Postblogging Technology, November 1954: Buy Now, Pay Later!

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada



Dear Father:

Since James and I are a bit worried about our letters being intercepted, I will answer a possibly sensitive question here instead of by post. We do not know when we might be going back to London. We expect we will. We have seen no reason to think that the holdup on cooling down the Qemoy crisis was anything but politics, and that a Democratic victory won't mean a prompt cooling of the Straits crisis. At the same time, those poor Russian sailors are not going to be released soon. They've become an issue in internal Koumintang politics. Whether the crisis will be sorted out, therefore, depends on whether Moscow is willing to swallow the insult. I'd like to say that I have a line on Russia's man in Taipei, but I have no idea how much to credit him. He might be some kind of confidence man, so I am being very cautious. The Koumintang is more than ordinarily enthusiastic about shooting each other down by the water at the moment, so everyone is being understandably close lipped except the people being inexplicably garrulous. So all I can say is that if I know anything, Moscow will. If I don't, all I can say is read the papers for yourself.

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

The Economist, 6 November 1954

Leaders

"The Democrats and Eisenhower" The Democrats didn't win the Congressional elections as sweepingly as they hoped, but it shows that the Democrats are America's majority party, but the whole world is celebrating and it is therefore The Economist's job to rain on everyone's parade by asking if, maybe, there won't be a disastrous muddle in Washington for two years because there is a Republican President and a Democratic Congress. The fact that Britain weathered the dock strike and, so far, wage increases shows just how strong the American economy is, and not at all that The Economist was wrong to make a fuss about it. Also, France is in crisis again because the Assembly might reject Mendes-France's economic reforms. 

"Wards of the Public" The Children Act of 1948 aimed for the eventual closure of orphanages by foster homes. But when I say "orphanages," I am missing the point. Of the 39,000 children taken into care in 1952--3, only 2000 were orphans, the remainder being removed from their homes due to family breakdowns. The magazine goes on to wonder how the root causes should be addressed, by preventing family breakdowns instead of taking in wards of the public. Judges should be told to take fewer children, adoption should be easier, and there should be less "excessive departmentalism" that makes life harder for "problem families" and leads to avoidable family breakdowns. (For example, housing committees who evict families for  owing £10 in rent are producing a ward who will be much more expensive.

"Why Disarmament Lags" I'm so old, I remember when rearmament was lagging! Anyway, it's probably the Reds' fault. 

From The Economist of 1854 we have "The Journalist's Problem" which is a complaint that there is just too much going on right now with the revolution in Spain and the imminent revolution in Denmark and the trouble in Italy (I think?) but the only thing Londoners care about is the news from Crimea, because everyone is waiting to hear about the fall of Sevastopol. 

Notes of the Week

Parliament is back but so far they're arguing about boring stuff, the dock strike is over and we need to make fun of the dockers, Nehru is back from his visit to China without much to say, the German legislature isn't happy with the Saar settlement might not do anything about it. People shouldn't worry about the big (£75 million of a total of £279 million) bill for the British force in Germany because it's actually quite reasonable when you look at it. Elections cannot be held in British Guiana because the PPPP would win, and that's not acceptable. Since Guianese vote for the PPP because they don't like being poor and miserable, that won't change, which means that British Guiana might be under direct rule for a long time, and they won't like that, either. Lord Mountbatten might be First Sea Lord for even longer than the seven years of Admiral Beatty, because he is young and leaderlike and the Navy and the Admiralty has to fix stuff up so that it can have both lots of destroyers and frigates for fighting submarines and a carrier task force for the "unimaginable hazards of hot" war. The British ambassador is going to make further protests to the Greek government about the tone of Athens Radio's broadcasts to Cyprus. The committee of inquiry into the administration of Crown lands will hopefully sort out who should be in charge of what, just like the Chrichel Down report. The Court of Justice of the ECSC has heard some cases in connection with the so-called "Monnet rebates" that I can't be bothered to understand and no-one cares because of the recovery in steel prices, although it would have been sticky otherwise. There's going to be no Nobel Peace Prize this year, and The Economist doesn't really understand why. Jugoslavia is having economic troubles due to a bad wheat harvest and needs to do something about its agriculture, and Cambridge has fallen the lead of Oxford in raising the mandatory retirement age of dons from 65 to 67. Dons have only had to retire since 1926, and this one don said that he hoped that he would have the sense to leave his position before he "became an abuse," so the question is how many superannuated dons would realise this if retirement age requirements were removed. 

"Terror Spreads to Algeria" "Some" argue that the recent "outbreak of terror" in Algeria was the beginning of an offensive by the followers of Messali Hadj, while others say that it is just a provocation by some foreign government that "will find little backing in Algeria." French diehards are upset at the Mendes-France government's policy of "dialogue," suggesting that the violence in Tunisia only started when France "dared to offer autonomy" to Tunisia, and that enough "naked fist" will work in Algeria, even if it didn't work in Indo-China. The Economist suggests that the actual solution will be to improve the Algerian economy and reduce unemployment. General Phao Sriyanondh is in town after a whirlwind tour of Europe in which the "real ruler of Siam" has been explaining how Siam is at one and the same time threatened by Communism and is in control of the situation, and that his land reform is just the thing. 

"Penalising Promotion" Lord Chandos, who is the "president of the Institute of Directors," and who used to be Oliver Lyttleton, points out that, because the present highly progressive income tax removes "most incentive" to earn more than £4000/year, it costs the country "dear in terms of mental effort unattempted," although "just how dear is no doubt a matter of controversy." Therefore, Lord Chandos claims, "To limit the highest rate of tax on earned income to two-thirds," "would almost certainly certainly produce income that would rapidly reimburse the Treasury of the £20 million that he estimates it would cost." I could swear I've heard that insight before. It honestly seems to come easy to men who earn more than £4000! Batista's decision to steal the Cuban election is shameful. The riots over the Jordanian elections were also shameful. There's a great article about Walter Bagehot in History Today. 

Letters

A. R. Conan points out that $500 million or so of the current accounts surplus is payments for American forces in the United Kingdom and foreign aid to Pakistan, and that's cheating. Stanley Mayne of the Institution of Professional Civil Servants takes on the job of making local administration even more boring, and delivers like Marilyn's divorce lawyer! Nancy Crawshaw writes to point out that everyone in Athens is embarrassing themselves over Cyprus, British AND Greeks. R. N. Higgenbotham and the editor argue about Leaflet CDP/L2's order for the implementation of deficiency payments for unmillable wheat and rye. I would make fun of the name "Higgenbotham," now, but I am pretty sure I've done that before! W. N. Leak explains that rich people should really have access to pay beds and that it wouldn't affect the NHS at all, and it would be good for everyone because the rich people would pioneer new standards of care by carving roads through the scientific wilderness with all the money they don't have due to high taxes. As opposed to pioneering the road to Switzerland. Jon Kimchi of the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review objects to the favourable review of Kirk's latest on the Middle East on the grounds that it is unreliable on the origins of the 1948 war. Our Reviewer explains why it is, in fact, the Zionists who are unreliable on the origins of the 1948 war. Well! One side says one thing, and the other side says another. I am sure this will be sorted out soon! 

American Survey

I wonder if the reviews have been moved to the back? It would be about time!  

"Indecisive Victory" The Democrats actually lost because they didn't win enough, some more. 

"Automated Giants" You can tell that Our American Correspondent thinks he is writing for the club set in London. This year's autos are "longer, lower, wider, omre powerful, and more difficult to park; power steering, automatic transmissions, tubeless tyres, and wraparound windscreens for better vision; all are provided in cars of many tempting colour schemes; the V-8 engine is almost universal." It is all so, so gauche! It has actually been quite an exciting autumn for new car models, but there  is a reason for that. Actual production is at the lowest rate since the 1952 steel strike, and the big marques are desperate to bring the buyer back. More than $1.3 billion was invested in plant, machine tools, and dies to produce the new year's cars, and "automation" is proceeding apace to bring down costs, but that also means a new fight for volume to justify the investments. Not even advertising at the current rate is affordable without more volume! The aim is necessarily to drive the smaller makers to the wall, but the consequence is that there will be no significant changes, in particular to engines, for the next five years as the investments are amortised so that the automation binge is paid for. 

"Watches' Bad Timing" The Justice Department has launched an antitrust action against the Swiss watch industry alleging that it is conspiring to keep prices  higher per their 18-year-old trade agreement, which, the Swiss point out, makes no sense when they are also subject to a 50% tariff because their low prices threaten a strategic American industry. It is suggested that this is actually an action inspired by American makers who do not import Swiss parts, against the American firms which do. A confidential directive circulating within the RNC to the effect that Civil Service hiring should be guided by "Only Republicans need apply" principles has been leaked, although it is not clear that it is as important as that. The Census Bureau is coming under fire for the unemployment report that showed a recovery in October, which turns out to have been an honest statistical error relating to a change in the way that seasonal changes are handled, and not an attempt to boost the GOP at the polls. Who could be so cynical as to think so!?

"Good Government Begins at Home" Why don't Americans care as much about their state legislatures when they are so important? Probably because of the way that they are engineered to ensure that country voters outweigh city voters, both through the state senates and by various limits on how representative the assembly can be, such as capping the number of members from given cities, or requiring every county to have a representative, or, in extreme cases, simply not reapportioning electoral districts.

The World Overseas

"Taking Stock of OEEC --I" The OEEC is boring and is taken for granted, and that's good, one supposes. Germans are unlikely to raise taxes to pay for their new armed forces. Probably loans, which they are well equipped to handle. Will it lead to a labour shortage/ Probably, and that won't be as easy to handle. No-one cares about the New Zealand elections, including New Zealanders. The National Party is likely to win with a reduced majority, and it will be interesting to see how whether the upstart Social Credit League makes any headway against New Zealand Labour. The Nigerian regional elections look to be a spicier affair. "A Correspondent Lately in Spanish Morocco" has a view on Morocco, which is that French Morocco is sailing into a storm of its own making, while Spanish Morocco is doing fine mainly by keeping its head down. 

"Permanent Settlement for Refugees?" Our United Nations Correspondent reports that the General Assembly has accepted the proposal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Gerrit Jan Van Heuven Goedhart, for $1 million in emergency funds for the support of the neediest refugees, and a $12 million programme "to speed the final settlement of the 350,000 refugees --including the 82,000 still in camps." That is, on condition that by the end of 1958 the resident countries will take over and it will all be off the hands of the United States and Great Britain. All that's needed now is international full employment so people will stop worrying about accepting refugees into third countries such as Italy and Greece. 

"Peasants and Pigs in Jugoslavia" "A Correspondent Lately in Jugoslavia" recalls an excellent fried chicken meal in a peasant cottage with an earth floor, where the dining table is squeezed in between two beds "bulging with goosefeather quilts in embroidered covers." That sounds cozy! The point is that the couple work very hard, between their two hectare plot and the husband's job as day labourer at "one of the government's agricultural depots." The poor harvest, combined with the new taxation system not being as good as promised, has been a burden for the peasantry, but the article is about happier circumstances related to Britain. A recent British scheme to export "several thousand large Yorkshire White breeding sows," which were not greeted enthusiastically in Serbia. However, in the Podravina region of Croatia and neighbouring parts of Slovenia, where pig exporting was already a business, the sows were offered on a "hire purchase" scheme in which some piglets were repaid to the state. The result has been a pig-raising boom and fried chicken with an Economist correspondent one recent Sunday. 

 
 Autumn Books

There's some kind of irony in the Wiki article about
Sloane reading like a high school essay, because without
it we wouldn't have an article about Sloane at all!

The feature article is a review of the last four volumes of Toynbee's Study of History, recently dropped together from the Oxford press. They are pretty massive, and the review is confined to outlining Toynbee's philosophy of history, which I know you could not possibly find more boring, although I suspect that where he looks at things Far Eastern you might find some anger leaking through. In any case, they're out, they're done, and Dr. Toynbee can take up bowling or long walks. Adlai Stevenson is out with his 1956 manifesto, Call to Greatness, and again it is the reviewer's reaction that is the main story, and that story is that the reviewer will vote for Stevenson. Now he just needs to find another forty million Americans of the same mind! D. W. Brogan's An Introduction to American Politics is the return of the author of 1933's The American Political System to the subject of a country that is a "sadder, jumpier, more intricate, and more involved sort of place." The reviewer liked it. T. H. White's The Book of Beasts is a translation of a medieval Latin bestiary and a defence of the medieval mind. Thomas Jones' 1931--1950 diary deserves to be published because he knew all those interwar prime ministers everyone else has forgotten unless they were born in 1870, like the author. Lionel Kochan's Acton on History is a study of the horrid late reactionary who earned his reputation largely by being the English establishment's pet Catholic, and whose support for, say, slavery, can now be laundered by saying nice things about his historical insights. John Buxton on Sir Philip Sydney and Richard Ellman and Allan Wade on Yeats give us a bit of literature and politics upon which I'm not going to comment lest someone think it is all about politics for me! (Buxton and Yeats sound like the most reactionary of the lot, which, considering that Sydney was alive in the time of Shakespeare, is saying a lot!) David Cecil's latest volume on Lord Melbourne focusses on his later life and his relationship with the Queen. Vitold Gosha's Primitive India, translated from the French by Nadine Peppard, is gorgeously illustrated. E. St. John Brooks' Sir Hans Sloane: The Great Collector and His Circle is about, as the subtitle has it, the "begetter of the British Museum," and is fascinating because Sloane was fascinating. Christy Brown's My Left Foot is a deeply moving autobiography of the spastic who ("the word that now covers all forms of cerebral palsy") who managed to escape the prison of his handicap by writing with a pen clenched in his left foot. 

Georgia Dobie Sitwell, by William Acton. It illustrates
the Wiki article about Sacheverell. 

A. L. Rowse introduces A Cornish Waif's Story, the autobiography of Emma Smith, a child "deprived of a normal home life," in the modern phrase, who seems to have overcome it all for the most part, just like Christy Brown, and isn't that an inspiring story for all of us today? W. Somerset Maugham's Ten Novels and their Authors is the famous novelist doing criticism quite readably. Oliver Gogarty's It Isn't This Time of Year At All is the latest slice of Irishness from the famed author. John Rowland's life of George Stephenson is the portrait of a worthy but boring engineer, but in no way the comprehensive biography the publisher promises. Donald Smith's And All the Trumpets is a prisoner-of-war memoir from the Burma-Siam Railway. F. W. Bateson's Wordsworth: A Reappraisal, seems debatable. Walter Allen's The English Novel: A Short Critical History, is as good an introduction to the subject as exists, but short on actual history. Morris Marples' History of Football and John Hayhurst's The Fourth All-Blacks are included to show that The Economist notices these things. One comes away from John Brander's George Orwell mainly with a lower opinion of him as a political writer. Sacheverell Sitwell's Portugal and Madeira is the story of a made-up land by a man with a made-up name, and I refuse to believe differently.  Wilfrid Noyce's South Col is a mountaineering memoir. The reviewer didn't like it. Derek Hudson's Lewis Carroll is a biography that sustains the argument that the Reverend Dodgson was as boring as his writing was fascinating. Richard Haydn's The Journal of Edwin Carp is one of those invented biographies of silly people. Lord Elton and Charles Beatty have complementary, not competing lives of General Gordon. Tell that to the booksellers! And they're complementary in that they both fail to get to grips with the man, the first by being a sanitised quasi-official biography, the latter for sacrificing the larger context to go at the man with a scalpel, which fair enough, there being a lot to dissect, but leaves everyone else off the hook just as much as Elton leaves his hero off the hook for the disaster of Sudan. Freya Stark and Lord Kinross have Aegean travelogues, the one focussed on remnants of the past, the latter a more conventional travelogue. Russell Braddon's  life of Group Captain Cheshire is "not a full-scale biography." Considering the man, who could even write that? Elsa Schiaparelli, Edna Woolman Chase, and Cecil Beaton write about fashion from various interesting angles and get a short combined review to show that The Economist cares about the subject at least as much as it cares about football.  

The Business World

"Is Endorsement Superfluous?" To lead off, a long bit about handling cheques in Britain these days. Follows an extensive survey of shift work, a growing trend in British industry of increasing concern to trade unions. There are 5.5 million workers in manufacturing, extractive, and service industries, just over half work in establishments with shift working, but only 664,000 work shifts, 12% of the total. (Excluding coal miners.) That is because only certain industries use continuous processes that require it, cablemaking being a surprisingly prominent one. 

Business Notes

Earnings, finance, earnings, the dock strike's consequences, the Ministry of Works scrapping licensing because building materials no longer need to be rationed, some signs of British engines going into American aircraft, the hoped-for alternative to Americans buying British aircraft, with Rolls Royce engines going into the "gas turbine version of the DC-7", and Napiers for Convairliners wrong-footed by Viscounts. The idea that the new Douglas jetliner will be a "version" of the DC-7 is just ridiculous. Neither a DC-7 nor a Convairliner will go fast enough, turboprop engine apart, to exploit the engine's theoretical fuel efficiency advantages. Either this new "version" of the DC-7 will be closer to the Douglas jetliner, or it will fail. As for the Convairliner, attempts to put American turboprops on it have already failed so comprehensively that you have to have an axe to grind to talk about it at all. That axe is, we read on to learn, that the engine builders can't find a domestic market, so they have to look to the United States. Well, they're not going to find it there, either. Turboprops are too much of a gadget to carry anything more than the Viscount in its short window of opportunity, and, of course, to extend that window, the Super-Viscount, which is designed for turboprops. 

British Motor Corporation, the new umbrella group, is making more money and paying more dividends; and the Ford-Ransomes agreement points to the future of the farm implements industry. 

 
 

Leaders

"Making Work" Flight is very cross that the Hunter, Swift, and Valiant are still not in squadron service, and makes it clear that if it were the editorial policy to wag fingers, it would.  Not to end on a sour note, it goes on, in "Stitches in Time," to praise the good work of the SBAC in standardising the sorts of things that go into airplanes, which will surely lead to faster production than otherwise at some point in the future. 

From All Quarters reports that the Central Europe Reconnaissance Show is considered by Allied Air Forces Central Europe to be the most important show of its kind, and the 1954 exhibit opened this week with "three exhibits of world interest," one of which was "the largest mobile camera ever built," while the other two are secret until Wednesday. Flight is the latest to report that future airliner testing may include destructive water tank trials after the Comet, with Britannia and Fokker Friendship hulls scheduled for testing. Because if we can saddle the entire industry with the expense of sacrificing a hull from every new airliner production line, it will be a small cost to avoid admitting that the Comet wasn't designed to a satisfactory safety standard. More F-104 and C-130s have been ordered, while Trans-Australia's first Viscount has crashed, only 18 days after delivery from Britain. It was a training accident, and the first the Viscount has suffered, but it is still embarrassing. The seventy Ouragons bought by the Indian Air Force have been so successful that orders for the follow-on, swept-wing Mystere, are likely. The search for the wreckage of the Gloster Javelin lost over the Bristol Channel on 21 October continues. The wreckage has been tentatively identified by Asdic, although two Asdic contacts over the weekend turned out to be a rock and an anchor. Confirmation waits on better diving conditions. The closure of the civil airport at Northolt is a sad occasion. 

"Eland-Convair: And Eland-Ambassador: New Turbo-prop Test-Beds for the Napier Company"  The title is clearer and more discouraging than coverage in The Economist that implies imminent commercial sales, but the body of the article reverts to Convair's intention of building a modified 340 with Eland engines "from scratch" if there are sufficient markets. The latest Eland apparently gives 4000shp, which is a very remarkable engineering achievement, far greater than the RB109's projected 2500shp. Unfortunately with the extreme mechanical conditions in a turboprop drivetrain, I just can't see its power-to-weight ratio being the selling point the engineers think it is.

Here and There reports that the Arbeitsundforschungsgemeinschaft Graf v Zeppelin has been founded in Stuttgart, earthquake relief flights to North India are leaving from London Airport, the Dutch are training helicopter pilots for their army, the Saltfleet, Lincolnshire bomb range has been reopened, the Comet inquiry was the subject of Tuesday's episode of Panorama, RNZAF pilot P/O McL. Milne recently landed a powerless Vampire from 30,000ft at Oakes, a new aluminum plant is going in in Norway, a USN R7V-1 Super Constellation is missing over the Atlantic bound for Port Lyautey. The Comet Inquiry was concerned with the decision to clear the Comet to fly after the Elba crash. Air Chief Marshal Bowhill, the head of the Air Safety Board, was grilled, and does not come off well. An incident in which a loose panel was found in Rome was pursued, since it was originally removed in London to inspect for wing fatigue. It comes out that this was the main fatigue-related concern, which addresses some of my concerns, since wing fatigue was so notoriously at issue in the Viking grounding and the Drover crash. Fuselage explosive decompression (and fatigue in the skin due to repeated pressurisation cycles) was taken less seriously. The next day, we heard about cracks observed near windows, but more specifically near the rivets those cutouts entailed, indicating that the riveting process adopted by de Havilland was capable of creating cracks, and a de Havilland representative admitted that the skin was too thin. Or weak, to be clear. Motor problems and wing fatigue failure were increasingly ruled out as explanations of the crash. 

"Long Range Battle: Big Airliner Prospects for the Immediate Future" Yes, the Boeing jetliner and the VC7 are coming along, but in terms of Atlantic flying tomorrow, and not the day after tomorrow, the choice comes down to the Britannia versus the DC-7, in the opinion of the BOAC. Sorry, Lockheed! The Britannia is the best choice on the technical merits, but is more expensive than the DC-7. The Britannia 100 isn't quite an all-weather single-stage Atlantic flyer, with a tankage of 6800 Imperial gallons, enough for 4000 miles still-air range at 340mph. The fifteen on order for BOAC will be delivered next year, but won't be cleared for passenger service until they have flown 2000 hours, due to the Comet. There might be a cabin pressurisation limit of 6lb/sq inch, which would effectively ground the commercial Comet, but won't affect the Britannia. Bristol is confident that the 19swg skin gauge, generally high-quality spin-dimpled rivet construction, and relative lack of cutouts will address fatigue concerns. The prototype long range Britannia 200 is now under construction, to be followed by the 300, and will be the export models to be produced by Bristol and Short-Harlands for the next decade. The 300 will be able to make the London-New York crossing 95% of the time, cruising at over 350mph and carrying 60--100 passengers depending on service, thanks to later-model Proteus engines giving 4300shp, which, it is hoped, will have a straightforward entry into service because they will use the gearbox and propeller of the existing Proteus. So
why is BOAC looking at the DC-7? Insurance, and also because a turboprop DC-7 (here we go again!) would be contemporary to the Britannia 300. 

"Gonio," "Unfashionable D/F: A Plea for its Restoration as a Safety Aid" Recently reported difficulties experienced by a transport pilot in the Far East makes "Gonio," an experienced ground radio operator, wish that D/F were still available to civil transport. We are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the vacuum tube, and here is the latest article about someone's idea of the perfect agricultural plane, being tried out for possible use somewhere exotic. (Bob Lamson's "Air Tractor," in New Zealand.) The latest Soviet High Latitude Flying Expedition, involving the use of Il-12 transports and ice floes, is reported. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that the Chance Vought F7U-3P photoreconnaissance variant is flying with three cameras for different missions, and that the F-89 is in service, and the F-84F is in production. The French are working on their S.O. Light Interceptor with a rocket motor and wing-mounted Turbomeca auxiliaries. The Nato light fighter competition continues, with the Gnat flying off against assorted French delta prototypes, the Mystere 26, and the Fiat G-91. 

"Military Transports" has a nice photospread and several pages about its real point, the Bristol Beverley. Indonesia is working on a light ground support aircraft, the NU-200 Sikumbang, India is evaluating the Morane-Saulnier MS. 755 as a light trainer, Japan's three year defence production budget visualises a 1300 aircraft force. Dawe Instruments has a new and unorthodox ultrasonic thickness gauge. Flight visits (briefly) Pensacola and Corpus Christi NAS to take in US Navy basic flight training, and Fawley to see the largest refinery in the United Kingdom. 

Civil Aviation reports that aviation has adopted the phonetic alphabet, that African airlines are dropping poisoned bait to control vermin infestations, that Lympne Airfield has been closed to civil operations three weeks after Silver City transferred to its private airfield, that there is a new world air tariff agreement, that the S-55 has been certified, that holders of recognised credit cards will now be able to fly British airlines without a cash payment, that Decca has set up a wholly-owned American subsidiary. 

Correspondence

T. A. M. Rawes and H. C. W. Scovell are today's "years ago, before the war" correspondents, while W. L. Henry, the Technical Director of the Anticoustic Company, chimes in rather late, as he admits, on the shock-wave phenomena, with a picture of a Hunter 6 raising a very visible shockwave while flying through a raincloud at the SBAC exhibit. 

For The Bookshelf reviews Mike Lithgow, Mach One, Hilary St. G. Saunders, Royal Air Force 1939--1945, Volume III, The Fight is Won, C. H. Gibbs-Smith, Aircraft Recognition Manual, and Laurence C. Bagley, The Boy's Book of Aircraft. Lithgow has written a pilot's book, Saunders sounds rather boring, the Aircraft Recognition Manual still has the tiny and unidentifiable silhouettes from earlier editions, but the Bagley book is fun with great pictures.  


 The Economist, 13 November 1954 

Leaders

"Point of No Return" It there is a war, it will be atomic. That's the point of no return. The future has to go through some kind of international atomic energy agency which will ensure that no atom bombs fly, and, therefore, by backwards causation (inside joke for those interested in such things!) no war. Or something. I think we just needed a good hook to write about the IAEA proposal. Rumour's that the Queen's Speech is going to announce a major motorways building programme occasions an extended discussion of the financing, the likely impact on other construction sectors, and the scale needed to have a useful effect. (Large! The roads over there are terrible!) 

"Colour Bar at the Gates" There are now enough coloured people in Britain that people are upset about them instead of the Poles. Since Britain has low unemployment (which they are helping with) and immigration is not going to be deterred by poor housing any more than it was in the past, and anyway that could be improved on. Can anyone seriously argue that 10,000 people a year is a problem? Would they be arguing that if it were 10,000 Irish? Blocking immigration from the Commonwealth would be a very serious step! 

"The Smiling Monolith" The average Briton is coming to think of Russians in terms of ballet, football, and the sabre dance, because of the Russian "cultural invasion." They need to wake up to the reality of Communism!  

Notes of the Week

Seato is approved. Now it's just a matter of making it work when all evidence is that Southeast Asians are of two minds about being defended by the West. Bevan's decision to stay away from the debate is best interpreted as a clever plan to avoid being seen taking a stand. I wish I was a savvy political observer who could figure that out, too! Also since he's harmless we can probably stop trying to purge the Bevanites as it is more trouble than it is worth. Mendes-France has won his fourth vote of confidence, and The Economist hopes that his government endures as long as his evident popularity. The Economist is very upset about the nice things that President Heuss said about the Baron v. Neurath on his release from Spandau, but doesn't want to upset any apple carts, so gets all cold and sly about it as it goes on about how Germans are just like that. The Derby byelection is next week and it is so exciting! The Economist encourages the Government to take its time dismantling the regulatory apparatus of the wartime planned economy for all sorts of good reasons that are hard to articulate. (That is, there is some good sense in there for a change, and the magazine can see that they might be needed, but doesn't want to offend its subscribers by spelling that out in response to proposals for enablig legislation to get rid of them at a stroke.) Uganda awaits a ruling on the constitutional position of the Kabaka of Baganda and the province. "Fortunately Sir Winston, in the context of Cyprus, has reminded everyone that 'never' does not carry its face value in politics," and it is open to the government to unexile the last Kabaka and make Bagandans happy. 

"New American Policy for China?" 

Reports out of Washington about the meeting of the American National Security Council meeting convened in Denver on 12 September are that it took the President resting on his authority as five-star general to overrule the chiefs of staff, who, led by General Ridgeway, called for the authorisation of an American bombing offensive against China if an "all-out" attack on Quemoy developed. Of course, he had a perfect right to do it as President, but he needed his prestige as a military leader to push it through. Not a breath here, however, about how much his flight from Washington to Denver cost him in terms of Presidential authority! From the British perspective it is to be hoped that the Administration will now be able to bring Rhee and Chiang to heel. 

"Gesture to the Satellites" Russia announced transfer of its share in all Soviet-Hungarian enterprises to Hungarian control. These were mostly confiscated German assets, so real things of real value, and it is a substantial although not-to-be-overestimated gesture. The Hungarians have not so far marked the occasion by scapegoating and purging the premier, but probably will, eventually. Another threatened strike at the Port of London, some anodyne comment on the Boundary Commission's report on redrawing constituencies, the congenial example of British Honduras being held up to those impossible people in British Guiana, the near-impossible political position of the prime minister of Sudan, speculation about what recent moves in the Vatican about the future of Catholic anti-communism. 

Books

Sidney Hyman's The American President is a good book to read as we look ahead to two years of divided government. A. J. P. Taylor's The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848--1918 is a "pungent and witty book," whose hero, if there is one, is Bismarck. But sometimes it is controversial! Geoffrey Tillotson's Thackeray the Novelist explains that he is a better writer than his reputation. P. E. Charvet's France, in the 'Nations in the Modern World" series from Benn, is a worthy book. Raymond Mikesell, Foreign Exchange in the Modern World, is a good textbook for the subject, which sounds completely pointless, since anyone who cares enough about the subject to expound on it, cares too much to learn about it first! Also, it isn't a very well-organised book. William Howard Russell's My Civil War Diary, 1861--62, edited and abridged by Fletcher Pratt, is "unnecessary." My Diary North and South, ed which was only a quarter-million words, less than the average historical novel." Why shorten it? The reviewer doesn't say, and while I have my suspicions based on the review, Russell's account of slavery is only one of the places where the editing hand is seen. Ernest Watkin's Prospect of Canada sounds very worthy, suggesting that Canada and the United States will diverge, since Canada still has a "frontier" to shape it, and the United States does not. J. D. Cameron and B. K. Cooper have worthy advice for The West African Councillor, while A. W. Currie's Economics of Canadian Transportation is a good introduction.

Letters

Julius Lada asks in what European countries FDR is still considered a hero, because of Yalta, etc. T. W. F. Mackeown, the Administrator and Secretary of the University College Hospital, defends the private, paid beds it provides to some patients (who can pay!) as the best of a bad lot, on various grounds. C. W. Gell, of Rustenberg, Transvaal, wonders naively how the Malan government's concern over the "critical shortage of white manpower" can be reconciled with its suspicion of European immigrants who won't tow the National Party line and keep the pressure on the Cape Coloureds, whereas it only makes sense to give the natives more and more responsible jobs. Robert Sowter of London offers helpful advice to the airlines about how they could increase their operating margins by using slow, tourist-packed aircraft on popular routes.

American Survey

"Still the Middle Road" The fact that the Democrats didn't win more seats proved that the American people "'almost' wanted a change," and so everything should remain the same, even though Nixon's disgraceful anti-Communist campaign fell flat, and liberal Republicans were re-elected while some prominent conservative ones were defeated, and the big loser was private hydroelectric power. Also in completely different news it is disappointing to see John Paton Davies' career come to an end, as this will have a chilling effect on State Department employees, who will from now on think twice about giving frank advice. The Economist finds a way of theorising that the crackdown on consumer credit last year didn't cause the recession. The Americans have made a million dollar turbine purchase for the Table Rock Dam project from English Electric in way of an apology that doesn't really make up for the continuing games with tariff schedules to keep business in America even when European electrical engineering equipment is vastly cheaper. The Economist surveys the governor races of '54 to see what they tell us about the Presidential race in '56. Stevenson is strengthened by Harriman's victory. The decline in American industry capital spending is levelling out. The Chicago elections were refreshingly democratic. Strom Thurmond is the first "write-in" candidate to win a Senate seat, defeating the official Democratic candidate in South Carolina. The 43,000 votes won by the ALP in New York were the last, dying gesture of the former American Labour Party, but almost enough to cost Harriman the election. There will be more women and three Negroes in Congress this year, the Hawaiian legislature went Democratic for the first time in its 54-year history in apparent retaliation for the GOP denying it stage status, and Univac is in trouble for repeating its correct 1952 prediction of a landslide victory, this time for the Democrats, as the first returns came in.

The World Overseas

Prime Minister Yoshida is back in Japan after his world trip to find that Japanese politics hasn't settled down without him. He is finding a Red Chinese publicity offensive promising the return of "2000 Japanese war criminals," with nothing said about the half-million Japanese war-prisoners still unaccounted for in Manchuria and the fetching appearance of Miss Li Techuan, the "Florence Nightingale" of the so-called "Chinese Red Cross." Having dealt with the actual news story, it remains to find a worthy conclusion, which turns out to be that Socialism is bad. 

"Home Truths from Arab Refugees" The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has 887,000 mouths to feed a low-calorie diet in the slivers of Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt allowed them, and little prospect of resettling them. It is easy to blame the Arab states that neighbour Israel, and we do for most of the article, but down at the bottom we acknowledge that they are too poor to shoulder UNRWA's burden, and too poor to resettle almost a million refugees. For another year, the leadership in the Kremlin remains too opaquely locked in its own struggles to put forward a leading figure to give the Red October address, which is why Maxim Saburov was selected to give his instantly infamous dour presentation. As for the substance, heavy industry continues to develop, as expected. The question remains the light consumer industries. The harvest was disappointing, which shines a spotlight on the "virgin lands" campaign, which has produced 20 million tons from 15 million acres newly put under the plough, with a planned increase on a similar scale next year. One takes another look at those two disappointing problem children, British Honduras and British Guiana, and then it is on to the OEEC, which remains worthy but disappointing in its failure to evolve into the United States of Europe. At this point, having done its public service, The Economist announces that this series is (Concluded.)  

  Business World

"Dorman Long and After" We meditate at length on the process of denationalising steel with specific reference to Dorman Long, which unlike previous offers was only halfway through modernisation, and which will require heavy capitalisation going forward. Various informed speculations about the price the shares will fetch are offered. 

"Fatigue in Aircraft" Metal fatigue is very mysterious and no-one could have seen this coming, and the likely increase in the safety factor implied by the Comet failures is going to be very onerous and maybe we could skip it somehow. And now let's slide on over the issue of whether the Comet was up to previous standards of safety. 

Business Notes

Britain in Gatt, Japan in Gatt, the OEEC in Britain, foreign trade doing better than October returns suggested, labour shortage continues, steel output running at 18.5 million tons/year, the Viscount receives its CAA airworthiness rating, further thoughts about the tanker deal between Saudi Arabia and Aristotle Onassis, disappointments accumulating on the petrochemical front (financially, that is, the British industry is giving disappointing returns); the final defeat of the synthetic rubber challenge to natural rubber is at hand; trade barriers are stifling rayon exports at the expense of competing nylon. The price of cocoa is up, coffee is stable, the supply of domestically produced sulphur is now large enough to prevent another shortage due to lack of imports; there is a world surplus of softwood lumber looming. 

 Leaders

"Thoughts On Uplift" Vertical takeoff sure is interesting, unlike helicopters, which are boring already. Tail sitter or flying bedstead, which is better? Who knows! 

From All Quarters reports that the newspapers are speculating on the future of the Comet 2, which might be taken over by the RAF or used for high altitude research. Boeing is looking into putting the Rolls Royce Conway or the Olympus into some of its 707 jetliners. The first Martin RB-57s have been deployed to Europe. The recent RB-29 shootdown off northern Japan was carried out by MiG-15s and occurred just short of the international border dividing Hokkaido from the Habomai Islands, which Russia occupied at the end of the war on the grounds that they were an extension of the Kuriles. The second Convair YF2Y-1 has disintegrated while making a high speed, low altitude run over San Francisco Bay, the same day as a Swedish Air Force A 32 Lansen that cost the life of Captain Berg Frklund, meaning that two recent winners of the McKenna Trophy have lost their lives in less than a month. The Merchant Air Service will be represented at the cenotaph service for the first time at this year's Remembrance Ceremony. Max Conrad, the fifty-year-old father of ten children, made his fifth solo crossing of the Atlantic last week, on a Piper with two 150hp Lycomings. The RAe.S. Cayley Memorial Lecture was given by Group Captain Pritchard this year, and is a "years ago, before the war" retrospective on Cayley's pioneering aeronautical work that I will be skipping. The French Air Minister joined the Mach One club (if there is one?) this week as a passenger on a Mystere prototype, while Flight joins everyone else in honouring Winston Churchill on the occasion of his 80th birthday, what's your hurry, I'm sorry you have to go. 

Here and There reports that Jordan is setting up an air force, that more than 200 aircraft and 25 ships have taken part in the search for the missing USN R-7V. On 4 November the Navy said that any hope for survivors has been abandoned. George Dowty has received the freedom of Cheltenham!!! The BOAC award of higher pay for livestock flight crews has "occasioned much press comment" because the job stinks. Hee! Flight apologises for a typo in last week's issue that implies that the DC-7 is fit to hold the Britannia's coat.  

"Recce Conference" This is the "second annual AAFCE reconnaissance conference" that was held last week at Spangdahlem, which was reported so strangely last week. The Mobile Field Photographic Section and its French equivalents were the stars of the show, and the United States Air Force is working on a similar mobile high-capacity photo processing centre. 

USS Forrestal will be launched next month. At 1036ft long, 252ft wide, it will be the world's largest warship, with an angled flight deck and four steam catapults able to launch 32 aircraft in four minutes. All AA gun turrets are automated, and there are special drenching rooms to decontaminate after an atomic attack. The "CU-NIM Report" from the Meteorological Office on the programme of cumulo-nimbus cloud-penetration flights carried out by RAF Transport Command with a Singapore-based Lancaster has found that inadvertent penetration of these clouds, which have highly undesirable flying conditions, can be easily avoided with weather radar, because they show up well on weather radar. 

"Swedish Test-Flying: Some Notes on the Development of Modern Jet Fighters" A look at the testing programme for the A-32 Lancen.

"Aircraft Versus Mau Mau" Our Correspondent in Nairobi reports that "civilians of both sexes" carry guns in Nairobi, that although 20,000 Mau Mau have been killed or captured in the past two years, it will be a challenge to liquidate the estimated remaining 7000, but the Kenya Police Air Reserve and the RAF have been doing their best, and the first part of the article is mainly about the Air Reserve, which flies Cessnas and the like on spotting duties, although armed with a small bomb rack and is active around Aberdare Mountain north of Nairobi. Then it is back to town to visit the Lincoln squadrons that do the real "liquidating," although they also have Austers with "sky shouting apparatus" for telling the Mau Mau to surrender. 

"Boundary Layer Control: Dr. Lachmann's Important R.Ae.S. Lecture Summarised" Even the summary is four pages long, very cursorily treating many related phenomena pertaining to the control of boundaries of airflow. 

The Aeronautical Bookshelf reviews A. E. Clousen's The Dangerous Sky, Arthur C. Clarke's The Young Traveller in Space, and Robert Heinlein's The Green Hills of Earth. Clousen reminisces about the dangerous flying he did back in the Thirties, Clarke gives us "the best book to date about space travel," and Heinlein is "entertaining," even "first rate." 

"The Comet Inquiry: Third Week" The lawyers seem to have taken over, notably Sir Hartley Shawcross for de Havilland, and the quality of cross examination is at once raised, not necessarily to good effect, since Shawcross seems likely to get de Havilland off the hook in clouds of fog and shrouds of night and place the blame on RAE for not testing pressurised fuselages for fatigue failure prior to approving the Comet. 

An entire, albeit short, article about buying air tickets with credit cards. Civil Aviation has "Spotlight on the Centaurus," in case someone ever wants to use it for civil aviation, Ambassador apart. It has excellent reliability and service life, and more people should buy it. Sleeve valve? I didn't hear you! 

"Housekeeping in Aircraft Production: The Glenn Martin Company's 'Conservation Scheme'" Flight has a nice brochure from Glenn Martin, "Conservation: Everyone's Business," which it would like to summarise for us. It seems to be about having recycling bins, mostly. 

Correspondence

Air Vice Marshal H. G. White, and, later, Eric T. Bradley, remember the old days, before the war. John Grierson responds sharply to a critical letter about his article on "Aircraft in Polar Exploration." 

The Industry reports a Bristol capital issue, the MS 4 silicone insulating compound from Midland Silicones, which is excellent for excluding silicone, and Pye, Ltd.'s purchase of Technograph (Printed Circuits) is noted. 
 

Fortune's Wheel reports that Fortune hasn't had a letter column in seven years, but it still gets letters, most of which are cranky, so in the opinion of the editor you're not missing anything, but people just won't stop writing so here's a letters column for you. Fortune reminds everyone that it mails out a really neat card when someone buys someone a gift subscription for Christmas. Fortune sent two people down to Rio to cover one thing and another, and their expense accounts got a bit ridiculous, so here's a longform story about Brazil. The lead writer thinks that Ike should get out of his easy chair and try swinging with something besides a putter; many correspondents are upset that teachers weren't respectful of business at that businessmen-teachers meet-up Fortune recently reported on. Monroe Calculating Machines is upset that the machines they are exporting to the Netherlands were described as "obsolete." Many other correspondents think that the personality tests that they're using for corporate hiring these days are bunk. 

Business Roundup thinks that the recession is almost over. On the one hand, they're probably right. On the other, they always say that. 

Hayes also has his own website. Can't say that for many mid-Fifties real estate developers. 

 Businessmen in the News follows its traditional pattern of closing the second page of its monthly, glossy account of promotions and transfers with one entertaining loon, "out of state builder" Hal Hayes has been contracted by the University of Minnesota to build 1500 homes on 750 acres the university happened to have lying around in Minneapolis, and has chosen to advertise it as an "atomproof city." 

Business Notes From Abroad dedicates its first page to throwing a tantrum about Europe's sudden go-slow on convertibility before talking about the World Bank and tentative  moves towards a European Grid, plus strikes and rising wages in Germany.  

Leaders

"Dow-Jones to 572?" Stock prices have been rising for a year now, getting within 7% of the 1929 high in October. Does that mean that a crash is right around the corner? Maybe, but things are different nowadays. For example, taxes on dividends make stock earnings more stable, via tax carry-overs, and there is a bipartisan consensus in favour of high employment and income, while the dollar is off gold, removing one of the main pressures for domestic deflation, and farm programmes protect against runaway depression. So it is just as likely that the fundamentals of the economy will support a higher Dow-Jones! Fortune read a funny book about Madison Avenue, professional baseball players sure do make a lot of money, the atomic age will not be a millennium of plenty, but one of energy wars, says Clifford C. Furnas, unless the world gets down to tackling solar energy. It's scary how blase we've become about this apocalyptic atomic age. The Russians are having as much trouble standardising rail gauges in eastern Europe as capitalists have had elsewhere. Stuart Adams, a sociologist who for some reason works for the Air Force, finds in a recent article in American Sociological Review that the American business class is becoming broader, and not more aristocratic, as is supposed. 

William B. Harris, "The Urge to Merge" Why are there so many business mergers right now? One reason is taxes. The other, you have to laugh at, because otherwise you'd cry. 

Richard Austin Smith reports on "The Olin-Mathieson Deal," which I have to at least mention for Uncle George's sake, since Olin is one of his betes-noire (see how many more characters I learn living in Formosa?) due to its being in the ammunition business and maybe scuppering that British rifle, I forget its initials. The main drift of it is the personal connections between the Olins and the Mathiesons, not the substance of the business.

"The Cold War Reaches the Antarctic" The Antarctic is fascinating! In small doses. And both the U.S. and Soviet Russia are sending expeditions to mark the International Geophysical Year, 1957. "Melodramatic as it may seem, the theory is entertained in the highest government circles in Washington, that the Soviet Union may be using, or may have used, the Antarctic area as a test ground for both nuclear weapons and guided missiles." This is, Fortune says, "highly speculative." Substantially, the alleged Soviet extensive interest in Antarctica prior to the 1957 expedition consists of one war-indemnity whale factory ship and a fifteen vessel support fleet which has joined the Antarctic industry annually since 1951. 

"New RCA Centre: Lift Slab Built" RCA's new office building uses a new construction method. here's some colour photos. 
 

"The Crucial Customers for Capital Goods" Fortune's previous entry in this series concluded that the slowing in capital goods sales did not portend serious trouble since four-fifths of spending was new-technology related and could be expected to continue at a stable rate. This installment looks at specific markets for capital goods. It is also quite optimistic, except about the metalworking industries, which are "tough customers," just like the work their machines do! 

"Brazil: The Crisis and the Promise" "The great empire nation to the south is in orderly revolution. Grapping with the inflation and economic jingoism left by the late Getulio Vargas is a government of technicians who are friendly to free enterprise and foreign capital." Just like Guatemala! The Brazilians are so friendly to free enterprise that they even drive Cadillacs,and put up with the Chicago businessman that Ike saw fit to make Ambassador to Brazil. 

Gershon Cooper and Roland N. McKean, "Is Dispersal Good Defence?" Dispersal is complicated and expensive and bad for transportation, and the authors, two young University of Chicago economists working for the Rand Institute, are skeptical about both the value of dispersal in reducing damage, and the effects of everyone living in the sticks. They don't think much of underground cities, either, but think that stockpiling, so as to  overcome production bottlenecks due to this or that factory getting blown up, is a more practical answer to atomic attacks on national industry. 

Are those mean practical men out of the office? Here's an article that's an excuse to print some modern art. (It's about an  copper mining valley or something.)

You can see why Mitchell Jamieson wanted to paint it. 

Francis Bello, "Fitting the Machine to the Man" The idea here is that "human engineers" are designing machines that humans can use. 

William H. Whyte, "The Web of Word of Mouth: William Whyte looks at word of  mouth. Manufacturers should look at it, and specifically some research Fortune did when it went to a north Philadelphia neighbourhood and looked at the spread of expensive TV aerials and tried to figure out who told who to buy one. This kind of study can help explain how some advertising campaigns work, and others don't. It's an interesting concept, but I do wish that the subtitling didn't refer to Jo telling Ethel telling Florence. I get a little tired of the whole "Women gossip to each other," some times.

I see a short bit about electronic organs, which are mainly bought by churches, and not Les Paul. Someone should tell Bill and Dave! Or maybe I will. I just have no idea when I'll seem them next.