Postblogging Technology, December 1954: Home for the Holidays

 

R_.C_.,

Nakusp,

Canada

Dear Father:

I have no idea whether we'll actually be able to make a family tradition of Christmas in Nakusp, but it does seem like a more agreeably rural and reliably snowy place to celebrate my children's childhood than Vancouver, so I'm willing to give it a try if the roof doesn't fall off. For that I suppose we should consider the lodge, but Campbell River is even less likely to have a white Christmas than Vancouver!

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

The Economist, 4 December 1954

Leaders

The Economist natters on a bit about the Gracious Speech (England-talk for the Throne Speech) with the vaguess that allows it to call for tax cuts for rich people and unemployment to stop inflation but deny it if put to the test. Then it natters on even more about the upcoming summit where the Americans, British, and Russians will talk about Germany and not accomplish anything. (I will eat my stocking cap if they do!) And the last Leader is about how the city of Hull isn't doing enough to develop its local economy, it's hard to decide. Did we cancel news this week? 

"Tunisian Stepping Stone" Home rule for Tunisia isn't developing anywhere near as quickly as originally hoped and now people are worried about more violence in Tunisia and Morocco, too. This leads to the suggestion that with 43 million people in France and 35 million in the North African dependencies, but growing rapidly, the idea that the French Union will lead to the  assimilation of the "lower" jurisdictions of the French Union into metropolitan France on equal terms is financially and probably politically unlikely. 

Notes of the Week

It's called the "Fulton Recovery Ssytem," and it's not the most 
ridiculous part of the story. The linked story doesn't seem to be aware
that Downey and Fecteau were to use the new system rather than the older
glider recovery method, but that's what Wikipedia says.

One supposes that the Tories and Labour are thinking thoughts about how things are going with regards to the election that will happen some day when the Tories have a new leader, and that these thoughts are worth taking up the first two Notes. The Economist wants the British government to vigorously condemn the recent Chinese spy trials of thirteen Americans, including the crew of a B-29 recently, and two others of which The Economist has less to say. Well, I'm sure they didn't just float into China on a hot-air balloon!

"With Mr. Strydom Into Darkness" The Economist likes J. G. Strijdom even less than Malan, and takes out its anger at Nationalist Party electors by misspelling the name of their new leader, who is thought to be likely to do untoward constitutional things to the detriment of the United Kingdom, although on the bright side the apartheid policy can't get any worse than it already is. (Hopefully!) The local elections in Germany have seen Adenauer's Christian Democrats lose ground to both the nationalist right and the socialists, showing that his "peak of popularity is passed." The relatively generous pension increases are going to "dish" Labour a bit. 

"Clearing the Air" The Economist is disappointed that the Beaver Commission seems more likely to recommend a combination of compulsion and subsidies to get smoke-producing industries to  install various equipment to abate smoke and sulphur dioxide emissions rather than come up with some cunning plan to tax smoke production. The Committee estimates that air pollution costs £250 million, so there is plenty of money in fighting it, but it isn't obvious that there is any way to realise those savings in a budget, and how many nosy inspectors and budget expenses will the electors put  up with, anyway?

"Lucky Accelerator" It sure is lucky that the new minister of education has a budget increase over the old minister and can go ahead with extending rural secondary schools and fixing teacher pensions. I wonder if Florence Horsprugh would agree that it was a matter of luck that the man who succeeded her in office has more money to play with. Then, having introduced the problem of pensions' actuarial gaps and eroding purchasing power, The Economist puts in a full page of "Facts About Pensions."

"Home Truths For German Traders" German businessmen are finally learning that (trading with) Communism is awful. Also terrible is the  UN for not being happy with the Dutch running New Guinea even if that means that Indonesia (which is also awful) ends up running the place. And since this isn't clear enough, let's do an additional Note about Indonesia being awful, specifically to foreign businessmen. 

"Reshaping Defence" So far, AA Command is gone and the RAAF is losing its planes. We're still sorting out what happens when we lose the Canal Zone, and some money is going to have to be spent on atomic bomb stockpiles soon. 

"Prosperous Wales" Wales is still poorer than England but it is the richest it has ever been. If we ended here, this would sound bad, so The Economist babbles on for a paragraph in the hopes that we'll only remember the babbling, which is a very good call by The Economist. It also likes industrial dispute arbitration, is upset that the Indians aren't going to subsidise a "private" steel enterprise on the grounds that "private" is the next best thing to actually private, and far better than public, and the fact that British finance was involved shows something or other. The Economist is pleased that the United States is going to increase aid to southern and eastern Asia but is worried that the "competitive co-existence" aspect vis-a-vis Communist countries will  lead to an "unhealthy emphasis on a propaganda type of industrialisation for its own sake, regardless of its suitability." It's also worried that the Americans won't put enough effort into telling the locals what to do. Students from the Colonies, a recent publication of Political and Economic Planning, suggests that the reason that so many Colonial students return home with anti-English feelings isn't just because they are young hotheads influenced by Communist propaganda, it also has something to do with the chilly reception and racism they endure, which could probably be fixed by sending them to a residential university in a small town where there is less risk of meeting actual British. And speaking of reports The Economist has read and wants to share with us, the Ministry of Health's annual report on the state of public health has a fascinating chart showing the change in causes of death between 1935 and today, showing a huge fall in infant mortality and deaths during childbirth and a rise in deaths due to circulatory disease and cancer, especially lung cancer. People say that high income taxes have led to the extinction of private collectors, but Rees Jeffrey's collection went for £56,334 at Christie's last week and the Tate picked up a Matisse for £6700 because in reality people are investing in pictures because of their steady rise in value over recent years, and by the way private fortunes stepped in to help the Tate, which actually only spent £900, so there, critics! 

From The Economist of 1854, "The Cost of Interference" explains that while everyone is paying attention to the war, the Government has slipped out the back way with the returns from war taxation and is abroad in the land forgetting its place by building museums and galleries and such, and now, according to the budget, in an outrage to end all outrages, spending £722,812 on education, so self-evidently a purely private concern. 

Letters

Anthony Mann writes to correct impressions out of Khartoum that British involvement stands in the way of elections in Sudan for the next three years. He points out that the British and Egyptians are out of there so slickly and quickly that the Sudanese can have their election whenever they want. Alfred Beit suggests that some kind of head tax replace the colour bar that so many people seem to want on immigration to Britain from the West Indies. J. C. Roszak is ready to argue with anyone who thinks that cheques shouldn't need endorsing, or possibly vice-versa. Clifford Allen writes to suggest that the Government or someone force BOAC to buy British because the Americans have an unfair advantage. 

Books

Clara Kinghoffer, Brigit Patmore (1923)

L. S. B. Leakey has Defeating Mau Mau, while Ione Leigh has In the Shadow of the Mau Mau, which two books get a joint review. Dr. Leakey thinks that the missionising and colonisation of Africa have gone terribly wrong and many reforms and changes are needed, while Miss Leigh thinks that what's needed is a lot more White settlers of the right type. Winston Churchill: Servant of the Crown and Commonwealth: A Tribute By Various Hands is the kind of book that "various hands" will want to build one of those swinging bookshelves they have in haunted houses for, because it's going to be a very embarrassing book to be associated with one day. Too bad the public that has made it a bestseller won't be able to do the same! (And that's what the reviewer has to say!) Chester Bowles' Ambassador's Report is pretty good on India and Nehru and pretty bad on Britain's Indian policy in the interwar years. Constantin de Grunwald's biography of Tsar Nicholas I, translated by Brigit Patmore, is pretty good, although the reviewer complains about the translation. Michel Poniatowski, L'Avenir des pays sous-developes explains that modern hygiene has reduced the death rate so that the population of under-developed countries is growing more rapidly than their economies, and that outside investment of 14 billion dollars a year is needed, where the current rate is only $4--5 billion, and for the French Union in particular the needed capital exceeds what can be raised. 

American Survey

"Stassen Plan for Asia" "Signs" are in Washington that the Administration is soon going to dig deep for aid for Asia, as already mentioned in Notes. The Treasury, currently fighting off a Latin American proposal for an American aid package, is not pleased, but it is Harold Stassen's play and his Foreign Operations Administration is beyond the control of Treasury of the State Department, and Europeans should support Stassen before the Americans close their wallets again. The American (mutual) defence treaty with Nationalist China is intended to appease Knowland without starting WWIII. Hopefully it will succeed at the latter since there's no hope of pacifying Knowland, who is currently trying to start WWIII over (Ronnie peeks at the crib notes under her cuff) the current espionage trials in Peking. The New York Stock Exchange is up nicely, which probably means that it will level off or crash because never forget 1929! 

"Generation Still on Trial" William Remington, the Department of Commerce economist convicted of perjury in 1952 for denying being a Communist even though Elizabeth Bentley said so, has been murdered by fellow convicts in the federal prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. And just when observers thought that the fever was relenting with positive signs like Alger Hiss' early release and the McCarthy  censure recommendation, there are yet more grim signs,  including a ridiculous anti-Communist oath which wrestlers must now sign in Indiana before getting into the ring, and a much less ridiculous indictment of contempt for eight individuals who took the Fifth before HUAC. In conclusion, if Hiss is subpoenaed, there will be eight more weeks of winter, whereas . . . No, that's groundhogs. I think I need to go powder my face. My crib notes are smeared. Averill Harriman proposes a new New Deal for New York. The AEC is disappointed that there  hasn't yet been a mad private-enterprise dash for the atomic power ring. Atomic power plants are expensive, so are fissile materials, and arrangements for worker and public safety and the disposal of radioactive waste are not satisfactory to all. I'm sure we'll have all that sorted out soon, though! But the American industry is fertile with

ideas: ideas for alternative power generation plants, and for divorcing atom-bomb making from atomic power; for giant reactors to support aluminum and titanium mining, and to provide desalinised water for California. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments that professional boxing and "the legitimate theatre" should be exempt from anti-trust acts, like baseball. Shorter Notes reports that just over 42 million people voted in the 1954 Congressional elections, the same number as in 1950 notwithstanding population growth, and that the Democratic margin was1.75 million votes, but only 370,000 votes outside the South. The new contract between the Port of New York and the ILA provides for the first union dockers shop on the East Coast and will allow for various measures to get rid of corruption and Communism. 

The World Overseas

"New Start for Pakistan" Pakistan's internal reorganisation and abolition of princely states in West Pakistan is a good thing, but not as good as the bracing experience of military rule in Lahore, which was such a happy experience that The Economist thinks that lessons cand be drawn. On the same note, different country, it is supposed that the constitution of the Fourth Republic could do with some amending. YOU DO NOT SAY YOU CLEVER MAGAZINE, YOU!!! The note actually justifies the waste of paper by explaining the amendments at issue. I just don't think that they can pass, or that, if they do, they will make a difference. "some commentators" think that "the illnesses of the body politic cannot be cured by constitutional reform." Then from Paris it is off to Luxembourg to see what is keeping the United States of Europe. It's the countries. European countries keep acting like countries. Peron is having a fight with the Argentinian church that involves lots of noisy demonstrations on both sides. The Economist's "What Hope for Indo-China" series is in its second installment, which looks at the fact that the Viet Minh will obviously win the elections, north more than south, but in both regions, but maybe a miracle will occur. Good reason for backing Diem, then, since I have it on good authority that (Catholic) miracles keep occurring around him, mainly involving his political enemies spontaneously deciding that the weather in France is so good this time of year. What time of year? Every time of year! 

The Business World goes on about stocks and bonds for a while before looking at "Television's Balance Sheet." My summary is that, based on the cost per minute of advertising needed to support the four interested contractors, commercial television will be profitable in Britain as soon as the BBC has persuaded enough customers to buy televisions, which may be now, but is more likely to be in a few years. 

Business Notes

 The boom is continuing, prices for sugar are moving, we are still waiting for that "Major Roads" announcement, the Germans are nosing into the Brazilian trade, while arrangements for repaying blocked Brazilian debts to British investors are ongoing, the balance of payments is basically fine in spite of a small loss of gold, "Hire purchase" is booming, Capital Airlines taking up its option for 20 more Viscounts is a remarkable vote of confidence, and puts the Viscount up there with whiskey and woollens in the top rank of dollar-earning exports. Viscount deliveries at their peak will earn $5 million/month, which would be 8% of monthly dollar earnings currently. Bank rates are under pressure, New Zealand is tightening the money supply due to rising imports threatening the balance of trade,  a bit more about the cost to industry of the smoke abatement measures recommended by the Beaver Committee, with a breakdown of the "indirect costs" of air pollution. A mandatory switch to solid, smokeless fuel is "Coke by Compulsion," capital has been found for a massive  hydroelectric development in Labrador. Financing is discussed in detail, but not the arrangements with the presumed Quebec customer. Arrangements for "exclusive" oil and gas pumps at garages are proceeding, textile production is up, jute is "disorganised" by Pakistan holding up export licenses, another steel firm is being denationalised, decontrol of cold storage in Britain has been delayed, because the industry doesn't want to compete with the Government-built cold storage built for the war emergency, and it was long undecided whether it will be put in cold storage (HAH!), dismantled, or sold to industry. The Government is going with the first. AEI is buying Siemens.

"Underground Gasometer" While one section of the industry is looking for gas underneath the UK, another is looking for empty cavities waiting to be filled with "some of the gas it carbonises from coal." That is, coal gas? Why don't we say, "coal gas"? But the one could be the other! That is how it is done in the United States, which is so terribly modern, after all. So far a lack of natural gas and associated cavities has held things back,, but now the Northern Gas Board wants to use some salt mines near Billingham.

Leaders

"Changing Values" Flight spends an entire column on an Economist-style wander around a subject that, according to the picture I get when I draw out the wander, is RAF pilot training, which should be intensive so that the "man will fit the machine," instead of the plane being made easier to fly for the pilot. Is this an attack on the Gnat? The reforms at the Auxiliary Air Force? A comment on jet trainers? Who knows!

There should be a competition between rotortip motors and dirigibles to 
see which aviation technology won't go away the most. 

From All Quarters reports that the Midge is doing pretty well in test flying, that USAAF S-55 helicopters from Manston did good work in the tragic loss of the South Goodwins lightship, that Richard Fairey announced during the Fairey annual meeting a new light helicopter, similar to the SNCASO Djinn, for Army work, that Vice-Admiral Couchman will succeed Vice-Admiral Caspar John as Deputy Controller of Aircraft at the Admiralty, that the furor over BOAC's proposal to buy DC-7Ds (the ones with RB109s, if you're having trouble keeping up) is dying down. Import licenses will not be approved, and BOAC will have to settle for (delayed) Britannias, although it is not really a case of either/or.  Rolls Royce will be disappointed, because it was probably hoping for more DC-7D sales. SNCASE is going to produce the Hurel-Dubois HD32 on a large scale, Hawker Siddeley is investing in Canada, and the RAF is welcoming some visiting German parliamentarians to hopefully sell them some planes, I assume. Flight Refuelling is issuing some new equipment, another matter raised during Richard Fairey's annual report is the issue of payment for the 240 acres of Fairey land taken up in the middle of london Airport. The Custer Channel Wing is said to be in prototype production to an unspecified number of aircraft in Van Nuys, California. 

Here and There reports that USAF striking power of the future is to be built around 11 wings of B-52s supported by 200 Boeing Stratotankers. One of Georgia's eleven factories for the blind is making B-47 parts. The $7000 arrestor gear set up at the edge of six USAF air bases in Germany has saved a skidding F-86 and justified the expense. S/L S. A. MacKenzie, an RCAF pilot detained by the Chinese since the Korean War, is to be released after two years of captivity, late because the Chinese considered him a detainee rather than a Pow. 

"Guided Missiles: Mr. G. W. H. Gardner's James Clayton Lecture" A good summary of the state of the art emphasising the problem of guidance to interception and the related problem of aerodynamic stability, and less so, warhead size and type, and dynamic control stabilisation. The aerodynamics angle which has required a great deal of research on the ground, since air-to-air missiles go very, very fast. 

"America's Air Museum: Smithsonian Institute's Offshoot: Value of Government Support and Co-operation" Years ago! Before the war! To be less cynical, sounds like a great place to visit in Washington. This is another one that eats the Aeronautical Bookshelf header but not the feature, which this week reviews Flight Handbook, 5th Edition, by the Staff of Flight. Must read! A necessary addition to every library! Delicious as a side or main dish! Cleans without streaking! 

Wait, no, down at the bottom of the number the Bookshelf shows up with a full page to review D. A. Russell's Aircraft of the 1914--1918 War, Quentin Reynolds' The Amazing Mr. Doolittle, P. G. Taylor's The Frigate Bird, and John W. R. Taylor's edited collection, Aircraft Today.  The reviewer pans Russell. Reynolds' biography of Jimmy Doolittle is pretty good, if overly enthusiastic. Taylor tells the story of his flight from Australia to South America, specifically Valparaiso, the first such, in 1950, flown in eight stages in a Catalina. Taylor's book is cheap, has rare photographs, and some fairly distinguished contributors such as Frederick Handley-Page and Air Marshal Saunders. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that the Grumman S2F, Lockheed C-130, Northrop F-89D Now With Rockets! and SFECMAS Gerfaut still exist some more. If you've actually managed to forget the last one, it's the French experimental delta-wing prototype.

"Swiss Ghosts" Flight visits the Swiss company that is making de Havilland Ghosts under license. There's not much to say about that, so we get a roundup of other Sulzer group activities, then it is on to a review of Episode 3 of War in the Air, "Fifty North, which is mainly about the Battle of the Atlantic and is maybe disappointing for no covering the FW200 scourge. Feature pictorials of the Oerlikon antiaircraft missile and the McDonnell F-101 Voodoo, originally intended as a "penetrator" fighter and now envisioned as a fighter bomber or something. 

"Comet Inquiry: The Final Stage" Speeches were heard. Sir Hartley Shawcross argued strongly that the accidents were due to fatigue failure of the pressure cabin precipitated by increased stress around a rivet, hence an accepted manufacturing technique, and not around a crack that occurred during construction, hence a manufacturing defect. Others beat around the basic point and estimates of fatigue life, which have a bearing on the decision to let the Comet fly again. Some are still discussing elevator over-control and just how extensive water tank testing of future types should be. 

Civil Aviation visits the new terminal at Renfrew Airport. (Serving Glasgow, just to be as confusing as possible.) It's nice! The House of Lords had a rousing argument about whether BOAC wanted to buy the DC-7D because the Britannia was late, which everyone denies, or because it hates Britain, which BOAC denies. Everyone agreed that BOAC should buy British planes for the sake of national prestige, so sorry, Rolls Royce. The SNCASE Caravelle is undergoing pressurisation tests. Arrangements for American after-sale service for Capital's Viscounts are being made. 

"RAF Manpower Problems Investigated" So this is what the Leader was on about! The RAF doesn't have enough skilled tradesmen mainly because it can't retain enough. The usual recommendations of better quarters and more money are made. 

Correspondence

F. Martin, Dennis Powell, and Erika Zahn are on about the old days, before the war. "PERPLEXICUS" wants world-wide standardisation of aviation units of measure. Good idea!

The Industry checks in with Alvis' annual meeting; a GEC seam welding machine for 0.004 stainless steel, being used by Armstrong Siddeley to make jet-pipe insulation blankets for Sapphires; and the automatic control cable tension regulator made by Pacific Scientific of Glendale, California and now licensed in Britain by Teleflex  

The Economist, 11 December 1954

Leaders

"The President Emerges" The Mutual Defence Treaty with the Koumintang is pretty well drafted and a remarkable bit of work from the President, who does not do very much work, the magazine broadly implies. 

"Pensions in Perspective" Four pages on an obviously important topic, compared with two pages on "Frying Today," which is about the fried fish trade, which is much cleaner and less smellier than it used to be, but still doesn't have access to the best fish due to trawler owners not selling the best fish to them, which the fried fish trade thinks should be investigated as monopolistic practice. They are also alarmed by the incoming potato marketing board, and have not forgotten the days when the Ministry of Food made them use palm oil, which makes disgusting fried fish, and not the scarce peanut oil they preferred. (Drippings are good, but bad for the Jewish trade.) But the reason for this Leader this week is that the White Fish Authority is novel, and that The Economist had a nice fish lunch the other day and wants fellow businessmen to have a look in, because fried fish has gotten a lot better these days. 

Notes

Pardon me as I break the fourth wall to mention the first pen markup in months,
an editorial correction for the article about the negotiations for a British treaty
with the ECSC. I guess it was important to someone back in the day.

Something about the French talking to the Russians too much and fellow Europeans not enough, and Mendes-France this, and de Gaulle that. Can't be bothered! And then oh Good Heavens more about the ECSC. "Luxembourg," as the magazine likes to say. Labour's first interventions in the new parliament have been "weak tea." 

"Nasser and Islam" The trial of Colonel Nasser's would-be assassins shows that the Islamic Brotherhood has a very dangerous violent faction, and has shown the need for a government-sponsored alternative, the National Liberation Rally. Yoshida Shigeru has resigned, and the Japanese have refused to accede to a bilateral trade agreement with Britain as a price for Britain's support for their entry into Gatt because even The Economist recognises that the idea is dumb in roughly a million different ways. The new government in Italy is being anti-communist just for a change, with the magazine's approval. Huzzah! The Ministry of Agriculture is threatening farmers with subsidies cuts again. Good luck with that, I say! The Economist is upset at the National Union of Railwaymen because they want too much money. The new Governor of Kenya is in trouble with Kenyan settlers for not being as crazy as your average settler. The meeting of Eastern European leaders was quiet because they are too sensible to speak out of turn.  Meanwhile at home they seem to be letting some political prisoners out. The new Road Traffic Bill thrills the magazine with the thought of moving violations for all, including cyclists and pedestrians and not just drivers. 9And parkers.) MPs think they are working too hard these days, H. V. Evatt survives as leader of the Australian Labour Party in spite of the Petrov Affair mainly because no-one else can mobilise the support to replace him. The French spy scandal has finished on the floor of the National Assembly as it began in the courts, too ridiculous for words. Separate licenses for the import and export of art and literature have been abolished. 

From The Economist of 1854 comes "The Peacemongers," which is about the discretable "Peace Propagandists" who have been interrupting this fine little war we are having. Our Editor appears to be  having a fit over John Bright's involvement in particular, but it's a little  hard to tell from the explosion of adjectives needed to make it clear that they're all awful.  

Letters

S. Caine, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malaya, writes to point out that his university is much cheaper than the colonial colleges in Africa because more of the faculty is local and isn't paid at expatriate rates. So the British shouldn't give up on seeing the cost of running the new African colleges, because things will get better as they go on. Eric Stein of The Distillers Company writes to point out that, contrary to the negative article about Hull, his company's plant in Hull is quite modern and makes modern chemicals and counts as one of the "new" industries. Robert Babcock writes from New York to tell The Economist to shut up about the "degeneration" of American education. Teachers' colleges and secondary schools are just fine, thank you very much. A. B. Markham writes with some clarifications on how requisitioned houses work when they are used by local authorities as rental accommodations. Noel Newsome writes from a farm in Warwickshire to explain that farmers can't afford to give up a penny of their subsidies. 

Books

Godfrey Lias has translated The Memoirs of Dr. Eduard Benes: From Munich to New War and New Victory. It is a very sincere and worthy book. Unfortunately the intended preceding and succeeding volumes of an intended trilogy were never finished. H. J. Eysenck has taken up The Psychology of Politics to see what the "behaviourist" school of psychology can explain about politics. Before reading the review I'm going to go on record as saying, "Pretty much everything." Which turns out to be the case, per Dr. Eysenck, if not the unconvinced reviewer. Ellen J. Hammer and Phillippe de Pirey have The Struggle for Indo-China and Operation Waste, respectively, both about, well, Indo-China, and so it is time for a joint review, even though the former is a good review of the history of the war and the second is a novel told through the viewpoint of a paratrooper. Hesketh Pearson's Walter Scott: His Life and Energy has the bones of a good story but is ruined by endless authorial interjection and exposition. Kidding! W. K. Hancock's Country and Calling is an autobiography of the civil servant most recently notable for settling the Buganda matter. Worthy. Harold C. Edey and Alan T. Peacock explain The National Income and Social Accounting. It explains how the national income is derived from British statistics, and gives us some idea how it is used. Jack Loudan's O Rare Amanda is a life of Anna Margaret McKittrick, which is one of those things where explaining the joke makes it even less funny. Oscar R. Hudson's How the City Works is the book you want to have in hand when you're trying to translate Business World Leaders into English. E. M. CArus-Wilson's Medieval Merchant Venturers is a collection of her research papers on the subject and very useful for historians. Vernon Bartlett's Report on Malaya is one of those books, and as useful as any of them,, which is why it gets a Shorter Notice. 

American Survey

The initial reaction to the McCarthy censure is mixed up with the Mutual Defence Treaty in that Bill Rowland says he had to vote for McCarthy because the Treaty is a "Munich in Asia" that will lead to "stalemate and defeat," The Economist paraphrases. Rowland led an actual majority of GOP senators, mainly from the West and mountain states in opposing the censure, and McCarthy has got the message, coming out from the vote at the lead of his Committee of Ten Million in an all-out attack on the President as a Communist dupe. Supposedly, Rowland has no time for the "weird tribes on the McCarthy warpath: isolationists, America Firsters, religious bigots, unemployed admirals and old ladies of vituperative leisure." He just has to accept their support if he's going to get his objective of WWIII. Meanwhile, a united Democratic Senate delegate is acting like the cat that caught the canary. Its main concern is that even though the censure vote was framed to avoid limiting Senate investigative powers, they still have to be careful in using investigations in the leadup to '56 because of the fear of being associated with McCarthy. 

"US vs the Trusts" The American retreat on trustbusting is blamed on the courts, not the Administration based on Judge LaBuy's dismissal of the suit against DuPont, General Motors, and United States Rubber, which was laid on the grounds that 117 members of the DuPont family bought twenty million GM shares, creating a monopolistic market for DuPont products. The next one to watch is the action against RCA and its ten thousand patent bank. RCA will be defended by Adlai Stevenson. Oh, America!

"Reorganising for Morale" After two years of McCarthyite attacks on the civil service, morale is at an all time low, so the Administration is handing out 450,000 permanent positions to "indefinite" classified employees and ignoring the White House directive that Republican office-seekers be preferred, as there is no way to implement that and maintain a pretence of promotion for qualification. If you want to know more about the "fair trade" fight over restrictions on price cutting at big stores, and the California gubernatorial race, the Treasury's bond buy back, and the transfer of Ellis Island from the Immigration Service to New York City, there's notes for that, too. Will "Goody" Knight's transformation into the Second Coming of Earl Warren win the votes of all the conservative southwest Democrat voters around Bakersfield and LA County? We'll see!

The World Overseas

"The Lesson of Berlin" The Socialist Union took only 2.7% of the vote in the Berlin local elections which goes to show that Communism is not going to win power in west Germany by the ballot box, which I don't think anyone ever doubted, but also by reading the tea leaves of the Social Democrat campaign you can conclude that Adenauer is still pretty popular. India's foreign policy position is neutral, or "middle of the road," we discover. You know what really needs some tea-leaf reading? Votes setting up the upcoming Gatt meetings. Yawn! Britain is going to keep on getting away with what it is doing, and if the United States doesn't like it, it needs to get more dollars out in the world. 

"Voyage of the HMCS Labrador" The Canadian icebreaker put more Eskimo settlers in remote outposts to establish that Canada actually owns all those over-sized islands up there, whose mineral and "biological" resources Canadian industry may soon exploit, threaded the Northwest Passage, the third ship to do so, and the largest, by a new route, did some scientific observations of magnetism and cosmic rays and whatnot, and advanced the West's knowledge of Arctic ice vis-a-vis the Communists with all of its implications for ice island atomic airbases or whatever it is we're supposed to be worried about. The Nigerian legislative elections unexpectedly brought Nnamdi Azikiwe back to prominence, Australians have reacted to the Bikini blast being about twice the expected power by asking that the British maybe don't do the same in Australia. Dr. Evatt is thinking about campaigning on that, while the Australian Minister of Supply, Howard Beale, has assured the public that no H-bombs will be tested on Australian soil. Various people including the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald think that Australians are getting all soggy over it. H-bombs for everyone! 

The Business World

"In Search of Telephones" Last week, television, this week, telephones, next week, teletype! The issue is that 300,000 subscribers are waiting for their backlogged telephones in Britain. But it turns out that the magazine is mainly upset that the GPO is an ancient enterprise that runs its affairs like a business but does not report like a business, just takes subsidy money out of Treasury and returns profits there. As a result, it is not easy to tell from the numbers it does publish whether it is charging enough for telephone services to cover the costs of expanding them, and a great deal else is less clear than one would hope. 

Business Notes

I don't usually do much with finance Notes, but a short bit about the newly-formed Industrial Capital and Investment Corporation of India is interesting, because it shows how eager British capital is to get into India, even on Nehru's terms. Licenses for the import of 650 American cars are the latest signs of British freedom. Steel prices and pensions get more attention. The controversy over the British airlines' "Buy British" policy rolls on, with the latest issue being Rolls Royce's still nameless RB109, the 4000hp turboprop slated to go into the Viscount successor and now the cause of BOAC's revived interest in American types that might be much more efficient with turboprop engines. (Oh for God's sake, they will not! They won't go fast enough to recover the exhaust thrust! We've been through this and through this!) Anyway, Rolls Royce is ready to start selling RB109s by 1958, and has no market before Vickers starts delivering super-Viscounts in 1961. It would be nice if they went into the Britannia, but Bristol has developed its own big turbo, which is why Rolls Royce hasn't received any subsidies for the RB109. Competition, you see. the Road Haulage Disposals Board is still trying to go away. The problem is that the few private operators coming back to the business don't want to buy old Class A vehicles. It is hard to denationalise an industry when the industry doesn't want to be denationalised! Seems like there's some kind of lesson there. Wholesalers are losing ground, takeovers in textiles aren't going well, shipowners are ordering more and more ships overseas, especially Norwegians, because British yards can't guarantee delivery before 1957. The first trans-Atlantic telephone cable will be laid by the end of 1956, allowing 36 simultaneous calls between hemispheres. The technical stuff is all old news, (British to do most of the laying, Americans half the financing, proven American repeaters rather than new British designs to be used.)

 
 
Leaders

"Sinking Differences" The Battle of Whitehall is set to resume this winter, with the Navy demanding Coastal Command be turned over to it, and the Army throwing a fit over the RAF operating the missiles that replace AA Command. Flight suggests that the Army and Navy get used to the old folk's home, because this isn't a visit, they're staying. Speaking of the irresistible onrush of the future, a Leader about what to do to get ready for "rotorbus" service follows. De-invent noise, Flight. That's what we need to do. De-invent noise. 

From All Quarters reports that another mark of the Bristol Olympus, the BOL. 6, now exists. Now all they need is a use for it. 81st USAF Fighter Wing, to operate F-84F Thunderstreaks from Bentwaters, Surrey, is there to fighter-bomb invading Red hordes. It is reported that the Navy's new D.H. 110 "excels in attack," meaning that it dives fast. Flight went to a nice Helicopter Association seminar about the possibility of helicopter simulators. The Ministry of Supply says that the Fairey Rotodyne will be able to carry 45 passengers, 11,000lbs, or 3300 cubic feet of mail. The Rolls Royce Conway bypass turbojet has passed its 1000 hour test on the bench. Its only customer is the Vickers-Armstrong 1000, which will fly next autumn with four Conways. Eland flight testing is ramping up. Lockheed is making a global sales pitch for its "Super-super Connie," the L-1449, based on the U.S. Navy's T34-powered Constellation, the R7V-2. Various aerodynamic refinements will allow a cruising speed of 410mph at 30,000ft, with delivery in 1957 if it builds a prototype now. The last meeting of BALPA discussed airborne weather radar, with presentations from Decca and Ekco. Aquila has bought three of Tasman's flying boats ("Short Solent 45s" for those keeping track of the marquee changes) to fly junkets to the Riviera. Professor Huxley of Adelaide University has given a nice talk about Australian studies of upper-atmosphere air currents that proves that Australians know more about wind than anyone. 

"Introducing the RB109" Rolls Royce's second generation turboprop engine with unexpected takeoff thrust gets a brief discussion. By leaving out all the plumbing complexities which have dedevilled Bristol development and just working on bringing down compressor and turbine stage sizes, R.R. is pretty confident that they have an engine that will actually work in commercial operation and they're dead set on the DC7 because otherwise the window on big airliners with turboprop engines closes with the last "Super-Viscount" delivery. (But you didn't hear that Rolls Royce and Douglas are partners in desperation from me!) 

Earn five quid for a vacation shot  now. Write Flight to ask how!

Here and There reports that Adolph Galland is on the short list to command the new Luftwaffe. An RAF Bristol Sycamore with three crew is reported to have made the hittest and highest helicopter takeoff ever, from 8400ft high in the "White Highlands" of Kenya. Dr. Charles Raley of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, thinks that the Institute has high-temperature synthetic lubricants for fighter jets licked. 

"Keeping A Clean Apron: New York Takes a New Look at "Streamlined" Airport Handling" The airplanes taxi up to the terminal now. That's it for one full page. 

"ETPS Evening" Flight's caricaturist gets to work with pencils of all the big-wigs who gave speeches at the Empire Test Pilot School graduation. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that the Short Seamew is doing flight testing, that a C-124 is being used for flight testing of a T57, that McDonnell is having a devil of a time converting its F4D Skyray into a land-based all-weather fighter, that Douglas is still fiddling with its 39C/X-3 high speed test plane, that Breguet has a 210 million franc grant to develop the Breguet 940. 

"The Supersonic Fighter, Part 2" Flight's investigation continues. They're hard to design because they go so fast. (Insert three pages of speculation here.) 

"Short Sperrin" Amazing though it sounds, this is not another renamed Sunderland, but rather the tender to a 1946 proposal for a jet-powered successor to the Lincoln. It first flew in 1951, and the Ministry of Supply has now relaxed security restrictions so that the readers of Flight can hear all about it. A four Avon design, it is pretty conventional aerodynamically, but it shouldn't be dismissed because all of the systems that went into it are pretty modern in comparison, except for the lack of ejection seats, which hereby gets it the wife's veto. All told, state of the art for the hideously primitive days of six years ago. 

John J. Eden, "Airline Engineering in Canada: The Organisation and Work of T.C.A.'s Engineering Department" People tell each other what to do. Here's some keen planes we have. There's a shop where we overhaul engines in Winnipeg. Did  you know we fly to Mexico City? 

The Aeronautical Bookshelf looks at The Papers of Orville and Wilbur Wright, ed. Marvin McFarland, Prince Birabongse's (the author credit adds "of Siam," which seems unnecessary to me) Blue Wings to Bangkok, David Beaty's The Heart of the Storm, the curent Brassey's Annual, and William Green and Gerald Follinger's The World's Fighting Planes. The Beaty book is a novel and Birabongse is an amiable flying playboy, the technical books are good, and Brassey says the Commies could be coming for us in an unstoppable wave in 1957. A review of Episode 5 of War in the Air, "The Desert Air Force," follows, not a book, but still a review. Or eleven short paragraphs of summary, anyway. 

Civil Aviation reports that Viscount delivery has begun, that Flight has been out to several dinners, and that Pete Masefield gave the second Mitchell Memorial Lecture on the subject of the "Advantages of High-Wing Airliners," which are less than the disadvantages of high-wing airliners, so please let's not dig this up again, Pete. (BEA is trying to stir up trouble over the Super-Viscount, which TCA wants in low wing, and BEA is unlikely to buy at all because it is too big for them.) 

"Long-Range Battle Continues" Flight offers us an unsigned comparison of the likely performance of the Britannia 300 LR versus the DC-7C as non-stop Atlantic transports, because the DC-7C actually exists, unlike the DC-7D. It is concluded that the Britannia is better.

Correspondence

J. Stewart of the Joint School of Chemical Warfare relates how a helicopter pilot training for the Trans-Antarctic Expedition landed to render assistance at a Joint School flying accident training exercise, thanking the pilot for his charitable impulse. R. Jay offers suggestions for names of the service Britannias. W. O'Dea, of the Science Museum, liked the article about the Smithsonian's new museum of flight. G. V. Lachmann, a nationalised Briton of 25 years, is tired of being described as "German." Derek Dent recalls the days years ago, before the war. 

The Industry reports that Air Engine Services (U.S.-U,K.) is setting up shop in Britain and that Dowty is going to skip its annual general meeting because of its reorganisation this year, but stockholders can be reassured that the Group achieved record annual profits this year largely on the basis of Canadian operations. 



 

 

Fortune's Wheel reports that Fortune's silver jubilee starts next issue with the first installment of "America's Break-Through," "Rising Productivity."

Letters

Paul Mazur points out that merging is a "biological urge" and is disappointed that the role of the investment banker is under-estimated. You and all the other investment bankers, Paul. Maybe buy her flowers, next time you have a date? Three correspondents point out that Francis Bello is misreading an altimeter in a photo in his article about "Human Engineering," but the Editor points out that they are wrong! John Davis loved the article on golf. Management Consultant Edward McSweeney comments on the "How to Get Fired" article that the actual reasons for being fired are usually alcoholism or emotional disturbances. Kenneth Porter of Detroit also issues a mistaken correction, Whitney Griswold is dubious about the process of firing executives to start with, and the editor of Machine Design thinks Fortune stole their cover in November. 

Business Roundup reports that the boom is shaping up, although much will depend on whether the President stays the course  on balancing the 1955 budget or opts to spend on roads and such, with an eye to unemployment, which is low for a recession, but might rise. It tries to come up with a stock market forecast and regretfully projects continuing decline in capital investment with exports as a possible bright spot. 



  
 
 

  Business Notes From Abroad reports that "An Economic NATO" might be coming along over there in Luxembourg there, that the current Gatt might be "The Last Chance for Gatt," that Pakistan is a pretty promising place for investment, that Japan might need help with its deepening economic crisis. 

Leaders

"Business and the Eighty-Fourth" What will the Eighty-Fourth Congress do for business? A health reinsurance scheme is a "must;" more public housing is needed after the 83rd gave the Administration 35,000 units a year against the 140,000 it asked for; Secretary Benson will have to continue to resist pressure for 90% parities; highways; freer trade; $5 billion more for defence; tax cuts; action on unemployment, if any; two years of "moderation;" surrender on Dixon-Yates that leaves private power open as an option. What it probably won't get is an "attractive" Republican party. Shorter Editorial Notes explain the President's position on Dixon-Yates ("Dixon-Yates if necessary, but not necessarily Dixon-Yates"); deplore Pantages Advertising's plan to put jingles on jukeboxes; make note of the latest surge in Czarist bond futures, one of the weirder Wall Street cults, based on Malenkov getting a hair cut or something; the fight over control of Montgomery Ward (Sewell Avery says the firm must keep the hatches battened down because the next depression is just around the corner and has been for the last eight  years, while Louis Wolfson says that it is objectively pro-Communist to talk up depressions, making Avery an Enemy of the People; and Albert Einstein's claim that if he had to do it over again, he'd be a plumber, runs up against the matter of plumbers having problems, too. 

Fortune fluffs up Charlie Wilson and his Pentagon at length and profiles the President of International Harvester before getting to something actually interesting, Charl3es Silberman and Sanford S. Parker's "Reinforcements for the Capital-Goods Boom"  The latest installment in Fortune's extended argument/investigation into the capital-goods boom that it says is happening or will happen, looks at the last group of buyers who will need to purchase $42 billion in capital goods in 1959 to keep up with technological change: non-industrial customers for capital goods. These include A&P, the Santa Fe, CBS, the King Ranch, Metropolitan Life, the First Bank of Denver, and the Waldorf-Astoria, among others. (Fourteen case studies are cited, including five individuals or small businesses.) Together these point to a combination of a commercial building boom and "new technology" machinery purchases achieving the $42 billion projection for total capital spending in 1959. 

I'm slightly over-egging the culture shock. Page over has two-story buildings.

Thereafter we profile Burlington Mills, and look in at the $50,000 house, which is no longer a byword for luxury where "the family only does dishes on the cook's night off," but still a nice place to live. Fully 22% of houses currently selling in Greenwich, Connecticut, are going for $45,000 or more, and country-wide they might be as many as 3%. The new $50,000 builder's house is typically seven to eight-room with 2300 to 2700 square feet of floor space, compared with 3500 to 4000 in a house that sold for $50,000 in the Twenties. Favoured styles include split-level, ranch, colonial, and ranch colonial. Kitchens are big enough to eat in, "a notable change from the Twenties," dining rooms are separate and small, the average room is fifteen by twenty-five, and bedrooms have room for twin beds. Forced air heating is general, air conditioning is increasingly common, bathrooms have coloured fixtures, and the crowning glory is the den/TV room. 

William Harris rhetorically asks about the "Last Stand of the Auto Independents?" Fortune investigates "Do Stock Options Pay?" It seems to be "yes" for whether the small automakers are facing their doom, and "maybe" for whether the current fad for stock options is a good idea. It turns out that splurging on new plant to catch up with the Big Three was a terrible idea with an Eisenhower Recession on the way. Fortune visits Milan for the Decima Triennale of an Italian industrial design exposition and takes some glorious pictures that might have some bearing on the future. And not just when you have to explain your expense account!

Fortune hires a humorist to ask what would happen if business harnessed peer pressure to get people to buy. "If"? There must be more to it, but I am not in the mood to be amused, so I'm not going to try to find it. Then it checks in with Sears, Roebuck, and hosts Edmund L. Van Deusen's meditation on "The Inventor in Eclipse." Is the independent American inventor a dying breed? Patent rates are declining, and science and technology are just too complicated these days. Okay, so far, but then a neat graphic illustrates how the lightbulb wasn't nearly as much of an invention as its legend has it, while the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Turnbull, Inc. v. United States signals that it's only an invention if the courts say it is, and the real story is that the courts are increasingly less likely to let you slap a patent on some nonsense when A&P are ready to take you t court. Sigh, for so it is in these latter days. Then another graphic makes it clear that it is very hard to even say who "invented" television:

We then finish the month with another profile, and that's it for 1954 from Fortune!