Source |
Group Captain R_. C_., RCAFVR, OBE, DSO, DFC (Bar),
RAAF Richmond,
NSW,
Australia
Dear Father:
Your letter finds us well, but anxious in the West Coast, where the casualty lists from Okinawa are beginning to sink in. It sometimes seems as though California has given the Marine Corps all the blood it can, and obviously John's death has hit Michael and Judith very hard. Michael actually punched a hand who apparently suggested (in Spanish), that he had grandsons enough that he wouldn't miss one.
For myself, I had considered moving into the Grant Avenue rooms to be closer to my doctor for the last few weeks; but Judith is firm on the point that there is no need for unfamiliar surroundings at this late date. She also has the fixed idea that Chinatown is dirty. In fact, we have brought Mrs(!) Wong down to stay in the ranch house, close to her inlaws without being too close. Tommy will be in town for two weeks at the end of July, after which all leaves at his station are cancelled through the end of August for very hush-hush reasons. We hope the event will be then. James has written separately, pleading with me to hold off another month, as though I had any say in the matter. So whatever the hush-hush reasons are, they mean early leaves for fleet engineers, no leaves for aircraft instrument men in Alaska.
Miss v. Q., unexpectedly, has been in touch with her cousin. Not the rocket-man, the other one. The explanation, insofar as it can be trusted to me even by Miss v. Q., is that modern code work uses booklets of specially figured numbers in their new-fangled "book codes," instead of astronomy chapbooks, as we do. This is all very well from the point of view of defeating the Black Chamber (as they say in the trade), unless for some reason the lists of numbers are recycled, as the Russians apparently fell into the habit of doing during the war. One way or another, this offers some hope of reading Russian diplomatic ciphers. The Germans were working on it, and her cousin has taken the liberty of supplying their materials to the Americans, for very patriotic reasons involving all the nice things that American dollars can buy. (Miss v. Q. loves her cousin without having a very high opinion of his honesty.) Now the American army and the FBI have put all hands on deck in an attempt to read the codes. From my other source in the matter, our young Lieutenant A_., I have it that there is some hope that the New Deal will finally be proved to have been communising all this time.
I am not so sure. The Engineer must with the desire to expose the rot, and surely Mr. Luce would like to see the communists out of the State Department, where they are sure to hand China over to Yunnan. Unless Soong does it himself in the Moscow talks. recent election in Britain, but my brain trust at the University points out that the Laski Affair in Britain shows the limits of this. One wants to follow, not try to lead, public opinion in these matters, the Provost says. Look at the Zinoviev Letter, he says. Not a single Labour voter changed his mind, but it swept the Liberals from the field and gave the Tories their majority, anyway. (I forgot to look this up so that I could explain it, but I think it is a reference to a scandal in a British general election in the 1920s, in which case I would sound like a pompous fool explaining it to you, and Santa Clara's faculty is full up already.
I'm sorry, that was mean. I love the generality of my old Jesuits. It is just that I do not love sending my drapes out to the dry cleaners. (Cigars, to be discussed below. Would St. Francis approve of cigars? I shall have to ask, next time I host the Fathers.)
Speaking of the Moscow talks, where Macnhria's fate seems settled and the issue has turned to Turkestan, one bit of alarming news you may not have heard. Fat Chow was finally prevailed upon to travel there to meet with his pan-Turanian friends. He is flying out in an Army bomber with some dubious Japanese officers to no purpose I can imagine.
Your son was in town very briefly on his way to his ship, which he will join in the last week of July. "Miss V.C." and Lieutenant A_. drove down from Idaho to meet them, and made a foursome on the town with our housekeeper, just like old times, young heads bobbing in an open Lincoln in the California evening sun. Blonde, brunette, redhead, another brunette. . . I wish I were seven years younger. . .
Next morning, she even volunteered to drive him down to the docks. A hug from me, a brisk handshake from "Miss V.C.", and he stepped into the launch. It was all rather ruined when I had to give her a talking-to about reckless driving at home. At least she's growing up: whatever she wanted to say about my scolding, she held her tongue.
Though she did spend the rest of the day listening to sad songs on the radio.
RAAF Richmond,
NSW,
Australia
Dear Father:
Your letter finds us well, but anxious in the West Coast, where the casualty lists from Okinawa are beginning to sink in. It sometimes seems as though California has given the Marine Corps all the blood it can, and obviously John's death has hit Michael and Judith very hard. Michael actually punched a hand who apparently suggested (in Spanish), that he had grandsons enough that he wouldn't miss one.
For myself, I had considered moving into the Grant Avenue rooms to be closer to my doctor for the last few weeks; but Judith is firm on the point that there is no need for unfamiliar surroundings at this late date. She also has the fixed idea that Chinatown is dirty. In fact, we have brought Mrs(!) Wong down to stay in the ranch house, close to her inlaws without being too close. Tommy will be in town for two weeks at the end of July, after which all leaves at his station are cancelled through the end of August for very hush-hush reasons. We hope the event will be then. James has written separately, pleading with me to hold off another month, as though I had any say in the matter. So whatever the hush-hush reasons are, they mean early leaves for fleet engineers, no leaves for aircraft instrument men in Alaska.
Miss v. Q., unexpectedly, has been in touch with her cousin. Not the rocket-man, the other one. The explanation, insofar as it can be trusted to me even by Miss v. Q., is that modern code work uses booklets of specially figured numbers in their new-fangled "book codes," instead of astronomy chapbooks, as we do. This is all very well from the point of view of defeating the Black Chamber (as they say in the trade), unless for some reason the lists of numbers are recycled, as the Russians apparently fell into the habit of doing during the war. One way or another, this offers some hope of reading Russian diplomatic ciphers. The Germans were working on it, and her cousin has taken the liberty of supplying their materials to the Americans, for very patriotic reasons involving all the nice things that American dollars can buy. (Miss v. Q. loves her cousin without having a very high opinion of his honesty.) Now the American army and the FBI have put all hands on deck in an attempt to read the codes. From my other source in the matter, our young Lieutenant A_., I have it that there is some hope that the New Deal will finally be proved to have been communising all this time.
I am not so sure. The Engineer must with the desire to expose the rot, and surely Mr. Luce would like to see the communists out of the State Department, where they are sure to hand China over to Yunnan. Unless Soong does it himself in the Moscow talks. recent election in Britain, but my brain trust at the University points out that the Laski Affair in Britain shows the limits of this. One wants to follow, not try to lead, public opinion in these matters, the Provost says. Look at the Zinoviev Letter, he says. Not a single Labour voter changed his mind, but it swept the Liberals from the field and gave the Tories their majority, anyway. (I forgot to look this up so that I could explain it, but I think it is a reference to a scandal in a British general election in the 1920s, in which case I would sound like a pompous fool explaining it to you, and Santa Clara's faculty is full up already.
I'm sorry, that was mean. I love the generality of my old Jesuits. It is just that I do not love sending my drapes out to the dry cleaners. (Cigars, to be discussed below. Would St. Francis approve of cigars? I shall have to ask, next time I host the Fathers.)
Speaking of the Moscow talks, where Macnhria's fate seems settled and the issue has turned to Turkestan, one bit of alarming news you may not have heard. Fat Chow was finally prevailed upon to travel there to meet with his pan-Turanian friends. He is flying out in an Army bomber with some dubious Japanese officers to no purpose I can imagine.
Your son was in town very briefly on his way to his ship, which he will join in the last week of July. "Miss V.C." and Lieutenant A_. drove down from Idaho to meet them, and made a foursome on the town with our housekeeper, just like old times, young heads bobbing in an open Lincoln in the California evening sun. Blonde, brunette, redhead, another brunette. . . I wish I were seven years younger. . .
Next morning, she even volunteered to drive him down to the docks. A hug from me, a brisk handshake from "Miss V.C.", and he stepped into the launch. It was all rather ruined when I had to give her a talking-to about reckless driving at home. At least she's growing up: whatever she wanted to say about my scolding, she held her tongue.
Though she did spend the rest of the day listening to sad songs on the radio.
"GRACE"
Flight,
5 July 1945
Leaders
This number arrives without cover or
first page, so I do not know the title of the first Leading Article, but I
imagine it is something like “Research is Peachy Keen!”
“Civil Flying in India” India is
large and has climate, which means that it needs civil flying, which it will have,
but should have a “cautious rate of advance,” as fast, shiny aeroplanes scare
the water buffalo and sour the milk.
“More About Burma” Aircraft were
involved!
War
in the Air
We bomb the bridges in Siam, which will teach those heretics what for.
I cannot tell if the paper is being cheeky. (And never mind where I heard boys making fun of the name of the capital of Siam.) We are bombing Japan more. The Grumman F7F Tigercat and “Zeke
52” exist more. We invade more Borneo.
Here
and There
Philip G. Lucas, chief test pilot at
Hawker, is appointed to the board of directors. At last, an independent voice
to bring fearless objectivity to an examination of the books! A Nuffield man
says that there is so much petrol in Britain that the driving ration should be
tripled. The paper wants some for planes, too, in that case. The RAF’s official
departure from Brussels is a lavish party, or “Making Whoopee,” as the paper
says. I will have to remember that. Sir Richard Fairey has returned to Britain
from Washington to get in the way at Fairey instead of the British Air
Commission. The Halifax VI exists more. A service was held for Sir Trafford and
Lady Leigh-Mallory and all the little people aboard their plane. Horace Pentecost,
an engineer at Boeing, has invented a personal helicopter, the
Hoppi-Copter.
Oh, sure, why not? |
RAF Pre-release training has been expanded. So has the programme to train and select Vocational Advice Officers. RAF Release Groups 1—5 have been on their way from India since the beginning of June. Service ballots were flown back from overseas by polling day, today. Mustangs from Iwo Jima completed their longest mission yet: 1,684 miles round-trip. Air Vice-Marshal McEwen will not command the RCAF in the Pacific due to illness, and will be replaced by AVM C. R. Slemon. The German air-reconnaissance photograph archive has been discovered in “300 big, wooden crates.”
G. R. Volkert is retiring at Handley-Page. 14,000 Bristol aircraft were supplied to the RAF in the recent war, says chairman W. G. Verdon Smith. Any relation to the Verdon Roes, one wonders?
J. D. Rennie, “The Merchant Flying Ship: New Light on an Old Controversy by One of Our Flying Boat Designers” Since “the economical speed of the merchant ship has been reached . . . it would seem logical, as a next step, to become airborne.” Well, that clinches it. I will certainly fly on planes designed by this logician! Apparently, there is no limit on how gigantically huge flying boats can become, and since the Americans are sure to build a hugely gigantic one, so should we. Now on to matters I actually care about: wing-tip floats, retractile or not.
Let's just get this out of the way right now. Image source; Wikipedia article on Hughes H-4 Hercules. |
“Helicopter Rescue and Recovery” A
Sikorsky helicopter operating from “surely the smallest flight deck ever,”
built up over a Coast Guard cutters’s boat deck, shows that it can rescue men
at sea. The Sikorsky S-5 is described.
“Bristol Centaurus: Survey of
Britain’s Most Powerful Radial Engine: An Example of Logical Layout to Achieve
Compactness with Power” This 18 cylinder engine giving over 2000hp was first
revaled to the world by Flight on 17
May 1945. Actually, power output is “well in excess of 2500hp.” It has
cylinders of 5.75” bore, same as the Hercules, but length has been increased to
7.0”, compared with 6.5” in the Hercules, giving a capacity of 53.6 litres
(3,270 cubic inches), compared with 38.7L in the Hercules. Bhp/sq inch is also
up, from 4.93 to 5.34, and frontal area has only increased from 2,122 sq inches
to 2,402 square inches. Enhanced cooling, necessary for this compact
arrangement, is achieved by stealing BMW’s cooling fan, but the cowl is also a
refined design, with cooling air “obstructed not at all” before it reaches the
front cylinder bank. (If you are turning to old dictionaries to find the
characters I just used, it is because I’m trying my hand at reproducing the
paper’s phrasing.) Pressure drop across by the cooling air across the cylinders
is the “rather high” figure of 10 inches of water. This drop is used to induce
an air flow through the muffs which cover the rear-swept front cylinder exhaust
pipes, cooling them, while separating the flow across them from the main
cooling air flow. This arrangement is said to be about as close to perfect as
it can be, which suggests that in the future we will see radial, air-cooled
engines reach a limit in further improvement in fuel octane ratings, and
exclude the use of water/methanol injections and other refinements which might
otherwise have a place in the future.
The reduction gear is the tried and
proven Farman-Bristol type, and connects to the crankshaft through a gigantic
roller bearing. The crankcase is in three, unorthodox sections, and so is the nitrided
crankshaft (three sections, but here not so unorthodox), which has balancing
weights and Salomon-type ball vibration absorbers. Oil ducts in the crankshaft
lubricate the main and big-end bearings and feed jets in the vibration
absorbers which spray the pistons, sleeves and little-ends. The big-end bearing
continues the Brisol practice of using a white-metal sleeve shrunk onto the
crankshaft, and the dimensions of the con- and normal rods is worth remarking,
one automotive engineer to another. (I’ve no idea why, though, so don’t ask me
to explain.) some rods are angled quite acutely. Cylinders are machined from forged
billets, each barrel being retained by 16 locking studs. Heads are deeply
indented and made in two sections, the top half cast, the bottom half forged,
machined and shrunk on. “Sleeves are the latest stiffened type,” which is vague
about how they differ from old cylinder sleeves. Full dimensions are given for
the pistons’ gudgeon pin and rod little-end bearing area (3.23 sq in; 1.575 sq
in), which no doubt has an old steam-engine seadog such as yourself nodding, knowledgeably, even if it
is all bibliomancy to me.
The supercharger is a two-speed
(6.76:1 low, 9.03: 1, high, giving, at 200rpm, tip speed of 1,325 ft/second) single-stage
blower with compound, hydraulic clutches operating with a Hobson-type injection
carburettor, with a turbine-type entry to a shrouded impeller. All induction
pipers are equal length to ensure equal distribution. Speed selection is
automatic through a valve which governs oil flow to the clutches as required,
and linked to the injector to meter fuel flow according to blower speed and
back pressure differential. Mixture ratio is 10:1 for full power, 16:1 for
economical cruising. All auxiliaries, including supercharger drive, are
conveniently mounted in a box at the back of the engine.
Which is quite a lot of detail to
bulk up this package. In my defence, this is likely to be the largest and most
complicated aeroengine actually used in service in this war. Uncle George is
always saying that these features will be mined by automobile builders for
decades to come. Meanwhile, the Farnborough-designed valve which accomplishes
the miraculous task of coordinating fuel flow to blower speed to aerodynamic
circumstances will fascinate James enormously due to all the equations it must
mechanically solve. I know that you and Uncle George do not care about these
things, but they will probably be seen in ship engines and power plants long before the Centaurus’s mechanical refinements
find their way into a new model Lincoln!
“Bristol Review: Something of Past
Effort and Future Intentions Together with Announcements of New Engines and Aircraft”
Given that the Rolls-Royce-style
two-stage carburettor has yet to appear on a Bristol engine, a graph in this
article showing the increase in full-power altitude of Bristol engines from
1926 to 1945 is striking. 1926 saw the first blower, and an increase from
sea-level to 11,000ft. In 1945, it was 28,000ft, a jump of 2000ft from 1944, in
turn a leap from 22,000ft in 1943 (I assume. It is a very careless graph), and
20,000ft in 1939. Bristol may not seek further refinement, because it is going
all in on gas turbines, with a special interest in the turbine-propeller.
Bristol does propose to develop the
Perseus as a commercial engine, and is understandably excited about the
gargantuan Brabazon I.
Bristol is also excited to have delivered 10,000 power gun turrets in the recent war. It is not, however, actually announcing any new engines or aircraft this week, contrary to the title. The Centaurus is admittedly semi-announced, but the closest to a completely novel feature is the Hercules 100 low-drag “power plant of advanced design.”
Bristol is also excited to have delivered 10,000 power gun turrets in the recent war. It is not, however, actually announcing any new engines or aircraft this week, contrary to the title. The Centaurus is admittedly semi-announced, but the closest to a completely novel feature is the Hercules 100 low-drag “power plant of advanced design.”
The paper saw and enjoyed The Way to the Stars. Sir Arthur Gouge
is to be the new president of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors.
Vice-Chairman of Saunders-Roe, he has been at that firm since he left Short
Brothers in 1943 after 28 years of service, something I would as prefer not to put in my biography, given the ministry
takeover of the firm that year.
The
Economist, 7 July
Leaders
“The Economist” From this number, the paper is being printed
on tissue wrap. It is everyone's fault but the paper, because it is doing everyone a favour by keeping up circulation. You wouldn't want them to restrict their issue to the important people, would you? You might not make the cut!
“The Tumult Dies” The election campaign is over at last. (At last? It barely started, by American standards!)
But we don’t know how it came out yet. The paper wants to take this opportunity
to scold the Prime Minister over the “Laski stunt,” which lowered the dignity
of the office of the Prime Minister and raised the old doubts about whether
Churchill is fit for office in peacetime, unlike that nice Mr. Eden and his
friend, Mr. Anderson. Harping on alleged foreign influences on a Labour
Government reminds the paper of some forgotten affair of the 1920s –which is at
least an improvement on Flight remembering
the 1890s.
“Western Association –V: Machinery
for Cooperation” Let’s talk about talking about the United States of Europe!
Specifically, the most interesting part –all the Joint Commissions we shall have
to have! This, clearly, is just the carrot to dangle before the French, who are
still incomprehensibly upset about the Syrian affair, which the British with their neat grip on things Arab and Middle Eastern, can well afford to look down upon.
“Restocking the Shops” The reason
that the English must go naked is that there is no spinning, due to labour and
materials shortages, which means that there is no cloth, which means that there
are no clothes to restock the shops. This is why clothes rations must continue.
Beyond that, lack of upholstery means that they are stuck with utility
furniture, although plywood imports from Finland may ease the situation. High
and perhaps rising demand, the need for exports, etc.
Some people can make anything look good. "Utility Clothes--" Imperial War Museum, via Wikipedia. |
“Military Government in Germany”
Germans seem fine with it, and this worries the paper, because surely normalcy
and lack of unrest cannot continue long! Also, the Miltary Government should
give up on the “No fraternisation” order and get on with feeding the people.
Notes
of the Week
Poles and Syrians are excitable. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer was right to tell the Canadian Chamber of Commerce
that we are “frightfully short of dollars,”
because we are, even if $3 billion sounds like a lot of money. This means that the British will not shop outside the
sterling area unless they get an American credit. Hint, hint. There is much talk of the new constitution in France.
The paper is envious. Talking about talking is the best! Speaking of, a new deal for Tangier is possible. Just so long as it is nothing so vulgar as Moroccans governing Moroccans. In a particularly nasty
election trick, The Daily Express’s
suggestion that there would be a speed-up in demobilisation if the Tories won,
was nipped in the bud by the Ministry of Labour, but the TUC’s point that
demobilisation should be speeded up due to the shortage of labour and the waste
of it in the armed forces, is also well taken. The “encirclement” of the
Japanese in Southeast Asia involves apparently pointless and aimless Australian
attacks on oil fields and such. Also, the Chinese have retaken the airbase from
which B-29s first attacked Japan, which is significant for some reason, apart
from the Koumintang army’s ability to retake territory it could not defend from
the Japanese when they choose not to defend it. The Simla Conference has broken
up because the talking about talking had stalemated on the subject of whether
there should be talking. A Command paper on “Emigration to the Empire” notes
that everyone, Dominion governments and home, are lukewarm to medium warm from
the short term to the long about some such thing, which may therefore happen.
The paper is disappointed with the Dominions for not realising that continuing
high immigration is the best thing ever. (As usual, there is concern that the immigrants will take all the jobs.)
Let’s talk about talking about the United States of the West Indies! Czechs and Poles are excitable. Infant mortality rates in Bitain continue to fall, but less for the poor than for the rich. Though it might be “paternal, and maternal inefficiency,” rather than poverty, which is the cause. Britain must achieve full technical parenting efficiency! There is a shortage of clergy, who are, coincidentally, under-, and inequitably paid. You should imagine me writing “coincidentally” with my most sarcastic face screwed on, the kind my amah told me my face would freeze into, if. . .
Let’s talk about talking about the United States of the West Indies! Czechs and Poles are excitable. Infant mortality rates in Bitain continue to fall, but less for the poor than for the rich. Though it might be “paternal, and maternal inefficiency,” rather than poverty, which is the cause. Britain must achieve full technical parenting efficiency! There is a shortage of clergy, who are, coincidentally, under-, and inequitably paid. You should imagine me writing “coincidentally” with my most sarcastic face screwed on, the kind my amah told me my face would freeze into, if. . .
This is a very interesting way of colouring the fact that Elisa Howe was able to use his patent successfully sue the inventor of the sewing machine. But never mind that, because all that matters is achieving full technical efficiency. |
“Half-a-Crown Off” The income tax by
autumn if the Tories win, say one or two Conservative papers. The current
budget foresees a fall in expenditures of £500 million, giving a deficit of
£2,300 million. It looks as though the actual decline will be much larger, on
the order of £1000 million, and if the war with Japan is over by April of 1946,
even more. Not all of this reduction can go to tax cuts, however, as the
decficit must be attacked; and so must direct taxes; and the Excess Profits Tax
(“a pernicious tax in peacetime”) and some income tax relief mustd be in the
form of restored allowances. Still, there might
be a cut in income tax in the autumn, unless the Chancellor is by that time
a Socialist or Sir John Anderson.
“Employment Doctrine” Everyone now
agrees, in the English speaking world, at least (because foreigners don’t speak
English, which means their views don’t really count) on what causes trading
depressions, and how to manage them. It is a matter of effective demand. When
demand fails, so does a part of income, and then there is even less demand, and
it all ends with grass growing in the deserted streets. Governments need to
intervene to shore up demand, then.
This is where agreement ends.
Americans believe in “the restoration of confidence,” while at the other pole,
the Australian statement affirms that government should get into the demand
business by taking a firm hold of the credit mechanism and by substituting
public works for deficient demand from other directions. (That is, the
Australian statement sees public works as a substitute for a lack of demand for
exports, but this is not the place where demand in America is going to fall
down! The paper is skeptical of both extremes. Surely the truth lies somewhere
in the boring middle, where the Canadian government statement is to be, of
course, found.
The Confidence Fairy --Source |
Correspondence
The paper’s solutions to cartels are
criticised by Hermann Levy as impractical. Andrew Whyte, Chairman of Pease and
Partners, Limited, says that the paper’s ridiculous position that the State has
had no part in the disastrous decline in coal production is ridiculous. It was,
in fact, the State that did it, by encouraging the horrible behaviour of the
miners. It's interesting that the miners all decided to be horrible in every country at once. In conclusion, miners are horrible.
From Cowboy Kisses |
American
Survey
“Far West Looks to Far East,” By Our
Correspondent in Oregon
Not too long ago, the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams were seen as white elephants. The Northwest already had the lowest hydroelectric rates in the nation, to the point where the Grand Coulee's generating facilities were to be installed at a later date. Instead, it was justified for its irrigation potential, just at the time when agricultural prices crashed. The war has seen mills and factories expand in the Northwest, but they need markets. Where shall we find them? To the West, in the East!
Because, you seem, there are mountains between
us and the East (which is in the West), so we must look West, to the East!
Also, freight rates, the Boulder Dam, Hollywood, the Columbia dams. Japan is
the most likely market, so we should really batter them into peace, soon.
American
Notes
There are no signs of opposition in
the Senate to the United Nations Charter, but it is never time to be
optimistic, and we should look under the surface, where we will find the subtle
resistance of Mr. Taft. Jimmy Byrnes is to be Secretary of State, after just
missing the Presidency, in place of Stettinus, who did awful, terrible things
like letting Argentina into the United Nations Conference. Mr. Vinson tells
Americans that they are in the “pleasant predicament” of having to learn to
live fifty percent better than they did before the war. (The point is that this might be hard if they can't find enouogh to spend on. Allow me to volunteer to sell houselots for fifty percent more. No, no, it is my patriotic duty. I wouldn't dream of accepting praise for it. Maybe a little.)
America must also be prepared for a quick end to the Japan war. Judge Vinson also wants more tax to come from income, less from industry; vigorous action against monopolies; a reduction of industrial strife in part by an increase in the minimum wage; the removal of artificial trade restrictions; expanded Social Security and long-term coordination on public works; and, on the other hand, continuing rationing and price controls, not least because of the coal shortage. He also suggests new legislation to make sure that there is adequate relief for liberated nations. Perhaps reading over Judge Vinson’s shoulders, the Office of Price Administration is keeping price controls for now, and the “empty shelves” problem at the grocery store is to be met by a new and even better planning organisation. Visitors to Germany reveal that only 20% of German industry was damaged by bombing, so that Germany will be able to resume munitions production quickly. For example, Germany can still producec a great deal of dye, steel and machine tools. Sinister! Then something about “the survival of the Nazi party and its methods”? The economic demilitarisation of Germany must proceed. Somehow.
America must also be prepared for a quick end to the Japan war. Judge Vinson also wants more tax to come from income, less from industry; vigorous action against monopolies; a reduction of industrial strife in part by an increase in the minimum wage; the removal of artificial trade restrictions; expanded Social Security and long-term coordination on public works; and, on the other hand, continuing rationing and price controls, not least because of the coal shortage. He also suggests new legislation to make sure that there is adequate relief for liberated nations. Perhaps reading over Judge Vinson’s shoulders, the Office of Price Administration is keeping price controls for now, and the “empty shelves” problem at the grocery store is to be met by a new and even better planning organisation. Visitors to Germany reveal that only 20% of German industry was damaged by bombing, so that Germany will be able to resume munitions production quickly. For example, Germany can still producec a great deal of dye, steel and machine tools. Sinister! Then something about “the survival of the Nazi party and its methods”? The economic demilitarisation of Germany must proceed. Somehow.
The
Business World
“Bank Deposits in Wartime” The banks
are fine right now, but for various reasons they could be in trouble later, the
paper expects. For example, there could be inflation, or rising Government
deficits, or too many houses built, or all three, in which case the cheap money
policy would be in danger. And by "danger," one presumably means, "When will my annuities go up!" I feel your pain, paper, but you could always give in and buy equities, as you are supposed to do.
“The World’s Bread Grain” Europe’s
summer harvest will not end the food crisis. In 1938, the “Eastern group of
countries” (Finland, Russia, Poland, Estonia, Hungary, Bulgaria, you know, those countries) produced 83.7 million
tons of grain, enough for their own consumption and to export 3 million tons.
But the harvest this year is “likely” to be “smaller” for various reasons ranging from war to the breakup of the large estates in Poland. 60 million tons is a good
estimate. In western Europe, the harvest was 38.2 million tons, and imports
were 4.8 million. During the war, production of wheat and rye was held at 90%
of the prewar, and the difference made up by the growing of more potatoes,
barley and vegetables. France was largely self-sufficient on a harvest of 8-9
million tons, but the area sown this year was 15% less than in 1938, and French North Africa has had a drought, and will need to import to meet its needs.
Norway, Holland and Belgium will need 2 million tons of imported grain,
Switzerland, Italy and Greece will need less than their 1938 1.8 million tons
of imports, but the situation in Spain is unsatisfactory, and Italy will need
help (1938 production, 7.4 million tons). Perhaps 4 million tons will be
required? Britain, which imported 5.6 million tons in 1938, will need 4 million
this year as a result of the increase in the dolmestic harvest from 1.6 million
tons to a record 3.4 in 1943, 3.2 in 1944. Consumption of bread is up to 231lbs per head per year from 195lbs in 1938 just for lack of other foodstuffs, so demand for bread is likely to hold high. Germany, which reached 11 million tons
per year during the war compared with 12.6 million in 1938, is said to expect
high yields this year, but various things may still go wrong. In total, the
western group of countries will need to import at least 9 million tons, and the
east cannot be ignored. Fortunately, the big grain exporting countries have
been good for almost 15 million tons during the war years, and may reach 18
million in 1946. So the crisis (and, of course, there is one) is in
transportation. Not in shipping, though it would teach those submarine-building
Germans right, but in rail transport within North America. In the long run,
European agriculture must achieve full technical efficiency.
Business
Notes
In a statement to the Senate Banking
Commission, Harry Dexter White said that Britain held about $3.5 billion in
gold and convertible securities in the United States, which seems like a lot,
but isn’t. It looks like the gold holdings might be $2,400 million, which the
paper supposes on various grounds to be about the same as held in 1939, and
therefore given the then-Chancellor’s statement that the country was down to
its last £10 million in 1940 seems like a lot. The reason is that American
troops spent a lot of dollars in sterling areas, and this source will soon dry
up, so, in fact, it isn’t. But Americans might think so.
M. Pleven’ capital levy in France may not be the right way to approach the existing French disparity of wealth.
The paper thinks that the actions of the steel industry unions and of the
British Iron and Steel Federation approximate a “new feudalism in steel.” (As
an expert in the paper’s way of talking, I can translate this as “It’s bad.”)
The paper thinks that it is time for outside technical experts to talk about
talking about steel.
“Pressure of Money” Repayment of a
loan to Australia and of the 2% Conversion Loan, combined with an apparent
revival in the fortunes of the Tories leads to buying on the London Stock
Exchange. It’s hard to believe that anyone could expect the Tories to win this
election, much less people allowed to handle their own money, but there you go.
“The Narrowing Deficit” As usual,
revenues higher than expected, deficit smaller. Therefore government
expenditure should always be controlled lest deficits balloon out of control,
and also there should be tax cuts. I add the last bit because the paper’s
astonishing hypocrisy in these matters has only recently dawned on me, and I
want to share my shock at its naked obviousness.
The end of the war will ease the
potash shortage, as it used to be all mined in Europe, and now we have all the replacement mines, as well. Also, the end of the war has left us with a surplus of
nitrogen production, because nitrogen is a good fertiliser and also used in
explosives. (Actually, nitrates are
used in explosives, and are the main vehicle for supplying nitrogen to plants, but you can’t trust a paper that feels the need
to explain what nitrogen is good for to get the technical details right.)
Anyway, this is a surplus of nitrogen, and clearly we should act, in a
free-enterprise-y, non-cartelish way, by demolishing all the German plant.
Commodity controls will continue,
Hawker Sidddely had a healthy profit. The gradual unwinding of the official
involvement in sterling balances in New York continues. The Royal Dutch Shell
group is being coy about its circumstances in Burma. This is the kind of thing
that led Great-Uncle to unleash the dacoits on them in the first place, I am
told. Speaking of mischief, silver sales on the Bombay exchange are suspended,
as there is now less need to keep a check on Indian inflation, with more
imports of consumption goods to soak up the rupees.
Flight,
12 July 1945
Leaders
“Bomber Range and Economy” A feature
on the B-29 appears in this number. The paper is envious, but says that at some
point it will “cease to be economical by reason of insufficient bomb stowage
for size of aircraft.” The idea here is that British bombers have overlooked
advantages of, well, bombs per unit size, and will be more efficient at blowing
up however little there is of Japan to be blown up by the time that Tiger Force
(and 8th Air Force) arrive. The paper is also critical of the “vertical
stowage” of bombs in the Superfortress, which restricts their size. The paper
is very, very jealous of the Superfortress. As well it should be. (Aviation will pat it avuncularly on the head below and suggest that the Lincoln is in the same range of aircraft. First, it is not; and, second, it would be the least surprising thing in the world if a bomber version of the Consolidated Model 37 did not emerge from the Fort Worth works soon, at which point we might as well throw in the hand and wait for the 500mph-50,000ft-100,000lbs wonder bombers.)
“Good Work by Sunderlands” And by
the paper! The paper needs to meet Uncle George so that they can compare lost
causes.
“Atlantic Competition” In an
astonishing turn of events, Pan-American has been denied the overseas monopoly
that Congress was never, never, never going to give it. (I would add more, but
I must save some “nevers” for when my daughter (Or daughters, I pray) is old
enough to date. I fear if matters are
left to James, things will get out of hand, as she had him wrapped around her chubby little finger , at least when she will take it out of her mouth. So there are to be three
American companies in the mix, and BOAC. The paper fears American competition,
and, of course, needs newer and better aircraft at once. Because the
country which owns the whole island
has no leverage at all in the matter of civil aircraft landing on!
“The Gloster Meteor Jet Fighter” “Somewhat
belatedly,” we are informed of the details of this Rolls-Royce engine jet
fighter in a Ministry release, covered in this number. Meanwhile, here are drawings of this “ordinary
aircraft with an invisible airscrew.”
By the time we hear about it, it's already old news. |
War
in the Air
Kipling wrote a poem about a Pathan
Ghazi who was eager to die. This reminds the paper of Japanese suicide bombers,
now admitted by Washington to have sunk destroyers Twigg and William D. Porter,
while heavily damaging Luetze and Newcomb, causing 175 casualties or more.
Five “kamikaze” attcks have hit British carriers, albeit with little effect,
the paper says. The Japanese, the paper concludes, are like that. Meanwhile, in
Burma, we’re winning in part because the Japanese are not really fighting.
Hearing aid company shares, you say? |
“Meteor Jet Fighter” The official
description is that the Meteor is a Gloster jet fighter powered by two Rolls
Royce Welland or Derwent engines in collaboration with Power Jets, British Thomson Houston and Rover. It is a
low-wing monoplane (a biplane jet would be something to see. . . ) with engines
in nacelles, two air-brakes, and internally-balanced all-metal ailerons with
automatic balance tabs. It has four cannons, a span of 43ft, first flew in
1943, and was first used against the flying bombs in 1944. There is very little
noise or vibration in flight, and engine controls are quite simple. In fact,
all that wing furniture is probably the most complicated part of the plane.
Jets are far less complicated than internal combustion types. I suppose they
will eventually be as complicated, but by that time they will be vastly more
powerful, and power enormous planes at enormous speeds, as Fortune insists.
I have no idea what wiseass photoshopped this, but here's the source Google Image search keeps turning up |
Here
and There
The Allied Press Service is excited
to report a “device fitted to British and American bombers and long range
fighters by means of which a second-by-second pictorial navigation is permitted
in blind conditions.” The paper patronisingly points out that this is “of
course” the air position indicator, which projects a light in the form of an
arrow on a glass chart. After which it can finally, ponderously, approach its
point, which is that the press service calls this a “Magic Arrow,” so that the
API is “modern magic.”
Having seen The Way to the Stars, this week the paper went to see Merchant Carrier, How an
Aeroplane Flies (Part 1), and Mosquito
at Shell-Mex House. It’s very nice that the paper has taken some time for
itself to go to the movies. It seems as though it has been getting a bit
overwrought lately, and I do hope it invited The Economist out on a double date, perhaps having taken the
opportunity to try a French cologne for the occasion. (Wait for it, below). I
might have chosen different films. Way to the Stars apart, as it has a romance at the end, after the boys have been lured in too long to give up at the mushy bits.
Not content to leave the field to
Bristol, the Austin Motor Company has given an account of its war record.
Airplane bits, Horsa fuselages, 15,000 bomber fuel tanks, 120,000 bomb tails,
300,000 machine gun magazines, various engines for land, sea and air use.
Camera restrictions have been
relaxed. While it is still illegal to take a camera aboard a plane or ship
without permission, unrestricted camera use is now allowed except in a few
designated areas, and in northern Scotland. It is pointed out that the disappearance
of Trafford Leigh-Mallory is a painful coincidence, since his brother
disappeared in 1924, trying to ascend Mount Everest. Or was, until Sir Trafford’s
body was found. George remains in the Pure Land.
France will send half the men called
up in the 1940—3 classes into the air force. Lieutenant General Vandenberg is
to be assistant chief of staff of the USAAF. 47 year-old W/O A. L. Cartwright
becomes the first RAF POW returned to civilian life under the general release
scheme this week. Cartwright enlisted in August, 1939, and was a foreman
builder by trade. I wonder how he came to be taken prisoner, as he does not
sound like flight crew. An RCAF Spitfire photographed this week’s eclipse over
Western Canada from a height of 35,000ft. Aircraft aluminum scrap is now being
sold as kitchen appliances and some industrial products in India. 2,300
aircraft flew 35,000 American troops from Europe and the United Kingdom to
America in the first month of the USAAF Air Transport Command’s redeployment.
Dowty is giving all employees an extra week’s pay this July in appreciation of
their winning the war. The new cruisers Swiftsure
and Ontario are going to the
Pacific with lots of anti-aircraft guns.
Captured German scientists say that the wind tunnel at Peenemunde could
produce winds of 3000mph, allowing Dr. v. Braun to solve the problem of air
overheating, and that a rocket bomb capable of reaching New York was under
development. Miss v. Q. points out that this one of her cousins is as bright as
he is conceited (the other cashing in the intelligence for charm, while keeping
the conceit), so that this might be boasting, or it might be true.
The picture is held by the San Diego Air and Space Museum, was put up on flickr, was scraped onto Pinterest, and then scraped again by yours truly. Here's the Pinterest account. |
“Kellett XR-8 Helicopter” If you’re
not tired of the Kellett helicopter, here is the paper to help. This may or may
not be a new outlandish alternative to the obvious Sikorsky layout, as I admit
that –again—I have not been paying as much attention as I ought. The thing
might end up working!
Fl. Lt. S. H. Swaffer, “Hitting with a Vengeance: Dive
Bombing from 11,000ft: Ninety per Cent. Hits: Royal Indian Air Force Lends a
Hand” The Flight Lieutenant is quite pleased with the performance of his Vultee
Vengeance dive bomber, which did quite well in Burma. No-one else, anywhere, liked dive bombers very much after the first year or two of the war, but they did fine in Burma, where, apparently, targets were small and easily concealed.
Vengeance dive bomber, which did quite well in Burma. No-one else, anywhere, liked dive bombers very much after the first year or two of the war, but they did fine in Burma, where, apparently, targets were small and easily concealed.
“The New American Wind Tunnels” These
are so amazing that only constantly repeating yourself about them will impress
the reader with just how amazing they are.
Indicator
Discusses Topics of the Day “What Does the Private Owner Want” It seems
that no-one really knows. Once we do, we can probably design something that
overseas markets will like, too. Indicator also lists some “personal whims,”
including flaps. “At no time must I suffer the horrid suspicion that I am
either not going to make it, or am hopelessly overshooting after a
mis-judgement of wind-strength at a strange airfield.”
That really doesn’t make private
flying sound like very much fun! It also sounds very unlike my own experience,
which admittedly is five years ago now, and involved sedate biplanes followed
by the very highly-flapped-indeed Lysander. I suppose the conclusion is that if
you really want to enjoy flying, you want to fly a Lysander? But it is
ridiculously over-flapped and over-engined for an economical private plane.
Never mind, though, as the poor (or merely less-rich) do not feel fear as you
or I do. Or pain at the impact of the tree rushing through your windshield at
fifty miles per hour.
Glenn L. Martin’s “foolproof
photographic method” for measuring takeoffs and landings is noted, as is, department
of dubious inventions, the RAF’s continuing experiments in glider pickups
without landing.
“Boeing B-29” Boeing can be compared
with Handley-Page or A.V. Roe, because all three are large firms which build
bombers. This helpful thought is very necessary,
because the paper has tree full pages to fill up with discussion of the B-29,
and it is not like it is a method of mooring flying boats or a new Bristol engine,
or anything interesting like that. The paper is skeptical about claims of the
plane’s easy handling, given its 11.5 aspect ratio, important for range, and,
of course, sacrificing disposable weight because of all the structure needed to
support wing tips so far from the body of the plane.
“Speed-Range Indicator: New and
Valuable Instrument to Mitigate Inadvertent Stalling” The Baynes Speed Range
Indicator is now for sale here an in America from Messrs. R. B. Pullin. It’s an
airspeed dial with a red dot set on it as determined by the aircraft’s design
statistics. If the speed needle goes below it, you’re stalling! Or something
like that. No doubt I do it an awful injustice (something about showing
effective service ceiling in terms of speed range available above stall?), and,
at the very least, the paper makes the mail deadline without a page-and-a-half
of blank space in the middle; or, worse, a Major F. A. de V. Robertson, V.D.
article.
Consolidated’s 204-seat “Super
Clipper” will be available in a transport variant. This is the 6-engined, 230ft
wing-span plane which Fortune is so
excited about, and not the giant flying boat Pan-American was talking about the
other week. The British Information Service asserts that 414 pilots and 300
fighters constituted the “Few” available to face the German Air Force at the
beginning of the Battle of Britain. Which is to say, that was the strength of one of the four Groups of Fighter
Command. Admittedly it was the largest and most exposed Group, but this is still the old “If
you don’t count all our other troops, we were outnumbered this much” line of talk. There is to be a jet-propulsion
conference, and Rolls-Royce has a new publicity chief, Mr. M. Proctor-Gregg.
A pictorial of the Aries follows. Wing-Commander McKinley
is very dashing (you must not say I said so to James, lest he grow an RAF mustache!), in a Polar-exploring
sort of way.
I wonder if they have sorted out where the Magnetic Pole is, yet?
I wonder if they have sorted out where the Magnetic Pole is, yet?
“Any Aircraft, Anywhere” The ATA
delivered 300,000 aircraft during the war. They were quite organised, and the
paper is impressed by their very brief briefing notes on planes. They even had
a chief test pilot, and an extensive training programme, with six classes of
pilots and even flight engineers.
“Ignition Testing Unit: Unique
Device for Immediate Detection of Faults: Probable Future as Permanent
Equipment in Large Aircraft” Designed for the Department of Tank Design by D.
Napier and Son, it was built for the Army by English Electric, leading to
orders from the RAF once enough were available. It uses a
cathode-ray-oscilloscope to “trace” the engine ignition. Very clever.
That's the nice thing about old analogue stuff. It's just intuitive in the scope. |
There is to be a Commonwealth Air
Transport Conference, as everyone misses the old days of talking about talking
about civil aviation.
Civil
Aviation News
Trans-Canada Airlines is to have a
transatlantic service from Dorval, Quebec, starting in September. Sweden has
also started experimental trans-Atlantic flying, on the B-17s inherited from
the USAAF. Swissair is beginning a Zurich-Paris service. To remember the old
days, it will fly low and fast by night, and carry older men with German
accents bound for Argentina. Australia’s bill to nationalise air service is discussed. Airline
operators are quite upset. A forecast of 50,000 civil aircraft sold per year in
the United States was made to Congress by Mr. William A. Bunden, Assistant
Secretary of Commerce for Air. Who might be a bit over-promoted, I think. Or
over-promoting. Ceylon is thinking about thinking about civil aviation, as it
is in the middle of everything. The paper notes again that many American
airlines will soon fly many airplanes across the Atlantic to all sorts of
places. New York Radio says that America will soon have a fleet of a thousand
airliners capable of having 36,000 people in the air at any given time.
Correspondence
B. Foster writes to say that it is
wrong for Avro to claim that the Lancaster was the first to carry a 4000lb
bomb, since Wellington XIIs of 90th Squadron were doing so routinely in April,
1941.
C. A. Pickering thinks that the cowardly administrators who stand between Britain and an air-research effort as expensive as the American should be denounced and possibly hung from the lamp-poles. Douglas Deans argues for “cheaper, if slower, air travel.” He is really quite vehement about this. Gadgets and speed are ruining aviation. Stupid “convenience” and “safety.” Reg H. Senior points out that he, too, has not yet been hired to work in the air industry, in spite of being well-qualified, which shows that the Ministry of Aircraft Production’s Appointments Board is all wet. John Grierson writes that the paper does not give enough credit to the valuable work of the test pilots, notably including Michael Daunt’s work with the Meteor.
C. A. Pickering thinks that the cowardly administrators who stand between Britain and an air-research effort as expensive as the American should be denounced and possibly hung from the lamp-poles. Douglas Deans argues for “cheaper, if slower, air travel.” He is really quite vehement about this. Gadgets and speed are ruining aviation. Stupid “convenience” and “safety.” Reg H. Senior points out that he, too, has not yet been hired to work in the air industry, in spite of being well-qualified, which shows that the Ministry of Aircraft Production’s Appointments Board is all wet. John Grierson writes that the paper does not give enough credit to the valuable work of the test pilots, notably including Michael Daunt’s work with the Meteor.
The
Economist, 14 July 1945
Leaders
“Labour’s Responsibility” We still
don’t know who won the general election, but, in the meantime, the country
cannot afford strikes, and everyone should just go on working until they drop
without complaint, under the direction of the planners. Think of England! Also,
maybe if full technical efficiency is achieved, some of the productivity gains
can go to the workers as wage increases. And it shouldn’t all be squandered by
capitalists and rentiers, it goes without saying. Just some of it.
The French are excitable.
“The Economic Council” Let’s talk
about talking about talking about the economy of the United Nations!
“Dirt and Defamation” In the matter
of Joan Smith v. National Meter Company, the paper shares with us. “Most of us
have at one time or another from our youth on up had laid against us the charge
that we are not as clean as we might be; and we have usually after a moment’s
irritation dismissed the matter from our minds and forgotten all about it.”
I think I will try to avoid the
paper socially. And possibly England, until there is coal, clothes and soap
there again.
“Social Security in 1832” by a
Correspondent
Our correspondent recently saw a
vellum Vestry book from the said year. The Parish of Smarden, in Kent, had a
“vestry” consisting of two churchwardens, two sidemen, and ten ordinary members
in charge of two paid officials (clerk, £10/year; overseer, £40/year), who
administered £50 or so on the poor of the parish in various ways, for example,
paying a doctor to see them, distributing firewood; but not going so far as to
buy Jas. Smith a spelling book which would have set the Parish back 1s 6d.
Notes
of the Week
The Big Three are to meet again and
talk more, in Potsdam. The Russians are administering their sector of Germany
wrong, although the paper cautions that it is too soon to Draw Conclusions. The
paper is pleased by the delayed campaign now being waged in the northern
constituencies where polling was delayed, and thinks that the Tory’s second
chance campaign is much more creditable then its first, and had it done so from
the first, it would not be so worried about the results now. Mr. Lyttleton says
less consumption, more export, because, Heaven knows, not enough people have
said that yet. Everyone but the Syrians should just get out of Syria before the
Syrians’ patience expires. Speaking of, “unexpected numbers of Jews” want to
leave Europe for Palestine. Yes. "Unexpected."Arabs seem less enthusiastic, ungrateful buggers
that they are. (The paper's formulation is that, after the war, we gave independence to almost all the Arabs --Iraq, Transjordan, etc--, and only kept Palestine, so they really have no grounds for complaint if Britain carries out a little social experiment in it.)
Second-hand house prices have risen well beyond people’s ability to pay, and landlords are being tempted to sell instead of re-let because of the high prices which no-one is paying, because rents are controlled and prices are not. And so houses stand vacant, while “Vigilantes” forcibly move families into them. Since on top of the 3 million women who may leave industry with peace, 1 million men above 65 and women above 60 have only been waiting for peace to leave work, there will be a drastic manpower shortage in the “peace industries” soon. Since we do not know exactly how many workers there are, we don’t know the scale of the problem, but the Labour Ministry’s solution is to keep everyone working just a little while longer. The next six months will be critical, the paper says.
Second-hand house prices have risen well beyond people’s ability to pay, and landlords are being tempted to sell instead of re-let because of the high prices which no-one is paying, because rents are controlled and prices are not. And so houses stand vacant, while “Vigilantes” forcibly move families into them. Since on top of the 3 million women who may leave industry with peace, 1 million men above 65 and women above 60 have only been waiting for peace to leave work, there will be a drastic manpower shortage in the “peace industries” soon. Since we do not know exactly how many workers there are, we don’t know the scale of the problem, but the Labour Ministry’s solution is to keep everyone working just a little while longer. The next six months will be critical, the paper says.
Indians disagree in talks about talking about
talking. It may well be the League’s fault. The paper scolds the Colonial
Office for spending more of its development budget on “welfare” than on capital
development. There are to be administrative changes in Kenya, and there has
been a general strike in Nigeria. German industry might have been knocked out
for many years to come; or, on the contrary, be posed to come roaring back. King
Leopold is a cad. There is controversy over Oxford allowing some 18-year-old
scholars to come up to the arts degrees, when they really should be either in
National Service, or the sciences, or perhaps both. “’Ere, then, Jenkins, do you call that an integration? It's sloppy, it is! Do it again! On the double!” The paper points out
that, for example, economics has suffered because its students were not deemed
essential, while its teachers were. That is a nice paradox! (They study those
in philosophy, and make them in Government.) The paper’s position is that some
arts scholars are needed, as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. Speaking of,
all the schools in London have been found to be substandard.
Correspondence
Hugh Molson writes on the paper’s
“Election Manifesto,” which you missed, and I hardly read. He represents the
Tory Reform Committee, whose recommendations are quite consonant with the
paper’s, and he thus concludes that the paper is secretly or unconsciously
pro-Tory. The paper disagrees. E. M. Doff points out that the paper greatly
understates the severity of the famine in French North Africa.
American
Survey
“A Little West of Centre” By Our
Correspondent in Washington
When last seen, OCW was playing
canasta with doctors’ wives, but that may have been a different OCW. This one
suggests that Mr. Truman is so popular because he is a man of the people, or
perhaps because he eschews being “left or right” in favour of being “of the
West," which is the direction of virtue. Or death.
American
Notes
The Senate continues to talk about
Bretton Woods without giving any indication that they will scuttle it and the
world economy with it. The paper tries to hide its disappointment. The day will
come! Mr. Ickes is in London to talk about talking about oil, since we need a
new business-type thing to talk about talking about, now that civil aviation is
being done instead of being talked about. The state governors met to talk about
not very much, since the only thing they ever talk about is whether or not the
President is responsible for what’s gone wrong, and Mr. Truman is still on his
honeymoon. The Supreme Court has agreed not to deport Harry Bridges, and then
gone home to be old. (At an average age of 59, they’re still younger than the
nation’s admirals, though. The paper is not going to point that out, though, because its point is that, depending on who Truman appoints as Chief Justice, that the New Deal majority on the court may not last the
generation sometimes predicted.
The
World Overseas
Poles are excitable, at great
length. Spain is poor, and mismanaged. Brazilians are excitable. Our Dublin
Correspondent notices that lack of available imports and of shipping to carry
them is having an impact. Wheat bread of 85% extraction is “generally
available.” I wonder if ODC eats it? I wonder if he can even chew it? “For a short period, a
percentage of barley was introduced into the grist.” Tea is short, at half an
ounce per person per week on the ration. Sugar, from sugar beet, is in adequate
supply, at least until relief exports begin, and the butter ration, at 6 oz per
week, will be increased in the winter as supplies permit. Two ounces of
margarine are now allowed per week. Dieticians will be pleased to hear that
butter and margarine consumption is up in spite of the ration.
This is what an image search for "sugar beet" turned up. Because that's beetroot and horseradish relish. I'm hungry. (Source. |
The
Business World
In summarising last week’s feature,
I gave short shrift to a long article about bank deposits. The paper, sensing
my weakness, returns to the fray with an even longer dive into its own navel.
The question is the same as last week: when will cheap money be over?
The paper points out that however it
loves statistics (and, boy, does it love them), there are still bad statistics
out there, which should be struck sharply on whatever passes for a head in a
statistic, tied in a sack with a rock, and thrown in the millpond in the dark
of night. No examples are given, but the paper talks up the U.S. Census.
Business
Notes
There is surplus tinplate capacity,
not enough effort to achieve full technical efficiency in steel, more talk of
the capital levy in France, about bank “cash” holdings (the quotation marks
signifying that various kinds of holdings are actually “cash,” and others
aren’t.) The paper talks briefly about the selling mood that overtook the
buying mood at the end of the week, and about Greek finances, where
notwithstanding the devaluation of last November, the number of drachma in
circulation have again reached excessive levels, with the result that a
devaluation might be necessary again. Although the note doesn’t refer to the
possibility, just points out the reality that Greek business and public life
runs on gold, instead, making it hard for the Greek government to cover its
expenses by taxation rather than by “borrowing from the Bank of Greece” –or, in
other words, printing drachmas—instead.
The paper likes industrial trade export associations, which aren’t cartels at all. The paper talks gaseously about wool imports, woollen good exports, cotton industry “deconcentration,” and the voluntary halt of trading in Lewis Group shares to show the market’s displeasure about its practices. There is not enough oak to meet demand for bedroom furniture, so now “utility mahogany” is taking its place, in spite of the public’s distaste for it.
It is hoped that a better class of utility
clothing can be tailored. The future of the lace industry in Nottingham depends
on its finding enough labour. In the coalfields, Yorkshire is doing better than
Lancashire due to the Lancashire fields being on the downgrade. This is why
11,600 new miners’ houses will be needed in Yorkshire, none in Lancashire.
There is much more mercury production now than before the war, but it may be
soaked up by the new dry cell. More
trawlers (released by the Admiralty) mean more fish, but processing workers are
in short supply. Easier grants of shop licenses is foreseen, but the real problem
is –you guessed it!—the shortage of shop assistants. Whaling is being resumed
with the outbreak of peace. Before the war, the amount of whaling in Antarctica
was limited by convention to protect the herds, and Britain, thanks to its
factory ships and whaling stations on South Georgia, held 35% of the world’s
production of 552,000 tons of whale oil in 1937—8, 476,000 tons in 1938—9. This
was 23% of imported edible oil exclusive of butter, lard and margarine, and the
reconstituted Norwegian fleet hopes to produce 85,000 tons from their share of
16,000 whales. It is unlikely that this many will be caught, but any little bit
helps.
Not drachmas. |
The paper likes industrial trade export associations, which aren’t cartels at all. The paper talks gaseously about wool imports, woollen good exports, cotton industry “deconcentration,” and the voluntary halt of trading in Lewis Group shares to show the market’s displeasure about its practices. There is not enough oak to meet demand for bedroom furniture, so now “utility mahogany” is taking its place, in spite of the public’s distaste for it.
Source. Is the thing with boycotting tropical hardwoods still on? |
Sure, it's cold and bleak and lonely, but at least there's the hanging stench of rendering blubber! Photos by Svend Johannes Winsnes. |
Aviation,
July 1945
Down
the Years in AVIATION’S Log
Twenty-five years ago, 85% of air
mail flights were being completed successfully. Packard had a 600hp V-12
delivering more than 1 hp/2 libs. Fifteen years ago, PAA started an air mail
service running 1800 miles along the east coast of South America. Ten years
ago, The PAA Clipper made its first flight to Midway, and a Kellett autogiro
landed mail on the roof of the Philadelphia Post Office building.
Line
Editorial
“Steady Jobs and Equipment Buying”
James H. McGraw, Junior, believes that steady jobs require moderating the
“erratic fluctuations which have characterised the markets for producer’s
equipment in the past.” Because writing “boom and bust” would have been too
pompous. Like construction, producer equipment has extraordinary ups and downs,
with peaks just before business depressions. “At just the wrong moment, everyone wants to buy.” In the same
way, just as depression is giving way to recovery, no-one wants to buy.
Solutions include better long-range corporate planning, better financing, and
changes in the corporate tax structure “to the end that effective incentives may
be offered for private capital investment.” Finally, corporate executives
should all read the McGraw-Hill stable so that they can learn not to make the
above mistakes. Sorry, I mean that Junior thinks that “education” is key.
Aviation
Editorial
James Neville thinks that “Cutbacks Must Be Handled With Care” This seems to be an answer to T. P. Wright, who visualises the aviation industry declining to an employment of 600,000 in a new and peaceful world. On the contrary, we shouldn’t cut back so fast, because what if the Communists make trouble. (Oh, please, let them make trouble so that we can built our beautiful aeroplanes.)
James Neville thinks that “Cutbacks Must Be Handled With Care” This seems to be an answer to T. P. Wright, who visualises the aviation industry declining to an employment of 600,000 in a new and peaceful world. On the contrary, we shouldn’t cut back so fast, because what if the Communists make trouble. (Oh, please, let them make trouble so that we can built our beautiful aeroplanes.)
T. P. Wright, “Aviation’s Place in
Civilization” I think we’ve seen this in Flight?
Anyway, same point: made few aircraft before the war; lots during; probably in
between in the future, and it was all very important for civilization,
especially blowing up the Nazis, but in the future we should probably blow
things up less, and this will mean fewer jobs in making aeroplanes, more in refrigerators
and televisions and music recording machines. Private planes may flourish,
domestic air fares may compare favourably with rail overall (that is, no more
railway station diners) by the middle of the 1950s, and the merely ordinarily
rich can already afford to fly to England. Also, possibly helicopters.
James G. Ray, “Let’s Have Feeder
Airlines Now, Part IV” Please send all
your money to Southwest Airways, Co. No cheques, please.
Neil B. Berboth, Development
Division, Fairchild Engine and Airplane Co., “Utility is the Range-Finder in
Civil Plane Forecasts” Automobiles are an example of a thing which is useful.
Are aeroplanes like automobiles, or like something which is not useful?
Statistics! In conclusion, Fairchild thinks that 300,000 new private aeroplanes
might be sold in 1945—7.
John Foster, Jr., Managing Editor,
“Mass Plane Market Starts with Surplus” Somewhere in Berboth’s article my eyes
swam across the suggestion that there might be 7 million potential owners for
cheap, surplus airplanes. That’s even more than the air forces have! Foster
explains where the planes are, who is selling them for the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation, and . . . other things. For example, 30,000 schools might
want an aeroplane. Is that to teach Air-maths and Air-English for the Air-age,
as Flight correspondents suggest?
Because that’s harmless, if silly. If it’s to give flying lessons, though, I’m
putting my feet down –not my children! It’s dangerous enough when the Navy runs
things!
J. H. Famme, Chief Design Engineer,
San Diego Division, Consolidated Vultee Corporation, “Design Analysis of
Consolidated B-24 Liberator” Instead of reading this very long and
comprehensive article, I have razored it out for the most careful of
examinations at some future date. I did, however, skim it quickly to get a
sense of how the Davis wing imparts its miraculous performance on this 400mph
plane which can doodle about for 6 hours, 1200 miles from base, and I am left
with a feminine pout on my face at the discovery that it is apparently not a“Davis wing” at all. (Nor does the B-24 actually do 400mph.) Also, its range is
mainly due to the fact that it can lift a lot of weight, which may include
fuel.
Ralph H. Upson, “Designing
Tomorrow’s Personal Plane, Part II” For one thing, it will have enough head
room for Mama to wear quite the bonnet, while Father is so relaxed that he goes
without. If that sounds trivial, I am not getting into page after page on
relative costs and performances of high wing, low wing, cantilever, struts, retracting
landing gear and fixed, open cockpits and closed.
C. L. Johnson, Chief Research
Engineer, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, “How We Engineered the Lockheed
Shooting Star” The AAF gave Lockheed 180 days to deliver the first P-80. It
took them 143. The design was left to the engineering department, which had
long wanted to “engineer and build a plane from start to finish” instead of
participating in the “conference system.”
This would mean talking to the people who design undercarriages? Engines? The office typing pool? I’m not exactly clear. Hall L. Hibbard gave Johnson E. D. Palmer, W. P. Ralston, A. M. Viereck, and L. F. Holt as assistants. After 35 days, 23 engineers and 57 skilled mechanics were working on the design, and at peak, the project was employing 23 engineers and 105 shop men, or 128 in total. Work was done in a specially-constructed building, for security reasons, and 96% of the fabrication work was done there by machine tools turned over to the P-80 group.
Viereck did his own tooling direct from the drawings. The plane was designed, of course, directly around the British engine, but on specifications only, as the actual engine had not yet been delivered. An untested airfoil was chosen from a family of high laminar flow sections that “would not work out well with a propeller.” This was the largest gamble in the design, justified in Johnson’s mind by the experience Lockheed had in curing compressibility problems with the P-38.
The interesting part of all of this is the spate of articles on the huge “engineering departments” of various American firms, which articles seem to have impressed Roy Fedden (just kidding; actually, he used vast quantities of confidential documents that just happened to say the same thing) into arguing that British firms could never succeed without hiring hundreds more engineers. I guess my conclusion is telegraphed by my scare quotes –what do all those engineers do, when only 23 are needed to design a jet fighter? Do quality control on subcontracted parts, of course.
This would mean talking to the people who design undercarriages? Engines? The office typing pool? I’m not exactly clear. Hall L. Hibbard gave Johnson E. D. Palmer, W. P. Ralston, A. M. Viereck, and L. F. Holt as assistants. After 35 days, 23 engineers and 57 skilled mechanics were working on the design, and at peak, the project was employing 23 engineers and 105 shop men, or 128 in total. Work was done in a specially-constructed building, for security reasons, and 96% of the fabrication work was done there by machine tools turned over to the P-80 group.
Source; explanation |
Viereck did his own tooling direct from the drawings. The plane was designed, of course, directly around the British engine, but on specifications only, as the actual engine had not yet been delivered. An untested airfoil was chosen from a family of high laminar flow sections that “would not work out well with a propeller.” This was the largest gamble in the design, justified in Johnson’s mind by the experience Lockheed had in curing compressibility problems with the P-38.
The interesting part of all of this is the spate of articles on the huge “engineering departments” of various American firms, which articles seem to have impressed Roy Fedden (just kidding; actually, he used vast quantities of confidential documents that just happened to say the same thing) into arguing that British firms could never succeed without hiring hundreds more engineers. I guess my conclusion is telegraphed by my scare quotes –what do all those engineers do, when only 23 are needed to design a jet fighter? Do quality control on subcontracted parts, of course.
Roy Healy, Vice President, American
Rocket Society, “Aeronautical Supremacy Demands Jet and Rocket Research” You
laughed at us rocket enthusiasts before the war, but now you must give us all
your money so that airplanes can have rockets now, and also V-2s and rocket
bombs and rocket torpedoes and rocket artillery.
Clark B. Millikan, Acting Director,
Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory, “New Wind Tunnel Reaches Sonic-Speed Range”
I am sure that the Nobel Prize-winner’s son had to work twice as hard as any
random scientist to achieve such a distinguished position. It is very big. Here
are many statistics! (I am impressed to hear that the main fan will absorb
12,000hp at full power.)
Not only did all three of his sons become tenured professors, one of them married Trafford Leigh Mallory's niece. And then died in a climbing accident in 1947. |
K. R. Jackman, Whose Employment Has
Appeared Here Before, “Ranging the Budget in the Postwar Laborator: Part VII in
a Series” Jackman summarises his last as concluding that the research budget
should consume 2% of gross sales. That’s higher than most companies spend, so
they should definitely get to it. They should do it the way that Arthur D.
Little does. They should pay full Research Engineers $410 to 560/month, and
file clerks 160 to 180, and corporate librarians 203—237. (I wonder if I should
mention that to “Miss C.?” To clarify my “Fedden puzzle” above, I notice that 60%
of employees in an aero research laboratory should be mere “Research Lab
Analysts,” paid between $203 and $405/month, and since we’re told that an
employee with a B.Sc. should be hired at $1500/year, rising at the end of six
months to $1800. It probably follows that “Research Lab Analysts” aren’t
college graduates.
…Or that all of this peculiarly
specific information is less than completely reliable.
“D.H. Pushes Construction of New
Dove Feederliner” Free content from Flight!
“Avro Grooms Lincoln Super-Heavy for
Stepped-Up Hammering of Japs” The paper thinks that the Lincoln will have a
winspan of 120ft and an all up weight of 100,000 to 120,000 lbs. The paper may be being generous.
“Grumman’s New Tigercat Fighter is
Jap’s New Headache” It’s huge, it will fly from the new Midway-class, and it is a multi-role fighter, capable of carrying
rockets, torpedoes, bombs, and, I suppose, radar. (One of its roles is as a
night fighter.)
“New Jap Warplanes” Exquisitely
professional pencil drawings of “Peggy I,” “George II,” Judy 33,” and “Frank
I.”
The maintenance section includes an
article on servicing the Aeromatic propeller, which yields about a million
washers when it is fully disassembled, from the look of things. Also, how to
“size” a repair shop, high speed fuel pumps are great, and North American is
very pleased with detail design refinements on the P-51.
Aviation
News
The CAA is being reformed for
peacetime. Fifty-six aviation writers were taken on a cruise in Lake Michigan
in the training carrier Sable. The new high-strength aluminum alloy 75S is
used in the B-29. Congressman Clarence Lea wants high school aviation courses.
Turboelectric installations may be in use in aeroplanes soon. (As if… Though
I’m going to have to tease James about it!) The Navy has a new plane, the
Curtiss-Wright SC-1 Seahawk.
America
at War: Aviation’s Communique No. 42
We are bombing Japan now. Less than
one percent of Japanese suicide bombers get through to our ships, so they are
no big deal, except that they are. Navy pilots reports that new Japanese planesare faster than Corsairs are “discounted by Navy spokesmen.” Besides, even if
the new Japanese designs are better, they won’t make a difference. President
Truman estimates Japanese aircraft production at 1500/month, which, while
impressive, is hardly going to be enough when 8th Air Force and the
RAF arrive. It does mean that we have to keep bombing, though. By the way, area
firebombing is needed, because those crafty Japanese have dispersed and
subcontracted their industries. Why didn’t the Germans think of that?
The
Washington Windsock
Stubblefield reads the paper, and
has noticed that the firebombing attacks have been successful. Balloon bombs
are ineffective, but “interesting.” We used too many resources to beat Germany,
and it wasn’t fair. The Air Force is “confident” it can beat Japan using only
its best and most modern types.
Aviation
Manufacturing
The Air Force is still cutting back:
30% combat types; 10% transport; 5% training types, leading to a total
reduction of 17,000 planes. Navy procurement will continue at current levels.
B-32, B-17, P-38, P-63, C-47, C-45 and C-46 production are all to be tapered or
terminated. Though A-26 production will
be “tapered” as well, and even B-29 production will be “stabilised” in the last
part of the year, so “tapered” does not always mean that the type’s day is
done. Though mostly so. The end of, for example, the C-47, which will be
tapered at its one remaining production plant to half its current rate, and
then held at that output through 1946, might seem strange, but the shift is to
long-range types for Pacific operations, and the C-47 is a short-range type.
Although the whole point of the C-46 was a longer range twin-engined airliner
sized transport, so the curtailment of its production probably means that
rumours about its reliability and vulnerability to damage are true.
May aircraft output was 6,354, 9
ahead of the schedule. This makes the third straight month in which the quota
was exceeded, but, again, it is with steady reductions in the target (April
production, although also over quota, was 6,412, you may recall.) The point
here is that the numbers still show the difficulties which the industry is
facing, mainly due to labour shortages. Of the short research-and-design
blurbs, I am struck by the new selenium rectifiers used by GE to give 85%efficiency in converting polyphase current to dc. Call me naïve, but I had no
idea that rectifiers had less than 100% efficiency, although on reflection it
is obvious enough. The lost current goes out as heat, which means that I have a
little baking oven in my car between the generator and the spark plugs.
Convair has made 9,468 Liberators,
6,725 at San Diego, 2,743 at Fort Worth. That doesn’t seem like much of a
return for that fortress of modern architecture, and now that the B-32 is
cancelled, you have to wonder how it will justify itself. Speaking of, Willow
Run is now turning out a B-24 every six minutes, 10,000 Corsairs and 10,000
DC-3s have been built; and Curtiss Wright will close its St. Louis plant to
concentrate on Buffalo and Columbus, having built 123,000 Cyclones “for the
European phase of the war.” When Boeing-Renton hits peak production this
summer, it will turn out 6 planes a day. The Georgia ATSC Depot has cut the
time needed to overhaul a Pratt and Whitney R-2800 from 350 man-hours to 250,
and the time to overhaul a B-17 by 2,125 man hours.
Transport
Aviation
The airlines have received “AA-2”
priority for new planes, including component makers. A picture of a Shetland
appears. Aviation’s world columnist, “Vista,” is pleased that Australia is
not nationalising its airlines, after all, and displeased that Britain is
pressuring the sterling block countries to buy British. Ray Hoadley thinks that
air-sector dividends will be down now that they’re producing fewer planes, or
something. Eric Johnston is now director on the board of UAL, because you just
can’t give that man enough money to do nothing; and at the other extreme, Julia M. Scanlon is to be secretary of Curtiss-Wright, making her one of the most responsible
female executives in the industry.
Sideslips
is so hilarious this month that I am sending a dacoit to kill the author.
No, not really. But how could a humour column make me so mad? It’s not even
“blue.” (Exception: “Said Rosie the Riveter, ‘They laughed the first time they
saw me in my slacks, but when I sat down, they split.”)
Fortune,
July 1945
The
Job Before Us
“The Man From Missouri”
Did you know that the President is
from Missouri? It’s true! That means that he’s skeptical, and possibly also a
mule. And he’s like Thomas Hart Benton in some ways, because Benton was from
Missouri, I gather? Unless there’s a different far-fetched association being
made that I would pick up on if I just had more American history in school.
Because he’s from the west, (from a certain
perspective), he has replaced members of Roosevelt’s cabinet from Boston and
Pennsylvania, and might replace ones from Virginia and New York. Well, that’s
not actually the reason, but it’s a thing that you can say if you make your mouth
work like thus and so. The paper is pleased that he “brought in” the Engineer
to advise him on food; and is even open to “working with Mr. Dewey.” This is in
the editorial/preview section, by the way, because we are promised an entire
article on the state of Missouri, about which, I promise, you will hear not
another time-wasting word.
The paper is also doing a feature on
Corning Glass and yet another on the new airliners, and takes the opportunity
to editorialise about patents in the glass industry and aviation respectively,
to show that the American patent system doesn’t always properly stimulate
innovation and reward inventors. It also wants to talk about whether Russia
“wants credit,” and this is the point where the paper fulfills this month’s
press mandate to mention Eric Johnston. Eric Johnston, everyone! It's honestly just about this clumsy. I assume that Mr. Luce has plans for our Eric. I just can't for the life of me see what they might be. A Senate run?
Leaving the grooming of promising young men aside, the point here is that "ever less is heard from that species of American economist who thinks that lending abroad is a good substitute for spending at home," and therefore wants credits for foreigners to buy this or that or anything, really. That doesn’t mean, it notes, that Europe isn’t in need. There are going to be articles on the coal famine, and on Bretton Woods, which is connected to the coal famine by virtue of the credit issue. (Since if the Export-Import Bank would issue that $10 billion credit to Russia, not only might it ward of a US postwar depression, it would allow Russia to buy American things, which wouldn’t be coal, but rather wheat, but they’re still connected because the countries which have a shortage of coal, and who aren’t in the running for an Export-Import credit, are still having a “famine.” Of coal. Also, Russia could afford to be nicer, for example, lifting the “blackout on news that has fallen over territories occupied by her armies.”
Leaving the grooming of promising young men aside, the point here is that "ever less is heard from that species of American economist who thinks that lending abroad is a good substitute for spending at home," and therefore wants credits for foreigners to buy this or that or anything, really. That doesn’t mean, it notes, that Europe isn’t in need. There are going to be articles on the coal famine, and on Bretton Woods, which is connected to the coal famine by virtue of the credit issue. (Since if the Export-Import Bank would issue that $10 billion credit to Russia, not only might it ward of a US postwar depression, it would allow Russia to buy American things, which wouldn’t be coal, but rather wheat, but they’re still connected because the countries which have a shortage of coal, and who aren’t in the running for an Export-Import credit, are still having a “famine.” Of coal. Also, Russia could afford to be nicer, for example, lifting the “blackout on news that has fallen over territories occupied by her armies.”
The paper is also running an article
on the Philippines, which leads it to editorialise about the decision by the
WSA to set shipping rates at 1940 plus 35%, which is far too high. On the one
hand, the badly needed pulp imports from Sweden (ox being gored here) were
almost scuttled by too-high shipping rates “suggested” by the WSA to the
Swedish lines. On the other, the paper returns to the idea that the new
American merchant marine, if so expensive as to need subsidising, is hardly
worth having.
Finally, the paper thinks that
Americans are getting rude and vulgar, and that this trend should stop.
“The Battle of Bretton Woods” Now
that the agreement is about to be passed through Congress, it is time for the
paper to rehash the Bretton-Woods agreement.
“Bernard Gimbel: Top Merchant”
Gimbel Brothers recently surpassed Macy’s as the top department store network.
Apparently, mainly by stockpiling enormous amounts of bric-a-brac in the early
years of the war.
“The Houghtons of Corning: They Have
Prospered by Making the Kinds of Glass No One Else Can Make and now They are
Learning New Ways of Competition –From the Supreme Court”
This is a technology story, because the company invented Pyrex, and because the antitrust action was over a "patent pool" arrangement which prevented other glassmaking companies from producing canning jars on manufacturing equipment developed by either Corning or a competitor --I forget.
Investors might want to know that this close-held family corporation (Houghton fiduciaries own 76% of shares) produces 37,000 items out of 450 chemically different glasses, last failed to pay a dividend in 1880 and finances all expansion out of profits. Unfortunately, all this is rather irrelevant considering that the company just about doubled in size with a 1936 merger with “another company.” Also, notwithstanding, Pyrex, or Fiberglas, the 200 inch lens for the Mount Palomar Observatory, or high-silica Vycor glass, metal-bonded glass, glass ribbon for electronics manufacture in place of mica, better optical glass, or less-breakable glass tableware, the company makes most of its money from lightbulb covers. Electrical engineering, I suppose?
Investors might want to know that this close-held family corporation (Houghton fiduciaries own 76% of shares) produces 37,000 items out of 450 chemically different glasses, last failed to pay a dividend in 1880 and finances all expansion out of profits. Unfortunately, all this is rather irrelevant considering that the company just about doubled in size with a 1936 merger with “another company.” Also, notwithstanding, Pyrex, or Fiberglas, the 200 inch lens for the Mount Palomar Observatory, or high-silica Vycor glass, metal-bonded glass, glass ribbon for electronics manufacture in place of mica, better optical glass, or less-breakable glass tableware, the company makes most of its money from lightbulb covers. Electrical engineering, I suppose?
Claude A. Buss, “Report from Manila:
Independence is a Hot Issue –With a Reverse Twist” Mr. Buss is just back from
Manila, where he talked with old friends, former cabinet members, businessmen,
“politicos,” missionaries, consular officials, ordinary citizens, and probably
the rickshaw driver who took him from the docks to his quarters. He has
discovered that Manila is at “the crossroads of its destiny.” It is utterly
destroyed by war. The Japanese are still resisting. There is political chaos.
Visayans dominate the provisional government, which cannot be good in the long
run, I suspect. Brigadier General Manuel Roxas may be a rival candidate for the
presidency to Osmena. This rice harvest, and the next, will not meet the needs
of the people. Sugar production is down. There is no petroleum. Apparently, the
Japanese printed occupation currency for the “entire world” in Manila, Pounds,
dollars, pesos and guilders then couldn’t distribute it, and ended up holding
it all in a forty car garage before bulldozing it all into the Pasig River in
the end.
Which seems like a bizarre story. Wouldn’t these
currency be exactly what was needed in the South Seas? The point of the story
is vaguely related to the claim that the Japanese put too many Philippine pesos into circulation, and there
was inflation, and now no-one has furniture or clothes because you cannot buy them.
(Which would seem to be a question of redemption, not the amount in circulation. The observation that you cannot hire labourers for money, but have to turn
them away if you offer “lunch and a cigarette” suggests that either Manilans are very hungry, or that you can buy things quite easily –with cigarettes. Manila is filled with Americans,
who are distributing seeds for corn, rice and camotes. “Chinese mestizos, able
to make money even when the city is in ashes.” Because that’s how we "Chinese mestizos" are. (What do Englishmen do in
burning cities? Play cricket?)
The word picture finally coming
tumbling to an end as Buss moves to such point as he has, which is that
apparently sentiment in Manila is moving against independence, because being an
American colony is just that nice. The Americans are determined to grant
independence, but Philipinos (secretly) don’t want it!
“The New Transport Planes, II” The
paper explains how airfoils works, reminds us of how exciting the Gas Turbine
and the Laminar-Flow Wing are, and points out that new construction methods are
making planes ever bigger. For example, the 400ft wingspan flying wing that the
paper just made up is much bigger than a Piper Cub! (The 1000ft wingspan reverse-double-back-swept
plane I just made up is even bigger,
but I don’t have a Luce paper to publish it in, and, besides, the picture is
too big.)
The inadvertent implication is that actually existing airliners aren't that much bigger than a "Piper Cub." |
I suppose I shouldn’t ridicule too
much. The Stratoliner and the Consolidated Model 37 are real planes, and big
enough. And, speaking of, Uncle Henry’s folly got its picture into this month’s
Aviation, and I forgot to mention it!
Here’s another picture.
Finally, since the paper is
dedicated to the slightly dubious proposal that the American innovation of
“laminar flow wings” is comparable to the gas turbine, there is an extensive (a
whole page!) discussion of how lowering drag affects power loading, wing
loading, speed and range.
Finally rousing itself from reveries
of ever-better lifting surfaces besieging the barrier of the Speed of Sound,
the paper moves on to materials: aluminum, magnesium, metal-bonded wood,
glass(!). Lighter planes (the paper finds it amazing that planes carry
passengers with less weigh per person than trains, a comparison that just
doesn’t get to me) means, perhaps, longer ranges, or higher speeds. If
Americans could be persuaded to go somewhere 4000 miles away, for example, very
large passenger planes might be more
able to make money. Where could such a place be? And if it is Russia, perhaps
we shouldn’t have a war with the
Communists? Yes, the paper presents that train of thought with a straight face. Also, if passenger planes could fly at 720 mph (and why not?),
they could go around the world in “zero elapsed time,” or, actually, five
hours. Also, if we could find a way to
fly above the atmosphere, we could go
really fast.
I'm certainly in favour of that. The Hang Ah staff treat me like a princess, for which I should probably thank you, recalling how they greeted you in 1940, but it's not dim sum like Hong Kong dim sum. Lunch in Hong Kong, home in time to read to the children? Science
might turn out to be good for something, after all.
“The Building of Nicaro”
A very large nickel mine in Cuba, owned and operated by Americans, was important to winning the war. It was a closely-guarded secret, in case U-boats attacked. So was its budget –I am tempted to use “coincidence” here in that way where I imply that it really isn’t a coincidence at all. It’s not like the presence of nickel in Cuba is much of a mystery, or that a mine and refinery on a seaside site just off Florida qualifies as an exotic location requiring heroic logistics. It’s that Cuban nickel has a high iron content that makes it not very economical compared with Canadian. That’s what the operation has to fix, and as long as the finances of the situation are obscure, we don’t know if they have!
A very large nickel mine in Cuba, owned and operated by Americans, was important to winning the war. It was a closely-guarded secret, in case U-boats attacked. So was its budget –I am tempted to use “coincidence” here in that way where I imply that it really isn’t a coincidence at all. It’s not like the presence of nickel in Cuba is much of a mystery, or that a mine and refinery on a seaside site just off Florida qualifies as an exotic location requiring heroic logistics. It’s that Cuban nickel has a high iron content that makes it not very economical compared with Canadian. That’s what the operation has to fix, and as long as the finances of the situation are obscure, we don’t know if they have!
“The U.S. Navy: Its New Power:
Unmatched: Its Future: The People’s Choice”
What’s that the unemployed lawyer
said? “What this town needs is two lawyers?” The Navy’s big, and its sunk all
the other navies. So unless we have a rematch of the Revolution, the US Navy’s
got no-one to fight, which is almost sad, when you think about it the right
way. Perhaps we could spot the Communists some aircraft carriers? The
paper is at least more grown-up about it than, say, Aviation, noticing that the USN had 10 fleet carriers and 8 “light
carriers” off Okinawa, not “a hundred,” since that number includes Uncle
Henry’s navy. On the other hand, it gives proper credit to the enormous achievement
of supplying them at sea –with an ill-informed back-of-hand at Britain’s
“short-legged navy” to match the idiocy in Flight about the B-29's "inefficiency." The paper visited Hawaii, was amazed at all the depots, activity, and
congestion on Oahu, and got caught in the horrific congestion on Dillingham Boulevard which "Miss V. C." and I had the sense to only see from the air, unlike poor James. The paper even talked to him. UNless he is stealing his joke about the number of things on wheels needed to win a naval war from some other visiting British
naval officer, which he probably is, as it sounds like a line that goes round the messes --never mind in the back of a "deuce and a half" in the fumes as it waits to merge in one of the spots where Dillingham goes from eight lanes to two. I would rattle off more of the fairly extensive coverage if there
was more to rattle off than word pictures of the incredible congestion on Guam,
in the forward bases, and in the supply chain, as for example, smokescreens
against suicide bombers drew down oil supplies, or drop tanks built up in
depots and warehouses as mission ranges fell. Numbers would help the Japanese,
though, or just haven’t been collated, and all I have is word pictures.
The
Farm Column
Ladd notes the “socialisation of
fertiliser,” which is due to the fact that everyone has shifted from an age of
low prices, when surpluses piled up, and no-one thought of using fertiliser, to
high-yield strains of oats, soybeans and, in particular, hybrid corn, which
require a great deal of it. Now that prices for fertiliser are rising, farmers
are debating what to do next. Farmers look forward to cutting the expense, and effort, of using fertiliser. The TVA thinks that farmers aren’t using enough
fertiliser to maintain the soil, never mind improve it. That's the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is the obvious Governmant agency to be behind agriculture policy. Or perhaps the sarcasm is over done, because what it wants to do is keep the government nitrogen plants in production, while building two phosphorus and a potassium plant to complement them. Not only would the TVA operate them, but it would expand, by opening up a phosphorus mine and processing plant in Florida. Meanwhile, the National Planning Association is against all agricultural subsidies, hence "socialised fertiliser."
Showing that it is not slow to notice that the wind is changing, the AFB responds to critics by saying that it is
following the recommendations of Hayek’s Road
to Serfdom, in that more (government) fertiliser plants would increase
competition in the industry, and, anyway, the plants would only produce about
6% of the national supply of phosphorus and potassium, and would focus on
research and development into new varieties of the fertilisers.
The other concern here is that if
fertility is increased too much, surpluses like those of the prewar would
recur, prices would fall, farms would be abandoned, Okies to California, etc.
So “Eastern agronomists” instead want the government to buy up marginal land
and find better and cheaper ways of restoring fertility such as contour
ploughing, drainage, cover cropping with clover, liming. Less surplus, more
soil restoration!
Moving on, Ladd asks what really
happened to the “good five cent cigar.” This is tied to the idea that American
city dwellers have that farmers have had a good war. In fact, in
tobacco-producing Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a long list of woes has
driven good tobacco off the land, so that farmers are poorer than they seem, and there is no longer a good five cent
cigar. Or might not be in the future, even more than there isn’t right now, as
they actually haven’t stopped growing tobacco, so that this isn’t the reason
why there isn’t a good etc. They jusdt might in the future. In the meantime,
the reason for etc is that you can’t grow good tobacco at that price. Which is
good, because if one more ever-so-smug Jesuit professor lights up a cigar in my sitting room, I will discover the
Indian in my blood and reach for a scalping knife. Also in the news is Thermoid
Corporation of New Jersey, which is reducing accident rates by giving employees
breaks where they drink free milk. This is agricultural news because of the
milk.
Books
and Ideas
Now that Professor Hayek is
everywhere, I have new respect for this column. Let me see who is being
launched into the heavens this month.
It is Jerome Frank, formerly of the
SEC, on Fate and Freedom.
Our reviewer, John Chamberlain, writes as though he knows Judge Frank personally, but that doesn’t mean that he pulls any punches in his review. The book seems to be about free will and inevitability and natural laws and stuff like that, and names like Hegel, Marx and Freud wander over to meet up with Hitler, before taking a swing back through Moscow on their way to have coffee with Diocletian, who, apparently, was some kind of socialistic type of ancient Roman emperor. Well, then. As with Professor Hayek (I began to write “Hegel,” you will see from the smudge), I may have missed the deep and important point that will have everyone and their dogs talking about Judge Frank next year this time. If they are, you heard it here first!
* |
Our reviewer, John Chamberlain, writes as though he knows Judge Frank personally, but that doesn’t mean that he pulls any punches in his review. The book seems to be about free will and inevitability and natural laws and stuff like that, and names like Hegel, Marx and Freud wander over to meet up with Hitler, before taking a swing back through Moscow on their way to have coffee with Diocletian, who, apparently, was some kind of socialistic type of ancient Roman emperor. Well, then. As with Professor Hayek (I began to write “Hegel,” you will see from the smudge), I may have missed the deep and important point that will have everyone and their dogs talking about Judge Frank next year this time. If they are, you heard it here first!
Other books reviewed are Ludwig Bendix, Planning for the Future, which
is much harder than planning for the past; Thomas Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal, which I think argues that rejecting
the League of Nations was a mistake, and it was all down to German and
Irish-Americans, and Senator Lodge, who wasn’t either, I thought? Also, What Latin Americans Think of Us, which
is a symposium by several very important people who agree, not very much. I am sure that some short essays by very important thinkers published in a book will reform American ways in Latin America right away. Samuel N. Harper writes about The Russia I Believe In, which is a posthumous autobiography
published two years after the death of the distinguished professor. He liked
Russia. Robert S. Ward writes Asia for the Asiatics? Yes, please. Actually, it is a picture of Hong Kong under
Japanese occupation, so not news to us, but a faithful picture of the current
straits of the city, although perhaps underestimating how many of its residents
have gone to ground, as opposed to suffering sadder fates.
Business
at War
Alexander Cooper Nagle, the new
President of the First National Bank of New York, is so obscure that there were
no pictures of him on file at the New York dailies when his appointment was
announced. A banker! Obscure! Imagine that! He commutes from Scarsdale, golfs
and sails, has twin grandchildren, born this year. (You should compare notes!)
His bank holds $980 million in deposits from 1300 customers, which suggests
that this is not the sort of bank that most people deal with. Don’t go there to
cash your paycheque, I am saying. You might have quite a wait for a teller.
I bet that Alexander Cooper Nagle IV works in a Starbucks and has three room-mates! |
Cigarette shortages might lead to a
revival in the fortunes of roll-your-own machine makers. Also, the type
shortage will be good for buggy-whip makers! Leopold Pilzer runs
Thonet-Kohn-Mundus, “a worldwide coalition of the bentwood chair industry.”
They now have an assembly line. Despite which, their American-made chairs cost
more than their European-made, although freight makes up the difference plus
some. The paper hopes that European wages rise before shipping resumes, in
which case I will go and buy all the shares, because humble seats are the
future.
The
Fortune Survey
This is the tenth anniversary of the
survey, in honour of which, Elmo Roper looks back, and does not publish a
survey. The inaugural surveys showed that poor Americans despaired of ever
having opportunity to better themselves, and that the young thought that there
was no place for them in the economic scheme of things. In 1936, the Survey
started doing Presidential polling, and began its trend of getting very close
to the final results. It also finds that President Roosevelt used to be
popular, and that the Fireside Chats were attended to, and that Americans liked
capitalism, at least when it was democratic.
Business
Abroad
Finally, numbers are put to the coal famine:
French production is down from a peak of 55 million tons to 43; Belgian is
“half” its prewar level; Dutch is one-third. They need 3.5 million tons of
imports a month to keep their economies going, and Italy needs half as much.
Scandinavia is starved of coal, and it would be “rash” to expect Sweden’s
Polish supplies to be resumed. (Because Communism.) Britain, South Arica and
the United States might be able to supply 1.5 million tons a month between
them, and the rest must be made up by restoring domestic supplikes, or from
Germany. Belgium briefly contemplated using German prisoners of war in the
mines, but the miners struck, a “bad sign.” Of something. The unions are
against slave labour! Who would have thought. . .. So the German mines have to
restore their production somehow, which means labour, which means so much for
keeping the German army locked up until it is guaranteed 100% Nazi-free. Okay,
I put that last bit in there. The paper is more worried that once the German
miners are back to work, they will want to be fed, which will make the food
situation even worse. There is good news, though, as the paper is pleased by
the Anglo-American tax treaty. It also notes how British films are beginning to
compete with French in the French movie market, and that Australia is going to
make motorcars now.
It's interesting to see that while The Economist can't help fretting that Germany will come back Nazi, or not come back at all, Fortune falls back on its own reflexive dream of a bright future of limitless possibility.
It's interesting to see that while The Economist can't help fretting that Germany will come back Nazi, or not come back at all, Fortune falls back on its own reflexive dream of a bright future of limitless possibility.
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