke of sixteen. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

The Economist, 1 January 1955

"Avoiding a Railway Strike" The Economist explores the possibilities for averting the threatened railway strike and comes around to firing most of the porters, because they  have "spiv" jobs. (To be fair, the magazine wants to get rid of all the spivs. It just singles out the porters as an example and also because they keep dropping The Economist's luggage once they've seen it tip.)  Renationalising road transport should definitely not be on the table. 

"Vote of Small Confidence" France is in crisis again. Specifically, the tepid vote of non-confidence for Mendes-France and the London-Paris Agreements is some kind of metaphor for the fact that "Too many Frenchmen lack confidence in their own country." 

"Diggers and Developers" Everything seems nice in Australia what with Christmas shopping in the summer sun, those lucky dogs, but in fact they're running a current account deficit so they're doomed! Doomed, I say! Also, they pay workers too much, and won't offer a high enough return on their bonds. If they can just do something about that, their booming primary industries and vast investment in scientific research will pay dividends. 

"Stunted Schooldays" The Ministry of Education's Central Advisory Council warns that only 17% of students are staying in school until eighteen, even though we've graciously agreed to let all the ragamuffins go through. Remember, this was on the strict condition that they would take all those "advanced" math and science courses so that the country would never run out of radar engineers; but of 27,000 deemed suitable for such courses, 10,000 graduated without taking them. Those who do tend to be middle class, who are upset that poor children are taking up valuable seats in grammar school at all, and would like to see paid seats come back. Possible solutions include paying allowances to poor students in the senior grades and offering more advanced courses in secondary schools to assuage disappointed middle class grammar school applicants. 

Notes of the Week

 The meeting of the five Asian prime ministers in Jakarta this week was just a stunt in service of "sterile anti-colonialism." Italy's cheerful ratification of the London and Paris agreements should be a lesson to the French to stop being so noisy. By-elections are  happening, and the important fact about Inverness isn't that the winning Conservative candidate is a right wing lunatic succeeding a right wing lunatic than that the Liberal candidate came in second. This tells me that we're at less than a year out from the election, because The Economist is pretending to be a Liberal paper again. The Economist is upset that a shop stewards' dispute is getting in the way of timely flights to Europe out of Manchester. The Economist next does its best to explain the hitch which has come up in the agreement to settled the Bugandan constitutional question in Uganda. Is its account biased against Africans? Probably, but it isn't as  though you'll get a clearer one anywhere else. Dr. Adenauer is a rapidly deteriorating old man, which has Germans upset, because no-one can possibly replace him. Also in trouble is someone named Vladimir Dedijer, for standing up for Milan Djilas against Marshal Tito, at  least according to someone named Edvard Kardelj and honestly I think at this point the Yugoslavs (spelling it like an American because I am one!) are just having political intrigues as an excuse to make the rest of us learn to spell Yugoslavian names. Yes, yes, I know it's called Serbo-Croat. Food prices might go up due to wage increases for farm labourers. Means tests for academic scholarships might be revised to make the more accessible to the middle class. Another person who is in trouble (it says here), is Kwame Nkrumah, because various provinces, but mainly British Togoland, might or might not become part of his "Ghana," and the "not" part is the problem. There are now only 800 British civil servants working for the Sudanese government and they now have the right to resign and take six months' superannuation, which they should do, The Economist thinks, and blame the Sudanese nationalists for not begging them to stay even harder than they have. A surreal bit explains about the French "co-existence" scheme in Indo-China, which is based on cooperation with the Viet Minh to keep on running all the bits the Viet Minh haven't actually conquered by virtue of laying out 20 billion francs in assorted aid under the Colombo Plan. That's fifty seven million whole dollars! The Economist warns that the "X" rating for movies not to be seen by those under 16 is far too broad and will lead to no-one showing mature films (which aren't pure pornography) at all, so while well-intended, perhaps this rating, and movie ratings in general, need another look. The release of figures on hospital spending is supposed to guide hospital budget making, but no-one is going to be economical at hospitals while there is public health! The latest fuss in Russia is over Soviet literature not being romantic enough, or too anti-Soviet, or both. Peron is still fighting with the Catholic church. A new government report recommends more money for legal aid. 

The Economist of 1854 thinks that people have heard enough about the evils of public sanitation, public health, and peace with Russia in this holiday season and reviewsTitmarsh's  The Rose and the Ring: Or, the History of Prince Giglia and Prince Nulbo, instead. But just so we don't forget who we're reading, it begins its very positive review by what looks like a completely unprovoked swing at William Thackeray. Presumably all the readers back in 1854 knew that Thackery wrote the Rose, etc. and the review read as a bit less mean spirited, but still. 

Books

Philip Mason's Essay on Racial Tension is a sober and realistic call for more investigation into "the facts of racial differences --or similarities-- and for wider and more systematic dissemination of the facts which are already at hand." I've heard that before from some very unsavory people, but the reviewer, and, I assume, Mason go on to look at racial prejudice, which is apparently as obvious as the absence of any evidence for the intellectual inferiority of any race of humans, and looks specifically at White settlers in Africa, pointing out that their increasingly violent response, especially amongst the Afrikaners, gives the "moral initiative" to Islam and Communism. Then because that doesn't seem like something that can be comfortably discussed, the reviewer (and possibly Mr. Mason) release an inky word cloud and escape. Walter Schiffer's The Legal Community of Mankind (AHEM!) is about how the League of Nations tried to develop the existing framework of international law through all of its agencies, which Schiffer thinks will bear fruit in some vastly distant time and in the while he is a "friendly critic." Hector Bolitho's Jinnah: Creator of Pakistan is the "first full-scale biography" of this remarkable man. Bolitho comes out swinging for the "Jinnah was right" school, so I assume the next one, excluding anything by an author from the subcontinent, will set the stage for the "Jinnah was wrong" school. General Mark Clark's memoir of his time in Korea is reviewed alongside Guy Winn's What Happened in Korea? We're all asking that, Guy, and The Economist gives him an "A" for effort. Clark, meanwhile, was, as usual, always right about everything. J. Robert Oppenheimer's Science and the Common Understanding is the book version of his Reith lectures and disappointing, as it was all said a generation ago. Physicists still can't explain reality in simple terms, the reviewer is disappointed to report. So, I want you to sit down before reading this, but there's a reason for that.  Paul Herman's Conquest by Man: The Saga of Early Exploration and Development is "an omnibus survey of history and myth," and is complete rubbish. Gordon Shepherd's Russia's Danubian Empire establishes that Communism is awful, which is good, but is otherwise rubbish with  no maps. 

Letters

Ewart Grogan in 1900. 

Ewart Grogan of the Legislative Council of Kenya explains why the settlers are actually in the right, as does A. P. Le Mesurier, who explains that the various irregularities have come about because junior officers have been given responsibilities beyond their competencies, and promised official support for their actions. So the problem is actually that we're not giving that support! There's a method here! A. F. Trotman-Dickenson writes from the University of Edinburgh to propose that the problem is less a lack of scientists than that scientific researchers are wasting their time doing menial work like glassblowing when they should be sitting in window bays in beautifully-appointed Gothic libraries, staring at the stars, and thinking scientific thoughts. A. P. Makatta, of the Indonesian delegation to Gatt, takes issue with The Economist's interpretation of Indonesia's position. Likewise Gilbert Frost, on behalf of the Child Care Committees of the LCC area.

American Survey

"President in a Divided House" Meaning a Republican President and a Democratic majority, so work will be done, as opposed to a tax cut followed by a two year battle to get the most reactionary candidate nominated for the next election. On the bright side, the 1955 federal budget deficit is now estimated at $4.7 billion, and in 1957 or more likely 1961 we'll be able to get back to blaming the Democrats for that. Also in Washington, everyone's arguing about the "New Look" cuts in armed forces manpower (I think they still let a few women wear the uniform? Maybe letting more women wear the uniform would help?) is wrong and not atomical enough for reasons that . . . Oh, for Heaven's sake. This leak is from the Army side, so you know how it's going to read: We need more soldiers for when we can't just threaten to blow everything up. It's why the Navy and the Air Force favour war with China. That will be all just blowing stuff up! Except that Indo-China is kind of like China, but also not. It looks like a convenient SEC investigation will give the Democrats the chance they need to break the Dixon-Yates contract, and the President a chance to throw up his hands and say, "Well, I tried." Lewis Strauss is doing his part by promising to use his position as AEC chairman to fight the Democrats all the way on it. The only thing opponents have left to hope for is if Edward Teller joins the fight. I guess the question is what this will mean for Kefauver in '56. 

We get a bit more about the Rubber Producing Facilities Disposal Commission, which, it seems, is going to be allowed to go ahead with disposing of the government synthetic rubber industry to private hands. New cars are starting to move as the Big Three, mainly discount 1955 models to get them off the lot as production for 1956 picks up. The amendment to allow Mississippi to abolish public education rather than let the Coloureds in has passed at a bit more than two to one. The Economist piously supposes that once the public school system has been dissolved and replaced by state-funded private, segregated schools, the good voters of Mississippi will continue to fund Coloured education equally so that there will be no fuss. However, The Friends of Segregated Public Schools believe that it is much to-do over nothing, as careful drawing of school district boundaries can maintain de facto segregation without anything so desperate. Secretary Benson's plan to remove restrictions on planting all crops that aren't restricted is going forward. Since the only reason a farmer might have to plant wheat, cotton, or corn, is to make more money, it stands to reason that once they're free to plant barley, rye, or sorghum and not make money, they'll be happy! Have you heard about the AEC's new "packaged" nuclear plant that can be transported by air enough, yet? Well, too bad, here's another story about it. Even The Economist is bored, and asks where the safe, reliable, commercial reactors are. 

The World Overseas

In Egypt, the Arab Street has opinions about the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement, but as soon as I read the phrase "pavement politics" I couldn't stay awake any longer. A longer update on the vote of non-confidence in Paris. We get Hatoyama Ichiro's premiership under his new party of amalgamated Liberal splinters and Shigemitsu Mamoru's Progressives explained, and after looking at the return of Japanese Not-Fascists-At-All, it's time to look at the Communists' prospects in Germany, which turn out to be just about nil. Switzerland is apparently a success story due to its current accounts surplus, which is becoming embarrassing due to the country's persistently low interest rates, which drive foreign investment. Israel's German reparations are covering 16.8% of its imports,, which sounds like a happy windfall until you decide to turn your smile upside down and be a writer for the magazine and discover to much of it is being spent on fripperies like food and clothing instead of German capital goods. 

"The Economy at Full Strength" is a special section that provides some numbers to explain how Britain's economy is going great guns right now, in contrast to the U.S.'s still limping economy, although as always the future is dark and might be gloomy. It is particularly noteworthy that the labour force grew by 175,000--200,000, of whom 120,000 were women, against official predictions of a "natural increase" of 35,000. The manufacturing industry's employment rose by 3%, while its output rose by 8%, which you could argue shows an increase in productivity, but you could also find some way --any way, really-- to deny that for whatever reason (wage demands). Steel production continues to rise, coal production continues to not make up the demand for imports
 

The Business World

"Steel This Year" "This time last year, the British steel industry was wondering if it would be able to sell all the steel it could produce in 1954; today it thinks it could sell a good deal more than it hopes to produce in 1955." Production will be up a  half million tons of ingot steel, which won't stop imports, of course, because there are so many kinds of steel.

Business Notes leads off with finance. We have a new peak in rubber prices, arrangements for Britain to pay directly for American coal to do its part to prop up the American industry with its MSDAP money (so, yes, the defence ministry is buying American coal, I suppose to prevent a communist revolution in West Virginia, as might very well happen), cotton is up, Colvilles has sold, diamond prices are up for the first time since the war, clear evidence that the Diamond Trading Company thinks that the market will bear a bit of squeezing, the London Builders' Conference is not a monopoly at all,because it has made a deal with the Ministry of Works, air transport keeps growing, there is a trade agreement with Germany, shopkeepers can now get hire purchase insurance to cushion their losses, tramp freighting was in a slump as of Christmas, they are looking for uranium in South Africa. 

Leaders

"Adversity --and Recompense" It sure looks like a black year for British aviation, what with the Comet and various prototype losses, but on the other hand there's the Viscount, and the English Electric P.1 will be something when they finally open the curtains, and things are bright on the engine side. 

Lived to be 89!

From All Quarters reports that the Hunter fighter production programme has caught up with its delays, says George Ward in the Commons, but the Swift has not, and it is an open question whether its aerodynamic problems can be resolved in all the variants now in production. "Most" of the 12 RCAF squadrons assigned to the NATO Air Division are now equipped with Orenda-powered Sabres. The RCAF is now receiving Sikorsky S-55s, Piasecki H-21As, and Lockheed P27Vs. The Italians have not decided on their light fighter (Kidding! It's going to be the Fiat job!), but they are definitely taking the Orpheus. Sketchy details about the RAF's new bomb-aiming equipment confirm that it is a military version of the Decca, and with this I officially give up on the all-capitalised style for military radars and the like. Lt. Colonel Stapp, the USAF's official rocket-sled guinea pig,  hit a speed of 632mph in a trial this week, surviving 35g of either acceleration or, even more drastically, deceleration. "His only protective equipment was a helmet with a jaw-guard and a transparent visor." He better not be married, is all I'll say! Pest Control, Ltd, wants us to know that it is ten years old. The US Army has ordered 87 De Havilland Canada Otters. American Aviation reports that the Gloster Javelin is now equipped with a heat-seeking air-to-air missile, a concept which has been discussed for  years, and which has "singular merits."

Flight visits the first Jet Provost training class graduation. Even in 1955, sixteen of eighteen graduates will fly Meteors or Venoms. 

Here and There reports the death of Brigadier General Sir William Alexander, that power rescue saw demonstration at London Airport, and a Sapphire Vautour. 

Remember that Swiss guided missile that got that Air Force general in so much trouble? The Swiss are still working away on their Oerlikon Type 54, which is a beam-riding missile guided by a "central computor," which is how the copy editor still spells it. 

"All-Weather Mystere: French Transonic Two-Seater Powered by Afterburning Avon" Its a French Avon, so it afterburns instead of reheating. The IVN is an extended version of the Mystere IVB to make room for a radar operator and radar. It probably has an American two-dish radar system  like the F-86D it borrows its nose from, but there's not many details about that, which, considering that it is supposed to be "all weather," is pretty critical! Laurence Pritchard is touring the United States while the Fairey Gannet has begun tropical trials. 

Old reliable A. R. Weyl supplies "High-Lift Generation" about the new lift methods; or, at least, further installments will be. This one just explains how we used to achieve high lift in the old days with the right wing section. 

"TV's Air War: Japan and Germany" No, Japan and Germany aren't having a televised fight, although it might make better television than what the BBC shows, except for War in the Air, which, it turns out, this three-quarter page article is about. Specifically, Episode 7 is not about how we succeeded in bombing two very warlike countries into pacifism, and have been trying to rectify the damage ever since. It's just about dashing fighter boys being dashing, with the bombers going about their days in the background. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that the USAF is letting Hughes fly its XH-17 rotorjet helicopter for some vibration trials. Jacobs is looking into an Oryx-powered  helicopter that will absolutely, for sure, come to pass. Grumman is converting some of its S2F antisubmarine planes into transports for resupplying carriers. Leduc is continuing work on its ramjets, S.O. on its Djinn helicopter, and Breguet is producing its 901 transport aircraft. Fiat will deliver its first F-86K to the Italian Air Force next month. 

Flight is a bit short of editorial, so let's fly along with a bush pilot in Australia! And then, because that's so much fun, it looks in at East African Airways for more of the same. Hawker Sidddeley's annual general meeting saw Sir Thomas Sopwith tell the board about all the exciting things the company has done this year, and blame high taxes for the small dividend checks. 

"Wing Drop and Pitch Up: Some Phenomena of High-speed Flight Discussed in SAE Lecture" Earl Hodder of North American explained to an SAE meeting in Los Angeles why F-86s keep falling out of the sky, now that the F-86 is the most famous bird of the Korean War and everyone is buying them and it's too late, suckers! It's basically because high-sweepback is dangerous, just like everyone said, but what does everyone know? Science and engineering and boring stuff like that! 

Correspondence

Two years ago, Peter Thomas saw a lineup of people waiting to suggest that the Auxiliary Air Force get some hot jets, especially the Gnat, decided that he'd like to join the back of the line, and here's his letter! Dennis Powell catches us up with the "Third-hand Constellations" that BOAC had to lease to make up for the Comet. Frank Bell, a 1st Lieutenant with the USAF's 77th Air Division, is also here to catch us up, with 49th Air Division, the F-84 "Special Delivery" wing. 

The Industry reports A. G. Clark's pessimistic speech to the Plessey annual general meeting that points out that cost of production continues to rise and worries that British industry might be pricing itself out of world markets. He also wants to complain about high taxes. Ransome has a new factory.

"Expanding Electronics" That is, Winston Electronics has paid for a  page in Flight. They are working on an electronic lung, a spectrographic monitor, a "loud-to-loud" telephone of revolutionary design for two-wire working, and a sequential image convertor that gets most of the text, as well as six measuring instruments. The "image convertor" is an electronic camera that substitutes a "photo cathode" for the film and turns the incoming image into an electronic signal that can be manipulated in various ways. It's not really new, what with televisions and all, but it is fascinating to here it put this way! 

Civil Aviation reports that Air Charter has bought some more DC-4s, that Atlantic air freight is up, that the inquiry into the Prestwick BOAC Stratocruiser accident at Prestwick on Christmas Day is considering the possibility that the undercarriage collapsed on touchdown after landing short of the runway, leading to the aircraft flipping over, killing 28 of the 36 on board. Breguet is working on two new transports, the 766 and 767, both said to be four turboprop designs using British engines. Hurel-Dubois is looking for US licernsees. North American Airlines is introducing daily nonstop coach flights between New York and Los Angeles with DC-6Bs even though this is impossible (because the east-west flight will be more than 8 hours, whatever the airline schedule says), but CAB has pretended that it is possible for American, so now the thinking is that it will have to do the same for North American. Tasman took a bath in the last year of flying boat operations, but hopes to turn the corner with its new DC-6Bs. Curtiss-Wright has received a sweet contract for DC-7B flight simulators from Pan American. 

The Economist, 8 January 1955

Leaders

"Means to What End?" The Economist is still worried about the railway strike. It turns out that no-one is listening to its "Fire the porters" plan! The Economist also urges the Secretary of the Exchequer (that's Rab Butler to the merely political) to run a surplus in 1955 and not balance the budget with tax cuts to get rid of all the money coming in from unexpectedly high income, excise, and inheritance tax returns and late delays of military aircraft, because that will be inflationary. There's a great deal more on the controversy between "conventional" and "Keynesian" economics and how the latter calls for more stringency than the former, in contrast to the Thirties, when we didn't do Keynesianism when we could have. It points out that the budget surplus, or deficit, is just an accounting convention, and it would be crazy to kick off inflation because an artificial number shows a surplus of £300 million "above the line." We will see if anyone is listening. 

"Saigon and Hanoi" The population of North Vietnam is greater than South Vietnam, so the national elections scheduled in 1956 will be won by the Viet Minh and all the resources invested in South Vietnam this year will fall to them, and why tolerate that when you can just find some pretext to cancel the elections entirely, The Economist more than hints. It will be like South Korea and North Korea! The strike in the Copperbelt reflects the fact that African workers have had it up to here with Europeans, and the magazine is not going to have any truck with White solidarity when a lower wage bill is on offer! 

From The Economist of 1855 comes, since it is a week past Christmas and time to be serious again, a Leader on the proper "War Aims" of the Allies, which is apparently the total eradication of Russian influence in Europe and Asia. 

Notes of the Week

It's about the strikebreaking, and
too inconsequential to explain.
Did everyone but me know that
"Adrian Molesworthy" was a lit-
erary tribute? 

Railway strike, communist agitation in France and Germany is the "Big push," East Germany is sounding out Czechoslovakia for a defensive alliance, which is "sabre rattling," the Foreign Office rejects Malenkov's latest proposal for four power talks, Labour's latest agricultural policy statement is just pandering to farmers ahead of the Norfolk byelection that leaves "consumers in the cold," union action against strikebreakers is bad, actually, the world is waiting to see what Dag Hammarskjold makes of the UN. The two-and-a-half day blockage of the Suez Canal by a tanker fouling a swing bridge  reminds us all of the commercial importance of the Canal and the efficiency of the current operators, which Egypt will have to emulate, bringing us to the Egyptian decision to block passage to Israeli ships bound for the port of Eilat. The Egyptians are banned from using the Canal to exert a blockade, but are allowed to close it to ships to "preserve public order," so the argument is over which is which. Robin Pedley's survey of comprehensive schools shows that, contrary to the critics, none of the fourteen schools surveyed exceeded an enrollment of 1500 students, that they offer advanced courses, and that the good students are not being held back by the worst. "This is a field for experiment, not doctrinaire policy." With the Nigerian elections over, cabinet making has begun. We get an explainer, a look at negotiations to create a "European fund" under OEEC that seems to be some sort of financial arrangement that the United Kingdom will deign to enter, unlike the Schumann Plan, followed by a look at the Pfimlin, or "Green Pool" plan, which was to be the agricultural equivalent of the Schumann Plan, which is now being set at ends by the question of Spanish participation. The assassination of President

By Profpedia at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.
wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66359162

Jose Antonio Remon of Panama shows that Central America is becoming a tinderbox, with the main but not exclusive risk being an invasion of Costa Rica by Nicaragua supporting Costa Rican exiles in Honduras. The breakup of large urban estates like the Portman to pay death duties is bad for London, and the prospects of the Westminster and Bedford estates following makes it a matter of urgency since small private holdings cannot manage these parcels as effectively. There is, of course, no possible solution since public ownership is out of the question. The Economist explains why the ruling that "Raynaud's phenomena" should not be insurable under Workmen's Compensation is explained and defended.

Letters

George Schuster,  who serves on a Regional Board, patiently explains why it is so insanely stupid to assume that Hospital Care Committees won't use the information in the hospitals cost survey to make economies in their budget just because they get their money from the government. Norman Kipping of the Federation of British Industries explains why, if British Road Services continues to  operate, the Railway Rates Tribunal will have to come back. L. Shipman and S. J. Ottiker of the British Chamber of Commerce in Peru take up the cause of explaining why disappointing British exports to Latin America have more to do with disappointing British shippers than with anything that might be happening in South America. 

Books

C. V. Wedgewood has The King's Peace, 1637--1641, which is a  return to the "personalities first" approach of Gardiner's magisterial study, but with opposing sympathies. The reviewer is not convinced that good history can be written this way. John Spedan Lewis' Fairer Shares is some social theory of the sentimental variety, as  you wold expect of Spedan Lewis, of whom we have heard before. Harry Emerson Wildes' Typhoon in Tokyo is a good history of eight years of dynamic change in Japan, if  you can stomach the Luce house style. Speaking of house styles, the future of Japan is dark! Claude Bowers' Watching the Rehearsal is a memoir of his time as United States Ambassador to Spain, which was 1933--39, hence the title. Bowers was right about everything, it turns out, but his style is so jejune that we can safely throw this book in the trash and be on with our day. Nathan Marein, in The Ethiopian Empire, Federation, and Laws, gives us an insider's view of the Empire that is currently enjoying a coffee boom. F. Sherwood Taylor's Power Today and Tomorrow is a pretty good treatment of the energy industry.

Wolf's a commie, though. Or a Georgist, same same. 

American Survey

"State of the Union" The President's programme is laid out in great detail. What can get by Southern Democrats (that is, not home rule for DC, statehood for Hawaii, or a reduction of the voting age to 18), might get through. The President is still pushing for Army reduction, but also a higher federal minimum wage, some tinkering with medical insurance, less tinkering with Taft-Hartley, and more Federal aid for education. The abortive scandal over 
Wolf Ladejinsky, dismissed by the Department of Agriculture while working, for some reason, in Tokyo as the agricultural attache, for security reasons, and briefly hired by Stassen's Foreign Operations Administration before being dismissed by it for the same reason, only for it come out that the reason he was deemed a security risk was mainly a vituperous anti-Semitic hate mail campaign is highlighted as a reason that the President might want to overhaul the loyalty review process. Wall Street retreated from a week of gains this week, and everyone is satisfied. Averill Harriman is still the new Governor of New York. The American consumer is "the Economic Man of the Year," because without the consumer it would have been a  bad year. It is likely that the President's most popular and lasting initiative will be his $50 billion "Ten Year Plan" for roads, but there is an argument ongoing about whether to fund them with gas taxes, and, if so, whether the Federal Government or the states should levy and spend them. RCA's 40% cut in record prices last week will make Americans even more music-crazy than ever, with the twenty-five million American record players currently likely to rise to 45 million in the next five years. And all of them three-speeds, too! Shorter notes registers the curtailment of special Korean War benefits for enlistees starting next month, another lower court victory for the Government's effort to make thinking Communist thoughts illegal, an anti-monopoly decision against Eastman Kodak will allow people to get their colour photos developed anywhere.

The World Overseas

Usually the patent trolls around here are American. 
By Gunnar Richter Namenlos.net - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4181220

It is thought that the Mendes-France government will fall shortly. Greenland has "come of age" by being made an integral part of Denmark. We get an explainer about how the 23,000 Greenlanders, "mainly of mixed Eskimo and Scandinavian blood," live. It's very picturesque, although the capital does have dial telephones and a daily paper, and there are some important American bases. "Under the Greenland Department's enlightened stewardship, social and cultural progress has matched economic development." Although tuberculosis accounts for almost 40% of deaths, and "work-shyness" is a prevailing problem. The ripping up of the 1950 Pau Agreement signals a new dawn on the Mekong, notably free passage on the river, which should relieve Cambodian complaints that the Vietnamese were charging too much in transit taxes at Saigon. Education is booming in the Soviet Union and for some reason 40% of the students are women! For some reason. Australian bankers are arguing about money in that traditionally incomprehensible way --banker talk, I mean, not Aussie talk. There's a uranium boom in the north. Of course there is. Australian steel is the cheapest in the world, and that all-Australian invention, the Rotolactor, is the best thing in cow-farming since the last thing in cow-farming. 

The Business World

Money! Specifically, the British are trying out letting lenders set their own interest rates within the usual limits. Arguments about the International Wheat Agreement continue, because wheat is an unstable commodity. Large crops bring low prices, but low prices don't immediately bring high prices, nor do low prices stimulate demand. The International Wheat Council argues for price supports to maintain stability. Importing countries have agreed to take a set amount when the price falls below the support level, but this only covers about half the world market and is not an effective price floor, while Britain has not joined the counter balancing price ceiling because it is deemed too high, and the United States wants it kept  high to reduce its price supports, which all the other producing countries think must come down. So that's the story of wheat! 

Business Notes

"Job data speeded from office to factory!"

Aside from finance and the defence delivery delays, we learn this week that coal production in 1954 was a bit lower than previously thought, 223 3/4 million tons instead of 225 million, mainly due to a fall in opencast production. Higher production than 1946 by a long shot, though, and with a fall in manpower of 5700, so that productivity has increased. At full employment, there is no hope of making  up the industry's estimated 12,000 job shortfall, so it better! The shipyards produced 1.5 million tons in 1954, the most since since the war and up a fifth from 1953. Total tonnage under production has declined over the year, but shipping rates recovered in the last half of 1954 and orders for that period are not collated yet, and British yards have a backlog of 4.5  million tons, which is admittedly less than the 7 million tons of 1952, but is still ridiculous three years of work pending. Hire purchase continues to boom, aluminum and pulp and paper prices are up, troubles in the Copper Belt continue. 

Flight, 14 January 1955

Leaders

"Growing Pains" Some people say that the air transport industry isn't making enough money to survive. They're full of rubbish! 

From All Quarters reports that the Ministry of Transport has confirmed that it has received a request from BOAC to buy 19 Douglas DC-7Cs at a cost of £15 million. This seems like a bit much. BOAC does need planes to fill the Atlantic gap in 1956 and 1957, by which time the long range Britannia will be in service and piston-engined planes will no longer be economical in service. And there needs to be some balance to CApital's large Viscount order. Reports from America suggest that the DC-8 will receive its first American airline order, from United, which is not interested in the 707, the design of which made too many concessions to military needs, or the Convair Turboliner, which is not a serious undertaking. (See my reports on James' comments, ad nauseum.) Ongoing modifications of the Convair YF-102 may eventually make it the supersonic interceptor it was ordered as. No. 1 Fighter Wing, RCAF, has almost completed its trans-Atlantic migration to its new base at Marville, France. Avro is going to stretch out production of the CF-100 so that the 650 ordered will continue in delivery until CF-105 production begins sometime in 1958, and has also cancelled its "flying saucer" development. It is, accordingly, laying off 1000 employees, about a tenth of the workforce. It is time for another story about the Martin XP6M-1 SeaMaster jet flying boat atom bomber, although here sold mainly as a minelayer. James H. Smith, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Air explains that "With perhaps half a dozen seaplanes, a single tender, and a pair of submarine tankers, we could provide an integrated force that an enemy could not ignore," anywhere in the world. 
 

Here and There reports that De Havilland is expecting a Royal Navy order for its DH110 all-weather fighter imminently. Donald Campbell will shortly attempt a world water-speed record with a Beryl-powered Bluebird. 

Steve Hogarth performed this song at Campbell's 1967 funeral. This version is a cover by a band that isn't worth quite as much as Hogarth yet. It definitely doesn't have the 1955 vibe, but whatever. 

"Turboproposals" Everyone else is having fun doodling regular planes with turboprops, so why not here's more, the Nord-2600 and Lockheed L-1449 Turbo-Constellation. Several DC-7s with turboprops are now in the wind, and who knows what else. 

"The TV Film: War Over Italy" Episode 9 of The War in the Air is the counterpart of Victory at Sea: Roman Renaissance, which, Flight "reluctantly admits," was better television. It also omitted many important points, such as the heavy losses suffered when Seafires flown by exhausted pilots tried to land back on their carriers as the Salerno operations dragged on, the impact of the first, German, radio-guided bombs, the taking of Pantelleria by air power, and the impressive impact of incendiary versus high explosive bombing. 

"Rocket Combustion Instability Investigation" "J. G." reports for Flight on the Stanford Research Institute's recent contract from Soundrive Engine to investigate instability of gas flow in rocket tubes. The apparatus used (a tube with gas in it ringed with ionisation gauges) is described, and the experimental series (inserting liners of various thickness and composition) is very briefly detailed. It was a very fruitful investigation of a phenomenon that can significantly affect the performance of long range rockets. Then, there being room left over on the page, we get reporting on the SNECMA Vulcain, a 13,000lb single shaft engine intended to power several advanced French types, and Brazil's aeronautical college, which has been a going concern since 1949. 

A. R. Weyl, "High-Lift Generation, Part 2" "Developing aircraft that can compete with helicopters" will require very high lift, and no stall. One particular design Weyl likes has air blown across it by 6300hp worth of engine, at which point we're talking about helicopters with static rotors and moving air. Can we do this? Well, Weyl thinks we've been ignoring Custer's channel wing, which might be the way forward. Or maybe this is a bad idea!

FFA P-16: By Kobel - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25664590

Aircraft Intelligence reports that there are lots of Canberras, that the Sperrin prototype is being  used for aerodynamic trials, that there is an amphibious De Havilland Canada Beaver, that Nord is still flogging its 1203 3-seat light plane, that all contenders are in for the U.S. Army's helicopter competition, that GE is now experimenting with a VTOL jet, that Switzerland is working on a close support jet fighter. 

"Dart Development: Impressive Record of the First Civil Turboprop: Detail Changes in Later Models" The title says it all. The Dart really is amazing --by a long ways the first reliable turboprop. I've said before that Rolls Royce lucked out by having such an unambitious requirement, since all of the ambitious first generation turboprops have been disasters, except the Proteus --so far! 

North American is working on a transonic trainer as  a private venture, Kent-Moore's in situ decarboniser (I just use steel wool!) is the Aero Chamber Combustion Cleaner, which is pressure blasted steel wool, I assume. 

Correspondence

N. Kadmon recalls a miniature flying boat they had, years ago, before the war. John Grierson will simply not stop arguing about the history of Antarctic flying. David Hayes of Aer Lingus explains why that passenger wasn't allowed to board late. O. Welse is confused, and A. R. Mettam also recalls the old days, before the war. 

"Twins Mean Business" And, word to the advertising manager who okayed t his article, "Inane Titles Mean Readers Skip." (The Navion and a new Ryan make good company planes.)

Civil Aviation reports that ANA might buy the Handley Page Herald, that Panam has ambitious plans for Atlantic freight, that progress on the Boeing 707 progresses progressively, that we haven't heard ANYTHING about Silver City Airways this issue, so here's a blurb about their plans for 1955, that an ICAO/IATA report shows that this has been a solid year of progress in airline safety. There have been more airline accidents this year per passenger mile, with fatal air accidents (airline division) happened only once every fifteen days on average, but twelve months is a very arbitrary period and overall the trend is to increased safety, but to prove that you need to use statistics, and the layman shouldn't use statistics, because if they did they'd find that 1954 was less safe than 1953, and that can't be right, can it? U. S. airlines carried 24 million people this year. Viscounts are pretty good planes. This week's R.Ae. S. lecture was on famous flights of the past. 

Redditch is a very boring normal town and Hymatic is mostly boring, too,
so enjoy this picture of the somewhat freaky "Headless Cross" Iron Age
hillfort near Redditch and associated monuments. 

"Vibration Testing of Aircraft Gas Turbines: Some Useful Adaptations of Standard Practice" Bristol has written in with a page and a half on how they do it, with pictures, and there's nothing much else going on, so we hear about how Bristol filters the readings from vibration meters, for which they use the Type 614 voltmeter taking readings from seismic pickups. The RCAF has bought the R Theta Computer from P.S.C. Applied Research and the Position and Homing Indicator, from Computing Devices of Canada, Ltd. They are both "independent of radio," and so cannot be jammed. The Industry reports on a new range of special-purpose pneumatic tools from Atlas Diesel, including small riveting hammers, grinders, impact wrenches, and other tools. Hymatic Engineering of Redditch, Worcs., makes special-purpose valves for aircraft fuel systems.

 Since Fortune seems worried that it's going to drive readers away by focussing in the twenty-fifth anniversary material (speaking of which, it sure is weird that such a posh business magazine would start up in 1930!), here's my summary of the twenty "other timely articles:" A company profile of Anaconda Copper; a dismissive investigation of the alleged current crime wave; a look at the spread of chain hotels; an explainer on current research on the human brain; "a searching look at Don Wailing of Executive Suite, the fictional executive of the future," provocatively entitled "The Executive as Hero;" and a profile of Lewis Strauss that is either so fawning or so subtle that it puts a quote about this being "the first time in my life I have enemies" in the subtitle; and the usual departments.

So with that out of the way, it is interesting to compare this issue of Fortune with the New Year's Day edition of The Economist. The Economist is faced with celebrating a sizzling, white hot year in the British economy and a sharp rise in the numbers usually used to measure worker productivity while editorialising against concessions to stop a rail strike. If productivity is on the rise, surely Britain can afford some pay rises, especially when the huge budget surplus in prospect is driven by buoyant income tax returns, and much of the demand for British manufacturing is domestic? Fortune, in contrast, is looking back triumphantly at American economic growth beginning in the slump year of 1930 and broadly ending in 1952, which is giving my Funk & Wagnall's entry on "Ingenuous" a workout. We're limping into a recovery from the (first?) Eisenhower recession and will not get back to full employment, Fortune says, no matter how many cars we sell. Well! If there's not full employment, perhaps it is safe to celebrate worker productivity?  Turning to the Labor section, seems so!

 Fortune's Wheel explains that the reason that the theme of the anniversary issues is "America's Breakthrough" is that America has had a breakthrough. 

Letters

Frustrated American inventors write about the article about invention to agree that the problem is that people don't listen to their world changing ideas. Robert K. Williams writes to say that Philip Youtz and Thomas Slick didn't invent lift slab building, because lots of people were working with it at the same time. George Henry of the Industrial Dispersion Commission writes to say that if the experts who are questioning industrial dispersion are so smart, why aren't they rich? The chairman of Piney Bowes and several management consultants think that stock options are great, while John Edwin Tawes of New York wants to know why the president of Westinghouse is moving Westinghouse stocks so quickly when he has Westinghouse stock options. (It's perfectly innocent, Fortune replies on behalf of the writers, who relied heavily on the Westinghouse experience.) Ed Carlisle makes a joke, Senator Bricker writes to defend the courts' attempt to restrict the President's right to appoint executives of Federal agencies without Senatorial consent. Dr. George Bennett of the Psychological Corporation is upset that Fortune published some of its tests. 

Business Roundup concludes that 1955 will be the best year ever because the recession is over and the country will pull out of a higher-level trough (production down 7% on 1953, GNP down 3%) than ever before, so even though there isn't full employment, it will be the best. Prices and wages will remain stable while "stabilisers" will allow consumers to keep consuming. 

Business Notes From Abroad reports the end of the "postwar era," a slackening enthusiasm for European unity, a return of British commercial and monetary leadership, convertibility for sure soon, the effects of the "U.S. 'abdication'" of world leadership due to the recession at home, and looks forward to more East West trade, which is good, but also bad. 

In the first of the anniversary articles, Gilbert Burck looks at the world-historical fact (it's philosophy talk!) that the average American works 15% fewer hours than in 1930 (ahem!) and has 50%  more purchasing power. If current productivity trends continue, the American standard of living will double again in 18 years. But can productivity increase? What will 1980 look like? Well, for one thing, the servant problem will be even worse! (David Sarnoff is taken by atomic power and electronic light; but also wind, tidal and solar energy, and thinks that intercontinental missiles will carry mail as well as atom bombs, making them a mixed blessing. "Cancer, polio, tuberculosis, and an array of other scourges" will be vanquished like cholera in days of yore. Most importantly, progress is contagious and will spread to backward and barbarous lands. Although we sure do have to beat Communism by being able to deliver the most atom bombs.) Why is America so great? It's not geography or world events or anything like that. It's that Americans are so great! 

The second anniversary article is about "The Age of the Managers," which seems like pandering to me. As opposed to pandering, Daniel Bell does a great job of deflating the idea of a  national crime wave. What about Francis Bello's investigation of "New Light on the Brain?" We have a new research tool, the electroencephalograph, and new theories of consciousness, and a new mathematical model of how the brain works. I'd try to summarise them, but it would be silly when there's a great Fortune illustration you can see in your copy.