Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Father:
It's an improvement on the previous state of affairs, and a part from allusive, scatalogical jokes about The Economist, I find I miss it. A bit.
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
The Economist, 2 June 1951
Leaders
"A Higher Pound?"
The Economist looks back at the "world wide rumour" of last autumn that the pound might be revalued upward, because the pound has been so surprisingly strong since the devaluation. Various official people are now saying that it should be, but it is all because of the rising price of commodities due to rearmament and will end in tears, as the budget specifically pays for rearmament out of higher prices (or, inflation) and higher taxes on those prices, and revaluation will cut those prices and drive up inflation, but in a bad way instead of a good way.
"The Poor Countries"
Everybody agrees that capital investment would help the poor countries and prevent Communism from spreading, but Truman's Point Four programme doesn't seem to be getting very far. Aside from the lack of capital to actually invest, it would appear that it is mainly due to the fact that swarthy foreigners breed too much and will vote to take all the capital and blow it on beer and lottery tickets if they are allowed "democracy." But just to be clear, here, local elites are also reactionary and bad. It is a difficult problem worthy of a lot more talking.
The Economist of 1851 is thrilled by the opening of the London Exhibition and especially by the fact that there weren't troops everywhere protecting the Queen from her people, which it thinks will amaze and awe those easily-impressed foreigners who might have got the impression from their newspapers that Britain isn't a perfect example of Heaven's enlightened order on Earth. On a related note, it must be horrible to be a foreigner!
Notes of the Week
Persia's 'Exhausted Patience'" and "The Baghdad Negotiations" The Economist hopes that the negotiations for increased royalties on Iraqi oil can demonstrate to the Persians that their little temper tantrum is not getting them results. It also hopes that the Iraqi parliament can get the new agreement through before it recesses for the summer. Meanwhile, Westminster is also sluggish, which I think means here that the paper can't wait to have at the Finance Bill.
"Tibet Capitulates" Tibet has accepted a Chinese protectorate because it cannot defend itself without "military assistance that Indian was unwilling to give." The Economist goes on to blither about how the situation between China and Tibet is similar to that between England and Ireland (which thought one might hold in reserve for the next time it does Irish affairs!), and that Tibet has been "independent for the greater part of its history, including the last 38 years," and points out that Communist China has no problem conquering week and inoffensive nations, especially if they are not Communist. The Economist goes on to admit that, yes, Tibet was a bit backward, what with having a "feudal-ecclesiastical type" government, but no doubt progress would have come to it, as it has for "Afghanistan or Abyssinia" had it been given time. The paper goes on to explain the feud between the Panchen Lama and Dalai Lama and note that the Chinese are backing the Panchen Lama, that the Chinese will rule indirectly, except over the army, which is to be integrated into the PLA, bringing Chinese troops to the borders of Indian, Bhutan, Nepal and Kashmir, where "spectacular developments" are "to be expected in the near future," and it will serve India right. As if that isn't sinister enough, it is off to China to check in with the Red Terror, which is going very terribly.
It's too bad The Economist is so boring because otherwise we could talk about the fabulous Fabiola now. Christian Democrats losing some municipalities is almost like being martyred in the arena! 
"Malan versus Malan" Rioting and street fighting between "ex-Servicement pledged to defend South Africa's constitution" and led by Group Captain Malan, and police, caused "dozens of casualties" and put quite a period on the Prime Minister's bill to make South Africa's constitution amendable by a simple majority of parliament so that he could proceed to take Coloured voting rights away and maybe later take away English's status as an official language on his way to a South African Republic.
"Old People in Work" The Social Survey looked at the employment of people aged 55 to 74 last week. Fewer old people are working. The Economist wants to see as many old people working as possible without actually taking their pensions away, so it comes out gingerly for a pension supplement for those who do work. Well! That could certainly go in an unpleasant direction if inflation keeps up, but i'm sure The Economist never thought of that! Also, blah blah local government blah.
Shorter Notes notes how disappointingly non-tense and volatile the situation at Westminster is, with boring reports being acted upon without high scandal. Boring! The Economist goes to work and finds some stuff about hospitals to be excited about.
Letters
R. F. Harrod writes in from Oxford to explain that the pound should be revalued upwards, as Britain can't possibly make all the stuff it needs to pay for all the imports it needs for exports to meet balance of payments and rearmaments. A. R. Prest, at Cambridge, and Charles Kennedy, at Oxford, both think that increasing interest rates on bonds is not the way to control inflation, which is better scotched by a controlled increase in prices, allowing expenditure on rearmament, etc without further inflationary pressure. I think. I'm not sure I would follow this conversation even if I hadn't come in at the middle! Nicholas Kandor unleashes all of his sarcasm to mock The Economist's "liberal prescription" for inflation, in the form of budget cuts, pointing out that Belgium and the United States embraced these solutions to inflation and achieved 10% unemployment and a slackening of output on the way to eventual recovery, whereas Britain, France and Germany simply used controls and thereby maintained output and full employment while containing inflation. The Economist is deeply hurt that Kandor thinks that it is somehow pro-unemployment just because it keeps calling for higher unemployment. Which, of course, is the only way to have low unemployment in the long run. Poul Halsted doesn't understand why Danish eggs cost more in Britain than in Denmark. The Economist explains that eggs break in transit.
Books
Jean Fourastie's Machinisme et Bien-Etre is an imporant book that is in French so it is time for The Economist to show off that it can read French. (Moi would never do such a thing!) Philip Oyler's Feeding Ourselves is a good book to compare it to. Both are interested in the "relation between the techniques of production and the quality of human life." Fourastie thinks that economies should grow and develop and it is natural that productivity will increase in each "sector" in turn, from agriculture to manufacturing to the "tertiary sector," which means that the whole western world is moving towards a "tertiary" economy. Mr. Oyler, on the other hand, wants more farming so that Britain can be self sufficient, for "international trade is doomed, and urban civilisation, too." Or so it is in Britain, anyway. The Economist thinks that he is silly, but if they say so, he will come and punch them in the nose, so they end the review with one of those long paragraphs that proably says that in a deniable sort of way. It might have been nice to have explained Mr. Oyler's little twilight of the Gods!
American Survey
"Point Nought Four" Instead of boring old capital for poor countries, American aid is taking the form of more than six billion dollars of guns, or, as Charles Wilson put it, "Guns and the whole cow," and that is probably more guns than the world can absorb, but so what, and maybe there'll be some scraps, $250million or so, for the current version of Point Four, the Colombo Plan.
Also, the US, as we have heard and heard, can actually attack the Russian heartland with B-29s, B-50s and B-478s from "the bases now available." Which is okay because the Russians will probably fire guided missiles at those bases, and, oops, too bad about East Anglia! The Atlantic also thinks that the Russians will need about three times as many atom bombs to blow up all the American factories as the Americans will need to blow up the Russian ones, and the Americans can probably destroy Russian industrial transportation, whereas the United States could probably survive a Russian attack.
American Notes
Just to make a play for the Time and Newsweek racket around here, we finish by checking in with Joe Adonis, Oksana Kasenkina, and the 170,000 college students who took the draft deferment test to see if they were too smart for Korea. (Right now. Still Korea later!) American housewives make their first quarterly payment to Social Security against their pensions this month, and the Pittsburgh Consolidated Coal Company is in the final stages of its experiment in transporting coal in a slurry in pipelines. It's funy that this bit doesn't have the same, lugubrious, "what if it costs too much" stinger that the story about nickel-tin coatings had --will have, actually, it's next week. Sorry about getting things out of order!
the World Overseas
"Europe's Prospects for 1951" Europeans used to be worried about the trade balance, but have moved on to worrying about inflation. This is good, because production is up so much that it's not really a crisis any more, and what's life without a crisis? With any luck, this will turn into a balance of payments crisis and we will be back where we started by the fall, perhaps with some overproduction thrown in.
"Poverty in Andalusia" Andalusia is the southwestern part of Spain, and it is apparently poor, and people are protesting and striking against Franco there. Speaking of tinpot dictators of southern Europe of unacceptable ideological pedigree that is somehow just fine in this Twilight Struggle Against the Menace of Communism, Marshal Tito is h aving a Five Year Plan or something else I can't be bothered to read about.
The Business World
"Films and the Duty" Since we're involved, admittedly mainly as a way of moving silver, I guess I should pay attention, but this is gruelling stuff. The key point is that audiences are down, which may be due to the additional costs from the levy. This also reduces the expected tax take on the levy. Film production is also down, with one third of sound states not booked after the end of summer. This will be balanced when the levy pays out. The Economist modestly proposes scrapping the whole thing as a solution. "New Basis for Wool" follows, which used to be very interesting to us, and is not any more.
Business Notes
"Some Voices on Exchange Policy" This is yet another discussion of what Britain should do instead of revaluing the pound upwards and removing exchange controls, as the IMF suggests.
"Report on Rearmament" This is the report previewed in Notes of the Week, and gets into the question of American machine tools in a bit more detail. The Committee is interested in a suggestion from the industry that a census of machine tools might turn up some underemployed tools that would reduce the needed American imports, which, since they are paid for, might be less important than making up for delays in delivery; and is very critical of the decision two years ago to shut down a high-speed automatic manufacturing process for vacuum tubes two years ago. It is not clear why, although slow progress is one reason; "security reasons" might be another. The Committee asks that the automatic plant be built, as quickly as possible. There is debate over whether letting defence compete for labour through higher wages, causing inflation, would be worse than bringing back labour direction. The Committee is also appalled that the draft call-up is taking apprentices just as they become fully skilled. We then check in with American control policy on raw materials, the British anxiety being that Americans might stop exporting raw materials they produce, such as sulphur and molybdenum if they have a domestic shortage. Also, a new scheme for delivering domestic coal means that it will be more expensive, although it will introduce grading and reduce complaints about quality.
Britain is also competing with the United States for Iberian tungsten, the price of copper is up, and so is gypsum rock, which has now been placed under price controls, as the Ministry of Works is feuding with the British Plaster Board group over the proper price of this material, the production of which the firm pioneered. The price controls will add 13 shillings to the price of a 1400 pound house, but it's the principle of the thing.
Then it is time for a discussion of bank stocks, followed by the financing of commodities and "Inflation in the Sterling Commonwealth," where rising prices for commodity exports are driving internal inflation. On the other hand, the West African Marketing Boards have been squirrelling the money away against the inevitable slump ever since the war, and now have a positively embarrassing amount of money in the investment funds --53 million pounds in the Gold Coast Cocoa Board fund alone-- that they have wisely withheld from peasant farmers who might blow it all on food and rent. And of course if it is spent now, what if the slump finally comes? What then?
In conclusion, since goods are not "coming forward" to mop uup all that money, and since Government controls aren't holding prices down, there will probably be a horrible crash, followed by a slump, followed by irresponsible public works programmes, followed by a sterling imbalance. The British Government must take action now! (Probably horribly painful action in order to forestall this horribly painful action later, if I know The Economist.)
Aviation Week, 4 June 1951
Sidelights reports that the fight between scheduled and nonscheduled airlines is getting poisonous, with leaks and planted stories everywhere. Who would have thought that Cosmopolitan would stoop tp printing material supplied by a major advertiser. Who do they think they are, a McGraw-Hill rag? The Air Mobilisation Survey has counted 59,000 US non-airline planes in an active, flyable condition. Industry observers are worried that Uncle Henry is going to ditch autos for planes and give them some really hot competition. I wouldn't worry too much about Uncle Henry settling down, guys. General Vandenberg might retire from the Air Force and take a Vice-Presidency at US Steel.
Industry Observer reports that Kollsman Instruments is expanding into telemetetering, that the armed services are studying the use of magnetic binary amplifiers to replace vacuum tubes in digital computers, which will speed them up and reduce servicing. De Havilland's Dove sales campaign in America has been so successful that the company has stopped appointing new distributors, as they've already sold all the planes available. McCulloch has completed static ground tests of its new helicopter, Texas Engineering will build "major components" of the Douglas A2D, Hiller's new helicopter autopilot works, Marine Corps helicopters will need 1.5 pilots per machine for active service.
William Kroger, "Industry Gears to Speed Subcontracting" The article manages to be even more boring and uninformative than the headline.
"Britain's First Four-Jet Bomber in Production"
Last January, Attlee announced that the Vickers 660, the first of the British four-engine jet bombers, with four Avons, had gone into production off the drawing board. Six months later, we have some more details. For example, it is reported to be faster than the 600mph Canberra, with a 55,000ft ceiling. More importantly, we have pictures! Scaling suggests a diameter of 11ft, length of 95. The wing is sweptback and kinked, and the engines are embedded in the wings. The tail is sweptback and there are boundary layer fences midspan. All antenna are suppressed into the plane, and the main wheels are single tandem and retract intothe wing, while the nose wheels are double. The 660 will be joined by similar planes from Avro and Handley Page.
"AF Shuffle" The latest general officer assignments from the Pentagon; "New Production Plan for C-119, C-123" The latest Air Force announcement is a bit of a head-scratcher, although good for Uncle Henry if he can deliver. Willow Run will switch to the C-123 after a brief C-119 run. Fairchild will produce the C-119 at the old Douglas Chicago plant as Willow Run phases out the C-119. Uncle Henry's purchase of Chase Aiurcraft is a bit of a problem because the Air Force doesn't want Kaiser producing the C-123 at two subsidiaries at the same time because of contract issues. Chase will cease production of the C-123 at Trenton and shift to research engineering as C-123 production ramps up at Willow Run. Chase will lose its bid for the former Bechtol-McCone-Parsons modification plant at Birmingham, Alabama for said contract-related reasons, and the Air Force will exercise its recapture rights for the plant. Air Materiel Command will underwrite an expansion of Fairchild's Hagerstown facility so that it can keep C-119 deliveries up as Willow Run runs them down. Uncle Henry is expected to deliver 170 C-119s, the bulk of those needed to maintain deliveries until the old Douglas plant is in full production.
"American Helicopter Wins Jet Award" That's the Army contract for a lightweight jet helicopter for liaison use. It will be similar to their XA-6, and be jeep-portable!
"AF. Navy to Phase Out Piston Engine Planes" The writing has been on the wall for this for a while, but it is basically closing the books on the R-4360 and R-3350 (in the "next five to ten years"), which were coming along like they would never die.
Aeronautical Engineering has the third part of David Anderton's "The Atom-Power for Flight," where we finally get to the flying fission plant. How does it work? It uses decaying radioactive material to heat up air until it is really, really hot, which makes it expand and shoot out the back, possibly turning some turbines on the way. The advantage is --no fuel! The disadvantage is that they are heavy and bulky. The advantage and disadvantage cancel out and suggest a plane that can fly very fast for a very long time. The "bulky" part is harder to fix since it is inherent in any steam plant. But what if you got rid of the steam and used the air as a working fluid, instead? This is easy to do in a ramjet, but ramjets need high pressure air, and heating air in a free volume leads to a loss of pressure. Ramjets also don't work at low speeds. Also, getting rid of the moderator/working fluid seems a bit spicy for aviation work. If you're not worried about what flying electrons, protons and gamma rays will do to your crew, you should at least worry about flight instruments! You end up with a turbojet or turboprop on efficiency grounds and a closed-cycle heat exchange plant where fluid is contained in the reactor and heats another volume of working fluid that runs the turbines. The reactor is probably central, and after hair-raising experiences with extension shafts, the actual engines are wing-mounted and receive steam or heated air from the reactor via ducts. Or you can use an exotic "fast reactor" in the wings, with plutonium directly contained in zirconium cans and allowed to hit its full heat of a thousand degrees or so, with no moderator to stop whizzing neutrons. Liquid sodium-potassium alloy is used as the heat-exchange medium, Neutrons have no charge, so they don't affect instruments or show up on enemy radar, so that's part fine. All you need are radiation-proof crew.
"Comet Readied for R-R Avon Engines" The Avon-Comet is the ultimate development of the airliner and might have the range for the London-New York run. Also, the Air Force's new engine testing centre is "nearing completion."
Production checks in with Northrop's cost-cutting methods.
Equipment has an advertorial from Hytrol, punched up by Thomas Self, which explains how their "Breaking Skid Betters Braking." It is basically an explanation of their anti-skid braking system, which is an automatic monitoring system that cuts out braking when skids start. and a control box that "decides" when that is. It is on the B-47, Avro Jetliner and Stratoliner, and the pilots who have used it are very happy with it, although it has the usual feedback problems giving lurching and pitching under hard emergency braking.
New Aviation Products has 3M's newest scaler for integral fuel tank cleaning, and, if I am not misreading it, dial needles for dashboard compasses from Aviation Accessories, Incorporated. Testa Manufacturing Company's "periscope" for viewing the insides of aircraft engine cylinders is positively interesting and important after all of that, even though it is just a tube microscope (but not magnification) with a flashlight. Gamewell Corporation has a potentiometer that fits on an altimeter to make an "altimeter computer" to reduce error in altitude measurements from an altimeter by reading them more precisely.
"ANDB Revises 1952 Projects List" Since their budget got gut, the Air Navigation Develoment Board has to do less, but it isn't all bad, because its new research programme is more balanced and devoted to all-weather flying. Specifically, the "common system" for air navigation has been put off for some years so that the Board can focus on flying at the 100ft ceiling and 1/4 mile visibility threshold.
"Work Pushed on High-Frequency VOR Airways Net" This seems to be a story about how the airlines with VOR routes will soon have new chartbooks from the US Survey, as opposed to anything about actual equipment.
Airlines made less money last month.
What's New really liked March of Time's Flight Plan for Freedom, which is the kind of movie it can "recommend without hesitation." That doesn't mean that we shouldn't hesitate, considering that the other recommendations for this week is a foot-by-foot-and-a-half wall charge of welding, brazing, soldering, cutting and tinny alloys from All-State Distributors and All-State Welding, a thirty minute documentary on materials handling and Hansen Manufacturing's quick-connect couplings catalog.
Letters
J. Raymond Brummett of BACA Airlines writes in with a very long letter about how "single engine" airlines are not getting the respect they deserve, while the friendly fellows at Chicago and Southern Airlines have an "interchange map" they can sell you. All the other correspondents love Aviation Week to bits and can't wait to replace the needles on their dials.
The Economist, 9 June 1951
Leaders
Okay, my head is whirling like it hasn't been since the last time I read this magazine: Book costs up, sales down; author royalties down from 20% to 17.5%, yes or no? And if that wasn't thrilling enough, it is off to Ireland to wait for the results of the General Election with Our Dublin Correspondent. Our Dublin Correspondent has never met a modest proposal he didn't like (that's a literary joke), but sadly none are on the table (another literary joke) so all he can do is burble on about farm subsidies or such.
Notes of the Week
"Mission to Teheran" One of the benefits to not getting The Economist in so long is that we've all been spared whatever The Economist's opinions about Iran have been, but every golden age must end. So, Anglo-Iranian is sending a team to Teheran to deal with the situation in Khuzistan, which is that the Iranians are simple (although corrupt) children who cannot possibly run anything as complicated as an oil company. The Economist is afraid that it will be impossible to explain this in Teheran, no matter how condescending the mission is. Meanwhile Moscow is interfering via the Iranian Communist Party, which is terrible and also hypocritical because everyone knows that the Russians have just been waiting to step in for the last 150 years. Also, The Economist talks about talking about talking about the Four Ministers meeting that, at some point in the future will feature the foreign ministers of the Four Powers (or, practically, the Russians and the other guys) will talk. I hope they talk about The Economist!
The Economist agrees that the British should dig in on the African hill and continue to run the whole continent since the Natives aren't competent to run it and the Europeans who are already there can't be trusted with the power for fear of South African-style white rule spreading; on the other hand, it can clearly see that the United States (and United Nations) should get out of Korea on a pre-war status quo basis as fast as it can and still "save face." Although it wouldn't be this paper without a bit of self-torture, and we take time out to claim that voting for seating the Koumintang on the Security Council is somehow good for peace. Then it is back to London, but in a "Foreign Affairsr" capacity, because it is time to talk about General Bradley's visit to thread the needle on the NATO command in the Mediterranean, which the British think should go to the British. Which it won't, so the question is finding a compromise that keeps the British, and by "British" I mean Geoff Crowther, happy. Also, the Russian insistence on participating in the Japanese peace treaty is clearly out of the question and that means, according to John Foster Dulles, that the treaty hardly needs any restriction on Japanese rearmament or Japanese trade, because when have those ever been a problem before?
Then, breaking news about doctors and two hospitals in London. I'm pretty sure it involves someone bureaucratic doing something bad by regular people, but even the thought of such injustice can't make me read it!
It could be worse, The Economist of 1851 chimes in, pointing out that if we were reading issues from a century past we would be afflicted with long pointless paragraphs of long, pointless sentences about how some un-named leading figures of society are standing in the way of progress with their unspecified religious opinions or possibly actions. I guess the real reflection is that this is the most interesting bit of that issue.
Letters to the Editor
Harry Johnson of King's College disagrees with last week's editorial that condemned the idea of revaluing the pound upwards against the dollar. The Vice-President of the National Farmers Union writes to disagree with "Inquest on Agriculture" to the effect that farmers deserve all the money they have got in the past, and much more besides, what with one thing and another. F. H. Carson writes from "Victoria, Australia" (that's a state, and not a city, I think) that the real problem with those Indian famines is that the Indian population is increasing, and the sooner all the Indians die, the sooner all these famines will end. In his defence, Mr. Carson doesn't show much sign of having thoughthis "More Indians equals bad" logic through, so you can't accuse him of consciously wanting to "defend against communism" in India. Harry Allcock has put a lot of thought into how the British coinage might be decimalised. Warned that decimalisation was likely to get the lead letter, Anthony Mann valiantly wades in with a letter about how much a "billion" should be in Britain. "A Lebanese" writes to say that a Lebanese newspaper editor recently republished The Economist's critical article about the country's un-named "dictator," who might be the prime minister or the president according to what my almanac says about the country, and has been thrown in prison for eight months and fined what, to be fair, is probably a lot of money in Lebanese pounds. Lynn Beckles writes from Ruskin College to point out that the idea that the unrest in Grenada was somehow not caused by "general economic factors" is just asinine. The price of imports has gone up, the standard of living has gone down, workers responded by joining a union, which agitated for higher wages. It's not exactly the higher geometry to figure this one out. Viscount Templewood 's Shadow of the Gallows is a "dispassionate" and reasoned book against capital punishment that will persuade anyone who reads it except all the people who are for the death penalty, who won't be moved by anything. Therefore all the arguing is in vain except in those countries, states and provinces which have abolished it, where it is wasn't. Robert Kann's history of the Habsburg Empire would be very interesting except that it is very badly written and boring, so the reviewer explains what is in it, or else what should have been in it. In conclusion, it was a bad thing that we should be nostalgic for. S. M. Lippset explains The Saskatchewan Experience for the University of California Press. They noticed Saskatchewan in California. All twenty-five Saskatchewanites (Gesundheit!) will be over the moon. The experience, of course, is that they have had a socialist government without collapsing into ruin, which goes to show. "Miss M. S. Rix" has Investment Arithmetic, which is a very worthy book. Very worthy, indeed.
Books
Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, which is a real name, and G. R. Lavers have English Life and Leisure, which seems to be about how drinking and gambling are bad, but not that bad, and that also people go movies and plays, and that might be fine? It's not nearly as good as Seebohm Rowntree's studies of labour in York (where he conclusively proved that poverty was due to low wages), although it seems as though Mr. Seebohm Rowe is old as the hills, and his best work might be behind him. Ian Colvin's Chief of Intelligence is a life of Admiral Canaris, the chief of the German military intelligence during the war, which makes the mistake of seeing him as competent, and thus has to explain his obvious incompetence in terms of his being a British agent and a secret enemy of the Nazis. Not a very helpful book to review the day before the Daily Express story about the missing diplomats! Geoffrey Dennis has a four volume history of the late war with an introduction about how it started now out, the point of which is that it is hard to summarise such a complicated situation, but there is a throughline about Britain being unprepared, ignorant of the enemy, and with weak alliances, and that since none of that is true in 1951, we should all pat ourselves on the back, it being too much to say that we should stop worrying. We should never stop worrying! Viscount Templewood 's Shadow of the Gallows is a "dispassionate" and reasoned book against capital punishment that will persuade anyone who reads it except all the people who are for the death penalty, who won't be moved by anything. Therefore all the arguing is in vain except in those countries, states and provinces which have abolished it, where it is wasn't. Robert Kann's history of the Habsburg Empire would be very interesting except that it is very badly written and boring, so the reviewer explains what is in it, or else what should have been in it. In conclusion, it was a bad thing that we should be nostalgic for. S. M. Lippset explains The Saskatchewan Experience for the University of California Press. They noticed Saskatchewan in California. All twenty-five Saskatchewanites (Gesundheit!) will be over the moon. The experience, of course, is that they have had a socialist government without collapsing into ruin, which goes to show. "Miss M. S. Rix" has Investment Arithmetic, which is a very worthy book. Very worthy, indeed.
American Survey
"Washington in Two Minds" The Economist went to two press events this week. In one, the IMF said that the world had made a lot of progress since 1945, and with the American rearmament programme ensuring that the United States would be importing lots of stuff for the foreseeable future, it was time for the world, and especially Britain, to give up on economic controls and let the free market be. At the other, General Marshall said that controls weren't nearly strong enough in America, that inflation was a pressing and insidious danger, and even threatened rearmament by shrinking the $35 billion(!!!) allocated by Congress to the point where it wasn't enough for all the guns. On the third hand, the isolationists think that controls will turn America into another dictatorship and that allies and trade just sap America's manly strength.
"Recordings in Revolution" Okay, so this is why I wade through all the nonsense around here. Did you know that in 1941, an American could listen to a total of 136,000 minutes of classical music on 11,900 12" and 4,800 10" discs, almost all 78rpm? And that by 1951 there was an additional 127,000 minutes on the long-play discs first introduced in 1948. LPs are not just more convenient, they have also turned out to be a source of profit for the industry, contrary to gloomy predictions. The Economist goes on to explain the modern High Fidelity recording and notes that high fidelity equipment records onto tape, mentions Bing Crosby, and concludes by noting that between high fidelity, the low cost of tape recorders, it is likely that tape recordings will replace records once royalties are sorted out. 127,000 minutes! Although this boom in classical recording might be cut off by the ease with which people can record superior FM broadcasts on home tape recorders. Bad for the industry, good for our family!
American Notes
"Communists Convicted" In the latest phase of our ongoing American nightmare, the Supreme Court has upheld the Smith Act conviction of the leadership of the American Communist Party, on the grounds that Judge Holmes said that freedom of speech could be abridged if there was a "clear and present danger," and Communists saying that capitalism inevitably leads to a proletarian revolution, and Judge Learned Hand, which is a real name, thinks that's dangerous. The Economist's American bureau hugs itself with the thought that at least having judges jail people for telling us what's in Das Kapital is less dangerous than having Congressional subcommittees doing it.
"Congress Goes to Work" Congress is congratulating itself for finally getting past the single Congressman who was holding up food aid for India for the last three months and for passing an extension of the tariffs bill and conscription. The Economist isn't happy that Congress would not budge on universal military training and still allows the President brought discretion over tariffs so that he can continue to wage trade war, notably this week against Russian minks. Communist minks won't compete with domestic ones any more! The ongoing UMT argument is a bit more important since the UMT vision is for a nation in arms to replace a large standing army after the Korean conflict is over. The Defence Department is looking at a large reserve as a substitute, but the paper is down-at-mouth over the prospect of Congress funding it.
"Materials Feel the Pinch" Please just stop it! Base metals are still in short supply and steel allocations will be controlled as from July 1st. The more interesting story is probably the hold-up in steel plant production, which is driven by the steel industry's belief that there is quite enough steel capacity in America already, a belief that gains some credence by the rapid buildup of consumer goods inventory in the United States right now, which suggests that industry might want to cut back production anyway.
The Economist endorses Rudolph Halley for class president. News!
The World Overseas
"Trade Union Struggle for Asia and Africa" A very worthy article about the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which will fight for trade unionism in the lesser parts of the world in a non-Communist way, which is important, because Communism is bad.
"Who Shall Own the Ruhr?" If you have perhaps not being paying attention, the Allied Control Group has been in charge of the Ruhr basin steel and coal industries, which, before the war, were
organised into vast vertical trusts that the Germans think were just fine, and which everyone else thinks were bad, and either restrained trade, led to Nazism, or both. The Allied Control Commission now has a plan to unravel the trusts, but says that it will retain control over the Ruhr even once it is done. Bonn is upset. Dr. Adenauer, the chancellor and head of the right wing government there, because he doesn't want to defend the sequestration of private property in German courts, while the socialist opposition likes the current situation of practical public ownership and the rights that the trade unions have gained under it. It seems a bit unfair of The Economist to take the conservatives (Christian and Free Democrats) at their word while seeing Schumacher's Social Democrats' position through a political prism, but perhaps I'm overstating its measured words.
"Labour in the Middle Eastern Oilfields, I" (by Our Special Correspondent Lately in the Middle East) For the Iranian fields at least, the labour issue has been brought to the fore by the Iranian Communist Party, which I am obliged to refer to as "Moscow-directed" and by the way that The Economist is approaching the nationalisation question, which is to cast doubt on Iranians' ability to manage both the oil industry and the Khuzistan labour force. All the oil industries in the Gulf face the same main problem, which is keeping their "irreplaceable Western technicians" happy when they live in the Persian Gulf. At the moment, Anglo-Iranian is 28% British, 62% Persian, 10% from the subcontinent, and 10% unspecified. Ango-Iranian provides company housing for 18,000 of 65, 000 employees, which some people say is not enough given how long they've had to build new housing, and that the stock that does exist is poor quality. The Economist wants us to know that those people are just some crybaby Iranians and who cares about their stupid opinions when it has an ILO report that offered qualified approval a few years back. It also offers health care for employees and their families, plus a nice pension scheme and free protective clothing, and it has the best labour management in Persia. High praise coming from the ILO!
"Progress of Italian Land Reform" The De Gasperi government is required by the constitution to push ahead with land reform, but is getting criticism from all sides. The criticism from the Communists is wrong and bad, while that from the "good landlords" is sound and correct. In conclusion, Italy is inevitably doomed, just like Germany and France used to be inevitably doomed back before they weren't any more.
The Business World
I also can't help but notice that the aspect of the story that the magazine led with was the fact that the Government hasn't filled some vacancies at the Coal Board. You have to wade through a full column whining about how they need three more members before the story gets around to the boring details of actual coal mining.
"Shell's Strength Displayed" Shell had a pretty good year.
Business Notes
For some reason The Economist notices that the Tin Research Institute has found a way of reducing the amount of nickel in nickel-tin coatings, which would be good for the current nickel shortage, and then points out that it will all depend on how expensive the process is. Gee, thanks for that.
Now that rearmament is back, the small arms specialist ROFs will take on the .280, while the Leeds plant built to produce tanks at the end of the last war will be busy, along with Dalmuir, and the ROFs will need to expand employment to 60,000 out of a total of 500,000 required for rearmament. The ROFs will probably be expensive to run, but there are reasons for that, as the engineering ROFs do a lot of engineering work, with Woolwich employing one skilled man in four.
Aviation Week, 11 June 1951
News Digest reports that Helicopters land on roofs now. Charles Blair is officially the first person to fly across the North Pole in a single-engined plane after taking a P-51 from Alaska to Norway. US firms paid British engine makers a bit more than two mill for licenses to produce British jet engines in 1951, up slightly from 1950. Curtiss-Wright's extruded prop blades have been ordered by KLM for installation in their Super-Constellations. United DC-6Bs are still grounded over a pay dispute with the pilots. A DH Comet flew somewhere really fast this week. The Avro CF-100 (Orendas) will fly really soon now. The Leduc RL lightplane will attempt a new altitude record for lightplanes real soon now.
Sidelights reports that Senator Fullbright had Northwestern specifically in mind when he said that the situation at the CAB is currently "very unhealthy," specifically in the case of the CAB-approved RFC loan guarantee to Northwest that allowed it to go on the aircraft buying spree that gave us the 2-0-2. Northwest and National may be merging, and the Nonskeds and scheduled airlines are, it says here, fighting. No way!
Sidelights reports that Senator Fullbright had Northwestern specifically in mind when he said that the situation at the CAB is currently "very unhealthy," specifically in the case of the CAB-approved RFC loan guarantee to Northwest that allowed it to go on the aircraft buying spree that gave us the 2-0-2. Northwest and National may be merging, and the Nonskeds and scheduled airlines are, it says here, fighting. No way!
Industry Observer reports that the fact that General Vandenberg knows so much about the MiG-15 is a tipoff that the US has one, or at least bits of one. The Army is still upset that it can't order big planes, and if Washington doesn't lift its weight limit it will shoot atomic shells at everybody. At night! The F-86 squadrons in Korea have a new trick for scrambling their planes involving using the exhaust blast from one jet to start another one. Are you upset that you havent' read about the experimental crop duster that Industry Observer's college buddy is building down at that Texas college?" Well, here's the latest. It's being tested by someone, somewhere. Lockheed says that its blue-sky theorising shows that its 600mph L-193 jet transport that doesn't exist yet would be only 16% more "bumpy" in rough air than the Constellation, whereas that other turboprop, you know, that one, will be 37% more bumpy, so don't fly in it, wait for the L-193 instead. Sources at the Navy say that plane production isn't being held up by an engine shortage any more. It's being held up by an avionics shortage.
Katherine Johnson reports in Washington Roundup that General Vandenberg doesn't think that current air production is enough for the planned 95 Wing air force, and anyway he wants 150. On the other hand, General Collins thinks that the US armed forces are well on their way to having the strength to prevail in modern war, while Admiral Sherman thinks everything is fine we need more ground forces. His optimism, however, is an "overnight development," since just the other week he was talking about how the Navy air power was hardly bigger than at Pearl Harbour, and some admirals say that the navy is far short of the money it needs to procure another 2800 planes and hit the 7,335 plane target by the end of 1951.
The lead story this week is an advertorial from Slick Airways, "Profitable Cargo at 11 Cents a Ton Mile?" We seem to be a bit low on good stories, because there's yet more about passenger helicopters service. (Someone is studying them in case rality has changed since the last issue.)
Some bumpf about Navy guided missiles. The Convair Terrier and Douglas Sparrow have been ordeed into production.
"Probe US Market for HP Marathon" Speaking of throwing your money away on a study, Handley Page has been writing potential US distributors to see if they'd like to buy a generic light transport since de Havilland has been so successful with the Dove. You're not de Havilland, guys.
"XC-120 Goes to Eglin for Tests" This is the plane with the cargo packet under the fuselage. Apparently it has been saved by the medical guys, who are looking at the packet as a forward-deployable medical facility.
"Horner: Don't Belittle Soviets" The day after Vandenberg's comments, H. M. Horner of United Aircraft, the manufacturers of the J-42 and J-48, had a testy press conference in which he pointed out that it was a mistake to underestimate the Russians.
"What Vandenberg Told Senators" Since a precis of his testimony wasn't enough, here's the transcript!
"Auxiliary Power for Guided Missiles" He can't get in a full final column because we need to squeeze in an advertorial from AiResearch about their partial-admission axial flow turbine and reduction gear box, which runs a 12,000rpm induction generator and a gear-type hydraulic pump, all to provide power for same. It's only 11" long and 6" in diameter!
"Canada's First Certificated Copter" I think we've heard about these guys before, but that's beside the point as no-one, anywhere, is going to seriously believe that this machine will ever fly in regular production.
Production has a long bit from William Kroger about how to win subcontracts at various companies.
"Device Suppresses Fuel Tank Explosions" Aviation Week checks in with the Royal Aircraft Establishment to find out about the Graviner Explosion Suppression System, which basically sprinkles fire suppressant over the surface of the tank if a pressure increase is detected, the key thing here being the speed and accuracy of the detector. Simmonds Aerocessories is interested in marketing it in America, which is probably why it is getting so much press.
"Tires Keep in Step with Jet Planes" T. G. Graham, vice-president of B. F. Goodrich, dashed off a note to the press about how Goodrich is keeping up with those jet planes with their high speeds. McGraw-Hill World News sends along a report about KLM's new cabin air conditioner, which is simple to install and very nice.
Of the various airline news stories, including the merger of two feeder airlines in New York that gets a half page, the only thing that seems worth mentioning is that the Convair 340 has won a hundred orders. Maybe the day of the DC-3 is done!
No letters or editorials, as most of the issue by page count was devoted to the transcript of General Vandenberg's testimony.
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