The Caribbean theme is developed, a bit, below.
R._C._,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Sir:
It seems to be a habit for me to open these letters with a "Thank you," as you are so infallibly good to me, and I can only wonder why. The brochures and applications are most interesting. Except for the one for the University of Chicago Law School, which seems to be someone's idea of a bad joke. I feel a little faint to be told that if I genuinely want to go to law school in 1949, I should be starting to make my plans now! It seemed so much safer and less frightening when it was just a lark and a dream!
Not a lark, and not a dream, is the fact that I am over the North Atlantic right now, just out of Idlewild and headed for Gander. I have a seatmate, after all, because of the DC-6 grounding, but I have firmly insisted on enough space for notes, writing paper, and cypher book. My seatmate is sleeping off what smells like more than a few brandies too many, so I don't need to explain anything to him, at least until we are well past the point of no return. I am hoping to be done by then, as while this project tends to drag on every week, I have used my train time to do something never seen before in these letters. I've read my magazines in advance, and know what the stories are about! That wahy, I don't have to read with one eye and write with the other, and revise halfway through when I realise that I don't know what the story is about.
We'll see if that saves any time! Not this time, but next, there'll be another deviation from past practice, as I follow The Economist through to the end of the month, for the simple reason that it doesn't get around to explaining l'Affaire Odeon until Christmas week, and future generations reading these letters won't otherwise have a clue as to why I am making this flight.
Okay, sure, if they have any sense, they'll probably guess why my Mother is making me make this flight (and agree with me that she's off her rocker); but they won't know the business story. Which is fair enough, as I hardly know the business story. Didn't we just buy an interest in that studio as a way of getting into the silver smuggling craze? Now that the financial authorities have cracked down on that business, can't we just cut them loose? Surely it can't be financially complicated, or no-one would think that I was the person who needed to be sent over!
Grr. Have I mentioned, Grr?
Yours Sincerely,
Ronnie
Flight, 4 December 1947
Leaders
“Ministries, Corporations and Constructors” Flight is on about how it is too hard to organise the building of a
new airliner, because of there being same. It points out that even when one
corporation rejects a plane (the Tudor), another thinks that it is wonderful
(BSAA), and that just shows . . .Well, obviously the Admiral says that it shows
that since Don Bennett can’t be trusted to run an airline, the Tudor is awful,
but Flight isn’t going to say that,
up to the moment when “Greenie” Bennett takes a Tudor right through the front
door at Heathrow, undercarriage up or down.
Pretty soon, no-one will order a British airliner, because of ministries,
corporations and constructors. Or, wait, no, that’s the risk of reading these things before you write,
because actually it’s Carling, below, who is on about Bennett’s passion for the
Tudor.
“Enterprise” Flight really
likes the Sealand, because Short Brothers built it on their own with no
Government, and because it lands on water.
“It Wasn’t a Long Trip”
A bit about the Meteor record speed flight from Edinburgh to London
follows. It’s an imitation of the Hurricane flight in the fall of 1938,
complete with the very high wind speeds over ground, but it took much less
time, because Meteors are so much faster than Hurricanes.
Casual Commentary by Robert Carling
Carling points out that the reason that British airliners are terrible
right now is that they are all interim types, and that has given the
constructors permission to throw all sorts of stuff at the wall, and it is time
to see if it sticks. Or, since he abuses different metaphors, that it is time
for a “weeding.”
In shorter news, the RAF has been invited to the Cleveland Air Races
but may not send a jet to enter the actual race. It may just be some crazy
flying. Prestwick is having its seventh anniversary.
Here and There
Cloud-seeding has worked in the Dominican Republic, and will be tried
through the winter in New York. Since some Americans are going to try to fly a
Piper Super Cruiser around the world, Flight
reminds everyone that Field Aircraft Services imports them and assembles
them in Britain, apply Mr. A. J. Walter, Steps, Deepdene Drive, Dorking (which
is a real name), Surrey. Some American students at the Northrop Aeronautical
Institute are assembling a small plane as a class project, and it is
international news because it is like something that de Havilland students did
in 1934.
“Airspeed Ambassador” The Airspeed Ambassador is still a plane, just
as it was last week, and photographs very well.
P. F. Atwood, “The ‘T-Scheme:’ A Low Pressure-Loss Combustion Chamber System for Gas Turbine Engines Sometimes, you want to reduce the pressure loss
in a jet turbine’s combustion chamber. For that, you have to find a way to keep
a flame in a fast-moving air stream without undue loss of energy. Since 1943,
this group has been working on a baffled chamber “the “T” scheme), and now it
has found one. Since the work has migrated to the
National Gas Turbine Establishment, that is who is getting the credit.
Atwood doesn’t do a very good job of explaining why you want to reduce pressure loss in a turbine engine, and since
I am flying across the Atlantic right now (which is why my calligraphy is so
spidery), I can’t
just call Reggie and ask him. So let’s pretend that I know
that it is too, oh, say, improve gas mileage. “Fuel economy.” That’s what we
say. “Fuel economy.”
“Composite Powered Aircraft: Engine Characteristics and Cost: Search
for ‘Overall’ Performance” Remember when Ryan Aviation made a splash with a
fighter with a prop engine a tiny jet engine in the back? Ben Salmond, “former
Chief Engineer, Ryan Aeronautical Corporation,” is on the lecture circuit
explaining why it is a great idea and the future of aviation, and not a short-term
expedient.
In shorter news, Grumman’s Nene-engined F9F Panther is flying. Flight is as giddy as a schoolgirl.
“The Short Sealand” The Short Sealand is still a plane that lands on
land and water, just like last week. Everyone who has land or water should buy
one for every day of the week.
“Power for Gliders: Some Suggestions and Details Concerning a
Detachable Lightweight Power Unit” I don’t know? You take off in your (powered)
glider, fly up to “Angels 5,” hit the quick-release button, and soar away, free
as a bird, perhaps after yelling “Fore,” so the people on the ground will know
to put on hard hats?
In shorter news, the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests are
experimenting with a Norseman with a tank in its floats, so that it can draw up
lake water and drop it on forest fires.
“Round the Rolls-Royce” Flight sent
a photographer over to the R.R. works to take all those pictures of people
looking very serious while wearing works clothes, looking into microscopes and
fiddling with instruments wearing engineer-clothes, and hovering in the
background wearing manager clothes. Everyone is glad to hear that engineers
wear clothes, even if they are not very good clothes.
Civil Aviation News
ICAO is “talking about talking about civil aviation again,” BOAC is
leaving its repair works at Filton, but hopes to be back as soon as the British
voter throws Labour out. The bit about Fairey buying your hobbyhorse makes the
news. There has been a fire at Khartoum
Airport, destroying two planes. Airworks reminds everyone that its planes are flying
about the world, flying people. Trans-Canadian made a loss in the third
quarter. Mr. Whitney Straight is to be on the Air Registration Board. The Australian airlines are still fighting each other over whether the Australian
constitution lets them fly services from one airport to another, something that
the Australian constitution was very lazy about not spelling out in more detail.
This is very bad for Australian National, Qantas, and future generations,
example-wise, as you’ll see when I deal with The Economist this week!
The sixth Atlantic weather ship, the Canadian navy’s St. Stephen, sails this week. India has
another airline, and Intercontinental Air Tours is flying immigrants from
England to Australia, while Trans-Oceanic is moving the hundreds of Greeks who
are trying to reach Australia, using Hudsons and Lodestars sold off by the War
Disposals Commission. Planes over the Atlantic will soon be able to use their
VHF sets to relay radio calls from one to another so that they can talk to the airports
on the far shore during magnetic disturbances. World Air Freight recently took
over its first Halifax, while two “tarmac stub runway ends” have been built at
Croydon to extend takeoff runs and will be open to use in December. They cannot
be used for landing due to cables, beacons, trees and houses. That seems like a
shabby way to treat the people in those houses, but what do I know?
Ansett Airways just refused an order to raise its fares 20%, claiming
the Constitution doesn’t give the Ministry the power. Various new services
exist around the world, there have been proving flights, notably a flying boat
run from Hong Kong to Tokyo; and the third and last BEA teleprinter switching
centre has opened at Keyline House. Now, every printer in the BEA network can
be connected with any other, allowing a “conversation” between Kirkwall and
Paris to inaugurate the new era in typewriters talking to each other.
Correspondence
It is the week for old-timers to push back! F. S. Symondson says that
women pilots really are inefficient. (They can’t read maps, and are chicken of
a bit of bad weather. Well, male pilots won’t ask for directions, and are
reckless. So there!) Frank Courtenay writes to point out that flying boats are
safe as houses. “air Transport” says that there are flying boat bases
everywhere, since there is water everywhere, but not giant airstrips, and
therefore the future belongs to the flying boat, contrary to David Brice, which
completely misses Brice’s point, if you ask me.
The Economist, 6 December 1947
Leaders
“Britain in Europe” I mentioned at the head that I’m trying the
radical experiment of reading my
issues of The Economist before trying
to summarise them. I was patting myself on the back up there, and now I turn to
this article, which I read two days
ago, on the train, a cup of hot, black coffee at my side, and ---Whatever!
Well, the point is clear, which is that the sixteen western European nations
that are receiving aid under the recently passed American Interim Aid Bill needto organise themselves, but are likely to disappoint the Americans, who arepushing for more coordination and organisation than is desirable, but it
certainly should not be for Britain to lead that trend, because the days of
“splendid isolation” are past. It’s just that I can write all that with my eyes
closed, and there is a page and a half of text here, and it must say something
important. Maybe that if the British are too high and mighty, they won’t get as
much money as they need, as it will be given out to the other sixteen nations
based on what they think they need?
“France in Confusion” Here, on the other hand, I could go on for
pages. Since this isn’t the last time this will come up, perhaps a short
summary will serve? The Communists have been trying to trigger a general strike
while paralysing the Assembly to prevent action by Robert Schuman. The strikes are
finding fertile ground thanks to the very high standard of living and steady
decline of French purchasing power (mainly for food) below even wartime levels.
However, the general strike failed to
come off, and the Government has regained control of the Assembly, and now it
is going to move some Emergency Laws to help sort things out. Meanwhile, people are worried that de
Gaulle is about to turn into Louis Napoleon, and the French economy is
improving quite quickly, which is more than you can say about Italy.
“Transport Next Year and After” Next year is when the British railways
get nationalised. The Economist looks
into its crystal ball and sees trouble ahead, but much of it has to do with
administrative stuff, which I think all of us readers agree is something of a
pointless Economist obsession, and
we’ll wait to see if any of it comes true. More seriously, raid transport must
go along with doing something about
road transport, and since that side of things has 48,000 licensed operators
with 140,000 vehicles, nationalisation seems like an absurd notion. The
Government thinks that it can get along with nationalising 10,000 vehicles or
so, in which case, The Economist asks,
what is the point?
 |
| Time, being helpful |
“Last Chance in Palestine” Certainly not the last chance to talk about
it, though! The Economist continues
to not like the Zionists very much and suggests that they are hiding behind the
British skirt, although it is not sure how, given that the Zionists have the
only organised military force in Palestine, and right now the “hiding” looks
more like the British preventing harsher action against the Palestinian Arabs. It
is somewhere along the lines of the British protecting the Zionists from their
own worst impulses, which will be a problem when the British withdraw and leave
the Zionists to carry out their own version of the Partition plan, which will
be harsher than the UN Majority plan and much harsher than the Minority Plan. The Economist points out that the
remaining Palestinian Arab territory will lack the economic basis to be
anything more than a rump state and suggests elsewhere that King Abdullah of Transjordan should probably take it over. Meanwhile, Palestinian Arabs are not doing
much to organise themselves, and the Zionists are putting together a
post-withdrawal government, which will probably involve a coalition of the
socialist and non-socialist left, so as not to alienate big American donors.
Notes of the Week
“Cutting the Coat?” That’s some kind of British expression. This is
the lead bit about the White Paper on the capital cuts, which are covered
elsewhere, and explains The Economist’s objections,
which are that the cuts aren’t big enough, and should be more focused on
cutting home building and other construction more than they are. It doesn’t really belong here except that it
involves construction, but the “revised school programme” is out, and doesn’t
build nearly enough school space to adequately house all the new students, who
will therefore have to have 40 students to the class room next year. Furthermore,
the next expected step, an expansion of the community colleges, will require
still more construction. Overall, maybe The
Economist is right to say that the only actual check on British
construction is the real one, which is the global shortage of timber. (Good
news for you!)
 |
| The Liverpool Blitz --What we're choosing to go slow on repairing. |
“Mr. Molotov Has His Way” No-one can agree on a unified government for
Germany. The idea that Mr. Molotov gets his way is based on eastern,
Russian-controlled Germany being allowed to go its own way, while the four
western zones, although not the Saarland, are drawing together. The Economist wonders if “good Germans”
will turn friendlier to communism in order to achieve the unification of all
four sectors. The fact that life is getting ever more difficult for
non-socialist democrats in eastern Europe might discourage them. I’m going to
throw in a mention of a later bit that discusses the fight between the central
government in Czechoslovakia and the Slovakian government, since it involves
communists fighting with social democrats. Socialists are, in general “on the
tight rope,” says a later note, because of the strength of the Communists in
many countries. Another bit says that the international federation of trade
unions really needs to decide what it thinks of the Marshall Plan in its next,
spring, session, having ducked the issue this time around.
“By-election Results” The By-elections were very disappointing for
those who were hoping to sweep Labour from power next week Tuesday. The Economist takes a moment to point
out that, no matter how much it loves the Liberal Party, and no matter how
inevitable it is that good, progressive Britons will abandon the Labour Party
with all its labour-iness, for the moment the best way to be a Liberal is to
hold your nose and vote Tory. There’s also a short bit about the Justice Bill,
which is in the news because of moves to end executions in Britain. Later there
is a short bit about changes in the workplace Damages to Injury Bill, which I
mention just to be a bit more complete.
“Another Greece” Things in Italy are difficult right now. I’ll just
take a moment to interrupt and mention things that come up elsewhere to put it
in perspective. The Italians can’t get the raw materials to run their industries
and have also forbidden industry from firing workers. Industry cannot pay those
workers, and the government has been dilatory about getting subsidies to them
–I am going to have to discuss Einaudi’s deflation scheme elsewhere, as that
would be just too much of a digression). As a result, they are coming out all
communist, with riots and such, and now the Italians are worrying that
Communist hordes are hovering about their northeastern frontier, ready to
descend on Italy and launch a civil war as soon as Allied Occupation troops
leave, which they will do this winter.
“Defence of India’s Frontier” That worked so well I will do it again!
The word this week is that Pakistan
has asked Sir Claude Auchinleck to step down as the commander-in-chief of the Pakistani
army, which has led Auchinleck to resign entirely. The conflict is over
Kashmir, the northern parts of which have recently been occupied by tribal
levies from the Northwest Frontier Agency, which has been left to Pakistan. The Economist is worried that this
fractious area can’t be policed adequately by Pakistan alone, and that the end
of the joint commander-in-chief presages the end of Indian involvement on the
frontier, and the rise of a “Pathanistan,” or the penetration of a certain,
unnamed foreign power. I, personally, would have thought that the main problem
is that Pakistan and India are on the verge of war in Kashmir, and that
Pakistan is moving to annex the northern parts of the province, which the
tribal levies already control; and that since they can’t pay the levies, nor
subsidise the tribes, about all it can do is let them occupy Kashmir. As for
the fact that Pakistan has taken over Chitral, which is just a tiny slice of
Afghanistan away from Russia? While the question for The Economist might be just how much communism has changed the
Russian bear; everyone else is wondering whether Britishers see bears who
aren’t even there.
 |
| Chitral is pretty. By Clockwise from top: User:Emaadparacha, User:Tahsin Shah, User:Shahidalibmw, User:BeeKay101 - Clockwise from top:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_City_of_Chitral_and_Tirich_Mir.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SHAHI_QILLA_CHITRAL.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shahi_Mosque_Chitral_Bazaar,Chitral,KPK.jpghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chitral_Fort.JPG, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61222570 |
“Vacation” The Uno is ending its current session. Some delegates are
not going to have very much fun, though, as they’re off to the Korean and Greek
borders to look around for peace. Since the Russians won’t let them across the
line, they won't find it, but it might lead to
Korean elections in the south, soon. Back at New York, the Assembly has voted
to create a “Little Assembly” to get around the great power veto, mainly to get
nine new countries in, so that there will be more balance between the
pro-Russian and pro-American blocs, both of which seem to vote a party line.
This might be why the European countries are agitating to hold the next session
in Europe, far from the “fogs of Flushing Meadows.” Overall, The Economist gives the palm for this
last session to Russia, which proved to have better parliamentary tactics.
“Nuts and Potatoes” The Ministry of Food is moving to restrict nut
supplies in the country at Christmas. This has caused some protest, since there
was a bumper global nut harvest this year, but it is just a matter of
conserving foreign exchange; nuts are not a necessity. There is, though, a concern that the Ministry
of Food is making too much of a profit by buying low and selling high. Of more
concern is the recent news that the Ministry won’t be able to provide even the
3lb/week potato ration out of domestic supply through the winter. We’ll hear
more about British food purchases in Europe later, and that’s where the
potatoes will come from. What matters here is that The Economist is unimpressed by the Ministry’s excuse for delaying
so long in introducing the ration. It says that it was because there was no
point in going on the ration in September because the new potatoes of the
season don’t keep well.
 |
| Actually, you can keep new potatoes forever. They'll just taste like paste. |
The Economist is
not impressed, since not all potatoes sold in September are bad storing
potatoes. There’s a similar story about the cutting of the gas ration, which
has led the Regional Petroleum Office to forbid the use of stored gas for
Christmas motoring, on the grounds that it will just cause envy by neighbours.
There are also short bits about the new Treasury secretary office, and the end
of the strike at the Savoy, and about Chuter Ede (which is a real name)
deciding not to ban the Mosleyite rallies in the East End. The Economist says that the real problem is the Communist
counter-demonstrations, since they are not letting the Fascists rallies “die a
natural death.”
"Ignore them and they'll go away!" Or be normalised. Whatever.
Letters
P. M. Foster writes to point out that while cheap money doesn’t fight
inflation, there is no way to raise interest rates high enough to stop
inflation, without choking off bank lending entirely. Therefore, other means
need to be found to fight inflation. W. A. Magowan writes to point out that
while a reduction in government expenditure will be deflationary, and is a good
idea, it is unlikely that reducing food subsidies will be deflationary, since it
will lead to a rise in the price of food! F. J. Weale writes to point out an
error in the tables showing Europe’s grain needs over the next two years. The
price per ton for 1948—49 is far lower than the previous year’s. The Economist replies that it will be
lower than last year, due to the cheaper Canadian wheat that will be available.
Frank B. Powell writes to explain the history of Australian bank
nationalisation, which has been an issue for years now. He’s against it.
From The Economist of 1847
A hundred years ago, The
Economist was exasperated by all those who thought that “fixing the price of gold,” as was done in 1819 (that’s the old-time way of saying “going back on
the gold standard”?) was a mistake that it makes sardonic fun of the way that
they think that it has caused bank runs, rail bubbles, poor harvests, and war.
(By virtue of forcing the British to make diplomatic openings to France and
Russia, as these sinister foreign powers use their influence in the name of war
and chaos.)
 |
| So apparently a long-running debate about the gold standard in Regency Britain has become unhistory? I'd love to see the story about how the gold standard forced Britain to go "crawling" to Russia. |
Book Reviews
James Warburg has a book out about Germany, which will either be Germany: Bridge or Battleground
depending on whether capitalists and communists kiss and make up, or fight. SirJames Jeans’ last book of scientific popularisation, The Growth of Physical Science, is not as good as the earlier ones.
E. Da Costa’s Indian Industry Today andTomorrow is also not very satisfactory, since it fails to reconcile the
need for producing more investment capital and improving the consumption of the
poverty-stricken masses with his hopes for a “vast capital expenditure and
generous exports to other Eastern countries.”
American Survey
“New Channels for Trade”
The Geneva talks have the Americans patting themselves on the back for
reversing the course of increasing protectionism all the way back before the Underwood
Tariff of 1913. The United States has therefore “recognised the implications of
its creditor position,” which is that if it is going to lend all that money to
get foreign trade going, it needs to open itself up to imports so that people
can earn the US dollars to pay those loans back! Perhaps this is easier at a
time when imports aren’t likely to amount to very much and will be a welcome
way of soaking up some excess cash, if they do come. Meanwhile, exports, by leading
to more money chasing even fewer goods, will lead to more inflation.
American Notes
“Eccles versus Snyder” Inflation has the Americans in a tizzy, as
several stories here and elsewhere underline. One aspect of this is the
continuing gold inflows (Canada has even started subsidising its gold
exports!), which is leading to inflationary pressure. There’s a lovely bit in
the story that covers this, a little later, about the 1936 Republican election
platform, which called for a return to the gold standard, and was against
importing foreign gold! Marriner Eccles wants to use the powers he has to
“sterilise” this inflow. He thinks that this is desperately needed, as gold
imports may reach $3 billion for the year, before the Marshall Plan aid begins
to flow in earnest. The idea is that gold imports create inflation in two ways
–the newly “created” money (since banks can lend on the strength of gold in
their vaults, or, in America, held for them at Fort Knox) is used to buy
exports for foreign markets; and the remainder of the new money created on the
back of the gold deposits is injected into the American economy as investment
capital, seeking too little steel, lumber and so on. His sterilisation plan is
simply to force the banks to hold their reserves in government bonds. The same
scheme, aiming at bank cash reserves not the
result of gold buying, can reduce the amount of money on the loose, and thereby
bring down inflation. However, Snyder wants to get back to price controls. He
thinks that price decontrol in 1946, notably in the housing construction
sector, are the cause of much of the current problem. Meanwhile, the
Administration is looking to heavy tax payments, due in January, and cuts in
government spending, to get inflation under control. Since everyone disagrees,
Congress can hardly be blamed for “refusing to be stampeded into action.” Also
in inflation news, talk of yet another round of wage increases and strikes,
although the AFL and CIO say that they would prefer price controls.
There’s also some tea-reading about the chances of General
Eisenhower—I can’t go on, because I don’t want to end up with my head on Mr.
Timm’s shoulder. He’s much too old for me, and I am engaged. Although his eyes
showed a light of interest when it emerged that I’m not carrying a picture of
my fiancé. I think I used it to mark a page in last year’s MIT Yearbook?
The World Overseas
“Austria: The Cost of Indecision” Austria, like Germany, is divided
into occupation zones. Might it be partitioned between communist east and
capitalist west? Possibly!
“Rumbling in Malaya” The
Economist has sent a special correspondent to Malaya, who really needs to
talk to Wong Lee. The details are established: Counting in the Straits
settlement, there are more Chinese in Malaya than Malayans, which upsets the
Malayans. Not counting Singapore, there are more Malayans, which makes
“democracy” possible, in Malayan eyes. However, says our Special Correspondent,
if they were given independence and democracy in the peninsula, they would promptly all join Indonesia, as pan-Malayan dreams are afire in every Malayan heart. Meanwhile, there are some communists up in the hills claiming to have
formed a provisional government, but who cares about them except for all the
RAF planes bombing them. As I said, Wong Lee warned me that this is turning
into a civil war or communist insurgency, so it is odd that The Economist dances around the idea
–Well, odd until you appreciate just how much the dollar balance depends on
rubber!
“Politics on the Equator” The
Economist is running a series on the “Latin American North,” and this week
it is about Ecuador. I mention this to be complete, because the story is very
much in the spirit of “Latins are excitable.” Although The Economist is more apt to acknowledge that the excitability has
to do with the horrid class divide that keeps the poor, poor, and the rich
looking over their shoulder at more progressive Venezuela.
“Stalled at Geneva” For a change, The
Economist has better coverage of the stalled ICAO talks at Geneva, which are stalled over the higher-numbered
air freedoms, which mainly have to do with the big-country airlines stealing
the business of small countries, as far as I can tell.
The Business World
“The Capital Cuts” The Economist
gets serious about discussing the swingeing capital cuts in new
construction and new plant, but not in shipbuilding, despite American protests.
I’ve already mentioned that The Economist
isn’t satisfied that enough is being done to cut construction, so I won’t
go over it again here, even though it has some new information about labour
allocations –specifically, the way things are being done won’t release enough
construction labour to the export industries. I will mention that while the
full railway programme of 600 locomotives and 48,000 wagons will proceed, the
building of coaching stock and overhaul of arrears of renewals (renovation in
American talk) will be curtailed. Electricity generating installations will be
speeded up this year, then cut back in subsequent years, with the machinery
originally built for that expansion, turned over to exports.
“Future of the Sterling Area” As far as I can gather, this all being
beyond my scarce ability to construe (let me explain The Wasteland instead!) the future of the Sterling Area is in doubt
due to small concessions made to Eire, Iraq and Egypt, which are using them to
the full, and large ones to South Africa, which has some leverage, in that it
is South African gold that Britain is exporting to America. Fortunately, apart
from the small countries, everyone else is doing their best to keep the
Sterling Area afloat.
Business Notes
The title, as usual, mainly means finance news, of little interest to
us. (Except that the rules for managing the sail of home rail stocks prior to
nationalisation are out.) There’s more about the heavy gold sales, this time
from the British side, and a bit about the “Odeon Affair.” As I’ve already said
at the head, I am going to break our long-standing tradition around here and
look at the end-of-month issues of The
Economist, so I’ll leave the discussion of these rank matters (it’s a pun!)
until then. Of far more importance is the news that the way is clear for coal
exports, which might get Britain in the black and Europe back to work.
Now that's what I call family friendly British cinema
“Canada’s Import Ban” Canada is running a trade balance with the
United States on the order of $800 million a year, which can’t continue. As far
as the Brits are concerned, this has meant difficulties in getting Canadian
food, due to the Canadian need to have half the payment in US dollars. Britain
is baulking, and Canada is intimating that they won’t get all the wheat in the
contracts if they don’t take the bacon. As far as America is concerned, there
are already the restrictions on taking money out of the country, and now a
variety of imports have been banned or put on quotas.
“Missing the Export Target” Exports are up, but not enough, and
there’s not enough labour for textiles, meaning pay must go up, making exports
less competitive, etc., again. Later, it points out that there is going to be a
delay in the shift of production targets from capital investment to export,
because the same goods aren’t needed for export. Rayon production, as an
example of something, hit 20.1
million lobs, a new record, but went mainly to exports, and not to the home
weaving, knitting and tyre industries. I say “but,” because as I understand it,
higher-value added exports are better, so this is an example of where labour shortages
are hurting British exports? I think?
“Disappointments in Rubber” The British are still fighting with the
American synthetic industry to get more natural rubber into America. Some
people think that the British negotiators aren’t up to the job.
“’Spivs’ and Currency” There is too much currency in circulation in Britain,
and the popular press has decided that it is because “spivs” are using it to
run the black market. The Economist says
that it is more likely to be Europeans holding onto British currency. It is
also concerned that the initial payment of war damages will inject even more
money, and inflation, into the economy, although bank loan activity is falling
with the rising interest rates.
Furness, Withy and
Company, Ltd, Speaking
of breaking precedent, we usually ignore the company statements at the back of The Economist, as they aren’t really
news, but I thought I’d mention this one, as the ship owning company is quite
disgruntled by the fact that it won’t see many of the 14 ships it has on order
before 1950 due to various delays, that it is upset about rising costs, and it
notes that Britain has, or will have, after the American returns next month, 14
million tons of shipping compared with 16 million tons in 1939, which is a
considerable loss in invisible export earnings, and that the 1.5 million tons
under construction won’t make up the lack, not even accounting for the need to
replace obsolescent ships.
Flight, 11 December 1947
Leaders
“Education or Specialisation?”
“Education or Specialisation?” Iron
and Steel had an editorial about how the schools are getting too
specialised and Flight wants to talk
about this. My French Novels prof goes on about this, and I made the mistake of
bringing it up with Uncle George at Thanksgiving and got the
hundred-year-mystery-tour version of this debate about whether student
engineers are not being taught enough engineering, or else too much. He did
this thing where he put his hands up as though he were steering a car (which is
a frightening thought as you must know, unless you’ve never let George drive),
and pretended to swerve across the road. “Look out polytechnics!” He yelled.
“Almost got you, red bricks!” Then, “I’m sorry, comprehensives!” At which point
Grace said something about putting the brandy away, so we never got to the
point of sideswiping the grammar schools and colliding head on with gymnasiums.
“Progress” The new Seagull won’t be used for spotter-reconnaissance duties,
but only air-sea rescue, which reminds Flight
that there was a Vickers-Supermarine Seagull twenty-five years ago, too,
and it was very different from the new one, and that’s progress.
“Civil Aviation” They’ve reorganised the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
“Prestwick Progresses” Prestwick is an airport in Scotland. It is
closer to America than London. That’s why planes used to land there. (It’s why
I landed there. Maybe I will again, in a few hours. But not on purpose.) Planes don’t like landing
there, because it is in the middle of nowhere. (aka "Scotland.") Prestwick doesn’t
like that. Prestwick is owned by a consortium that includes the Duke of
Hamilton and the Earl of Selkirk. They are very rich. Rich people tend to get
what they want. That is why Prestwick is progressing towards something that is
not “Being closed,” and why the Prestwick Pioneer gets a two-page story. They
also overhaul and convert Dakotas, which sounds like real work, and have a
contract to put a Nene in a Liberator. To test it some more, I guess. I don’t
know why they couldn’t just use a Lancaster, and I’m not sure that I would if I
could have been bothered to read the paragraph! It also has an instrument
flying school, which also sounds like real work. In shorter news, but on the
same page, the “FBI Register is out,” which is much less exciting when you
remember that in Britain “FBI” is Federation of British Industries. One of
those industries is Fibreglass, Limited, started by Chance Brothers, way back
in 1930, but kept secret in the war years, when fibreglass was used to make
filters and insulation. Hugh Chance got up at a cocktail party and mentioned
that the company has also licensed Owens-Corning patents since 1938, when it
started making fibreglass fabrics, and have an arrangement with Pilkington Brothers to pursue the textiles side of things. Reggie says that fibreglass is
super, super itchy, but if the designs are nice, well, who knows? Fashion is a
cruel mistress.
 |
| They do not, in fact, make clothes out of fibreglas. Source (Pinterest), model not identified. |
Here and There
Britain exported £11 million in
aircraft “from January to October, 1947.” That’s a big number and a stupid statistic!
 |
| Who needs ten month statistics for anything? |
The Ambassador is much faster than Flight
said last week. Flight regrets
the error. Field-Marshal Montgomery was the guest star at the opening of
Johannesburg Airport, because Lillian Gish wasn’t available. Leonard Newell,
the 54-year-old development engineer at Percival, has died. Parliament is up in
arms over the suggestion that some foreign countries (namely Russia) mount
guards on their planes at Northolt, because it is un-British.
Australian National Airways has recently moved 254 sheep from the
Outback to the National Sheep Show. If I were Australian, I’d be trying to hide
under my seat right now. I think Flight printed
this to get back at them for taking all the migrants. . . Aries II is off to South Africa to do science-flying with a new
direct-reading compass. The Australian flying dentist recently had an air
accident, when he was warned off Darwin because a Lancastrian was coming in. Since
he only had an hour’s fuel, he landed in a swamp, and there was an air search,
and he and his passenger is fine, but his plane is not, and I suspect that he
is very, very mad. George Truman and
Clifford V. Evans have just finished their round-the-world Piper flight with a
leg from Canada to California.
 |
| The only picture I could find is in Aero Digest. This is not how to be famous! |
The Prime Minister of Ulster has refused to intervene in the strike at
Short and Harland. There is to be an aircraft’s instrument show in London.
American
Newsletter, by “Kibitzer” “Progress Review of the ‘Heavies:’ Fourteen out of Sixteen Have Flown:
Hughes’s Gesture of Defiance”
‘Kibitzer’ says that Americans are following the Brabazon I with great
interest, because they have built many, many “Heavies” of over 115,000lbs auw,
and think that the British are probably underestimating how hard it is to
develop them. Americans are quite proud that the XF-12, B-32, B-29, B-50, DC7, Mars, B-19, Constitution, B-35, B-40, B-36, DC-99
and Hughes Hercules have all flown, that the B-47 soon will, and that the
(Boeing) B-52 probably will, eventually.
 |
| I think that's the first mention here of the Buff. I'm not linking to all those planes, by the way. It's too much work. |
There may also be a Lockheed six-engined jet transport of 140,000lbs, a Boeing commercial flying boat of150,00lb, a Consolidated cargo-cum-transport boat of 150,000lb, and a Martincommercial boat of 165,00lb, too. These would all be very big, but well short of the 200,000lb+ weight class of some of the biggest existing planes, and it might be that the new “heavies” will continue to be lighter until we have more experience with types like the Brabazon I and the Consolidated XC-99. Of the existing types, the F-12, DC-7, Mars and Constitution are all in very limited demand, mainly because either the plane itself, or the engines are too large and inefficient to make them economical. The B-36 bomber will be watched with interest, because the Air Force needs it, so it will fly in numbers and tell us something about 200,000lb+ airplanes. I have to wonder what “Kibitzer’s” been poppin’ to think that the Hercules has “flown,” but that’s a question we ask about Uncle Henry all the time! His point is that the Brewster Committee was terrible for trying to investigate it (Uncle Henry and Howard Hughes, shady? I’ve gone as white as Mother’s dreams!), and Howard is a hero for taking off in it. (That’s the “gesture of defiance.”) Not a wise hero, “Kibitzer” thinks, but a hero.
“Civil Air Operations: An Appreciation of the Long-term Problems to be
Faced by Airline Operators and Aircraft Designers: Precis of a Talk Given by
Mr. N. E. Rowe, given to the Royal Aeronautical Society” Airlines need to be
more regular and safer. Future traffic has to be forecast accurately before new
airliners are ordered. The number of airliners in service should be minimised.
Various diagrams show how better instruments, better ground control facilities,
and better airplanes interact to make services more regular in bad weather.
“Cymru yn Dangos y Ffordd: ‘Wales Shows the Way,’ with a Little Help
from BOAC” BOAC’s new engine repair shop is in Wales. The way in which repair
shops work is discussed at length. Do you want to know about how you economise
with a degreasing machine by ensuring that the soaking basin is fully loaded
with bolts and washers before it goes in to the hot bath? Then this is the article
for you!
In shorter news, the RAeS threw a party for Mr. Leslie Irvin, and are
hoping to have more, because parties are fun.
“Advanced Amphibian: Structural and Aerodynamic Features of the Most
Recent Vickers-Supermarine Seagull” The Seagull is the one with the
variable-incidence wing, which really is quite exciting. They’ve given it a
speed range of 54mph-260mph, which is probably the widest range of any aircraft
its size and is exactly what you want in a transport seaplane, providing that
it can pay its way on economy. That, I think, will be the problem, because you
not only need all the extra structural elements for the moving wings, but also
the motors and drive mechanisms that move the wings. (It is an AC system with a
BTH engine-driven alternator giving 8.5KW at 200 volts, 400 cycles, 3 phase,
with an emergency system involving a battery and a convertor, in case the
engine fails.) There are all sorts of loads on the wings, including the carriers
for bombs, and a full-span Handley-page slotted flap that must vary in
incidence along with the wing, and a jettisonable fuel tank. The engines are
various makes of Griffon, with water-methanol injection to get it up to 2500hp,
driving a six-bladed contra-rotating prop, which sounds, to me, awful “hot” for a glorified rescue plane!
“GAPAN and BALPA” If you can’t remember what the acronyms stand for,
and, God knows, I can’t, they’re two different kinds of unions or associations
for British pilots, and they recently had an Occasion, although not one
Occasional enough for formal wear unfortunately, because there is nothing like
a pilot in white tie and tails! Meow!
 |
| This is not a hot ship, but it looks like one. |
Civil Aviation News
BOAC recently sent a Short Solent so-called “Severn” soaring South
Africa-ways, scouting soi-distant –I’m going to quit now, because now that I’ve
translated it, you can’t even see what I was trying to do in the first place.
The point is that BOAC is “proving” the Lakes route to South Africa. Again.
Because it didn’t work the first time, and no-one wants flying boats any more,
so why not . . . And now I’m just being silly again. BOAC is moving its
Atlantic base from Dorval to Filton (that didn’t take long!) because of the
dollar. Or Some other reason that doesn’t sound so desperate. (To use the giant
Brabazon assembly hangar, maybe? But won’t that get in the way of building more
Brabazons? Haha.) Lord Nathan has formed a Council of Advisors
to Advise him on Civil Aviation. The preliminary results of the DC-6 accident
investigations shows that gas caused the fires. Faulty arrangements allow gas
being pumped from one fuel tank to another to run into the cabin heating system,
which uses combustion heaters. Changes will have to be made before the DC-6 can
return to service, ending “considerable upsetting of airline schedules” and
“financial loss,” and me being squeezed into a window seat by a middle-aged
American businessman who is very curious about where I “learned to write
Chinese.” I told him that I am just doing a word game out of my copy of Water Margin, which is true as far as it
goes. Belgian Air Transport A.S. has bought 10 Stirlings from war surplus stock and is having them overhauled by AirTech so that they can inflict them on people who are desperate to fly to Peking, which is how Flight says
it, not having been told about the name change, or not willing to make changes for as long as the Koumintang are likely to last there. IATA is
recommending that ICAO expedite the building of Consol radar beacons on Norway,Northern Ireland, Iceland, the Azores, Newfoundland and Bermuda, as already
agreed at the Dublin meeting, as it is possible that the North-Eastern chain of
LORAN beacons may have to be shut down in 1948, when channels are no longer
available to them. BEA is continuing the staff cuts forced by the travel ban,
with an estimated total of 1500 people to leave the Corporation’s service. This
is not as bad as originally feared, due to traffic not being down as far as
expected. Trans-Australia Airlines made a loss in the last quarter. The Croft
Airfield scheme to provide a Continental service from Northeast England has
been abandoned. Now that Qantas is using Constellations on its London-Sydney
route, the Lancastrians are only for cargo. The Constellation service will be
three flights a fortnight. BEA has been giving out cards to passengers to
record their comments about the air service. Matson Navigating Company has been
using DC-4s to fly a San Francisco-Hawaii service since UAL had to withdraw its
DC-6s due to the grounding. Various new airlines, airports, and air services exist,
and the Australians are going to look into testing their pilots to make sure
they are keeping up their skills after the recent DC-3 crash.
Correspondence
F. S. Symondson and Arthur D. Johnson have opinions about older
pilots. P. H. Pimblett thinks that the Vickers Viscount is a terrible idea that
exists only to kill the Ambassador, and, by a simple extension of the logic
(that’s code for “I have no idea what he’s on about”), the Avro Tudor, too. F.
B. Clark thinks that large flying boats are the air-freight carriers of the
future, and “Campanologist” thinks that it will be impossible to standardise
flying aids and blind landing procedures until all the interim devices have
been sorted out. H. R. Bunn, who ran an experimental establishment looking into
parachutes in the last war, writes a long, long letter reminiscing about those
days. “Ventilator” writes that there are too many vehicles running around
London Airport, and that the Airport is trying to get it under control; and
that the reason some wartime airmen aren’t employed is that they won’t apply
for work that needs doing, such as organising all the vehicles running around
the tarmac.
Carol of the Bells, because "campanologist."
The Economist, 13 December 1947
Leaders
“Germany, the Real Issue” It’s communism. See last week. Also, there
are two Leaders on this general tone,
so I can skip a lot of words! I should
mention, although it doesn’t come up until later, that the Germans have
recently been kicking up a fuss about the way that Bizonia,is not remitting all the money received for selling German exports to German
suppliers. The Economist ruefully
admits that this is the case, and says that the Germans shouldn’t get upset, as
the surplus cash accumulating in the Bizonia offices is not being disbursed for
administrative reasons.
“Malthus at Manchester” Winston Churchill said last week at Manchester
that Britain can’t feed 50 million people on domestic production, and can’t pay
its way on exports, due to Socialism, so twelve million Britons must emigrate,
and it is a shame. The Economist thinks
that that is complete rubbish to think that people will emigrate from Britain, driven by hunger. It is certainly not happy with cheap money and
housing drives, but the worst of that folly is behind us, and now we mainly
have to worry about the “erosion of individual liberties,” (on which in further detail see this weeks archives for more details) and will Mr.
Churchill get off his lazy rear end and supply something more than criticism.
“Food for Sterling” Britain needs more food, and the Europeans need
more sales, and are willing to take Sterling. Everyone ought to be fine, except
that the prices Europeans want are too high, and the British are in trouble,
because they can’t be seen to turn down foreign eggs, cheese and bacon when
commons are short in Britain. In the light of the breakdown of Danish talks and
the disappointingly small Irish agreement, The
Economist urges compromise and flexibility. By the way, the Ministry of
Agriculture is going to take 30,000 Polish and Eastern European workers to
cover the gap left by the repatriation of the last German prisoners of war.
Notes of the Weeks
“Congress Against Time” It may seem like Congress is acting slowly,
but it is not.
“Priorities in Overseas Development” The Ministry of Food’s new
Overseas Food Corporation is a mistake, because it gets another ministry
involved, and it is doing dumb things. For example, putting money into the
Ground Nuts Scheme to get mass ground nuts growing (“Peanuts!” Why can’t they
just say “Peanuts!?”) in East Africa while starving West Africa of locomotives
and cars and rails to get more of its peanuts to market. And perhaps East
Africa would prefer to keep its labour for the jute mills, which earn more exports?
It all seems like favouring the British consumer over East Africa. Say what you
will about Socialists. It’s something to see them uniting the colonial masses
and the colonial exploiter! (who don’t get all their own way, as the Malayan
income tax is back.) By the way, in covering last week I unaccountably failed
to mention the strikes in Trinidad and Uriah Butler. Now I have! As I’m on a
roll with exploiting the masses and colonialism, I’ll mention a nine-day wonder
over an “Eastern Cominterm” meeting in Vladivostok to promote the expansion of
communism in East Asia.
Something a bit more contemporary.
At home, The Economist thinks
that the 3 million acres to be reserved for the Armed Forces is not an
unreasonable amount of land, but that more of it should be up in Scotland or
somewhere, and that the Armed Forces are being unreasonable about it. It is
also still insufferably pleased about last year’s decision to drop the 1951London World Exhibition, as it would be too extravagant to build a “worthy
successor” to the Crystal Palace. The
Economist is also pleased that the alien doctors and pharmacists who were
allowed to practice in Britain during the war without “regularising” their
status will be “regularised,” and hopes that the dentists will do the same. It
is all very much an exception from all that “trade union” and “anti alien”
sentiment that’s so common around and about.
Letters
Hartley Shawcross writes to say that the World Court could solve more
of the world’s problems if countries would just submit their disputes to it.
Gilbert Walker has technical criticisms of the article about transport next
year and after that I’ve already put in my discussion. Oops!
From The Economist of 1847
The Economist used to be very
snide about things. This time, it is about people going around and looking at
sewers, drains and cesspits. First, it is horrid that aristocrats are doing it,
because that leads middle class people to follow their example, and do it, too.
Second, all this worrying about sewers is down to the cholera epidemic, and soon
if everyone is trying to drain cesspits to fight cholera, people will get the
idea that it is the Government’s job to fight cholera –and flu, too! Pretty soon, the Government will be everywhere,
and people will lose the fundamental right to –I leave you to fill in the
blank.
 |
| Chinese officials distribute famine relief, 1847. Now that's how you troll an old-time Liberal. Also, am I reading this right? Is The Economist (1847) coming out against public sanitation? |
Books
Usually, this feature is long. Usually, the books reviewed aren’t
histories of the Times of London and
a study of the Italian tax system. (If you want it, your local library or
bookstore might find it if I tell you it is by Sergio Steve.)
American Survey
“The Power to Investigate” We start with some constitutional
vapourings about how the Constitution doesn’t say that endless investigative
committees are the main power of Congress, and, yet, here we are with HUAC and the
Brewster Committee. On the bright side, we now know that General Meyers is
terrible. On the less bright side, we have, depending on where you stand, the
fact that Richard Nixon is sponsoring some legislation about communism being
bad, or that Helen Gallaghan Douglas is sponsoring some legislation giving
witnesses called before the committees right of counsel and cross-examination,
amongst other moves to restrict the work of the committees after the Brewster
blow-up and the Hollywood hearings. Which is bad, The
Economist thinks. The Economist thinks that voters can tell Congress it has gone too far at election time. Hmm.
American Notes
“The Battle for Controls” The revived price control bill that Snyder
was teasing last week has been placed before Congress. Whether it is a good bill
or not, it wrong foots Taft something awful, so there’s that.
There’s two bits on business last year that show that the economy has
been going great guns, one about the Attorney General’s list of organisations
that civil servants can’t belong too without being fired unless the have a very
good reason, and Averill Harriman’s attempt to take charge of civil aviation
from CAB.
 |
| Even accounting for inflation, the American economy is growing like mad. |
The World Overseas
“Deflation in Italy” I’ve already mentioned this, and I’ll say a bit
more about it. Luigi Einaudi, the Vice Premier and the Governor of the Bank of
Italy (but not at the same time, because that would be wrong), is pushing a deflationary
scheme, the main tool of which are increased interest rates and reserve limits,
with any excess of more than 40% of deposits over last year’s total to be used
to purchase government bonds. People wonder whether the country can take the
hardship caused when credit-starved industry underemploys even more people, and
there is the farcical sight of the Communists backing shareholders. (The
communist argument is that the crashing Italian stock market has been
engineered by the di Gasperi government to give Americans a chance to buy up
Italian industry on the cheap.) Unfortunately, the amount of money in
circulation is still increasing. I wonder if Italy has spivs? Probably.
“Finland Works its Passage” Finland might be under the all-too-close
scrutiny of Russia, but as long as it is delivering on its export obligations
to Russia, the Russians aren’t very interested in promoting Finnish communism.
The Finns are poor, but hard working, and their situation is improving quickly,
. . If this seems short, I’ve already dealt with the topics of two
large features, on Uno’s second year and Palestine.
The Business World
“Britain’s Exchange Reserves” The last tranche of the American Loan
will not be froze, in response to the suspension of convertability, after all.
So where does that leave Britain’s reserves? The Americans have become much
more understanding and cooperative since the loan was negotiated, and the
current issue of the Monthly Digest of
Statistics shows Britain’s reserves holding firm. Unfortunately, that has a
lot to do with gold, as exports to the hard currency area declined in the third
quarter. “Invisible” earnings (shipping, tourism, copyrights, banking services,
what have you) might be increasing, as far as can be told, since the numbers
don’t allow them to be disentangled from Britain’s foreign entanglements –in
other words, the money that Britain pays for the privilege of oppressing
Jews/Arabs/both/neither. Hopefully, once Britain stops doing that, things will
get a great deal better. The Economist is
also worried that the usual miscreants (India, Ireland) are spending too many
of their Sterling-areas dollars on American things, and that this more than
offsets the noble restraint of worthy Australia and New Zealand.
“Rubber and Geneva” This is more about the problem of getting natural
rubber into America over the protective hurdles that have been set up around
the synthetic rubber industry. It has a little more to say about the technical
issues –the difference between G.S. artificial rubbers, which compete, not very
well, against natural rubber; the special synthetic rubbers that can be used
where natural rubbers cannot (right now, research may fix that); and recycled
rubber, which actually isn’t rubber at all, but rather more-or-less bulk
filler, due to all the contaminants that come back to the plant with it. The
point of this digression is that recycled rubber shouldn’t count for as much
against import quotas as it does.
I can’t believe this is still going on! The price of rubber is
decontrolled, so the basic protection of the American industry is that the car
tires are required by law to be made of a certain proportion of artificial and
recycled rubber, and no-one wants those
terrible tires. This isn’t like beet sugar versus cane sugar, where no-one
can tell the difference except by price, and you can’t comparison shop and tell
that you, the cake-and-candy-eating American, are any the worse off. This about
your tires doing the little things that matter, like getting you around sharp
corners and stopping you before the intersection!
I suspect that if I looked, I could find some pretty serious road carnage stuff from the late Forties. I don't think we appreciate just how dangerous the roads were in those days.
Business Notes
Once again, I find that I’ve already shared the interesting bits about
the foofaraws over “home rails shares,” Canada’s trade policy and the American
gold scare. There’s good, although boring news about improvements in the way
that steel is being allocated in Britain. The
Economist is upset that Greece, Italy and Poland have been allowed to
devalue their currencies by stealthy schemes involving coupons, which get
around the Bretton Woods Agreement. (The Italian scheme is explained in detail
in a separate feature, if you’re curious about how it all works. God knows I’m
not.) The Economist is also upset
that several companies have made unexpected write-downs in their annual
reports, and that there have been more wage claims. Although they are in
industries that are short of labour and pay below the prevailing rate in competing
industries, stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
“Oil Bunkering Crisis” Some more concrete –and frightening news is
that American East Coast bunker oil suppliers are refusing to enter into
extended contracts due to the increasing shortage of oil. Shipping companies
that converted from coal to oil don’t look so smart now, do they? Asks The Economist. Uncle George says, “Yes,
they still do.”
“The Jute Riddle” India and Pakistan (the eastern bit, specifically)
are in a fight over jute, which is globally short. Indian textile mills are
eager to get Pakistani jute, which seems to be getting in the way of Pakistan’s
attempts to develop Chittigong as an export port (for jute) and India’s
attempts to prevent same, at the same time. Somehow. Also, remember that story
about nuts? People are saying that British official monopoly buyers are doing
the same with copper, buying cheap on the global market, and selling dear at
home.
 |
| Jute (Molokhia) soup |
“Textile Shortage and Labour” I know, I know, you’ve heard about this
so many times before. It’s still news, although it is not entirely clear why exports are falling. A much more interesting
wrinkle is that one possible solution is to convert more semi-automatic looms
to automatic working. To do this, the British industry will need many more
automatic looms, and the talk is that some mass production factories for
automatic looms should be set up in Britain (because they are mainly imported,
I think?), which will then be supplied to the more “progressive” firms on easy
terms.
 |
| A Northrop Loom. By švabo - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5102137. Interesting to find a Northrop working with a Draper, although I suspect that only the Northrop is related to the later tech giant. |
And that’s it, since this time around the financial news has been
pushed to the bottom of the page. As I’ve said, I’m going to return to The Economist next time, to follow the
fate of the Odeon group –and also tedious stuff like global deflation.
Aero Digest, December 1947
N. F. Silsbee, and R. E. Saunders, “Cold Weather War” Since the
Communists are poised to attack America across the wintery wastes of the north
polar regions, it is time to head off to Alaska to find out how the USAF is
getting ready for a “Cold War” that is not “Just a figure of speech.” Mainly,
it is getting ready to defend America by attacking Soviet Russian industrial
targets; the Russians are getting ready to do that, too. Neither side is ready,
but the Russians are further ahead, except in minor areas like planes and
bombs. To show how seriously the Air
Force takes this, Nathan Twining has been sent from Wright Field to Alaska to
look after the B-29s there, and five air groups tasked with experimental
flying.
 |
| Since we've pretty much given up on journalism here. |
Guest Editorial
Eddie Rickenbacker, “Air Power is Peace Power” If America had all the
planes, it could blow up everybody, and everybody would know it, and there
would be no war.
Talk of the Trade
Someone has a new airfield, some airlines bought planes, a guy has a
new address, TWA gave its sucking-up award to Nathan Silsbee.
Washington
Information with Richard E. Saunders
Fresh from thinking about Alaska for a minute, Richard develops the
key point that the Marshall Plan means that America needs to buy more planes.
Makes sense to me!
Reaction-Powered
Planes and Missiles
“Lightweight Turboprops” Americans have developed a number of these,
of 500 to 750 brake horsepower equivalent, including the Flader XT-33, Wright
XT-35, Northrop-Hendy XT-37, Allison XT-39, and other units “still in
development.” “As far as is known, in this class they easily lead the world.”
That is because the big British turboprops, the Python, Proteus and Clyde, are
much bigger, and the Theseus rather bigger. However, the British have developed
smaller plants in the 500—1500 brake horsepower equivalent class, including the
Bristol Janus, de Havilland H.3, Mamba, Dart and Naiad. These either can’t be
very good engines because of the Americans leading the world, or else the 500—750hp
class is different from the 500—1500hp class. The article then gives a few
details of the British plants, all of which could have been taken from very old
issues of Flight (no mention of the
Viscount), before describing the “Flader turboprop,” of which I’ve never heard.
It’s very promising, Aero Digest says.
It then goes on to point out that after all the development work on all those
bombers, only the North American B-45 seems ready for orders. Meanwhile, the
Russians took several German jet bombers, and with their unlimited development
money, are sure to field a new jet fighter any minute now. Also, the Douglas
Skyrocket is nice, and GE has a turbine division.
Postscript
Editorial
 |
| Journalism? Integrity? We don't do that here. |
Frank Tichenor, “Sound Advice” If I had to guess the reason that there
is an editorial down here, it is that the “Reaction-Powered Planes and
Missiles” feature couldn’t be stretched to the bottom of the page, so Tichenor
was tasked with coming up with an “editorial.” It consists of Tichenor telling
us what his friend, Major C. C. Moseley, thinks. Major Moseley (he’s the
president of the Cal-Aero Technical Institute) says that America needs more
planes, not more tradespeople. So instead of training tradesmen, it should give
subsidies to private schools that train tradesmen.
J. Austen King, Project Engineer of Compressors, Ranger Aircraft
Engines, “Axial Flow Compressors Are Simple” I had no idea that Ranger had
anything to do with compressors, axial or otherwise, but they do, and here is
J. Austen to explain how they work, using the Westinghouse XB19 as an example. It
looks like a solid article to me –by which I mean that it has equations!
“The B-D Computer” Minneapolis-Honeywell has developed a device that automatically
calculates bearing or direction from an omnidirectional radio beacon few
inputs.
Alexander Klemin, “Helicopters by Night” Alexander talked to his
buddies about flying helicopters at night. It turns out that it is possible,
but it helps to have lights.
Rotary Wing World
Frank Piasecki says that he’s ready to sell some helicopters. Kellett
says that its helicopters will be swell. Kamen Helicopters has a contract to
supply the Navy with an experimental type with automatically feathering rotors.
 |
| The first Minneapolis-Honeywell computer! First you get the name, then, later, you get the technology. It's kind of like artificial intelligence. |
Mather M. Eakes, Jr., Aviation Editor, Daily Oklahoman, “Overhauling Jets for the Air Force” Eakes went
down to Tinker Field to see how the Air Force overhauls jet turbines. They do
it with care. I’m not being dismissive. There’s no information here! I know, I know, I'm never satisfied. First I'm complaining about being told about how you organise a degreasing heater, now I'm complaining that there aren't enough details. That's because I'm a woman, and I'm never, etc., etc. And if you nod along to that . . Grr!
Bo Lundberg, Acting Director, Aeronautical Research Institute of
Sweden, “’Bear-up Requirements for Aircraft: ‘Fatigue Strength,’ the Engineers
Call it, But Under any Name at all it Means Better, more Dependable Performance”
Another rather mathematical, but very short article about an important subject.
What’s going Up
The monthly feature about stuff Aero
Digest read about in its competition includes bits about the YB-40, FJ-1, the
Ryan Navion, the Silvaire Sedan, the Heston A.2/45 AOP, winterised C-82s and
L-13s, and the planes that showed up at Radlett.
Ira F. Angstadt, Technical Editor, “The Air Policy Commission Hears
Them All” Angstadt briefly summarises the very wide range of testimony given to
the President’s Air Policy Committee.
Takeoffs and Turns
Yet another page of short blurbs, of which the only interesting one is
that Pan American’s Trans-Pacific Clippers are to get SCR 718 radars.
W. Nicholls, “Determination of Gross Weight,” Yet another very short
technical article, this one on the difficulties of finding the gross, all up
weight of commercial aircraft.
Hangar Hints
More blurbs, and not even any good pictures. No, strike that, the
“close quarters hacksaw” made by inserting a hacksaw blade in a piece of tubing
is—
 |
| I can't believe this magazine is going to make it to the Korean War. |
--A great way of summarising the theme of this issue: We have no
money, we’re not really trying, please tell the Government to buy lots of
planes.
Fortune, December 1947
Fortune has decided to go
the “humbug route” this Christmas, with a nice picture of Christmas gifts on
the front cover –and an article about Thorstein Veblen inside. If you don’t get
the joke, Veblen is an old-time thinker who was on about how American consumer
habits are about building social status. So you buy expensive stuff to show how
rich you are, only with more sociological jargon to make it sound impressive.
“The Return of the Banker” It’s a good thing that this isn’t a very
useful article, because I dropped this issue in a puddle. I have no idea what
this article is about but considering that I’m talking about the “Return of
Money” next week, I don’t care, either, because it’s basically the same thing.
Interest rates are going up, inflation is going, hopefully, down.
“A Tale of Two Committees” The President’s
Civil Rights Committee was founded by Charles E. Wilson, President of GE, and
if you think that’s odd, the Committee is committed to the idea that civil
rights mean that Coloured Americans get better jobs, and can afford to buy more
things, which is good for GE.
“The Beginning of Leadership” Now that it’s the American Century, the
State Department has to lead the world, from its new headquarters at Foggy
Bottom (which is a real name.) It also has to be very high-browed about it,
which is why Fortune commissioned
Henry Koerner to paint Europe. (Symbolically, if you were turning pages looking
for your “Rape of Europa.”)
 |
| High minded. . . |
 |
| . . And smutty. This is from the Unilever article, so I guess we know what sells soap! |
Okay, yes, that’s symbolic, too, but not as symbolic as two paths
diverging in a burnt orange wood. As for
the substance of the article, George Marshall is a man; so are George Kenna,
Chip Bohlen, Robert Abercombie Lewis, Norman Armour, Charles Saltzman, Willard
Thorp, Dean Rusk –and, oh, forget it, it looks like the article is going to
have a head shot and three sentence biographies of everyone who works at the
State Department, and we just cross the English coast.
“The World of Unilever” Didn’t we just talk about soap the other day?
Unilever is a large and complicated world conglomerate dedicated to turning
mainly tropical, edible fats into soap and sometimes margarine.
“K. F. Cashes In” Fortune checks
in to find out how Uncle Henry and Mr. Frazier put in such an impressive
performance in making up the enormous gap between car production and car demand
this year. Fortune concludes that it
is because Uncle Henry’s “expeditors” are loose on the country, finding him all
the steel he needs, or, at least, more steel than the Big Three can find.
Bearing what Uncle George has to say about the “expeditors,” I bet you can come
up with an alternative explanation.
 |
| Kaiser-Frazer: Non-stop party till the shareholders' money runs out! |
“Madison Ave NYC” A very nice spread about the New York advertising
business.
 |
| The only reason I'm putting this in is that I like the colour composition of the photos. |
“Eureka Williams” Another company history, this time of the oil burner
and vacuum cleaner company that made good money back in the Twenties, when
there was a vacuum cleaner salesman on every street,
Eureka Williams survived the Thirties, somehow, and is now trying to set
itself apart from Hoover and Electrolux by getting into the whole “design”
thing, in a novel departure.
 |
| Design! |
“Let Europe Consider the Swiss”
The Swiss are like the Finns. Their economy isn’t collapsing, so they
are “hard working,” and “economical.” Not like those excitable Latins! Also,
cuckoo clocks, cows, giant bugles, mountains, mountain lakes.
 |
| Swiss highways through the ages. |
“Business in Isotopes: Tagged Atoms from Oak Ridge Grow into a
Business: Tracerlab of Boston Grows up with Them”
Tracerlab sells the radioactive isotopes produced in the reactors at
Oak Ridge by putting a can of materials in a reactor for anywhere from a few
days to a few months, at the end of which some of the material inside has been
converted into variant, radioactive isotopes of the original. It is only two
years old, surprise, surprise.
20171225_134210985_iOS.jpg
Co-founder Wendell Peacock invented the “Autoscaler,” a variation on
the Geiger Counter that allows the operator to count the number of atomic decay
events in a sample. It uses this to put radioactive elements into various
compounds, which can then be “traced.” For example, the compound in the
illustration above contains a radioactive phosphorus atom, inserted into it by
Tracerlabs. The company that asked for the job wanted to know if phosphorus was
an active element in its insecticide, and when no radioactive phosphorus showed
up in the viscera of a bug killed its product, concluded that it wasn’t. No
isotopes have been released for commercial use, yet, but, when they are,
Tracerlab wants to build some nice devices, including a film-thickness control
device (for depositing uniform thin-film coats on surfaces.)
 |
| If you follow the links, you'll find that Tracerlabs' original facility is a highly radioactive toxic waste site, that they built a lot of radiation detectors in the 1950s, and that they got involved in radiological espionage in 1948. Also, someone named Dr. Lloyd Zumwalt worked there. |
Tracerlab started out as “the Industrial Electronics Laboratory,”
staffed by four men just out of Radar Labs: John R. Niles, Homer S., Myers, W.
Raymond Gustafson, and Ray Ghelardi. The problem was that they had a good name,
but no work, until Peacock showed up. With the help of Bill Barbour, an Air
Force man with Raytheon connections, they were able to turn Peacock’s ideas
into a business. Barbour had money from a flyer on Raytheon stock, and
connections, investing $26,000 in getting Tracerlabs underway. As you might
expect, their main customers are still hospitals. They also make Autoscalers
for customers like the Chalk River Labs.
Reading between the lines, I have a feeling that they’ve gone a bit huckster,
selling a complete line of containers and holders and lead bricks to their
customers. In the future, they imagine isotopes being used in all kinds of industrial
processes. For example, they are trying to sell France on an isotope-based
control for steel pouring. Add phosphorus, put a detector above the crucible:
when the radioactivity falls to a certain point, enough phosphorus has been driven
off the charge for the pour. They also think that isotopes might be used to
make preserved food safer, by irradiating it and killing bacteria,
“CARE, Inc.” It is Christmas, so it is time to talk about the Committee for American Remittance to Europe, Inc., which is sending all those CARE packages to Europe this Christmas. The idea of the article is that CARE is a very American Century charity, because it has assembly lines.
Then it is on about Veblen, apparently the greatest thinker (about the
sociology of money) of the Nineteenth Century after Marx. I won’t say much
here, because I would probably not sound like a very nice young lady if I
shared my frank opinions.
Shorts and Faces
“$2 Is $2 –Or is it?” US Steel is the first of several companies to
make novel financial statements. US Steel is increasing its depreciation allowance
over the established figure because of the advance of technology. Du Pont de
Nemours is doing the same, characterising it as “accelerated depreciation” on new plant, not even installed. It is
possible that Price Waterhouse will refuse to endorse US Steel’s 1947
statements until there is a new national standard for calculating depreciation,
and everyone can follow it.
“Where Are the Fish” Francis Hughes, a “tall, blond and quaintly spectacular
Englishman, who manufactures nautical instruments, safety-at-sea devices, and
echo-sounding equipment,” has developed a fish-detecting echo-sounding equipment
for finding shoals of fish in deep waters. It is the only way, he thinks, of
countering the steady decline in the world’s fisheries which has taken place
since 1913.
“They Call it Optional” Car manufacturers are increasingly making
optional equipment effectively mandatory, and jacking up prices well above
list.
“Need a Vice President” Handy Associates, of New York, specialises in
finding $10,000+ men for industry, such as, of course, vice-presidents.
 |
| In case you were wondering, Francis Hughes has dropped out of history. |
“Tuning in Profits” General Instruments, of New Jersey[?], makes 35% of
the variable condensers that go into 90% of radios in this country. They have
been in the business for twenty four years, are doing well, and are just about
invisible, because who even knows what a variable condenser is. Considering
that 24 radio manufacturers have gone bankrupt since the middle of the year,
their record profits are especially good news for investors. It is spending
half a million to research television components this year, and in 1945 bought
F. W. Sickles, of Chicago, a manufacturer of permeability tuners and radio
frequency and intermediate frequency coils. They go in televisions, maybe?
“For Immediate Delivery” The Shorts
and Faces staff have tracked down one Lorne Pacey, who, it turns out, is a
Canadian who buys construction materials in the United States at a high price,
and then sells it in Toronto at an even higher price, as much as $12/keg of nails. He knows his way around
the Foreign Exchange Control Board, has American partners, and seems to be as
shady as the day is long.
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