Postblogging Technology, January 1948, II: Demand Outpaces Supply

Mayhem! I have no idea what this is about. Maybe?

R_.C_.,
Vancouver,
Canada


Dear Father:

First of all, thank you for your kind offer, which I've decided to decline. I know that I cried during our phone call, and it's really dirty pool to turn around and say, "Oh, it's not so bad," but my sisters have been a rock! We went over my finances, and have concluded that I should be able to complete my undergraduate degree if I just get a job. (Gasp! I know!) Law school is another matter, and I may be begging you to revisit your offer next year! So there's no need for you to get into trouble with the family --they'll know that it's you, even if my fiance doesn't figure it out and fink, which he might, because he's a rat. 

So, no money from you, and my parents can just grit their teeth at their daughter getting some plebian job (Mom will throw a fit!). It's not as though they've grounds to stand on. They disowned me. (And please let's not get into tawdry details, as my fiance has less attachment to me than his damned dachshund.) 

On the other hand, (and here Ronnie puts on absolutely her sweetest, puppy dog eyes and leans close), if you could put a word in with any employers who might find me worth a bit of a premium on sixty-five cents an hour, that would be swell! Because my first stab at this has me working behind a soda counter, and it turns out that work is a lot of work!

Yours,

Ronnie.

The Engineer, 16 January 1948

A Seven-Day Journal

he Government has announced a 20% cut in the steel allocation to the shipbuilding industry next year. The industry is very upset and thinks that it will cause hardship in Belfast. Vickers-Armstrong and Sulzer Brothers have an agreement under which Vickers-Armstrong will manufacture Sulzer engines for locomotives at their Barrow-in-Furness works. The Thames Conservancy Board will be making plans for controlling building and development in designated riverside lands where flooding is likely. They have also done some dredging, which helps with agriculture, since all of that mud is fertile, and have made progress with upgrading sewer outlets. They are being neglected, which is causing some concern.

“Civil Engineering in 1947, No. 1” The most exciting new dams are at Claerwen, St. Saviours’s, Guernsey, and Lochalsh, although much progress has been made in repairing and renovating water supply schemes that were neglected during the war, even if they don’t lead to exciting pictures. Also impressive, the new locks on the Mersey Docks. Very exciting when actually built will be the Tyne Tunnel, Severn Bridge, and Port Talbot.

Lochalsh dam, courtesy of the Beebs.

“Electrical Engineering in 1947, Part III” Given Uncle George’s interest, I looked at the back three issues.  The first installment was concerned with the problem of providing new generating equipment, the coal shortage, and “load spreading,” while the second reviewed hydroelectric generating plant, all installed up in Scotland, because that is where the water is, and the high-tension lines that transmit the electricity to the South, where the demand is. So that’s not quite where his interest is, and neither is this one, I think, which is mainly about “switch gears,”: Or, as they say in America, transformers. You can’t have an all-electric factory without a very powerful transformer to “step down” the voltage from high tension lines to something that motors and lights can use, and there has been great progress in air-cooled and oil-cooled transformers. I don’t know? Does this seem like something Uncle George would want to throw money at? It seems like very “traditional” electrical engineering, the kind of thing where we would probably end up buying at the top of the market. (The Economist must be rubbing off on me, as that jargon came out of my brush like it made sense!)

I'll never forget Professor Axen reminiscing about swimming in the PCB-laden insulating oil of a big transformer during a summer job in the 1950s. "Never did me any harm" said a guy who could have modeled Monk Mayfair.

“Liege Bridge Rebuilding” All the bridges across the Meuse at Liege were blown up in 1940, and only replaced during the war by two temporary highway bridges. (Actually, if you read down, the Coronmeuse Bridge, built in 1930, was only damaged by the demolition, and rebuilt during the war, then blown up again in 1944.) Bridge rebuilding started in 1946, and now there is one semi-permanent steel bridge, the Boveri, and two permanent concrete ones, the Coronmeuse and Pont des Arches. The Boveri Bridge was erected in five-and-a-half months at a cost of about £54,000.

Francis McMurtrie, “Naval Construction in 1947” It must be a sweet gig to write this article over and over again for all the annuals! The Italian navy grew quite a bit last year, but that’s because everyone was giving them surplus minesweepers, for minesweeping. No-one knows what is going on in Russia, although additional Kirov-class cruisers are said to be nearing completion, as well as the Molotov light cruiser. They have also taken over numerous Japanese light units up to destroyer sized in the Far East, and are rehabilitating seven prewar destroyers. –I’m going to give up on this now, because while there is some new construction and important refits going on in the Swedish, Spanish and Netherlands navies, which follow, there are no really interesting technical details. So go find yourself a copy of Brassey’s, because this girl is just going to embarrass herself.

The caption says that the Gotland is launching a Hawker Osprey S 9, which had a license-built Mercury in place of the Kestrel. Anyway, point is, the "Navies in review" beat was pretty damn boring in 1948. Don't worry, though, it gets exciting again soon!

“Some Locomotives of 1947” Now that’s a title! A very cute little “crane locomotive,” built by Barclay, for repair work for Tata, leads off, and there are also some steam engines build by W. G. Bagnall for the Tanganyika Railway, which sounds very romantic, but, by and large, it is  just more locomotives of the usual sort.

Per Wikipedia, "Paraffin locomotives," which I have just now heard of, were one of Bagnall's specialties, although Google Image search provided me with this Ruston's model, used in the Waltham Abbey Gun Powder Mill because it doesn't shoot sparks out of its funnnels. Source is here.

“Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering in 1947, Part III” For some reason the general review is devoted almost entirely to the high-power diesel machinery of the Willem Ruys, a Dutch ship launched this year, about which we've already heard, but I'll mention again that it has a modish economiser-like arrangement to extract a bit more heat from the exhaust gas. And it has anti-rolling tanks, about which the Admiral has tried to educate me. Is this a first for commercial use? Then, having used up the first two of three pages The Engineer was willing to give the subject in this issue, the author complains that there isn’t enough space to talk about all the shipbuilding activity in the detail it deserves.

Leaders

“Wages and Rations” The TUC wants higher wages and constant prices, but it is dumb, because we need to import food and aren’t exporting enough coal and textiles. (The engineering industry is doing just fine, says The Engineer.)

“Locomotive Developments” The December 26^th issue featured a new diesel-electric locomotive built for LMS. An article this month shows that diesel-electrics in the United States have a higher utilisation rate than steam locomotives. Does that mean that diesel-electric should replace steam in Britain? No: diesel-electrics are too heavy and long for their power, and we have coal, not diesel.

Obituary

Reginald Kirshaw “Rex” Pierson gets a long obituary; much longer than in Flight. His first plane was the Vimy, his Victoria evacuated “the whole of the civil population of Kabul” in 1929, his Vildebeest dropped torpoedos, and his Wellington was famous.

Barnes-Wallis? Never 'eard of him. This is the high-altitude bomber variant, the Wellington VI. 

Letters

G. Stansfield writes to share his concerns about safety inspections under the 1937 Factories Act. W. C. Kennett points out that the idea that the notion that 90% of the heat in a coal fire is wasted, is an old wives’ tale, and easily rebutted. A. Hoare thinks that the conference about “what makes people like to work” was a waste of time, since people don’t like to work, while “Tonsor” thinks that everyone could make their safety razor blades last much longer if they were just more frugal.

“London Transport’s Plans” A net increase in 500 busses from the current total of 9000 once the three-stage bus purchase plan of 4000 busses is completed. Several new railway lines, and the relaying of five miles of track to ease the bottlenecks at Harrow-on-the-Hill and Preston Road. A unified all-station broadcast network to alert passengers to delays on the Underground, and telephone system to allow drivers to report delays. One-hundred-forty-three new cars, and a shortwave radio service so engineers can communicate on the job.  

“Prime Movers in 1947, No, II” The Engineer went to Sulzer Brothers’ works in Switzerland, and saw a new diesel with turbosupercharged air injection, and an experimental gas turbine for ships that has all the neat-o features you can’t put on airplanes, like economisers. They were also told that free piston engines aren’t worth the bother.

Then they went to the National Gas (Turbine) Establishment and saw a high-pressure steam turbine and a German gas turbine with water-cooled blades and rotors. (The blades are hollow, and fill up with water by centrifugal force. Although there is no circulation, steam comes off at the far end, and is “taken off for auxiliary purposes.” They are also working on cast turbine blades, of Vitallium. The Pametrada Research Station, under Dr. T. W. F. Brown, is working on a marine gas turbine of 3500hp, and, in particular, a way of reversing it. They think that an ahead and astern hydraulic coupling working through reduction gearing is the most promising solution. Two, opposing couplings can be neutralised against each other to prevent turbine overspeeding.

“The New Werkspoor-Lugt Engine” Dr. G. J. Lugt, of the Diesel Engine Department at Werkspoor, has invented a new kind of diesel engine that is intended as an “ideal type” of engine, cheap to build, maintain and operate, able to use any kind of fuel, while using very little lubricant. It is a straight-through, two-cycle, double-acting engine with valves ingeniously operated by a rocking arm off a shaft from the piston rods of the scavenging pumps. Because the old kind of gear-driven camshaft was too complicated, you see.

“The Steel Situation” Sir Stafford Cripps’ statement on steel is a comprehensive survey. If Britain hits its 1948 target of 14 million tons, it will be a record, but it still won’t be enough, even leaving aside the fact that there is also a shortage of steel-finishing capacity. The vast needs of the export and import substitution programmes must take priority for steel, followed by shipbuilding and agricultural machinery, and Britain must also export a million tons of steel because of trade. Also, steel plants need new investment to keep on producing at this rate, and even increase production. Construction will lose two-fifths of its 1947 steel allocation, shipbuilding, one-fifth, and the gas industry “ a little less.” But if enough coke and scrap is available, the targets might be exceeded. It is also not clear how much of the original £12 million investment programme will survive the Capital Investments Programme of 1948.  In shorter news, Sir John Anderson is to be the new head of the Advisory Committee on Atomic Energy, and the International Congress of Engineering Manufacturers will be held in Paris in October.

Surprise!

C. Eatough, “Modern Cutting Tools and Machine Tool Design, No. II” Modern cutting tools cut harder steels with carbide-tipped edges. (Although the tool has to be properly designed, or everything you gain from faster cutting is lost in resharpening the tool.) Surprisingly, this doesn’t mean that they have to press harder; but, rather, cut faster. So, they have to spin faster, about which more in a bit, after the author talks about getting rid of the chips, as they are formed. Because that’s hard. Spinning faster also means spinning slower sometimes, for reasons that are so obvious that they don’t have to be explained in a way that makes sense to me. That means that the tools have a higher speed range. You’d think that this would make “stepless” electric control idea, but, no, it hasn’t proven itself yet. Instead, let’s talk about mechanical gearboxes. There are a variety to choose from, thanks to all the people who work on gearboxes that don’t go on machine tools. Some are better than others. But! This is tricky: Some are only better if you have properly trained operators! It depends on whether they have clutches or not.

I tried to put the part we care about (electronic control) last, in case your brain bounced off that long paragraph, but didn’t quite make it.

Industrial and Labour Notes

The Chancellor’s speech about how astounding the engineering industry is, and how it should get all the steel, is so important that we hear about it again. The National Coal Board says that the cost of the 46 million tons of saleable coal obtained (I’d like to say “won,” but The Engineer has no truck with that fancy way of talking) in the first quarter of last year cost £87 million to produce and was sold for £89 million, giving a profit of you-can-add. However, in the second quarter the numbers were 46 million tons won for £92 million spent, and sold for £89 million, leaving a loss, which was due to the five-day week being introduced in March, but the new prices not going into effect until September. The wage bill was £57 million in the first quarter, £60 million in the second, and the average weekly earnings per wage-earner was £6 14s 11d in the second quarter. Operating expenditures were £12 million in the first quarters, £14 million in the second, and the major charge other than that was £13 million in interest payments to former coal owners.

The Engineer’s coverage of the Russian agreement has more details on the kinds of engineering equipment Britain sold them, which includes 4 pile drivers, 48 transformers, and “10 sets of oil-purifying apparatus.” I think an American business writer can be legally shot for saying “oil-purifying apparatus.” A big, big, thumb-sucking bit about what the PEP (Political and Economic Planning surveys) thinks about “Wage Policy and Incentives” has no numbers in it –it’s an opinion survey, for God’s sake! —so I’m not reading it. There’s also a bit about the union dispute between the upstart National Union of Winding Engine Men, the National Union of Mineworkers, gets me to the point of knowing that there are 4000 winding-machine operators in Britain, and that at some point in the future they might belong to one or the other union, and in the mean time they are not striking.

French Engineering News

The SNCF says that 290,623 rail trucks were loaded in France in the week of 27 September—3 October, which was up 37,000 over the corresponding number in 1946, and 12,000 more than in 1938. SNCF still has 30% fewer cars than before the war and could not fill demands for 40,500 cars in the same week. An inserted editorial points out that inflation is bad for business, and that the government isn’t doing enough about it, before moving on to point out that the monthly production of iron ore in the first half of 1947 averaged 1.6 million tons, with a labour force of 23,000. Production of iron in France in the same period was 2,393,00 tons, and of steel was 2,912,000 tons, of which just over half was Thomas steel. Figures for “the first eleven months of 1947” show an increase over the same period last year, and an approach to the 1938 figures. The column then grinds back over the numbers to give a third set of impossible-to-compare figures, production for the entire year of 1947.

Notes and Memoranda

The Corby Railway Bridge is to be widened. Full statistics of the right-of-way widening in the western region of British Railways says that it will use, among other things (as the lumber baron might want to know) 750,000 sleepers. Presumably you don’t want to know about 100 stations being repainted, or the 260 miles of fencing. The Board of Trade says that the Admiralty is now responsible for allocating timber between shipyards. American steel production in the first eleven months of 1947 was 77 million tons, which was 25 million tons above the output for 1939 and 11 million tons higher than “for the whole of 1946.” Because numbers that you can compare are bad. Bad numbers! Bad! J. Rankin, the works superintendent of the Crewe Locomotive Works of the LMR, has died at 52.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corby_Bridge

Time, 19 January 1948

Letters

Bernard Frank, of Portland, Oregon, doesn’t like Henry Wallace. Herbert C. Wolff, of Chicago, thinks that modern art and pretty much everything else modern is rotten. (Nicola Lubimov thinks that even the movies are going downhill, because the cinematography is no good.) Robert Locke is upset about an article about “Mrs. Sarah Morgan Gardner of Princeton.” Several foreign correspondents write to approve of General Marshall being Man of the Year. Spyros Skouras, of Twentieth-Century Fox, is upset at coverage of Forever Amber. Bob Taft’s comment about the Marshall Plan not being needed because “People don’t completely collapse, they go on living anyway,” is too much for several writers. The publisher writes to us to congratulate himself for the review of business in 1947, published last week, which required couriers on roller skates to scale Times’ headquarters building with grapple hooks, swing from the chandeliers across lava-covered floors, and defuse a ticking time bomb to be in time to make the paper.

National Affairs

“Something for the Boys” The State of the Union Address was –gasp!—a 1948 election campaign speech. (The best part is Taft calling for a tax cut and getting huffy over all the new spending, because “Where is the money coming from?”)

“Second Wind” Major Republican respondents to the State of the Union Address made –gasp!—1948 election campaign speeches. Several people who aren’t running didn’t have responses, but they might be running, so here are the non-responses of Doug MacArthur and Eisenhower. They should run, though, since the Henry Wallace protest vote is probably going to put Massachusetts and New York in the GOP column.

“All or Nothing” Time loves General Marshall, the Marshall Plan, and the GOP. So now that the GOP is inching towards a “Cut the Marshall Plan a bit, just to show we did” platform plank, Time briefly wavers before coming down on an acceptable way of being anti-Marshall. He’s right, but he was awful mean to Congress when he just flat out told them that the whole $6.8 billion was necessary.

“Stronger Voice” Now that some bad people have quit, Congress is fine with giving Voice of America money. (If you were wondering, Bill Benton was a bad person, but George Venable Allen is a good person.)

“For A-Day” What kind of a card do you send for Atom-Bomb Day? We don’t know, but it will happen on 1 January 1953, which is the day on which “we should have an air arm capable of dealing with a possible atomic attack on this country.” And by “deal with,” Thomas K. Finletter and the President’s Commission means “blow up Russia.” (Also worried about A-Day: John McCone, George P.Baker, Arthur Whiteside, and Palmer (“Ed”) Hoyt). The Air Force and Navy are squabbling about who gets to blow up Russia more. It’s very expensive, so if the Air Force gets to blow up Russia the most, the Navy may be held to down around ten large 

The Navy is obviously upset about that, but the aircraft industry can’t keep on going on commercial orders alone. Those would probably only be enough to sustain a single company, and that is not how free enterprise does things. Without Air Force money, no improvements in safety or costs, for example; and the Government has to be involved, anyway, to provide nationwide air traffic control, new airports, and to supervise the CAA, an Air Safety Board, and perhaps an Aircraft Development Corporation to finance the development of new cargo planes, navigational aids and safety devices.

Thank God the world came to its senses before someone suggested something crazy like nationalising BAE, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

 This is the brief of the new Secretary of the Air Force, Stuart Symington, “ex-playboy” and former president of Emerson Electrics in St. Louis. (You may remember Emerson as being the other main culprit in the costs-padding scandal, with Jack and Heintz.) In related aviation news, Major General Laurence Kuter will succeed James M. Landis at the CAB.

“Muckraker’s Progress” Harold Stassen’s muckraking investigation of commodities speculators within the government has found that Ed Pauley, Brigadier General Wallace Graham and Ralph K. Davies are among “about eleven” insiders who have somehow made more than $4 million in profits from commodity speculation. In related steamy politics news, Charlie Michelson has died.

Americana reports that with temperatures in Portland, Maine falling, and in Los Angeles rising, American weather is back to normal. Three P-51s from Godman Field, Fort Knox, Ky., triedto catch a flying saucer. One plane went into an uncontrolled spin anddisintegrated at tree-level, while the saucer turned out to be a weather balloon. In Atlanta, four teenagers on a spree released the brakes on 24 cars, just to see them careen downhill and crash.

Note that, contrary to the received account of the Mantell Incident, the "weather balloon" explanation appears in the press before any mention of Venus. 

International

“Near War Standards” The United States Mediterranean Fleet is being raised to “near war standards,” with a thousand Marines embarked on two landing ships, Montague and Bexar. Meanwhile, Communists around the Mediterranean are being extra difficult (strikes!) and extra-tricky (forming “Peace Fronts” that don’t mention communism.) For example, with women in Naples who must feed their children, “the faded flowerlets who were their dearest pride.”

“Missionary Report” American missionaries from around northern China are gathering at Hangkow, because they feel threatened by Communist “bandits,” who have already shot Martha Anderson of Minneapolis, Esther Nordlund, of Chicago, and Dr. Alexis Berg, of Finland. One Communist Colonel, “Wong,” told Philip Werdal, of Bellingham, Washington, that he could come back if Wallace won the election, or something like that, the important point being that terrible Communists like Wallace.

“The Low Island” 2,327 ton Italian freighter Silvio Onorato has been trapped on the Goodwin Sands for most of the week. The title is a reference to the story (legend?) that they used to be a fertile land called “Lomea,” owned by Earl Godwine until either he or the Archbishop of Canterbury got God upset, and He drowned them. In other fairly inconsequential news, King Gustaf of Sweden is getting quite old, and there is a goulish joke about cannibalism in England.

“Drop by Drop” The French don’t like “Guerre froide” for “Cold War,” and have suggested la guerre perlée instead. Of a little more moment are the demonstrations by the classes moyennes against the new supertax on incomes over 450,000 francs, or $3,798. It is assumed that they will go Gaullist if they don’t get some kind of cut to the supertax.

“Glimpses of a Battlefront” Time correspondent Mary Barber went to Greece to find out about the Battle of Konitsa, only to find that it is over and the Greeks won, but that’s boring, so instead here are her cables of first impressions.

“ERP Anchor” There was a conference in Bizonia about relief measures to keep the western Allied occupation zones going until the ERP begins to flow. It’s basically the same news as The Economist reports (unless it was another conference; they do tend to blend together), only with less pessimism.

“Gunpowder Crumb” The Communists won’t let Russian storytellers talk about old fairy tales like Baba Yaga, so instead they are writing stories about Gunpowder Crumb, who is anti-Soviet, or perhaps the other way, you can’t pay me enough to read this bit. In other news about how terrible Soviet Communism is, the last volume of the Soviet Encyclopedia is out, twenty years after the first, and it is still published by O. Yu. Schmidt, even though you’d expect him to have been purged by now.

The Lady Lovibond is a ghost ship, said to have been wrecked on the Godwin Sands on Valentine's Day, 1748, and to reappear every fifty years, because doomed romance. 

“Lonely Pilgrims” Fighting between Arabs and Jews in Palestine is much less horrible if you give the story a picturesque title.

“The Whole Truth” India is having trouble trying sectarian crimes committed last year, because of sectarian divisions.

“Oblation or Inflation” Shortages of food, food price inflation, and wage controls are making things tough for Buddhist monks in Japan, as the temples have resources they are tempted to sell. 

In Latin America, Brazil’s congress has kicked out its Communist members, Antonio Somoza is senile, or something, and a foreign beggar in La Paz, Bolivia, turns out to have been Stephen Blau, who had a small fortune in art and rare stamps stored away. In Mexico, there is some kind of foofaraw over the oil industry. In Canada, the cost of living is up dramatically, and the Bank of Canada has found a way of tightening money. [Kodak Camera: Ads]

Business

“Bargain Day” General Electric’s price cuts on radios has led to a “bargain day” at radio stores as competitors follow suit.

“The Big Strike” Slick-Urschel Oil, continuing a drillhole begun by Mike Benedum (78), have struct oil at 1700 feet, the deepest deposit ever discovered. The size of the field is unknown, but the test well is giving 500bbl/day of “almost pure gasoline.” The well has been named after Benedum, because he is a great wildcatter, who will soon be drilling under the Gulf of Mexico from a specially-equipped float.

Not "Machine Gun Kelly," but whatever.

“Paradise Lost” Hollywood is losing money and cutting payroll. British export controls and taxes, and the House Unamerican Committee are being blamed.  They are also making cheaper and less controversial films. But Warner and Disney are making money, so it is possible.

“Just Between Friends” Harry Ferguson is suing Ford for violating its patents, because of the breakdown the Ford-Ferguson tractor deal. In news that reminds me of that news, Uncle Henry is launching a third stock offer for Kaiser-Frazer, to raise $12 million for this and that. The stock market, which is waiting for Kaiser-Franz to start making money by selling cars, was not impressed.

“Poor Man’s Yacht” Jack Churchward has a welded steel cruiser. He has sold almost 2000 of them, because they are cheap. This is part of the coverage of the National Motor Boat Show, where plastic boats also showed up.

State of Business reports that the Federal Reserve took a tiny deflationary step by raising the rediscount rate from 1% to 1 ¼% in 9 of twelve Reserve districts. Richard Neison Wishbone Harris, who turned a $5000 investment into the Toni home permanent wave, sold out to Gillett for a total of $20 million in installments, the first payment being $11.5 million in cash. Series E Government Savings Bonds for 1947 were sold over redemptions by a margin of $155 million, raising total public holdings to $30 billion! Monique de la Moissoniere has launched a “circulating library for hats,” where women can rent the “latest and zaniest” for 500 francs a day.

Science, Medicine, Education

“Draw” Florida’s Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine has bred a DDT-resistant housefly, showing that DDT resistance is possible. It is reported that some barnyard flies are already showing natural resistance, while the National Malaria Society’s Journal reports that a study of airport precautions against malaria are quite effective, so there is no need for quarantines.

“Dishonoured Prophets” The New York Times has a story about how its weather forecast ahead of the Blizzard of ’47 predicted “occasional snow.” It’s all the meteorologists’ fault, or, actually, Congress’, since it doesn’t fund the Weather Bureau enough. Chief Forecaster Francis Reichelderfer figures that they need an electronic computer to help their statisticians.

“It Comes Hard” The Commission on Liberal Education of the Association of American Colleges said in a report that the liberal arts are, in fact, hard, because it’s not just a matter of reading novels, and, anyway, modern novels and suchlike are “vulgar and meretricious.” As if I weren’t ashamed of reading Forever Amber enough, already!

“Ada’s Day in Court” Ada Lois Sipuel is a Negro  girl suing  for the right to attend the law school at the University of Oklahoma under “Separate but Equal,” as there is no law school for Coloureds in Oklahoma. The State Supreme Court said that Oklahoma has to do something to allow Sipuel to enroll in a law school next year. Harvard has selected a “Jew, a Negro and a Catholic” to lead its commencement parade this year. There’s a lady on the Cincinnati School Board, which is funny because she is a Republican and doesn’t like unions.

“Catalyst for Health” 65% of Rhode Islanders are enrolled in Blue Cross, which is far ahead of the enrollment rate for federal employees. Blue Cross thinks that that shows that the American businessman “is way ahead of a federal Administration which has preached medical protection for the low-income water-earner for the past 15 years.” Meanwhile, the AMA has given a medal to family doctor Charles Sudan, of Colorado, for promoting public health and the like.

“The Greater Fear: Esther Vincent, librarian of the Northwestern medical School, has a paper in the current Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics arguing that Napoleon was so fearless in battle because he was obsessed with dying of a slow-developing stomach cancer.

“Kickback” The Los Angeles Better Business Bureau recently published a report showing that 70% of the country’s physicians were taking rebates from laboratories, opticians, drugstores and/or medical supply stores. Dr. William H. Leake, of the Los Angeles County Medial Association, agrees.  

Radio, Press, Art, People

“A Day with Television” 1948 is supposed to be “Television’s Year,” so Time watched television all day in New York City the other day, starting with the State of the Union Address at 1:15. Or tried to, as programming was intermittent and included some pretty awful movies. I don’t know if it’s related, but composer Gail Kubik has done a commercial jingle, and thinks other composers are really missing out.

“Synopsis” Allen Funt has a new gig where he talks to people while recording them, surreptitiously while they say dumb things.

“The Old Campaigner” The Hearst papers have launched a campaign against “promiscuous female drinking,” and Time is pleased as punch that it is using a known-to-be-staged photograph to illustrate stories like “BABY ABANDONED BY BARFLY MOTHER.” In perhaps related news, The Daily Iowan did a reader survey and found that their stories were rife with mistakes, that males mentioned in the paper wanted to be called “Mr.,” and, in the related part, everyone liked slanted stories that were slanted their way. Hearst was first with that news.

“The Hand of Foot” Someone named Foot is the editor of the London Tribune. He’s Labour, it’s Socialist. It’s Reds all around.

“Stop Saluting” Salute, originally a military-themed magazine for veterans, has changed its formula, because veterans are fed up with army life. It is now a “picture magazine for men.” Pacific Spectator has lasted into its second year. Thanks; I already have a subscription.

The main article in Art is a profile of Edward Hooper, with several of his photo-realistic canvasses.

Richard Allen Knight seems to have been even more notorious than Johnson, but didn't build
a castle in Death Valley to stay in while he visited his con-man buddy. 

Deanna Durbin is getting divorced; Johnny Weismuller is expected to be divorced; Buff Cobb sued for divorce, and then retracted. Oliver Wendell Holmes used to say smart things, William Z. Foster told the Herald Tribune dishonest things, Rupert Hughes still says smart things, jury’s out on Sinclair Lewis and John Gunther said pretentious things to Elsa Maxwell. Noel Coward is on the mend, Charles Lindbergh on the decline. King Feisal of Iraq broke his leg in a skiing accident in Switzerland, and Carl Sandburg had a birthday party of windy shoulders. (I don't hate the poem. I'm just tired of hearing people quote it when I mention I'm from Chicago.) Zharko Broz has given Marshal Tito a grandson. Van Johnson has had a child by Eve Abbott Wynn Johnson, former wife of his close friend, Keenan Wynn. I think "close" is intended to mean something here. Given how much Johnson reminds me of my fiance, I know what I think! (The worst!) So has James Roosevelt. David Selznick is getting divorced. Richard Allen Knight has died at 49, Richard Tauber at 55, Rex Pierson at 56 (we’ve already heard, but I think it’s news that an obit notice gets into Time’s Milestones feature), and Albert Mussey Johnson. That’s the guy who funded the “Death Valley Scotty” legend for thirty years, if by some chance you haven’t heard of him.

The New Pictures

Times back pages are on fire this week.

Tycoon has John Wayne as a construction engineer who tangles with a Latin American railway magnate “[W]ho dresses for dinner, manages a compound sentence without stuttering, and tries to keep his lovely daughter (Laraine Day) from getting hitched to a steam shovel. The film may have some suspense for Latin Americans, who conceivably could have difficulty believing that censors would permit such a marriage. For U.S. moviegoers, Tycoon has technicolour.”

Thanks, Time. I needed that. (Though I’m going to register a protest. Lovely daughters do sometimes want to marry engineers!)

Eternal Return is a Cocteau movie that is very, very intellectual, but also a good movie.

Books

Grace, in her own imitable way, has the Arnold-of-the-middlebrows style of this column pegged, so it’s probably enough for me to mention that the first page is dedicated to a new life of Robert Louis Stevenson to get the flavour of it. Moving on, we have yet another novel that is supposed to be just-this-side-of-prurient while explaining What the South is Thinking, which is the kind of thing middlebrows like. It’s The Patchwork Time, by Robert Gibbons, and, who knows, it might be a better book than I give it credit for, but I think the odds are against. Time didn’t like it. Fletcher Pratt, The Marines’ War, is going to go down sour if you’ve heard Judith about the Marines and beaches, although most of the review is devoted to how the Japanese lost the war, and not how the Marines (allegedly) won it. F. L. Green’s A Flask for the Journey is about alcoholic drifters, the war, prisoners of war, and spinsters? I like it when professional authors write about alcoholic drifters, because (you fill in the punch line yourself. You’re so much funnier than I am.)

Flight, 22 January 1948

Leaders

“Survival in the Air Age” People say that it is scaremongering to say that America must order more planes is a matter of “survival,” but Flight thinks that Communists are like Nazis, therefore. I wouldn’t go that far, but America does seem boxed in, which may be due to the budget cuts in 1946 and 1947, but, whatever, blame Communism. What’s the worst that can happen?

“The Tudor Report” The Government report on the Tudor blames BOAC for all of its change orders, and thinks Avro did a fine job, comparing its relationship with BOAC with its relationship with BSAA. Bennett is a “firm executive with a clear idea of what he wants.” 

“Technical Troubles” An appendix describes the endless problems with directional control, which Avro tried to fix with larger fins and rudders, and by shrouding the hinges. In the end, Avro went to RAE, which told them to go to a single rudder. Making it even larger fixed the tendency to swing which is inherent in all tailwheel aircraft. And so on. After all of the fixes, Flight thinks that BOAC and Avro should have shaken hands and focussed on getting the Tudor into service, as it will now, mainly on Empire routes, instead of the Atlantic.

“The Hodgson-Cuthbert Collection” Some collectors gave the Royal Aeronautical Society a collection of old books which are quite nice, and worth a story in Flight because it has pictures.

Here and There

Britain has no objections to the Americans reoccupying their base at Mellaha, which is in Libya, as long as the United Nations can decide what to do with Libya at some point. The CAB has authorised an experiment in cockpit controls shaped to “feel” like the thing they’re controlling –the idea being that you don’t pull the wrong lever because they all feel the same. Reggie says that the problem is that there are so many of them that you can’t remember what they’re all supposed to feel like, and, anyways, you really shouldn’t be grabbing them without looking. BEA is putting a reservation request form right into its new schedules, to make life easier for travel agents. The Department of the Interior is buying planes for the wildlife service, which is news for some reason. Northrop is putting rocket sleds on 2000ft of disused rail track to serve as an “outdoor wind tunnel.” KLM’s engine workshop at Schiphol has overhauled 535 engines in the last year, of which 465 were Pratt and Whitney, and 70 were junk. (If Wright Aeronautical wants better coverage in this newsletter, they know where to send their cheque!) Australia has approved a proposal from the British to export 10,000 more Britons by air to Australia per annum. I'm not sure how this helps with the dollar balance? BOAC handled 31,000 parcels at London Airport during December, three times the normal numbers, and used an overflow warehouse staffed with volunteers to clear the gifts “as quickly as possible.” I hope that means they’re done! Sir Roy Fedden married Lady Norah Lilian Barratt this week. BOAC has added three flying boat services to Bahrain per week.

I hope Lady Barratt doesn't look like Air Marshal Barratt! The Wikipedia biography doesn't even mention her. 

Civil Aviation News

In the old days, you had to go outside
to catch your airplane. No, it's true.

“Conclusions of the Courtney Committee” Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Courtney, James Mould, J. J. Taylor and Mr. George Wansborough had a committee, in which they agreed that if the Tudor I passes its airworthiness tests, it should be bought and put into service on Empire routes, and not on the North Atlantic, because it is a terrible plane and it is everyone’s fault. But mostly BOAC's. Aer Lingus made a loss last year, and one result is that it has too many planes, which is why it is selling its Vikings. Avro is still working on the Tudor VIII (the one with the Nene jet engines); The Australians are still arguing about their airlines; Luxembourg will have an airline soon; Scottish Airlines is still being a chartered airline; Airquipment, of Burbank, California, has standardised loading ramps with hydraulic adjustors for airlines; 228 GCA landings were made at London Airport in December out of 1052 made during GCA operating hours; Paul Flint, who developed a low-level bomb sight for the USAF, has a new one that “projects a full size illusion in front of the plane.” The pilot peers through a sight that projects an orange dot on the ground ahead of him and enters a landing glide when “it reaches a certain point,” at which the instrument automatically puts the aircraft into a landing guide, having been previously adjusted to weight, load, gliding speed and wind velocity. KLM recently made its hundredth return flight across the South Atlantic to Rio and Montevideo. 6200 passengers and 72 tons of freight have been carried.

the one at far left is the smartest, because he has glasses and a pipe. 

C. B. Bailey-Watson, “The Way of Achievement: Rolls-Royce Flight Development: A History of Modern Pioneering” this is a potted history of the R.R. development unit at Hucknall since its foundation in 1934. It is interesting to read that their radiators are one-third the weight, double the efficiency per square foot, and half the cost of ones from ten years ago, which is why the BSAA Tudor IV can carry four extra passengers. They’re also proud of fixing the old exhaust “flamethrower” problem and making quieter engines, as well as booster pumps to get the gas out of the tanks at higher altitudes. Overall, they have reduced engine drag by 25%. They’re also pleased to have invented automatic radiator flap controls and better anti-vibration mountings. In shorter news at the bottom of the column, a follow-on order for Swedish Vampires is reported. A similar story, later, reports that Afghanistan is buying Ansons.

American Newsletter with “Kibitzer” “1947 in Retrospect: Commercial Air Freight Increase: Financial Difficulties of Aircraft Industry” It might seem as though the only things to come out of 1947 were “vetoes on progress” and threats of atomic annihilation, but actually there were speed records and the B-47.  The Air Force and Navy also continued their competition over engine orders, which “is always an encouragement to progress,” and not at all ridiculously uneconomical duplication of effort. The airlines –stop me if you’ve heard this one—lost money this year, and the grounding of the Constellation and DC-6 didn’t help. It seems as though commercial airliners can’t be rushed into service, although they certainly can’t be delayed, either. The DC-3 and DC-5 have such good records because the Air Force and Navy worked out all the kinks for the airlines. So I guess we need another war; and for the maximum “encouragement to progress,” it should be against a country with a Navy! That has an Air Force.

“The Chinook: Jet Developments in Canada: First Avro Gas Turbine” Canada has been working on a jet engine since 1943. Also, the Miles bankruptcy discharge petition continues to wend its way through the courts. I wonder how the court deals with patents in bankruptcy cases? Are they like all the “real“ property? Wait –Is that what the “real” in real estate means? You must be shocked that a Stanford Junior doesn’t know these things! What are the schools coming to, these days!? I guess that instead of just putting questions to letters I can go the library and look it up!

“Turbine Accessory Systems: Principles of Control and Methods of Application for Jet and Airscrew Type Units: Precis of a Paper read to the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Institute of Fuel by O. N. Lawrence” Lawrence explains that he considers compressor turbines, “work” turbines, in which the airscrew is driven by a separate turbine; and heat exchanger turbines. He looks at fuel consumption with altitude and speed, estimates fuel consumption at a given altitude, and viscosity, and proceeds to look at control schemes that give best function under these conditions. One problem is the input that the control system will sample, and temperature control is thought to be the best, although engine speed is also a good input. As usual, airscrew turbines need special considerations in case the shaft overspeeds. A barometric device is often needed to reset the controls as the atmospheric temperature changes.

Correspondence

“Netherlander” thinks that all passengers should have parachutes, and for some reason thinks that this has to do with the Cumberbatch Trophy. E. L. Bass and Maxwell Smith write that all Ministry-approved de-icer fluids may be used in TKS de-icers, and not just their proprietary fluids, since their claimed superiority is a matter of voodoo science. H. F. Jenkins, General Manager of the Training Division of Air Service Training, writes that young men of 21 who enter training looking for piloting positions have excellent prospects. “Ex-Corporal Fitter” writes that if Bennett thinks that the Tudor IV is all right, than it is all right, and that if there is a shortage of maintenance personnel, than some ex-RAF men will come right down and whip them into shape.

The Engineer,  23 January 1948

A Seven-Day Journal

Latest quarterly statistics for ship construction show an increase of 61,000 tons to 2,170,00 tons, a number not exceeded since 1922. However, there have been delays and suspensions, and an increasing amount of tonnage is being built for export or sale abroad, to 31%. The tonnage being produced abroad in the same quarter was 1.8 million tons, but that doesn’t include Germany, Russia or Japan, because including those numbers would require some research and perhaps even adding up a column. The Engineer can be bothered to add up these numbers and even do the calculations to show that the United Kingdom is producing (gasp!) more than half of the world’s merchant shipping. (Except for the countries it can’t be bothered to include.) It is an amazing number –it just doesn’t have to be reported three times! Some trade union officials were taken around Littlebrook“B” power station, where they saw the pulverised coal fuel boilers which operates at 1350 lbs/sq. in, 850 degrees, with reheat between the high and low-pressure steam turbine stages. The Royal Mail Lines passenger liner Andes [that's a really, really long Wikipedia article] has resumed service with its owner after being requisitioned during the war.

Stanley Reed, “The British Engineer in India: His Monument: The Future,” I left off the “Sir,” as you do in good literary practice, and the letters after his name, because they’re boring to write out, but Reed has both, because he is old and famous and talks a lot.

Francis McMurtrie, “Naval Construction in 1947, No. IV” Sir Stanley Reed seems to be senile. McMurtrie’s excuse is that the sum total of all naval construction in minor powers in 1947 was the completion of some half-finished torpedo boats (the German kind that are small destroyers, not motor boats) in the Copenhagen yards, and he has three pages to fill. Which he does, in case you were wondering which Latin American republic has received which war-surplus American cruiser (all pre-war.)

G. Parr, “Electronic Equipment in Industry” [Electronic circuit making equipment: Non-Aviation] Parr begins with high frequency heaters, widely used to heat things. Then he moves on to electronic production control, which is basically photoelectric counters. Then he talks about electronic “regulation and measurement,” which is different from production control, and involves mostly “controlling the speed or voltage of electrical machinery,” cathode ray tubes for finding faults in armatures, vibration measurement and such. Then he talks about a new high-gain magnetic amplifier built by Electro-Methods, Ltd, and based on a German prototype, which has nothing to do with the article directly, except that it can be used in any of the previously mentioned or about to be mentioned gizmos, such as the precision chronometer developed by Cinema-Television, Ltd for ballistics research, and the ENIAC, which is an electronic brain. “Later models will possess attributes analogous to those of memory and discrimination.” Then he talks about measuring cosmic rays and radiation with Geiger counters. In conclusion, there are many electronic devices used in many industries for many reasons, and sometimes people exaggerate their value; fortunately, British industry doesn’t do that, which is why you should never import American junk that’s been pumped up in, say, Radio News.

Surprise!

“Electrical Engineering in 1947, No. IV” It seemed like the first three parts have been slowing climbing down a ladder from the biggest voltage turbogenerators at Scottish dams down towards the factory. This entry reaches “industrial electrification,” and talks about electric motors. BTH began offering a polyphase commutator motor with outputs up to about 10hp, having a high starting torque and a speed variation of about 3.5 to 1 in fourteen steps using tapings on the three-phase stator winding, arranged to produce the effect of two fields in quadrature.” I could go on, but I think the point is that this motor is as smooth as a Chesterfield. The next example is a high-power electromagnetic coupling for high speed diesel ship engines, followed by a multipolar lifting magnet, some motors “suitable for mining,” (they don’t get too hot) and a rolling mill, which faces the same problems as the BTH motor mentioned at the head, except that the output power is a million jillion horsepower (21,000), instead, so that ingenious arrangements are replaced by giant tanks of mercury and such. Cables for transmitting this power (shouldn’t they have been in Part 2?) have plastic insulation now. Research continues in many fields. The Engineer is very impressed by British research in nuclear physics, and the new betatron at Clarendon Lab in Oxford. English Electric is also working on atoms, and has a new synchatron that produces impulse voltages of a  million (actual million). Electrons emitted by a cold cathode and then accelerated by the field smash into targets with enormous force (this is a bit patronising, as it is not actually enormous, but very small, but electrons are even smaller, so we pat them on their subatomic heads and say, “Oh, you’re big and strong, just like Daddy”). But since all of this force is subatomic, it releases a pulse of gamma radiation that can be used for, oh, you know, therapy and sterilising food, and not for making atomic bomb parts, who mentioned anything about that? Also, they have new, brighter fluorescent lamps with calcium halophosphate coatings.

“Civil Engineering in 1947, No 2” There is lots of track work going on, and some stations are being relaid, but who cares about great jungles of rails when we could talk about the Thurgoland Tunnel on the LNER. Everyone likes tunnels! The Blackfriars bridge is going to be reconstructed, and proposals were considered before they decided on some mumbo-jumbo. I notice that they used “R.S.J.s,” which I remember from a paper about temporary railway bridges built during the war. I wonder if they are the same thing? I should look that up. Several piers are being built, and the Princess Elizabeth Graving Dock, in South Africa. In Egypt, they are remodelling the Esna Barrage bridge. Burma Railways is proceeding with new bridges. In Australia, the Burdekin River bridge, Warragamba, Burrendon and Clark dams are all interesting.

This doesn't look like Australia. Where's the Wasteland? By Peter bertok at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10608181

Leaders

“Civil Engineers in India” What Sir Stanley Reed meant to say is that British engineers built lots of dams, canals and railways in India, and the brown people should be very grateful, but not so grateful that they shouldn’t feel free to hire Americans if they can’t get good consulting help in Britain, so pull your socks up, you British civil engineers!

“Steel Output” More steel than expected, even more steel hoped for next year, old plant, wearing out, new plant, investment needed. More steel for shipbuilding needed. Price controls bad, capitalism good, but only for later, when dollars aren’t short. I don’t even need to write sentences, this is all so hackneyed!

Obituary

George Ruston Sharpley (77), the chairman of Ruston and Hornsby, was a man of the “highest level of rectitude, which was set by his own deeply religious convictions.” [Sharpley, People and Fashion]. A nephew of Joseph Ruston, one of the founders of the company, he entered the works at the early age of sixteen, but “had an engineering turn of mind,” and was soon “marked out for a management position.”

Letters

Stephen T. S. Clarke and W. Melville were very happy with the article about paddle boats, because they love paddle boats. N. E. Kearley has opinions about how the rolling stock of the new British Railways should be painted.

“Prime Movers in 1947, No. III” Metrovick’s marine gas turbine installation aboard MGB 2009 heads off. They are also working on a gas turbine generating plant for Trafford Park. BTH is working on a 1250hp marine gas turbine to go into Auris. At the other extreme, Philips is working on fractional horsepower air engines for driving small generators, and a four-cylinder Vee engine for marine and road.

“Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering in 1947, No. IV” Caronia, Patria, Imperio, Haparangi, Suffolk, Koromiko, Komata have interesting marine plants. Many marine engineering firms have power plants available. Supercharging and reheat is being used on everything from old fashioned triple expansion engines to diesels and naval steam turbine plant, such as those for the new destroyer leader, Battleaxe. George Clark (1938), of Sunderland, has built thirteen sets of engines of “triple saturated, triple reheated, andtriple superheated designs, and three boilers aggregating 39,321hp.” As I understand it, saturated engines can’t be superheated? Since these actually exist, that means I don’t know what’s going on. What a surprise! Returning to Orcades, The Engineer has a picture of its boiler, the most powerful “fitted to any British merchant ship up to the present time.” [Orcades boiler; Ships]

“The S.R. 45 Flying Boat under Construction” Pictures of the giant flying boat precede the second part of the article about the Werkspoor-Lugt Engine, and a summary of the Courtney Committee report.  

“Metropolitan Water Board: Works in Progress and Constructed During 1947” Some new reservoirs, progress in replacing isolated steam pumps with electrical ones, new pump and filtration systems at water plants to increase capacity, which was, I seem to recall, not up to the growth of London.

Industrial and Labour Notes

“Employment and Unemployment” The important news is at the bottom: There were 277,245 insured persons on the unemployment registers in December, compared with 267,785 in November. The December figures include 199,652 working age men, 7702 ex-Service members who have had no employment since separation, and 36,329 married women. There were 11,270 uninsured persons on the registers in the same month, including 1221 boys and girls under eighteen who hadn’t entered industry. Before we can get to this, though, we have to be told about tiny changes in the workforce of different industries (900 more in ironfounding!). We get it! Everyone’s got a job they like! Good luck moving them around to new industries without wage increases!

“Iron and Steel Production” Lots of steel, but not enough scrap, pig iron or coal to keep it up. Tin is also short of requirements, so that Ministry allocations aren’t what industry asked for. British exports in December are at £110,200,000 compared with £102 million in November, only £50,000 off the July peak, 120% of the 1938 export total by volume. (But they adjust for prices? So it is a volume of prices?) Imports were £153,400,000, so that the adverse balance of trade rose to £39,200,000.

French Engineering News

Floods have damaged industry in eastern France. The budget for road maintenance has been reduced. The Monnet Plan for sixty new hydroelectric plants with annual production increasing from 20,000 million kWh to 39 billion (come on, stuck up English people, talk American!) in 1951, continues, one plant at a time. Mayer Plan price control removals continue. Propane gas is short.

Notes and Memoranda

Bigger railway turntables to allow larger locomotives to be turned will be installed in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Llandovery in Carmarthenshire. American railway revenues are up from $162 million in the first ten months of 1946 to $364 million in the same period in 1947. The Road Research Laboratory of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research reports that dazzle is a serious problem on the roads, but isn’t caused by people not dimming their headlights, but rather by the way that the lights are positioned to shine directly into oncoming traffic. Dr. L. Smith-Rose is to be the first Director of Radio Research at DSIR; 1.4% more electricity was generated in Britain this month than the equivalent month last year.

I have no idea who Leonard Miller was, but now he's on the Internet.

Letters

Trapped in the snow for seventeen hours within an hour of New York City. Different times. 

Charles L. Skelley, of our very own city, (More-or-less, only my body lives in Palo Alto. My soul commutes from San Francisco!) really, really hates Dali. His paintings make him feel uncomfortable. Edith Lewin writes to thank Newsweek for commemorating their 17hour ordeal on the bus from Time Square to Verona, N.J. due to the weather and all.

Senator Dworshak, of Idaho, writes to explain that it is all the Democrats’ fault that the Senate investigators didn’t reveal the identity of the Washington commodity speculators before Harold Stassen did. The Editor’s letter explains that the Lindley/Hazlitt debate came about by popular demand, and that Newsweek is sending John Thompson to Berlin to be bureau chief because it is thought that by the time he arrives, he’ll be in the middle of a “four-power battle for Berlin.” The cover shows Franklin Roosevelt representing American air-sea power.

The Periscope

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a Presidential election in 1948. Arguments that aren’t transparently about the election include the row over the Administration’s proposed, anti-inflationary $40/head “poll tax,” the Navy’s pout over having to give up the Naval Air Transport Service to the Air Force’s Air Transport Command. Rather cavalierly, considering, a bit covers how (American) arms are going missing left, right and hopefully centre, from French depots and warehouses. The implication is that political extremists are arming themselves ahead of the impending civil war. The State Department has sought to soothe fears of war by saying that the Marines being sent to the Mediterranean are to evacuate American civilians from Palestine if things get any worse there, and not to atom-bomb Moscow with their atomic hand grenades. This is also why the Americans are re-activating their Libyan air base and flying B-29 “survey flights.” The French are trying to go slow on Trizonia, but won’t succeed, CAB’s board is still two men short, as Truman is having trouble with the Senate. Wheat prices have probably peaked, since the Argentine and Australian crops are up, and the European winter wheat prospects have improved. The GOP has decided not to remove antitrust protections for unions, on the grounds that it needs some union votes, and it is not like the rich are going to flock to vote the straight PCA line in retaliation. LanaTurner’s suspension by MGM is for perfectly good reasons, the British may unfreeze movie funds if the MPA can find a way of arranging it so that dollars go to Britain, somehow, perhaps through “information programmes,” whatever that means. Marshall Fields is trying to unload PM and retrench at the Chicago Sun.

Washington Trends reports that conscription is dead on arrival in Congress, that everyone loves planes again, except the navy. The budget for veterans won’t be cut and may be increased. The Marshall plan total will be trimmed, although the Republicans kind of promise to restore spending after they win the Presidency and no-one cares any more. Taft’s proposal to cut the ERP by $3 billion out of $8.6 billion is too much for fellow Republicans, and Vandenberg is gunning for him. Dewey is up. The gas shortage is very serious, and some eastern homes will be heatless within the next six weeks. Voluntary rationing may be tried, although “Administration officials are skeptical of its effectiveness.” Also, meat. Next up,  voluntary rationing plans for steel and communism.

National Affairs

“Baruch Takes a Look at ERP” Bernard Baruch thinks that the world needs a 5-year industrial mobilisation plan to make all the stuff that is short. It would have the further advantage of allowing the US to issue a purchase guarantee to world commodity producers, allowing them to grow wheat, tap rubber, drill for oil, and so on, to the limit of their capabilities. Inflation at home will be addressed by a “rollback” of prices, combined with the purchase guarantee, which will ensure steady farm incomes for the duration of the plan. So what’s the catch?

Lindley versus Hazlitt

Taft's Wikipedia biography doesn't mention that he blew his chances
in 1948 by opposing the Marshall Plan.
And, hey! Warren Buffett's dad managed his campaign, too. 

Lindley is the old time journalist with the big mustache and weak chin. Hazlitt is the fluent, glib, bully. Lindley knows what he is talking about. Hazlitt, in spite of being the author of Economics in One Lesson, i.e., knowing everything there is to know about economics, resorts to ridiculous arguments. For example, did you know that American can’t export food, because it has been a food importer in the past? For example, in 1938, it exported less wheat by value than it imported sugar. Therefore, it can’t feed Europe with wheat. Lindley points out that Europeans need American aid because of the dollar flow imbalance and will go Red rather than starve to death. Hazlitt is all, “nuh-unh, Europeans are collectivists.” By which he means not just Labour, but all the other Europeans, which reminds me of those stories about American investors trying to buy German coal mines last year. If Europeans would just give up on collectivism, socialism and inflation, they’ll be right as rain in no time, and no worries about communism whatsoever. This last gives me a bit of whiplash until I remember how Taft has boarded the “Cut the ERP bandwagon.” Hazlitt giving him intellectual cover only reduces my already low opinion of the man.

There follows a good long look at –Do you want to hear about my appointment with Doctor Rivers? Because it’s just about as appealing a “good long look,” if you ask me. Anyway, there’s an election next year. Dewey has changed his strategy and declared his candidacy. Warren hasn’t. Stassen has leaked the names of a bunch of Administration commodities speculators, including the President’s doctor, who embarrassed himself severely in Senate hearings. “Wallace Graham, who is actually not a little lost boy but the official White House physician . . .” Eisenhower isn’t going to run in ’48, he says. Wallace is, he says. Justice Douglas might be Truman’s Vice-Presidential candidate. Senator McCarthy wants to hang gray marketers, or something. That’s actually advance news of the 1952 election, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about covering American elections, you just can’t get too far ahead of yourself.

McCarthy vs. Jewish "gray marketers" in 1948. He sure was one swell guy. 

Politics matters to some people. 

“Marriages Patched Up” The divorce rate is too high, and even though it has been going down since the war, it has recently ticked up again in Milwaukee, which has responded by hiring a city marriage counsellor.

Foreign Affairs

“Hottest Battlefield in the Cold War” Do you need to hear, again, that the United States is sending Marines to join its Mediterranean fleet, that they are also reactivating an air base in Libya, that Greece is fighting communists, that communists are fighting Greeks? We do sidle up to the fact that Forrest Sherman is Flag Officer, Mediterranean, which seems to prove that he is being groomed as a future CNO, which has John Towers hopping mad. Also, the Russians are gathering their eastern European allies into a network of alliances, although the Czechs are reluctant to join this anti-capitalist front.  

“Uncertainty on the Ruhr” With Time suddenly soft-pedalling the troubles in Germany, it is interesting to see that Newsweek falls closer to the Economist. It is a problem that the German ration has been cut to 1000 calories, that the Bizonia officials are blaming German farmers, and that there are strikes breaking out in the Ruhr. It is all a communist plot, and, while daring, also desperate, since the allies can declare the Ruhr a special emergency area and divert food there. That is, the food is now in Europe, I don’t know where from.

I’m going to do another round-up of paragraph long stories now. The Iranians say that they can’t afford to pay for the $25 million in US war supplies left in their country, and furthermore, never asked for them and don’t want them. Although the Shah would like some jet fighters and B-29s. Arabs are attacking Jewish agricultural settlements on the road to Jerusalem, and the Jews are attacking Arab citizens of Haifa. The senior French communist in the Chamber of Deputies, M. Duclos, has been demoted, Bulgarian and Polish communists are terrible people; the British want to trade with Russia while being anti-communist as all heck, and have signed a treaty with Iraq to show just how anti-communist they are. British coal is still being exported, Princess Elizabeth is hoping for a son, there have been riots as the British try to clear overcrowded districts in Hong Kong, leading to student counter-demonstrations in Canton and Shanghai, and Newsweek is not very polite to Gandhi in his latest hunger strike.

Foreign Tides with Joseph K. Phillips, “The Smartest Men in the World” People who think that the Soviets have a grand plan are hugely overestimating Moscow officialdom.

In Canada, price controls are back, as you’ve heard. Meanwhile, Americans are flocking across the border to buy British luxury goods they can’t get in the States, such as fine wools, and dropping money on hotels while they’re there. Canadian immigration officials are rounding up some Polish army veterans were flew over with the assistance of some shady characters. Most are Jews, and the Jewish community of Toronto has offered to adopt them.

Business

“Lack of Cash Hobbles Industry” 800 members of the American Management Association met in New York last week for a two-day conference. Their subject was a “growing shortage of savings and venture capital,” which has “suddenly become the No. 1 threat to the continuance of the postwar boom.” This confused me something awful, since I thought that banks basically created money out of thin air by lending it over and over again, and that the whole mechanism of modern finance was built around managing that, and that the reason that we have inflation is that there is too much money sloshing around, chasing too few goods, including investment goods. It’s obviously good if a business can invest somebody’s actual money, instead of issuing equities and taking out bank loans. But is that what’s at issue when business complains that “savings by individuals in the first nine months of 1947 had dwindled to $5.5 billion?”

I don’t know, I’m just a silly girl. Maybe “venture capital” is the crucial kind of capital. What I do know is that the story turns on a dime to taxes, which, if they go up to support the ERP, will cut into those savings and cause the end of the postwar boom.

“Los Fritos Deliciosos” Fifteen years ago, C. E. Doolin created (or improved) Fritos, the deep-fried cornmeal snack. Last week, he was doing well enough to license 26 maker-distributors around the United States to take his snack food nation wide, and to India and Australia.

“The Now Look” What would you do if I wrote five paragraphs about the Now Look? No, don’t tell me, I know, I know. The “business” point of the story is that sales are  holding up in the $20+ price range. For the fashion interest, you have to look at the pictures, anyway, and I won’t bother you with that.

Trends and Changes reports that Henry Heinz is the new chairman of the United States Associates of the International Chamber of Commerce, because he knows so much about business thanks to being H.J. Heinz’s grandson. The Commerce Department will start requiring export licenses next month, using powers conferred by the Republican anti-inflation act, to halt exports “Which can make no contribution to world recovery.” The new budget increases funding for the Antitrust division of the Department of Justice.

What’s New reports that Ford’s new crankcase drain plugs have a built-in-magnet to trap loose metal fragments in the oil. Walter S. Medine is making a stir soon with a squared end, and Bag-O-Lite is making a pocket mirror with a built-in-battery and light.

Science, Medicine, Education

“Flu on the Rampage” A winter stomach flu is on the rise, but that’s not exciting journalism, so Newsweek dubs it “Virus X.”

“No Germs, No Health” A laboratory at the University of Notre Dame received a large amount of money from the Office of Naval Research to find out what happens to germ-free animals. They started in June, 1946, with rats delivered by Caesarean sections, and confined for life in sterile tanks. “Many of these germ-free animals are plagued in life by a run of ailments which, surprisingly, do not affect their normal counterparts.” They develop bloated stomachs, twisted intestines, and degeneration of the gastro-intestinal membranes. Others get cataracts, lost hair, or suffer serious paralysis of the rear legs. James A. Reynier, the bacteriologist running the experiment, thinks that it is because they lack the stomach bugs that normal rats (and all other animals) have. But he’s going to build a giant germ-free lab to breed generations of aseptic animals, just to be sure.  

There seems to be a story behind Reynier's 1958 departure from the LOBUND lab at Notre Dame. 

“Supersonic Toboggan” The 1000 mph Northrop rocket sled that is beingdeveloped at Muroc Air Force Base might be a cheaper way of doing aerodynamic researchthan expensive supersonic wind tunnels, and more realistic.

“Sinnott and Squashes” The new head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is an agricultural scientist who works on squashes, which Newsweek finds so entertaining that it gives Edmond Sinnott a surprisingly long profile.   

Radio, Press

“Music Mixer” CBS has built Playhouse 5, a new performing studio at its New York headquarters specifically designed to the needs of recording engineer Charles Grenier. Grenier, in some ways, is as much the sta5r of the new show for Phil Spitalny and his orchestra as Spitalny himself. Except in that he is not earning more than $50,000/year.  

 “Tele Film for Television” Just last week, Time was complaining that one reason television is falling short is that Hollywood is keeping the best movies to itself. One solution to that is to make movies for television. They might not have Hollywood glamour, but since they are made with tv in mind, they might be better watching. Telefilm can make short movies, ideal for broadcast slots, and make them cheaper than live audience shows; and since they can be made with slots to insert commercials by local advertisers, they are a television network answer to radio syndication.

Art, Transitions

“Where the People Are”

Some of the murals painted under the WPA are still being enjoyed. Others aren’t.

David Niven has married “Mrs. Hjordis Tersmeden, 27, red-haired Swedish divorcee and mannequin.” Charles Lindbergh, etc. Josephus Daniels has died of pneumonia at 85.

Movies

Newsweek loved Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I know that I am supposed to be turning over a new leaf as a frugal student scholar, but I couldn’t resist, and I loved it, too. Go see it! Road to Rio, on the  other hand, I’m going to ignore. Brace yourself: It has Bing, Bob and Dorothy, and they get into scrapes! In Rio! With music! MGM’s High Wall and Frankie Mason’s I Walk Alone sound like they are crime thrillers in the modern style –dark and “morally ambiguous.” Maybe I’m wrong. Frankly, I’m reading this column while waiting for a collect call to Massachusetts to go through, and—

[Reading this through in 1989 with who knows what memories and regrets in mind, Grace scribbled in a note in a half-inch margin mentioning that the book column featured reviews of a novel by Merle Miller and a history of the constitutional convention by Carl Van Doren, while Capote’s  Other Voices disappears into the Other Books section with a silly novel about Lady Godiva by Raoul Faure and “a literate and subtle novel about spinsterhood” by Patrick White. Raymond Moley’s back page Perspective column worried that President Truman’s big-spending promises, intended to outflank Wallace, would set the world on fire in 1949, because inflation would cause “pensioners, landlords, and people who live on invested capital and life-insurance companies” to do . . .something. Invade Korea?]

 

*

Flight, 29 January 1948

Leaders

“The Right Aircraft at the Right Time” The House of Lords had a fine old time arguing about the Tudor. (And the Courtney Commission.) The next Leader is about their argument over the airline losses.

“Private Enterprise” The national airlines might have lost money, but de Havilland exported more than £7 million. It would embarrass The Economist to claim that proved anything, but it’s fine to imply that private enterprise is better than public!

“Highest—Fastest-Farthest” Flight looks at all the world records and reminds us that sometimes the British hold them, and it would be wonderful if the British held more, but also a terrible waste of  resources, although the height record might be had for cheap.

From All Quarters

The De Havilland Australia Drover has flown. Morrisons Engineering has opened a new factory to make air-things. (It’s not said what.) BEA is to reorganise and reduce staff. The De Havilland financials show that it is the busiest it has ever been, except for during the war. There is to be a Tool Exhibition this week in London. Flight catches us up with the President’s air power plan. There is a prominent Illife badge at the bottom of the page, for whatever that might mean.

“Cricklewood and Radlett: Flight’s Camera Makes a Brief Tour of the Handley Page Works and Hangars” I love pictorials. All I have to do is say, “See your copy,” and I’m done!

Civil Aviation News

“The Minister of Civil Aviation Explains” The House of Lords called Lord Nathan onto the carpet to explain how he misplaced all of that money, and why BSAA is doing so much better than BOAC and BEA. The Minister’s explanation is that BSAA operates hardly any air stations and only runs a few routes.

“BSAA Report” As mentioned, BSAA is doing well financially with its fleet of five Lancastrians, 11 Yorks and now a Tudor IV, and would do better if there weren’t all of this paperwork and requirements and IATA regulations holding it back.

“Grid Navigation” S/Lder R. H. Blackmore, of the Empire Air Navigation School, read a paper to the Institute of Navigation and RUSI on the superiority of modern orthomorphic maps over Mercator projections, especially at higher latitudes, and that some form of “grid” navigation is necessary on most Great Circle routes, which go through higher latitudes.

In shorter briefs, Flight has read Fortune and summarises it. The aircraft industry is the only manufacturing business in the United States which is losing  money! The Swedes are discontinuing KZ-VII production with the 170^th model due to import restrictions. The Dutch and Chinese have agreed on a four-year plan that will see direct Holland-Netherlands East Indies flights by the end of that time. BSAA’s experiments with onboard movie projectors continue, and an international commission is sailing from Wellington to Fiji to pick a location for an international airport on the island.

C. B. Bailey-Watson, “The Way of Achievement: Rolls-Royce Flight development: A History of Modern Pioneering, Part II” Most of the article is devoted to profiling the test pilot team of three men, who fly many hours, and their ground technical staff, who analyse things, and to their planes, which consist of nearly twenty modern war planes with special engine installations for various tests. However, there is a strange segue into the Barracuda that tests automatic engine controls, which has the latest flame dampener.  This, Bailey-Watson was told, makes it invisible to infra-red, and B.W. (I presume that Bailey-Watson is a girl, but I don’t know that) has to protest that, first of all, nothing, and certainly not a hot engine, is invisible to infra-red, and, second, no-one cares, since infra-red was put in the shade (hee!) by radar during the war. But maybe it is a reference to exposure time, and it will be important in the future.

B. W. was also interested to see a Fairey Battle equipped with the 1939 “Exe” that would, the Admiral always says, have got the Barracuda into service so many years earlier and shown that the Navy’s technical boys actually know what they’re doing. So with those protests in mind, I’m disappointed to learn that all B.W. has to report after presumably six years of trials, is that it works fine. There’s also a slightly better-known Vulture kicking around, but no-one flies it, any more. B.W. also has a little to say about Hucknall’s work with turboprop overspeed and underspeed control and the use of engine temperature as the input signal.  They are also working on burner pressure control, which is a promising way of reducing fuel consumption, and engine temperature control, which is the most important factor in extending turbojet engine life.

In shorter news, Flight reports that three Bell Aircraft documentary films about helicopters are showing at the RAeS this week, and that the USAF is still working on the Repubic XF-12 and Hughes XF-11, which I didn’t believe when I read it last month, and still don’t believe. Also, the USAF has a cannon for firing bird carcasses into aircraft windscreens, where the British prefer a rocket trolley. Nobel Prizes for everyone!

American Newsletter with “Kibitizer” “1947 in Retrospect, Part 2: Some Technical Highlights: Surprising Speed Achievements by Straight-Wing Aircraft” Having covered the financials last week, “Kibitzer” has this week free to remind us of all our speed records, giant planes (XC-99, B-49), jet medium bombers I can’t tell apart, many, many new jet fighters, a new Grumman torpedo bomber, the P-82, and all the news from the helicopter front.

“Compounded Allison: Experimental Unit with Feed-back Turbine” This is compound engine in which the exhaust gas runs a turbine that assists the airscrew, and not just the supercharging. Allison has done enough work that it is worth a paper in Detroit, but the British are working on it, too.

An enthusiast explains.

Here and There

The first Blackburn (Yorkshire)-built Prentice has been delivered. American airlines are experimenting with “flying chefs” in the KLM mode, although they are only galley help, and the meals are prepared on the ground. Fairey has a high speed wind tunnel now. The Swedes have formed a  night fighter wing. This year’s Antarctic expedition will be equipped with a Walrus, again. The South African emigrant quota may be carried by charter airlines if there are not enough regular seats. BOAC is falling the lead of Trans-World by building some overnight accommodations at airfields without adequate hotels.

Correspondence

Attitudes in 1948, part a million. 

Terence L. Kelly writes to ask why private flying clubs don’t equip instructors and passengers with parachutes. S. H. Bostock thinks that there should be amphibian feeder planes to support flying boat bases so that flying boats don’t have to land in more places. R. A. Carr-Lewty thinks that the recently submitted annual operating budget for a Piper Cub is a bit low, mostly because it really should be kept in a hangar year-round. H. John Jarvis is appalled by all the pseudonymous correspondents, which shows that freedom of speech is in grave danger in the year of Our Lord 1948. Robert Russell, who has flown as a passenger every which way for years, thinks that aft-facing passenger seats are daft, because even if they are safer, they just remind passengers of the very small chance of an accident, and make them uncomfortable. W. J. Andrews, of the Society of Licensed Aircraft Engineers, is very upset that his Society isn’t on the Informal Light Aircraft Committee, because they have many important insights to share.

The Engineer, 30 January 1948

A Seven-Day Journal

In a speech to the British Engineering Association, Alfred Robens, MP, said that adequate supplies of power are very important for industry, which is why it is regrettable that the 1950 and 1951 programmes have cut planned generating capacity increases to 1500MW to from 2000MW. (Because I don’t have to write, as The Engineer writes, “thousand million.” I feel so free!“Heathrow.”  “Turboprop.” “Jet engine.” “Now.” I’m going to go lie down.) Anyway, there are specific details, including a reorganisation of the Bradford Pit, which will have a conveyor belt taking coal directly from the pit to a Manchester power plant through a 717 yard underground tunnel.

Because there used to be a giant coal mine right under Manchester. Of course there was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_Colliery

“Disposal of Obsolete Naval Ships” Viscount Hall and Mr. Walter Edwards told Parliament that five ancient battleships, including two ships built before WWI, because that is controversial, somehow? In unrelated news, the South Croydon collision on the Southern Railway on 24 October was caused by the negligence of “Porter-Signalman H. D. Hillier, of Purley Oaks,” and will be prevented in the future with colour light signalling, which was to have been installed in 1940, but wasn’t, due to the war.

“Large Scale Generation from Wind Power” There will be experiments, and some statistics will be collected, because of the shortage of coal.

“Disposal of Radio-Active Effluents from Harwell” Harwell will use about one million gallons of Thames river water a day for cooling, research and domestic use. Various measures will ensure that radioactive effluent doesn’t get back into the river, or, at least, if it does, it will be highly diluted.

Stanley Reed, “The British Engineer in India, No. II” Reed covers the Indus barrage at Sukkur that provides irrigation water for Punjab and Sindh, hydroelectric works in the Western Ghats behind Bombay, and the Quetta Railway. Much of this would not have been possible without training works to keep the rivers in their banks. It is also interesting that he spends several paragraphs on the difficulties finding British investment capital for the hydroelectric works, which had to be built by the Tatas, with indigenous Indian capital. British investors, even with a guaranteed return, preferred “wildcatting” in South America.

T. A. Crowe, “The Gas Turbine as Applied to Marine Propulsion, No. I” People have been working on this for years. John Barber patented a coal or wood-gas turbine for propulsion in 1791. The French began working on a constant pressure gas turbine in 1905. Holzwarth’s first gas turbine was built by Brown-Boveri in 1909, and their first combustion-gas turbine was installed at Thyssen in Hamburg, Germany, in 1936. The North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board is to have a residential staff college at Pitlochery to train technical staff. The need to conserve manpower has led to a reduction of 20,000 road maintenance staff, and the Institution of Municipal Engineers is concerned, since the roads were already neglected during the war.

Does the Holzworth work get mentioned in Constant? I can't remember. I'm still surprised that Parsons never fiddle with it. 

“The Gauge and Tool Exhibit, No. I” Many interesting tools and gauges were shown.

“Indian Irrigation and Power Projects” Since you have to read Sir Stanley Reed’s talk with a machete, here’s a summary of all the important dam projects going on in India. There are a lot.

C. R. H. Simpson, “The Future of Steam Locomotives” Simpson thinks that the steam locomotive will go on from height to height, ascending the firmament in clouds of glory for at least twenty years. They will do so by getting incrementally better in various ways, and also by using more articulation and roller bearings. In other nostalgic news, J. Samuel White and Co., is having its jubilee, having been formed as a private company in 1898, having been a private concern since “at least the early 1700s.” They built 25 destroyers, 300 smaller craft, and assorted other things in the late war, including the first all-welded destroyer, HMSContest.

Metallurgical Topics

A paper on stress concentration and fatigue failures by Dr. O Föppel must be very important, since it gets a two page treatment, and remember that these are broadsheet pages. Another Föppel paper, on torsion bar springs, is much less important, although it is interesting to learn about his method of roller peening torsion bars, which, along with shot-blasting the ends, increased the “load-bearing capacity for alternating stress” by between 40 and 80%. F. O. Johnson, of the Wisconsin Steel Works, of South Chicago, claims to have found away of adding relatively small amounts of sulphur, in the form of sodium sulphite, in such a way that he gets the advantage long sought in sulphite steels, of easy machining, without as much sacrifice of other qualities as has previously been the case.[?]

Leaders

“Registration of Engineers” Would be a good idea.

Surprise!

“Chatham House Atomic Energy Report” I think this is a summary of the report. If so, I think it’s saying that Britain should have atomic energy. I don’t know. I’m reading Heidegger, and he honestly makes more sense than this report on the report.  Later on, there’s a summary of the report on the nationalisation of the gas industry that shows that it is possible to make sense if you try to not not make sense.

Letters

The English Electric Company writes to correct a mistake in the article about paddle-boats. Tasmania does not have a single eight cylinder oil-electric set, but rather four of them, all made, like all the rest of its machinery, by English Electric. H. G. Ivatt is also in a nitpicking mood, pointing out that the Brush Diesel Electric shunter was far from the first two-stroke in British Rail service. W. W. Foster, the General Works Manager at Dunlop Rubber, writes to congratulate himself on how quickly Dunlop turns railway cars around.

“The Anglo-Dutch Submarine Telephone Cable” A new submarine telephone cable has been made by Submarine Cables, Ltd, and installed between Aldeburgh in Suffolk and Domburg in Walcheren. It is the first “public” submarine telephone cable with an air gap insulation, and uses Telcothene, a mixture of polythene and polyisobutylene as sealant. The cable was specified as having a minimum of one “super group” of sixty duplex circuits, with no repeaters, to be armoured against anchors, have a bottom frequency of 12 kHz, and frequency band of 4kHz, with a minimum top frequency of 550kHz. This new cable makes “on demand” telephone service between Britain and the continent possible, and Submarine Cable, Ltd reminds everyone that they should install cables of maximum capacity now, rather than waiting for later, because that would be awkward to fix.

“An I.C. Engine Research Exhibition” F. Perkins invited The Engineer around to look at their new equipment for researching internal combustion engines, such as cathode ray tubes for checking ignition and exhaust gas analysers. So nothing new, really.  

“A 5 to 7 ton Lorry with Under-Floor Engine” A very The Engineer way of describing a snub-nose lorry. I wonder what it is like to drive with no hood in front of you? The article doesn’t explain why you want your engine under the floor, but it is shorter, and must be easier to park.

There’s an article about the refitting of the Portuguese destroyer Duoro, which notes that it got new radios, radar and torpedo sights. That’s the sort of thing that Uncle George wants to hear about, even if I can’t bring myself to treat it like a “real” article.

“A Deep Drilling Machine” This Adcock and Shipley machine is for drilling 5/16^th inch diameter, 9 12” deep holes through the front axle forgings used on Ferguson tractors. The tricky part is that it is “step by step” drilling, whatever that means, requiring “complete removal” of the drill between each step, which is quite slow with regular hydraulic gear. Instead, it is sort of like a gatling gun, I think, with five holes, four of which drive, while the fifth is used for loading and unloading the drillheads. That’s how I’m imagining it working, anyway. Also, Vauxhall Motors has a new works generating set. It is an American GM two-stroke, similar to the one used in American locomotives.

“Iron and Steel Prices” The Ministry of Supply is specifying new prices for iron and steel products.

Industrial and Labour Notes

“Economic Disorders and Remedies” Sir Thomas Barlow, of the District Bank, Ltd, gave a speech the other day in which he blamed the state of the world today on the forty hour work week. Yet another Board of Trade report on exports says that the UK exported a lot, but not enough. The Amalgamated Engineering Union still won’t agree to have Poles working in the engineering industry, so the Ministry of Labour will only provide labour from the Polish Resettlement Corps if the AEU has been unable to provide it first. There are new steel priorities.

French Engineering News

A commission has found that the former Communist Minister of Air,Monsieur Tillon, bungled the job. France produced 1.6 million tons of iron and 2.9 million tons of steel in the first half of 1947. Total steel production in 1946 was 4.4 million tons. Steel production was down in December due to the strikes. Hot and cold rolling mills will be installed at Acieries de Denain et d’Anain [sic] and the Acieries du Nord et de L’Est to roll over 150 tons an hour, for an annual production of one million tons, and 250,00 tons of cold rolled sheet, of high quality suitable for the auto industry.

Notes and Memoranda

A train collision at London Bridge Monday morning killed one bystander and two railwaymen. BOAC is now operating ninety-six passenger services weekly inward and outward bound, with a gross mileage of 125,286 miles, as well s services between Baltimore and Bermuda; Cairo and Nairobi; Singapore and Hong Kong; Lagos and Kano; Lagos and Dakar; Freetown and Dakar. Mail and freight are carried on twelve additional weekly services. US steel production for 1947 was 84 million tons, up 26% from 1946. Wheeled tractor sales have been decontrolled, but permits are still needed for tracked ones. Courtaulds is building a new viscose rayon yarn factory in Northern Ireland.

After a few years to settle in, the automatic retrieval system at the I. K. Barber Synergistic Learning Enhancement Utilisation Student Resource Facility Centre manages to muck up at least one request per visit. Sometimes it is my fault, but this time it couldn't get at the Aisle that Time is stored in, which is why the images are scraped. But the robots are going to take our jobs any day now. You wait and see.