Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Father:
We are in a little hotel just outside of Maastricht, which I know was not in our itinerary, but we were having so much fun cycling on the Rhine that we decided to make a trip down the Moselle and extend our stay by a day, returning via Rotterdam aboard Cebu Queen, as what is the point of being an international shipping heiress if you can't get a berth on short notice. We have many pictures to show you, but none taken after dark, which threatens any minute due to brownouts, which are not one of the things about Europe that I will miss. I will talk to you about our meetings with the captains in Rotterdam when we get back. Not much to worry about, but there were some concerns expressed, mainly about an expected increase in traffic from the mainland due to Mao being increasingly erratic. Or so I'm told, anyway.
Your Loving Daughter,
Ronnie
The Economist, 6 September 1952
Leaders
"Mossadegh: Fanatic or Strategist?" "Right to Work," and "Eastern Trade and Western Politics" Communism is bad unless anti-communism costs us money. So if Mossadegh's clever plan is to allow a Communist coup to put pressure on us, we should just put on pressure back by ostentatiously talking to the Iraqi and Pakistani general staffs; and the Americans should just get off our back about trading for Eastern raw materials. On the other hand, the TUC isn't even allowed to talk about closed shops, they're so bad.
Notes of the Week
"Three to One for Arms," "Forward for Wage Claims," and "In Place of Bevanism" The TUC is for rearmament, which means that it is against Bevanism, which is fine for the Bevanites because they are moving beyond Bevanism to something that isn't Bevanism but still involves Bevan being the Prime Minster, while meanwhile the TUC's position on wages is either bad or good, I can't tell by reading the first and last sentence of the Note and I'm certainly not wasting my time reading the rest of it.
"Dry-Cleaning the Party" Is the Soviet Communist Party cleaning up its act as the new members who have joined since the purges, move up the ranks? Probably!
"Instead of the Politbureau" One of the new, or newish members is Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (thanks for making me look up the name of a foreign politician again, Economist!), and this week he is out with a commentary about how the Central Committee has to be franker with its members, and to that end should reform its structure and get rid of possibly the name "Politbureau" and perhaps most of what goes with it. "The Soviet Union is probably approaching changes more profound than even Mr. Khrushchev is willing to admit."
"Mr. Draper Reports" The very, very oily former General Draper has a report on Europe, what with all the Monet Plan and Schuman pools and such. The Europeans should liberalise trade and do more about inflation, and America should invest more over there or there will be some kind of "rupture."
"Houses for Sale" is the first of three notes on housing. The first is happy with the new policy allowing local councils to sell houses to their residents, but guesses that there won;t be many takers. The second thinks that the real way to encourage home ownership is more private building, which the Tories seem to be thinking about. The third is about some expert The Economist has dug up who thinks that the country can't build more than 200,000 houses a year, top, without letting the old housing stock deteriorate from lack of repairs. Also, there are too many subsidies these days and the housing industry isn't building enough houses, which goes to show that it is awful and shouldn't get subsidies. Any argument that gets you there! (Where there is few houses and high rents.)
"Danger in Nepal" Nepal is unstable, the prime minister is off to New Delhi to talk to Nehru, and the recruiting of Gurkhas for the British army, and specifically so that they can fight the Malaya insurgency without involving British conscripts, is being endangered by internal Indian politics. Perhaps the solution is to abolish Nepal? (While allowing it to retain full independence, of course!)
From The Economist of 1852, "Towards a Decimal Coinage" Usually it's just me making fun of The Economist of 1852, but this week we can all join in! Although it is a correspondent who thinks that now that there is a 10 pence coin, it will be easy and simple to move to a full decimal coinage. I especially liked the pedantic, mid-sentence digression on the true definition of "min."
Books
It used to be said that Mr. Churchill was wrong in the big strategic debates that were being had in 1942-44, mostly to the effect of invading this place as opposed to that. now the fifth volume of Churchill's history of the war is out, along with a volume of his war speeches, and it turns out that it was Mr. Churchill was right and his critics who were wrong. How unexpected! (That was sarcasm, by the way.) Lawrence Thompson's Portrait of England is a cracking good read but there are some bits the reviewer doesn't like here or there, for example Thompson doesn't take time out to draw a "portrait" of a "grand old Whig." Are there any left that don't write for this magazine? Siegfried Stern's The United States in International Banking is a very worthy book, possibly even more so than Nicholas Mansergh's Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs: Survey of External Policy, 1931--1939. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown's Structure and Function in Primitive Society is a reprint of thirty years of the author's articles on family life in South African native society. Radcliffe-Brown follows Durkheim, which Brown explains so lucidly that they almost lose the status of abstract theories, but only almost, because the reviewer prefers this other theorist who feels that Durkheim/Brown render "social relations" too "disembodied." I hope J. G. Crowther, of British Scientists of the Twentieth Century is Geoffrey Crowther's brother, because it would be a hoot to see them together. This Crowther is a good explainer of scientific theories, a terrible biographer, and a very hot Marxist who has a bit in here about how Lysenko overthrew the "sterile dogmatism" of Mendelian theory. He did not! Anyway, a good place to read about what makes Rutherford and Thomson so special. R. Harry Hodgkinson, in West and East of Tito is the latest explanation of the Stalin/Tito split, prognosticator of what it might mean, and explainer of the relevance of "Stalin's intervention the controversy over linguistic theory" to the split. Don't ask me what that might be, because the review doesn't explain! Alex Nevins is the project editor for five volumes on America in the world in recent times, published as the Chronicles of America series by the University of Cambrdge. Most of the books are pretty boring, but Elliot Janeway's account of how the New Deal fought the war is pretty entertaining, although probably mostly made up.
Letters
Do you want to know how the Equalisation Grants for education to British local councils does not work? Read The Economist's article on the subject, say two very irate correspondents. A. Romer of London writes to explain that turnout will probably be mandatory in the Polish elections in case low voting totals embarrass the regime. J. McDougall explains that the current disobedience campaign in South Africa is targeting "model" towns, which is why it is so peaceful. R. T. Bartlett has a tart rejoinder to some thoughts about corporate trusteeships which were, if I recall correctly expressed in a book review.
American Survey
It's an election year, it says here. (I know! I couldn't believe it, either!) So even though America should be liberalising trade and exporting capital, it isn't. It might even do the reverse, although it is nice that it has cut import duties on Venezuelan oil, only because you can't tell where oil is coming from, that means all oil. Also, the watchmakers and Harley-Davidson were sent packing, so that's good. And if Eisenhower is elected, he might be able to push through an extension to the Trade Agreements Act before Taft and the GOP call him on the carpet.
"McCarthy Again?" Speaking of it being an election year, McCarthy is awful, but Eisenhower can't condemn him because he would lose votes. All he can do is point to Richard Nixon and say, "I have one, too!" Will the voters in Wisconsin, either primary voters or statewide in the general election, relieve Eisenhower of the embarrassing McCarthy? Some people think so! They point to this or that Republican who has problems with McCarthy, at all the McCarthy scandals and the fact that he is a horrible person, and cite a theory about how it was actually Democratic voters who put McCarthy over the top in the last primary, crossing over to vote for a man they expected LaFollette to beat. On the other hand, no actual Wisconsin Republican has been caught out crossing McCarthy, so maybe this is all whistling in the wind.
American Notes
"Straight Talk for Labour" Governor Stevenson went in front of the American Legion and told American labour that it would be better for them if they watched their mouths. Fortunately, Stevenson then showed his political talents by saying that American veterans are getting too much, that there should be a fair employment act for Coloureds, after all, but only for Southern states. Oh, and if Republicans want "change" so much, they should march right down to Washington and get it!
I can't think of a single reason this man won't be President in November. Not a single reason.
Also the level of consumer credit is up even though the Federal Reserve promised, cross its heart, hope to die, that it wouldn't, back when it relaxed credit controls. And Eisenhower is campaigning in the South (gasp) and New York department stores are "cooperating against clothing competition." (Double gasp.)
Tax amortisation seems to have led to more investment in defence production and more armaments, and now the armaments extension seems less urgent, but on the other hand there are big gaps, for example in structural steel production, because business doesn't want to fund expansion of capability that will only be used in armaments drives and wartime. Some people think that the Government should take a hand, and some don't. The Johnson Committee has found that the Air Force spent money like a drunken sailor (sometimes literally) on its North African airfields, Spain and Senator McCarran have got over their latest little tiff, the Air Defence Command has gone ahead with Operation Skywatch, even though at last count it had less than 30% of the 250,000 civilian volunteers needed. At least we can all agree that it was Congress' fault! The FDA says that sales of the wonder drug chloromycetin can continue, but in light of recent events it has to carry warning labels saying that it can kill you.
It says here, and I can hardly believe it myself, that Japan is interested in the Chinese market! The Koumintang warns that it is all a mirage, that China needs its raw materials more than it needs Japanese trade, and that Japan should trade with Formosa instead. To which Japan replies that America is its best friend in the whole world and that it would never do anything to offen America or the Koumintang, but also that the consumers of China are also, and in another and more correct sense, its best friends in all the world.
"The Fifth Soviet Five Year Plan, Part II: Bright Prospects for Soviet Consumers" The next five year plan will finally bring the cornucopia of consumer goods that the Soviet New Man (and New Woman?) have been promised, lo these many years. Unless . . . [portentous music plays].
"Egypt in the Red" Ever since Egypt left the sterling area in 1947 we have been saying that eventually Egypt's current exchange balance would slip into the red, and it would be a disaster in the making and prove that land reform was impossible. Well, after five years of positive balances and a steadily increasing gold reserve, it has happened, and it is time to predict some disaster! On the other hand, even though things are getting worse in Spain this year, overall there is reason for optimism.
"South Africa Makes Crime Pay" The Economist visits the plains of the Orange Free State, where the sturdy yeoman of the idyllic farming villages were recently disturbed by a revision of the Masters and Servants Act which has prevented them from tracking down absconding employees and forcing them to come back to work. Good news, says the junketing Justice Minister, the new practice of creating "outpost prison" and filling them up with sturdy young Zulus and renting them out as farm labour has filled the gap. I would make some kind of cynical joke about the prisoners getting some fresh, country air, but the Justice Minister has stolen my thunder in a speech in which he made fun of the foreigners, journalists, and similar agony aunts who think the current practice is backwards, if not barbaric. All are agreed that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
The Business World
"Issues at Mexico City" Other than that the IMF doesn't work, that Bretton Woods doesn't work, and free trade doesn't work, and the American constitution doesn't work, it's hard to see any that some talking about talking about reforms won't cure, if only the talking were just talked as hard as The Economist would like, which it won't. Doom!
"Defence Runs on Bearings" Someone must have explained to The Economist what roller, tapered, and line bearings are, because it explains to us at some length. Did you know that the British bearings industry is divided between five firms and plants, with a listed capital investment of £5 million that is probably many times greater when actual cost of replacement is considered; that it employs 24,000 people and probably made about 70 million bearings last year compared with 55 million in 1947 for sales of £35 million, and that it is a vital industry and that more bearings are needed now than ever, since for example all the army trucks of WWIII will be four wheel drive instead of some being two wheel drive in WWII,, requiring twice as many bearings, plus all sorts of other bearings of all sizes are needed for this and that. Bearings need to be put in tubes, which are made in Britain by repurposed machine tools that aren't perfect for the job, so it is nice that one company is buying a complete American tube-making factory and will be putting it up, but that might not be enough for all the bearings we need for all those new things we need.
Then some finance news vomits all over the page.
Gas companies and electric companies are arguing about whether electrical space heating might actually be as economical as gas heating, which seems unlikely; the AEU's proposed ban on overtime is a "threat to engineering exports," and more about resolving German foreign debts. Tea prices are rising after three weeks of weakness, which is good news for tea brokers, at least, and especially of "liquoring teas." There are details about the new arrangements for maritime insurance, of which you will have heard in much more detail in the specialist press, about the Coryton refinery which is coming on stream this autumn with one of the new catalytic converters referred to above, and word of a possible surplus of cocoa.
In conclusion, the aircraft industry has the prospect of being one of Britain's biggest export industries, but various dark clouds, etc., etc. Also, BOAC and BEA should probably merge.
Leaders
"Farnborough Report" Flight puts in some words to go around the pictures. At the static show, Napier showed off an Eland, which is the newest thing I can see on the manned aviation front, although the Ministry's Fairey Beta II rocket for missiles and jets, and the Bristol experimental ramjet are new. Bristol showed off the Britannia propeller section, Ferranti had some radar components, Decca had its Flight Log, and Dowty brought in some undercarriages.
"Crews for the Canberras" Flight visits 231 OCU, which is training crews for operational Canberra squadrons, in order to have some pictures that weren't from Farnborough. And since that was fun, and because John Yoxall has crossed someone at the home office, he was sent off to do a pictorial feature on 43 Squadron (currently in Meteors, yawn) instead of being kept around town for Farnborough. We also visit the air display at Baginton that was held to go with the Siddeley Challenge Cup.
"Crusader" Flight visits John Cobb, who is going to try to retake the world water speed record with a Ghost-powered jet boat. The American, piston-engined craft that holds the current 178.4mph record should be easily bested by the Ghost's 5000lb static thrust next Friday, weather permitting.
Here and There reports that Blackburn has sold some Universal Freighters, that a Boeing jet transport is expected in '54, that the "Mighty Mouse" rocket that destroyed a B-17 over New Mexico was a training rocket with an inert warhead fired by an F-86D (the gunless, radar-equipped model). The pilot mistook the active B-17 for his radio-controlled target, and only two of the 8 crew survived. The Preparedness Committee of the US Senate says that the United States is even less prepared for war than before Korea, because even though it has a lot of air groups, they aren't enough. An RAF pilot is being court-martialled for low flying, the US Navy is testing a refuelling method suitable for carrier aircraft. The Third Annual Conference of Astronautics will be held in Stuttgart this year. Either the third or fourth Forrestal-class carrier will hopefully have atomic power. The Handley Page Bulletin has a feature on the Handley Page 97 project, a 150-seat airliner with two full passenger decks.
Civil Aviation reports renewed talk of American orders for the Comet. Eastern Air Lines is currently in the middle of a $110 million reequipment with Martin 4-0-4s and Super Constellations, so it seems odd that they would be talking about doing it again, soon. But Captain Rickenbacker says that you always have to look to the future, and the 75 seat Comet III, of which he would need at least 35, would fit into his fleet as a "de luxe" top-line service. The question is whether the Comet III can be designed and put in service in Rickenbackers' 1954--57 timeframe
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Service Aviation checks in with the Arctic airlift that bedded the Northeast Greenland expedition in for the winter, which was almost incident free.
"Dousing the Decibels" Detuners, Incorporated, explains the baffles they use to reduce the noise from ground-tested Rolls Royce turbines at Derby.
Correspondence
Texicoon's new cocoons are reusable, and Industrial Metal Finishes' new resin is ester-resistant. H. Morris and Company's "Q" board decorative wood panelling is very decorative. Everyone likes fiberglass. The oil industry points out that there is, in fact, no oil cartel.
The Engineer, 5 September 1952
Not The Seven-Day Journal
J. M. L. Hill, "Approach to Labour Turnover" Typically of when an engineer is put in charge of a non-engineering problem that affects engineers, there are lots of charts in this experimental study of a group of turnover-ees. No obvious conclusion jumps out of the charts, so we close with a very long "Summary and Implications" section which, as far as I can tell, says we need to study how good workers get browned-off.
A. V. Hill, "The Ethical Dilemma of Science" It might seem like a good idea to kidnap the brain of an atom scientist and put it in the body of an All-American quarterback, but will the brain or the brawn breed true when you put him in with the pretty cave girls in your Caveman Reservation? No, wait, it's about how scientists have to be more high minded. I liked my paper better.
"Electromagnetic Couplings and Gearbox on the M.V. Surrey" Surrey is being built by Alexander Stephens for the New Zealand Shipping Company. It is an 8400t ship with Sulzer motors giving 4500hp through a twin-pinion gearbox to give 100rpm at the screws. A pity, because when I read the title I was wondering if they had built a complete electromagnetic gearbox, which would be an interesting step between diesel-electric and direct-diesel drive. But it's not, and instead it is mostly a long article about how the couplings keep vibrations down.
B. G. Neal and P. S. Symonds have looked at "Plastic Collapse in Plane Frames." There is lots of graphically-solved static math problems. Our Indian Correspondent visits a bicycle factory in West Bengal, and there is to be an international symposium on cement in London next week.
Leaders
"The SBAC Display" The Engineer was very impressed with the Avro 698. It also celebrates the end of the hard, forehead-wrinkling, paper-reading part of the fourth congress of the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering by pointing out that British engineers had a big part in it, and let's all sing Land of Hope and Glory.
Literature has a very long review of R. Feinberg's introduction to Electronic Circuits. Why take up so much space and cram a review of Louis Toff and A. D. D. McKay's Practical Mathematics vol 1 into a corner? Because you need a lot of space to explain everything that is wrong with Feinberg's book. In conclusion, buy the reviewer's book, instead.
R. E. Morrison has thoughts about how we talk about the power of a locomotive. Georges Roesch points out that he anticipated many of the advantages of the new Borg and Beck clutches for commercial vehicles years ago, before the war. Symington MacDonald read a gassy paper about "Science and Applied Research" and writes a long, gassy letter about it.
"Electronics Symposium and Exhibition" The Scientific Manufacturers of Great Britain sponsored this particular event, which is being held as we write. Papers are heard on an electronic control mechanism for large telescopes, the development of resistive elements and waveguides attenuators for semi-conducting ceramics (by J. M. Herbert, for Plessy), Electronics in strain measurement, elecronics developed by ERA for research, electronic measurement and control in industry, electronics in temperature control, and applications of ultrasonics. You can tell the one paper that Thought wasn't purely anodyne. Semi-conducting ceramics are getting very complicated, because you can change their qualities from region to region by adding in other materials. In the abstract, I guess you could just "write" a circuit on their surface with a titanium oxide (or whatever) pen, although I'm sure I'm missing most of the complexities.
The Engineer's report on the SBAC Display and a summary of the Anglo-American Council on Productivity's report on "Electricity and Productivity," which highlights many advantages of American practice, follow.
There is a report on "Progress in the Unification of Engineering Standards," on some underground hydroelectric power stations in Scotland, an ingenious series of 3.5 kVA generators from Star Engineering of Coventry, and a manually operated stress finder for ship loading from Kevin and Hughes, and Holophone Industrial Translucent Lights.
Labour and Trade Notes do not repay discussion unless you are a British employer, and if there were anything in Notes and Memoranda or British Patent Specifications, I would have told you.
The Economist, 13 September 1952
Leaders
"The Soldier's Rule in Egypt" General Naguib has pushed Premier Ali Maher aside, eliminated the monarchy, and made himself the first President of Egypt, with his Free Officers along to help. The Economist explains what that means for Egypt's economy: We don't know, the future isn't written, but probably doom.
"Four Fifths of Vacuum" The Prime Minister says that four-fifths of Britons agree on four-fifths of what needs to be done. The Economist thinks this is vacuous, mainly because Labour is awful. Platitudes? From Winston Churchill? I'm shocked again. This is what you get for heating with electricity!
"Thorez's Second Coming" The Economist dissects developments in the French Communist Party and decides that it is much to do about nothing, because the French don't care about Indo-China, alleged oppression in North Africa, or American "occupation troops." So all the Communists have to run on is inflation and John Foster Dulles.
Notes of the Week
It turns out that the engineering strike may end without apocalyptic doom, the Labour Party's annual convention ended without violent mobs erecting a guillotine (but don't let your guard down!), it seems that the British relationship with the European community is "developing," there is progress on the front of German reparations for Israel, which will get $700 million in goods over 12 to 14 years and $100 million in nominal repayment for lost Jewish property in Germany. Bevanites might win too many seats in local committees in upcoming Labour elections-of-those-people (the details glance off my glazed eyeballs), which will somehow be bad news for Bevan, The Economist explains, and it now comes out that the attempt to replace Attlee as Prime Minister with Bevin in 1947, such as it was, might have featured "the Member for Belper," who is now such a critic of Aneurin Bevan, which goes to show that critics of Bevan are bad. This game of using the Labour parliamentary party vote of confidence in Attlee to settle scores now is so much fun that The Economist joins in, pointing out how it must have been Hugh Dalton who was behind it.
"The Flatulent Economy" Professor T. D. Jack, President of the British Association, gave an address on how too much full employment is like flatulence, if flatulence led to inflation, and not, you know. We should get rid of it by cutting down on beans, or, in this case, by letting some unemployment in.
"University Returns and Accounts" Another thing that is bad because it is good so that it is bad because it is good, is university, which has ever more students but costs the Government ever more money, and surely that can't go on and why don't we have more engineers and scientists?
"Price of Progress" Because of the way I've ordered things, this is the first reference to the still-unexplained mid-air disintegration of a DH110 twin-Avon De Havilland night fighter on the second day of the Farnborough Exhibition, which killed the two crew "after nearly 100 people were killed or injured," it says here. That's because we can expect more deaths on top of the 26 already reported.
"Miss Horsbrugh Against Cramming" The Minister (Florence!) and the Ministry are opposed to all the cramming people are doing to get the highest possible grade on the new GCSE, but no-one is going to do anything about it, because it would be hard.
"A Lesson from Singapore" Singapore Colony has been putting all the Communist youth on prison islands and running the camps along "strict Marxist lines," which has led to all the youth renouncing Communism, and isn't that a lesson for today's world?
(Once as tragedy, once as YA box office gold)
Books
Letters
A whole page! Unfortunately, tedious stuff about potentially freezing the pension rate, European unity and the local rates, nothing to make up for the lack of From The Economist of 1852, so don't think kI didn't notice! The exception is H. J. D'Avigdor-Goldsmid's impassioned letter on "Austrian Jewry," which points out that Austrian Jews did not "choose" to emigrate and "choose" not to return, and that if Austria has the money to compensate ex-Nazis for their losses, it has the money to start paying off its obligations to the Jews who were, in actual fact, exiled, imprisoned, and murdered, and choose not to go back to a country which refuses to reckon with its past. Perhaps not surprisingly when The Economist refuses to ask it to reckon with its past. 
American Survey
"No War of Liberation" John Foster Dulles has been firmly told to shut up about a "war of liberation" for the peoples under the Communist yoke. Starting an atom war is not to be part of the GOP platform this November. On the other hand, Stevenson is definitely running against an atom war. Nice work, Mr. Foreign-Policy-Finance-and-Law Genius!
"Whose Tidelands?" The Economist explains the niceties of the tidelands controversy to the audience at home and even delicately links this alleged intrusion of the Federal government into the business of states to the Coloured question before dropping civil rights in favour of drilling for oil like the hot potato it is.
American Notes
"Hammering at the Quotas" The Truman Administration continues to fight the invidious immigration quotas preserved by the McCarran act, which would seem indefensible and a good election issue, but not so fast, what about Americans denied passports by the State Department in a spirit of "McCarthyism and McCarranism?" Isn't that just like the McCarran Act? Isn't it the Administration's fault? Remember that Lattimore embarrassment? Who is really to blame, here? Hint: It's the Democrats. Oh, and John Rankin has lost his primary, while Joe McCarthy has won his, which sure makes it seem like the Republicans are worse than the Democrats, but I'm sure something will turn up. Oh, will you look at that. Crime is up in New York City. That's a Democrat town! Even Senator Kefauver thinks crime is bad!
The World Overseas
"Dutch Lessons for British Chancellors" The Dutch have done a much better job of managing their balance pf payments. The Dutch don't think that they have a secret, but they're too modest, because the secret is controlling inflation. Also, France is on the brink of disaster again, and Canada is setting up a television network even though it can't afford to produce shows for it, and is keen to import regular British programming to make up the lack, even though the British haven't much to offer, they say. And the Fifth Soviet Five Year Plan has high hopes of farm production.
"Norway to Nato, I: Scale of Rearmament" Norway is spending a bunch of money on rearmament without disrupting its economy to anything like the extent Britain is, which would be a lesson if the Norwegians weren't buying completely different things.
The Business World
"The Anatomy of a Crisis" The revised estimates of national income published this week by the statistical office have already got a Leader that explains the "crisis" in the title. Britain is not investing enough in productive capacity, which is "wasting away." The national income is going up, but it is being spent on the wrong sort of thing, mainly wages. Britain is therefore doomed.
"Competition in Fuel" Yet another study showing that Britain isn't mining enough coal (it could do with 15 to 20 million tons more), and that this is leading to a shortfall in electricity production, with load shedding and not enough production as a result. We can also talk about how the coal is used, as some are arguing that delivering it to the power station is more efficient than delivering it to the gas plant, because once everything is taken together, electrical heating is cheaper.
Business Notes
"Fall in Exports" Oh, good. The next crisis is starting. There's a dump of financial news, the latest effort to convince us that the energy problem is that coal is just too cheap, and notice that steel and textiles are on the mend. Where is manpower going? To engineering, which is where we wanted to go and where wages went up, fancy that, and to textiles, which are "on the mend." Fancy that some more! Timber and linseed are in the process of being decontrolled.
"Too Many Cooks at the BRM" That's "British Racing Motors, Ltd.," which was a trust formed by a number of small companies to design a 16 cylinder racing motor, and which was wrapped up this week because it wasn't working out. Hopefully, new management will save the work which has alrready been done.
Leaders
"The Farnborough Tragedy" With very little to say about how the accident happened, the full page on the tragedy is an almost-full page biography of the test pilot, Squadron Leader John Derry, who was 31, and left a wife and two children, plus a paragraph for the flight observer, A. M. ("Tim") Richards.
From All Quarters reports that the report on the Rearmament Estimates says that spending on some things, notably the National Aircraft Establishment at Bedford, can be scaled back. The British Association for the Advancement of Science heard a number of papers on the "Problems of the Supersonic Age," which were mostly about the physiological effects of high speed and high altitude on the crew, but also featured Ben Lockspeiser pointing out that considering how much people have overlooked helicopters in the past, it is time to go in the other direction and predict that helicopters will be everywhere, specifically in the form of folding rotors in the leading edge of future jet planes and transports that will simplify takeoff and landing. I'll have what he's having! Also, people are looking at supersonic "bangs," the Helicopter Association had a meeting and a lecture on the BEA experimental helicopter services, which went very well, and the Ministry of Supply (Air) is being reorganised. "Very well," by the way, means that helicopters are too expensive, too tiring for their pilots, and not very useful in bad weather. 
Here and There
Rolls Royce Glasgow is producing Avon parts. The Swift flight to Brussels last week set a homologed speed record. The RAAF is modifying their Lincolns for ASW work at the Melbourne plant, while meanwhile RAAF crews are in Burbank, California training on P2V Neptunes due for delivery to the RAAF. The American services have ordered some Hiller Hornet ramjet helicopters for trials. The Ministry of Health reminds everyone that there are new, simplified forms for registering vaccinations ahead of Eastern travels. The RAE is buying a Breguet 960 for tests, the International Machine Tools Exhibition at Olympia will be quite the affair, Aries III is down with engine problems at Keflavik right now in the middle of another summer Arctic research flying campaign, and Ernst Heinkel has offered his factories to help produce more Comets, faster, because it is crazy that all the European countries (is Britain in Europe? Opinions differ!) have their own airliners.
"The Marine Airliner: A Precis of a Lecture Presented to the British Association by H. Knowler" Henry Knowler, previously Saunders-Roe's Crackpot-in-Chief, explains why the jet flying boat is the future. Or, actually, the paper seems to assume that the jet flying boat airliner is the future, and spends most of its time on the ideal hull form for best hydrodynamic and aerodynamic performance. "The attraction an aircraft such as needs no further argument." Speaking of ineptly-run companies that are hopelessly doomed, the American Air Force has announced that Wright production of the J65 Sapphire has been "slowed," since there is no sign of it ever emerging from the shop, anyway, after an expenditure of Four! Hundred! Million! Dollars!
"Farnborough Review" It must be time to put words around pictures again. The same words! (With new pictures.) That includes some very unfortunate praise of S/L Derry for the way that he throws his 110 around the deck. Oh, and the Ferry Rotodyne model was on show. Remember when the big thing was the Cierva Air Horse? Or don't remember it, because that would be unpatriotic. Stop your ears and sing Land of Hope and Glory instead.
"Our American Correspondent" writes from America-Land that Douglas has released the preliminary specification of its jet airliner, which will be very big, and presumes a lot of improvement in the Pratt and Whitney J57 over the next few years to get its gigantic all up weight off the ground in the autumn of 1957. Americans are still arguing about the Aircraft Production Board's rationalisation recommendations. The idea of Allison T40s replacing The R-3350 and R-4360 has definitely been rejected as unrealistic about turboprops, but the rest seems reasonable, even if the industry is resisting and it is unlikely to survive, in the writer's view. We get a brief look at the "silly season" flying saucer reports, which should remind us of radar's ability to see things that aren't there, and then it's on to the news coverage of the Madrid World Gliding Championships, which concludes that free-enterprise American gliders couldn't compete with the massively state-funded and organised forces of precision-stepping European glider teams with their waxed uniforms and tailored mustaches. Get a grip, America, Our American Correspondent says.
Civil Aviation reports that Qantas has opened its Indian Ocean service, that Kai Tak Airport is being improved (THANK GOD!) that Air Tasman and BOAC are making money. The official De Havilland statement on the Rickenbacker visit is that De Havilland is ready to build 50 Series II Comets in 1955 if orders are forthcoming and to deliver 9 Comet IIIs in 1957 and 50 in 1958, in addition to those already ordered. TCA will probably order Viscounts as part of its internal North American expansion. Vickers currently has 48 orders and is flight testing the first production Viscount currently. Pan Am has denied that it is buying Comets, and the first Super Constellations to be delivered are coming in under weight due to efficient construction practices. Canberras and Comets are in Australia just to remind everyone they exist. I'm sorry, for "proving flights."
Correspondence
Eric Williams remembers the old days, before the war, and specifically the Tiger Moth. Air Marshal Saunders reminds everyone to give generously to the RAF Benevolent Fund. W. D. Pereira writes that the engineers he knows who are moving to Canada are doing so because Canada is so nice, with houses and cars for everyone.
The Engineer, 12 September 1952
Not the Seven-Day Journal reports that work continues at Coryton, that the Institution of Civil Engineers have released a memorandum on the design of dry docks, that papers at the annual convention of the British Waterworks Association focussed on how much water still needs to go into British homes and work to get it there; the coal committee of the European Commission of the United Nations has an interesting draft report on the European coal problem based on a round tabler meeting last week in Geneva that focusses on using coal more efficiently, the Colonial Civil Aviation Conference was held last week and concentrated on the changes produced by the gas turbine; the Institute of Fuel has released further details of a proposed conference on ash and clinker.
E. Burgess, F. R. Ae. S., "High Altitude Research" Burgess reports on American work with the "Viking" adaptation of the V2, mostly, in fact, about the radio telemetering equipment that had to be very quickly designed and put aboard the test rockers, and which presented special problems which have been overcome, as is the way of these things. Or, at least, these papers.
H. Fealdman, "Stress Rosette Analysis" An abstract analysis of readings in wire radial strain gauges.
"15mW Gas Turbine Alternator Set at Trafford Power Station" This is the experimental equipment commissioned from Metropolitan Vickers by the British Electrical Authority. It differs from the aeroengines in that it can use all the gadgets from steam turbine work, such as intercoolers and heat exchangers. The discussion is brief and draws no conclusions.
"National Policy for the Use of Fuel and Power" The general conclusions of the Committee on Fuel and Power's National Policy draft are given. Everything is fine, fuel shortage notwithstanding. Which is not to say that things can't be improved by the following recommendations: new standards, higher efficiency, more simplicity, fuel saving, more efficiency, practice trials, more and better control. So, basically "Do everything better." I think this is put all the potential everyone to sleep ahead of the actual recommendation: Differential rates for peak and off-peak hours.
An American correspondent reports on the "Cosmotron" atom smasher at Brookhaven, and we hear about the Astronautical Convention in Stuttgart. Eric Denholm reports on "The Works of the Stirlingshire and Falkirk Water Board," and Saunders-Roe is excited about its new foil strain gauge.
A precis of Ben Lockspeiser's address to the BAAS on "Progress in Aeronautical Science and Engineering" follows. It is largely droning on about improvements in aerodynamics, and I was jolted awake by the suggestion of folded rotors in jet plane wings, just like everyone else doing their dutiful best. With all respect to Lockspeiser, he might be losing a step.
Leaders
"Fuel and Power Policy" Everyone agrees that we need more economy, but the people who are trying to be economical are getting just a bit cranky about all the hectoring.
"The Machine Tool Exhibition" The report on the Exhibition takes up most of the rest of the issue, ,but here are the highlights: Faster working and feeding, simplified controls for closer working, ever more use of "copying methods," British firms at the forefront (Land of Hope and Glory), the usefulness of exhibitions like this to spur progress.
Letters
R. E. Gamlen explains that as much coal should be saved for export as possible, and this somehow supports using more electricity for heating. (Because the coal doesn't get made into gas, and there is backpressure to exploit in British power stations?) E. B. Parker has ideas about how locomotive wheels deliver acceleration at low speeds, and R. E. Morrison is skeptical about high aircraft speeds at low altitudes where the air is thick.
"The British Association" The Engineer reports on D. A. Stewart's report on vibrated concrete and another on calculating power loads in transmission lines before getting into the papers on the human factors in supersonic flying that I've already given a brief treatment to in Flight. I'm also going to skip the summary of available papers from the Anglo-American Council, but notice Glacier Metal's lubricating oil filter and Dunlop's method for electrostatic spray painting of tennis frames, which sounds like a neat trick.
"Michigan State Ferry Vacationland" The neat bit here is that it is for Great Lakes operation, and so needs icebreaking capability, and has extra power to provide it, so we check in with its direct-reversing diesel machinery, which is very flexible, since most of that power isn't needed in the summer. Compressed air starting is used.
The Special Report on The International Machine Tool Exhibition at Olympia runs to ten profusely illustrated pages. The Leader seems like an apt summary, although the "Electrolimit" control on the planer of the imported Pratt and Whitney machine sounds interesting.
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