Postblogging Technology, October 1953, I: It's Just A Cardial Infarction! Walk It Off!

R_., C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

Here I am, your favourite daughter-in-law, dashing off a late one from an undisclosed location in our dear very own Santa Clara County. It's so convenient being a native daughter when you have to propose a very private meeting place in a very public setting! I have just had a lovely discussion with some very nice, if awkward, engineers, about the troubles they are having with a manager whose initials might or might not be "Shockley."

Honestly! I took this job to do patent law. (But, then, the President didn't take the the job to be heartless, unlike his Vice-President, and look who is going to be our President now!) Unless I am being unnecessarily about Ike's "mild" heart attack. At least my dark humour gives you a bit more of a sense of how we are feeling right now down in these United States. 

Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

The Economist, 1 October 1955

Leaders

The Tories are having their annual meeting at Bournemouth, about which absolutely nothing of interest can possibly be said. Unfortunately, it's a quiet week, so it's a job of work to turn the first Leader into a page-and-a-half on the fact that nothing happened at the conference. The sensible editor might want to insert the  announcement that Geoffrey Crowther is retiring and will be replaced by Donald Tyerman, and give a full Leader to all the Shakespeare they're doing these days. (There are also bits about the choice of new Tory house leader and the Wilson committee's report on the reorganizing of the Labour party, but those are just Notes.)

"The Council Housing Nettle" The Economist doesn't approve of council houses, but sees that they can't be got rid of, just reformed. So, one day, they will be reformed out of existence, if Tory politicians just follow The Economist's advice, which the new minister, Duncan Sandys won't. The Economist pouts in anticipation.

"The Algerian Dilemma" France will eventually get out of Algeria, but when it does, the French Right will be very upset. What to do, what to do? Dither! This is not news, but the Moslem college of the Algerian Assembly (which is hopelessly gerrymandered to make sure that Algerian Moslems don't accidentally end up running Algeria) decided to put it on record that they don't want to be an "equal" part of France, now or in the future, which makes it hard to pretend that Algeria won't leave.
 

Notes of the Week

Hmm. What's important enough to warrant the lead Note but not an entire Leader? Hmm, hmm, hmm. Oh, wait a minute, it says here that President Eisenhower had a tiny little major heart attack! The Wall Street Journal even had a headline! It seems as though some people think this could be important? I mean, obviously not as  IMPORTANT important as the Tory delegates being bored and drunk to applaud or heckle speakers, but important. What if the Americans elected a Democrat in '56 with crazy opinions like, "Maybe we should do something about McCarthy instead of just looking at him sternly?" The General Assembly is very sensibly and reasonably confining itself to giving speeches about this and that where this and that doesn't include Cyprus or the Chinese seat.  Also the Soviets gave speeches and statements rejecting the open skies initiative and demanding that the Western military alliances be dissolved and that American troops should withdraw from Europe and the Middle East. On the other hand, Dulles said that people shouldn't count on American military commitments to Europe increasing indefinitely. The Economist is not pleased with the appointment of Field-Marshal Lord Harding as Governor of Cyprus, because it doesn't see the solution as fighting the Cypriot nationalists until they give up, because Greece is a country. 

"Russian Arms for Egypt" Communists are hypocrites for selling guns abroad after all that "merchants of death" stuff over the years. Nasser points out that there's no reason Egypt can't buy guns from Russia, and Dulles' flying visit to Cairo to argue against it just seems to confirm that it is good diplomacy, too. Also it apparently cancels the Israeli commitment not to use the guns it buys in the West for wars of aggression, which even The Economist can't present with a straight face, noting that the Israelis have been buying guns behind the Iron Curtain for years. German Social Democrats are far too close to the Communists. 

"Deadpan Paper" The White Paper on the disappearance of Burgess and McLean is the silliest thing ever. We all know where they went and why (Moscow, because they were spies). Have the British security services fixed the weaknesses that allowed them to escape? We won't know until there's another disappearance! Will parliamentary airing do any good? No! 

British leftists promoting Italian nationalism are doing
 free speech wrong

Isn't it something that there are two television networks now? It is! Peron is gone, but not forgotten, and it will hopefully be a lesson to all the Latin American countries that are thinking about a "third way."  The Economist seeks the middle ground in the dispute over the redundancies and resulting strike at Daimler. The French are also having wage disputes again. The Economist is very pleased with the pro-Nato position recently taken by the Dutch.  The real problem with technical education in Britain these days is that everyone thinks that night and extension courses are for wet fish. If football pools are going to continue to be legal, they should be nationalised. 

From The Economist of 1855, "Freedom of Speech" Britain has freedom of speech, and that's great, but Italians shouldn't interpret the bad things that are being said about the Kingdom of Naples' oppressive policies as evidence that the British government is supporting their resistance and would welcome a rising. 

Letters

J. Hunsworth of the Banking Information Service writes to point out that it is hard to have a standard for small advances at all the bank branches around the country. Five letters on the recent comparison of pay rates between service officers and civil servants. W. L. Ricketts of the British Motor Trades Association denies that there is a black market in new cars in Britain. Maria da Silva writes to stand up for Portuguese Goa, and G. Isaac to point out, extremely obliquely, that the major issue in Goa is anti-African racism. 

Books

Arthur Boak, Manpower Shortage and the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West gets a full page review because of the thoroughness of its investigation of the evidence that the Roman Empire fell because of etc., which is not actually a new argument. Charles Allbro Butler's Henry George gets a long and favourable review that somehow avoids any specific discussion of this "radical reforner's" ideas. Four introductory economics textbooks get a single column review. The first volume of John Lehman has been long awaited by everyone who has been waiting for it. (He is in literature.) William Angus Sinclair's Socialism and the Individual is the posthumous account of  a Tory politician who joined the Labour party in 1951 when he realised that socialism wasn't that bad, and who died in a sudden blizzard while travelling in Scotland last December. (He was also a professional philosopher, a fact to which the review only indirectly refers.)  A. G. Ellinger's The Art of Investment gets a full column, which seems like a lot of space for the quintessential "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" book. J. D. Fage's An Introduction to the History of West Africa is a bit disappointing. Frank Debenham's The Way to Ilala is an attempt to show that David Livingston wasn't a bad geographer even though he died doing bad geography, by the reviewer's interpretation. The reviewer is not impressed. Burnes Snodgrass' the Slide Rule is a fine popularization of an (unnecessarily, James and Snodgrass add) arcane instrument. Butthe reviewer points out that slide rules really are necessarily inaccurate, and that is a problem, whatever Snodgrass has to say about, in effect, other people making mistakes, too.

American Survey 

"Heart Attack" The American office has noticed that sometimes people die from heart attacks, and even when they don't die, they can't do anything for months. Since "people" includes "the President," so he might die, and definitely won't do anything. And that will have consequences! The Economist has determined that Eisenhower can't run again in '56, because he'll be old, and will probably have another heart attack. Maybe Richard Nixon will be president, and the paper isn't sure what it thinks about that! 

"Tariff Bargains" Americans are still anti-tariff but also pro-tariff. Congress is supposed to be in charge of tariffs, but instead when the Tariff Commission recommends a tariff on perfectly good grounds like bicycle factory workers being laid off just because bicycle company managers don't want to make bicycles that compete with British bicycles because it would be hard, the tariff happens. Congress would use its powers to make the bad tariffs go away, but then people would be mad at it, so the trick is to pretend to do something and then let the President do something and then everybody will be happy except for foreigners, who don't count. The important thing is that as long as Britain doesn't go on full convertibility, Americans have an excuse, and The Economist wants currency convertibility now! 

"Decision Needed" The President seems to be recovering well, so the panic about the lack of any constitutional provision for governing the country when the President is alive but comatose, in spite of there being an entire Amendment specifically devoted to the problem, can be put to rest. Until when? The Economist thinks maybe the next session of Congress, but I have to point out that they  have cancelled the special session of Congress that was going to decide the matter, even though the President could have another  heart attack at any time. So I am going to assume that it will be put off until the next time this happens. Given the sheer amount of sloppy language and obvious loopholes in the Constitution, to the point where you have to assume that they're intentional. An exciting discussion of the Treasury's decision not to unsuspend the tax amortisation plan follows. 

"Mississippi Justice" "At first sight" the acquittal of the accused murderers of Emmett Till looks bad! But really it was a fair verdict because of technicalities. Yes, they were technicalities that Mississippi exploited to get the acquittal, but the Mississippians wouldn't have done that if everyone hadn't been so mean to Mississippi. The Economist hopes sincerely that the murderers will be at least convicted of  kidnapping. (The issue is that the defence argued that Till wasn't really dead, that it was all faked by the NAACP.)

By Jsayre64 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons
.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27895200

"End of the Timber Trail" Our terrible fire season is a good occasion to meditate on the future of the Northwest timber industry. "The end of free and easy timber cutting" is in sight, even in the more inaccessible forests of southern Oregon and northern California. Douglas County, home of the Umpqua National Forest, has between 11 billion and 15 billion board feet of saleable timber in private hands, and it is being cut at a rate of a billion board feet a year. Logging in the National Forest and other Federal lands is limited to 400 million board feet per year. A special Congressional committee has been in Oregon trying to come up with  a plan to allocate available timber between operators and ensure sawmill towns a steady supply when the attached private lands run out. However, the Business Research Committee and Lewis and Clark and Reed Colleges have produced a report on "The Forest Products of Oregon" concluding that the net timber growth annually in Oregon is 3 billion board feet and that up to 8 billion board feet can be taken annually, and that there is enough lumber in Oregon to support fifty years of cutting at the current rate even if there is no net growth. Net timber growth rates will also rise as the original timber is cut, as mature stands grow more slowly than new ones, so that future annual growth rates will reach almost ten billion board feet a year. However, all of this assumes a high rate of reforestation, conservation, and efficient utilisation. Forestry has to get scientific!

A long note explains which stock market indexes you should pay attention to when you are investing in the U.S., and why. It particularly dislikes the Dow Jones. It is supposed that the five new hotels that opened this year in Las Vegas are a sign that the good old days of gambling subsidising entertainment must be coming to an end.

The World Overseas

"The Peasant Asks Peking: Why?" Rural unrest has been on the rise since central state marketing of grain was introduced in 1953. "Some people" in the party think that China is exporting too much grain, mainly to Russia to pay for investment goods. Reserve stocks in peasant hands are declining, and feed grains are hard to find. Meanwhile the state is building up its reserves, in large part to secure against a "possible domestic or international incident." Food rationing is starting in Chungking this week. 

Norway is having national municipal elections that are seen as a test for Labour. Norway is quite prosperous so it will probably pass, but the hot summer has caused some grievances by forcing hydroelectric rationing. 

"The Petrov Report" As referred to above, the Australian Royal Commission on Espionage's report, which was precipitated by the Petrov defections, has found that there has been "no effective Russian espionage in Australia since 1948." However, that only goes for the MVD. The GRU might have its own underground focussing on Woomera. The main conclusion is that everything is fine but that the Labour leader badly damaged himself with his anti-anticommunism. 

We catch up with events in Uganda with a fairly detailed look at its regional and tribal politics in the wake of local elections. German plans for several atomic power plants are reviewed. Eighteen months of more liberalised European dollar import regulations have not closed Europe's dollar gap, which has been rising mainly due to food and  raw material imports.

The Business World

There is plenty of wheat out there and the price is falling, and the main thing now is to prevent a collapse through the new global wheat trade agreement. All the tankers being built recently (a 4.7 million ton peak in 1954) mean that there are now a lot of tankers, including super tankers, and even more planned. Will things taper off? No, old tankers will continue to be retired, and big orders for dry cargo ships have been ordered, reducing the number of yards that can compete for those orders. By keeping orders at 4 million tons per year and holding scrappings to 2 million, the world tanker fleet in 1960 could be as high as 60 million tons, compared with the 47 million tons predicted on trend; this would require another twelve million tons of orders. That just leaves the tiny detail of the industry's needs to consider. The demand for petroleum products outside the U.S. and Soviet spheres is 250 million metric tons per year, and this may double or triple in ten years time. Shell believes that glocal demand will rise by 7.6% per year through 1960. The Economist supposes that the tanker fleet might have to expand at 5% per year to accommodate this increase, and the value of the orders in British yards is likely to rise from £700 million to £1 billion. Major clouds on the horizon include heavy American coal exports to meet European demand and the rise of atomic power, although that is mainly an issue for the 1960--5 period, when mass replacement of wartime construction will begin. 

By 111 Emergency from New Zealand - 1957 Jaguar, CC BY 2.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17727847

Business Notes  

We lead off with a story about London financial markets waiting on the Chancellor's speech to the City, which will probably signal a change of course, because it would be wrong to put a story about Wall Street's heart attack swoon in the lead. More finance stories, then worries about rising wage costs maybe having an effect on exports eventually. Engineering employment continues, and the employment inelasticity that was expected to result from low unemployment rates doesn't seem to be happening. The CEA is cutting electricity distribution investment by 5% because of the credit squeeze. Generating investment will be spared, and this implies rising electricity prices. Australia's long anticipated import cuts are still provoking reactions of "pained surprise" in British industry. Cotton is mixed, Brazil is introducing currency reforms pooling Deutschmarks, guilders and pounds, which will help British exporters, especially sterling oil. Remittances from investments in Pakistan are up, mainly on Assam tea and thanks to tax reforms there. Petrol prices are "staggering up," rayon prices seem to be near a recovery, Malaya is putting export duties on forward exports of rubber. Jaguar has added a mid-sized salon to its stable for the first time since 1952, and there is a trade agreement with Bulgaria, which is necessary because Bulgaria has been in default of its bonded debt since the beginning of WWII. 

Leaders

"Ready, Steady" Flight's interpretation of BEWARE is that it was "the most encouraging" air defence exercise so far in showing how the RAF might deal with an all-out bomber attack on the British Isles. This is because the RAF could finally field jet fighters and jet bombers and really test the defences and not "gloss over terrifying gaps" in high altitude and low altitude penetrations. The Canberras of the attacking force were supplemented by the B-47s, F-86s, F-84s, Mysteres, Mistrals, Vampires, and Meteors of the USAF, French, Belgian, and Dutch air forces. "These proved to be sitting ducks for the Hunters," which performed unexpectedly well in their first real exercise, while the improved radar defence worked very well. There is, however, still a need for night fighters. Two Javelins were deployed, but the RAF needs "scores." Bombers can still get through, but they need all the tricks in the book to do so. The Economist's questions about the status of the V-Force Valiants goes unanswered. 

From All Quarters reports that A. G. Elliott, lead designer of the Eagle, Hawk, Falcon, Kestrel, R, and Merlin engines, has retired from Rolls-Royce at the age of 66, a reminder of just how young the air age is. There is "renewed speculation" about the future of the V.1000 after the MoS confirmed that its order for six planes is "under consideration in light of the probable performance of the plane and the genera transport aircraft situation here and overseas." It is thought that the MoS thinks that V.1000 civil sales are less likely now that the American jet transports are coming along, and that the RAF might prefer the Britannia to the larger and more expensive jet. The Italians have built their first indigenous turbojet, the 4002, the first Westland Whirlwinds have been delivered, the House of Representatives military operations subcommittee is going to investigate the J40-powered McDonnell F3H contract that turned into such a mess, with the Navy taking 56 basically useless F3Hs, of which six crashed, before later production shifted to the J71. Piasecki is changing its name, and a Folland Midge has crashed, killing the pilot, during a flight demonstration for a Swiss delegation.  

The School of Gas Turbine Technology reminds everyone that its Test House is a great place to test houses, or possibly jet engines, or instruct students, I don't know. 

"EXERCISE 'BEWARE'" Are we still doing the all-capitalisation format for defence exercises? I think so? Quotation marks, as used here, are not a very elegant approach! It sounds as though no-one from Flight flew along, but they were definitely around the airfields, especially Honington, which supported the Canberras. 

Here and There reports that Lockheed has received more C-130 orders, which will keep the asembly line open through 1958, that the D0-27 is coming along nicely, that some juvenile delinquents who stole parts from an aircraft "got off lightly" with fines, and that a conference on the general question of "repair or replace" is to be held soon, somewhere, I wasn't paying attention.  Stanley Hiller says that European "flying bedsteads" are ahead of American "flying bedsteads," but he can't say more. Australian prospectors will search for uranium from their new base at Mawson during the Antarctic summer. 

"High Speed Drone" The Caeta is a new Canadian approach to target aircraft design by Canadian Aviation Electronics. I have no idea what makes it new from a brief scan of the three-page advertorial, but the fact that it is a three-page advertorial probably tells  you all you need to know. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that the three-plan view it is printing of the English Electric P.1 is the most accurate and detailed one so far published, that the first Victor B.1 is almost ready to fly, and only missed SBAC because they were fiddling with the tail and nose. The Grumman S2F-1 Sentinel has been accepted for fleet service even though its vibration problems haven't been entirely licked. The French are fiddling with the Breguet 960, and with a light plane, as are the Indians. 

J. J. Green, "Aeronautical Research in Canada" Canada? SNORE!!! Anyway, this is a precis of the "Eleventh British Empire and Commonwealth Lecture," given by and for the RAeS at the Royal Institution to a group of people who probably know what they did to deserve to suffer so. Three pages, so if you want to know the non-classified technical details of some Canadian wind tunnels and what a professor at the University of Alberta was working on before the war, here's your article!

"Modern Air Survey Techniques:" Points From the Commonwealth Survey Officers' Conference" Modern aerial surveying is extremely technical and complex, but our correspondent was able to get a sentence out of the Canadian report (they use a bi-camera technique now), a report on the use of SHORAN, and some South African colour. 

"Politics and Tactics" Flight has some nice pictures it would like to show you, and, after some thought, has come up with a "subject" for the pictorial, which is that the USAF's 10th Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, which took the pictures, might be involved in the President's Open Skies initiative. 

"Army Handmaid" The Fairey Ultralight Helicopter would be very useful for the army in the field, Fairey thinks, and its extremely goofy design (tip jets again) is perfect for the role because it allows Fairey to leave out the tail, so you can load it on a lorry, as you often do with helicopters.  

And this is how we got to the "JFC, just let a computer do it" era

J. M. Stephenson, "Principles of Gas Turbine Control" Everyone is on about the control problem these days, but what about gas turbines, where you can't have a feedback loop based on output because you can't measure thrust? You use whatever you are measuring as the "sensed" thrust, and go on from there,, helped out by some dimensional analysis that shows that using the same loop to control fuel flow to chambers and afterburners and nozzle dilation is fine and can incorporate output temperature control. The rest of the article describes the component controls which are being controlled by the main control. Control!

The Aeronautical Bookshelf

Norman Macmillan has one about the old days, before the war, Great Airmen. The Civil Defence volume of the History of the Second World War is out. HMSO got T. H. O'Brien to write this one. He doesn't seem to have many other irons on the fire. D. G. T. Harvey's British Civil Aviation is a handbook of aircraft, and is badly edited. Elleston Trevor's Squadron Airborne is a novel of the Battle of Britain. Frank Ellis' Canada's Flying Heritage is about the old days, before the war. The Aeroplane's Directory of British Aviation, 1935, is perfectly fine. John Gunn's Flying For You is an entertaining guide to flying.

 

Correspondence

Malcolm Lawrie really enjoyed seeing that Valiant land in Sydney and thinks it should happen more often. Hugo Hoffman wants to talk about the old days, before the war, as later, does frequent offender G. A. Bromfield. J. Anderton of Canadian Pacific writes in light of the recent article about their flying DC3s to Dew line stations to point out that they have other planes, too. E. G. Lawrence and F. H. W. Russell have airminded complaints about RAF photograph policy and air show admissions. Dennis Powell writes to correct some erroneously reported Stratoliner registration serials. Thanks, Dennis! 

The Industry  has an advertorial from a company that does prefabricated factory structures, a new kind of flexible steel tubing from Ackles and Pollock that is different and better than their other steel tubing. (It still amazes me that when this company branched out, it chose to do so into autopilots!) Various companies  have contracts, a Dutch minister was spotted at English Electric, and now that some real stories are done, we can get back to advertorials for a grounded DC power supply from GEC and Fescol, Ltd.'s patent "Fescolising" process, which can now be applied to light metal aircraft parts. (It's a way of painting them with chromium for increased corrosion resistance.) 

Civil Aviation reports that Prestwick's new runway has opened, that a Comet 2 is off to Khartroum for trial flying, that heliports are opening in various London area garden towns, that Flying Tiger is buying more cargo Super Connies, that Boeing thinks that the 707 will make money hand over fist for its operators, that US civil air traffic will rise by 50% by 1965, and more about the Frye DC3 replacement. 

The Economist, 8 October 1955

Leaders

"Target for Margate" Labour needs to reform to get rid of all those diehards who still believe in socialism. Nato is having a meeting, where suddenly the talk is cuts.

"The Right to Move" There seems to be no end in sight to the annual travel allowance, and it is even at best only "expected" that it won't be reduced below last year's £100, but The Economist has a bunch of reasons why it is bad and should be done away with, or at least turned into £5/day up to £100/year. 

"Nationalism Without Brakes" Egypt bought arms from Russia this week, and France withdrew from the UN General Assembly. Both of these events are related to the "Bandoeng spirit," and the "Asian-Arab upsurge." The Assembly's decision that it would debate Algeria after all,
and the Egyptians forgetting to be anti-communist enough aren't actually wrong, but, actually, they are. 

Notes

Rab didn't say what he'd do about the current account balance, but he did say they'd do something. so the suspense continues. Since "Nothing is happening at Bournemouth" is worth a Leader, clearly "Nothing Happened at Bournemouth" is worth a Note. But maybe there will be a Cabinet shuffle! Faure will probably form a coalition with the Socialists to get the heck out of Morocco before the situation devolves into a national revolt. What will Papagos' death mean for Cyprus? Who knows, but it will be bad if they come all over nationalist about it. More, much more, on reforming Labour. Adenauer and the west are under pressure to admit that there are two Germanies. That thing in Jugoslavia is over, and various things can be said about British-Soviet coexistence, and local government for the sake of filling out a

Note.  Professor Lionel Robbins' "Notes on Public Finance," published in Lloyd's Bank Review, concludes that due to progressive taxation it is no longer possible to build up a personal fortune like Lord Nuffield's, and that this will have a bad effect. Moreover, without income splitting the progressive tax is "a tax on marriage," and the current form of death duties "enforces a rigid primogeniture," and that instead of legacy duties, it should have been estate duties which were abolished. He is also against profit sharing, and wants policy to promote worker equity purchases. Hurricane Janet leads The Economist to meditate on the costs of colonialism in the West Indies. The elections in Brazil might lead to a left winger winning, and the Brazilian army will be tempted to protect democracy. Far too many Indonesians voted for the Communists.  

"Through Rose-Coloured Radarscopes" Air Exercise BEWARE was the first in which Hunters and Javelins took part, and Air Chief Marshal Boyle says that he would be twice as reluctant to attack Britain as last year, but since he would still be able to attack, the real question is Britain's ability to retaliate, and Valiants did not take place, and why isn't the V force of deterrent atom bombers ready yet? (Do the Russians or Americans have "V-bombers?" Stop changing the subject!) 

"The Law and the Homosexual" The Magistrate's Association believes that homosexuality should not be a crime, but that the age of consent should be 30. The Economist points out that the current proposal of 21  is still pretty extreme. At least it can be agreed that homosexuals shouldn't be sent to prison, "except as a last resort." The Russians and Japanese seem to be settling down to a nice, normal, peace and trade treaty. Various things are happening in Asia, including North Vietnam getting a new ruling trio and becoming the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the "Asian People's Anti-Communist League" being turned into a venue for the Japanese and Koreans to squabble, but it's Asia so it's all squashed together in one Note. 

From The Economist of 1855 comes "Peace or Truce Party?" Some parliamentarians are in favour of "premature negotiations!" 

Letters

Nicholas Kaldor points out that since Britain's current inflationary problems are due to excessive consumption and not investment, the "fiscal tools" the Chancellor should use are the ones that reduce demand, not investment, as an increase in the bank rate does. He doesn't specify the "tools," although the Editor does, pointing out that running a budget surplus (to increase investment spending) or "increasing an already intolerably heavy burden of taxation" is democratically impossible, so the only possible solution is to give rich people more money so that they will "plough back" more, or wish for an increase in private saving. W. T. Newlyn rants about the "myth" that rate increases cause recessions. The Conservative Research Department writes to explain that it's not what you think. It actually came about when this committee was combined with that committee, and not the other committee, and that makes all the difference! A. Hughes is still on about the shoddiness of British cars, since his main point about a "black market" has been dealt with. H. W. Heyman of Smith's Delivery Vehicles makes the same points, more plausibly since he isn't trying to cover up for making unsustainable claims about a "black market." British cars are shoddy these days, he says. P. J. M. McEwan says that the sooner those crofters are cleared, the better. 

Books

"First!" --D. H. Lawrence 

W. Arthur Lewis, The Process of Growth is a good popular treatment of how economic growth happens, says the reviewer, who talks on at length about what the book is about, which is not as helpful as the reviewer thinks it is; then lights into what the reviewer really cares about, which is Lewis being too cavalier about inflation. Lewis says that inflation carried out for investment purposes is "inevitably self-liquidating," and a good substitute for taxation policies that might be politically impossible. WRONG! says the reviewer, without really saying why, although fair enough, there's only a paragraph or so to say why after all that time explaining that "leadership" and "climate" and a million other things affect growth, and that Lewis has opinions about them that you'll have to read the book to discover. J. B. Priestley and Jacquetta Hawkes have collaborated on Journey Down a Rainbow, which is a travel book that you  have to take seriously because it is the Priestleys, even though it is J.B. being appalled by Texas oilmen and the Mrs. becoming the millionth middlebrow visitor to Black Mesa. The latest emission of Documents on British Foreign Policy is two volumes in the third series, and is mainly about Britain standing around wringing its hands while China collapsed to chaos. Norton B. Cowell, Alfred Austin, Victorian, is about a poet you've never heard of. A. J. Young, an Introduction to Process Control System Design is a very worthy book of the kind The Economist ought to review because on account of automation being the coming thing. Let's see. It's made of paper, is square, and when The Economist holds it up to the light, it casts a shadow, and . . . Oh, wait, the author works at an ICI lab and not on servomechanisms, so that's interesting. Chemists do this stuff, too! Henri Peyre, The Contemporary French Novel is the perfect review to follow the last one, for we here at the office are very highbrow indeed! This revewer must know at least as much about French novels as the last one does about process control, because they know enough to be very cross at Peyre.  

 American Survey

Lewis is the only black economist to have won the Nobel

"Admiral in Atomic Seas" Lewis Strauss is, if you don't remember, an admiral. And he promised this week that all the private money that it is the Administration's policy to invite and encourage to take the lead in American atomic power investment would be amortised before commercial atomic fusion appeared on the scene. The President has begun signing papers again, and is "in touch" with Washington from his hospital room in Denver through Sherman Adams,  while Nixon is running cabinet meetings. The President will absolutely be making decisions again soon, providing he doesn't die, so don't think for a second about Stevenson blowing Nixon out in '56! The stock market is looking pretty shaky because investors have developed some insane idea about the President being on death's door being bad news for the world. Insane people sure are crazy! This Supreme Court session is expected to be as hot as a tamale because the Chief Justice will probably be running for President in '56. The Ohio Turnpike is almost finished some more, and we have room left over in this Note for non-breaking news like how much it will cost to drive from New York to Chicago via Harrisburg and Akron, which is $9.95. This turnpike will probably turn a profit, but what about the less populous parts of the country? In other breaking news, American consumers sure are spending lots of money, and it has been discovered that prisons should be reformatories. The United States should probably have nationally standardised time zones and daylight savings. 

The World Overseas

Wiki covers his two premierships in a
single sentence and mentions North Africa
once in the entire biography. 

"Mr. Diem Loses Favour" A Correspondent in Paris writes, which is strange, because Diem was never in favour in Paris. he's Washington's man! Our Correspondent imagines a past when Diem was South Vietnam's man, and a nearer past when he lost that favour by being Mr. Diem. That is not how I remember last year! The point seems to be that un-named Americans in Saigon have soured on Diem. In Argentina, Peron is still gone, and they are still undecided over whether or not to have a new Peron. One looks, at great length, at how Danube river navigation is to be managed now that the Soviets are out of Vienna. In a boring and technocratic way is the answer, which is very disappointing for those as wanted some more anti-communism. Faure is probably gone because the Moroccan hardliners are leaving his cabinet, which seems daft when Morocco is all but lost, but what are you going to do, vote for Mendes-France? Germans are worried that there is a "danger of a danger" to the Deutschmark. So, yes, that's an Economist story, but it's rare to see the paper acknowledge it. West Pakistan is creating a super-province, sub-state level of government so it can be equal and opposite to East Pakistan. 

The Business World

Rab's statement to the effect that it will be something, including possibly bank rate increases and a recession, and not tax increases, has been given a "vote of confidence" by the City. I wonder why? A second major Leader covers Australia's response to falling wool prices, with some thoughts about how far they will fall. 

Business Notes

Finance finance finance, Clan Line/Union-Castle merger, finance, silver, gold, the disgrace of importig tinplate, shipbuilding prices and orders up, car price increases being sold as "improvements" and not inflation, wheat, cotton and flour prices are down. The first bonds at 4% have been issued, six months after the bank rate was raised, and the constraints on hire purchase are beginning to bite. TV companies are still sorting out how they are going to provide local broadcasting.  The national finances are looking pretty good, but that is because of buoyant revenues and lagging expenditures, so there is a danger of a danger. 

 

Flight, 14 October 1955

Leaders

RuthAS

"Better Mousetraps" Stupid European continental airlines are buying Convair 340s instead of Viscounts. Or maybe they aren't dumb, and we've been neglecting re-engined piston types? 

"The Industry: One Man's Plan" Frank Beswick is just some kind of socialist, but Flight is nonpartisan so it won't say what it thinks, just imply it broadly. To think that the British aviation industry, in 1955, needs fixing!

From All Quarters reports that Egypt is getting MiGs, Australia is ordering some antisubmarine helicopters, and Qantas is buying Super-Constellations and is thinking about a trans-Antarctic route to Valparaiso. Tactical Air Command is building an airstrip at McMurdo Sound to support a massive airlift of scientists and stuff for science to Antarctica for IGY. Peter Masefield says that shipping lines should stop buying air charter companies because monopolies are bad and have excessive market influence. Canadair is opening an atomic division in case it needs one. The recent UAL crash in Wyoming is the most serious in the history of American commercial flying, although Don Bennett still has them beat. The U.S. Defence Department has issued the first satellite contracts for Project VANGUARD. The Vanguard satellite sill be launched by a three stage rocket, and will have an elliptical orbit with a nearest approach to Earth of 200 miles. About 10 satellites will be launched. Canada's big aerial survey of the Arctic islands is almost finished. 

"Aspects of the Gnat: New Angles on Britain's Light Fighter" does a game job of trying to sell Folland's no-hope "cheap" fighter. Maybe he should have made it a biplane so we could remember all the previous attempts at a cheap fighter from before the war! 

Here and There reports that  the SK-1 is flying, that high tail winds have propelled some PanAm DC7Bs to new record times on the New York-London route of just a hair over eight hours, that Japan has an arrangement to license produce F-86s and T-33s, that Douglas is forming a missile division. Flight follows the column with an advertorial/pictorial about the new Super Constellation cargo-convertible. 

P. R. Payne, "The Maximum Speed of the Helicopter: And Suggestions by a British Helicopter Designer For Its Increase" Helicopters are limited to about 160 knots by the inherent aerodynamic limits of their rotors, but if you rotate the rotors, stick turbojets, ramjets, rockers, machine guns pointing backwards or magic reactionless drives on them, you can get them to go faster, and, what the heck, it's worth a couple pages in the dark of October. A helicopter company you've never heard of is doing worthy things in difficult terrain for an industry, but in Australia, which is always worth a look because it is far away and romantic. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that the F107 will have the J71 instead of the J57, as will the Martin XPM-1 Sea Mariner. The McDonnell XV-1 is faster than another convertiplane. The Caravelle is flying, the Morane-Saulnier MS-760 is continuing its North American sales tour, Leduc is still working on its ramjet, the Canadair CF-105 is expected to be capable of Mach 2.5, with the first prototype flying by the end of 1957. Avro Canada is also working on a small business jet. 

"Seattle Giant: Progress of the Boeing B-52 Heavy Bomber" It would be a shame not to print these great pictures and repeat some statistics about giant airplanes, millions of engineering man hours, and so on. 

J. J. Green, "Aeronautical Research in Canada: Eleventh Commonwealth and Empire Lecture" This is not an attempt to bore the reader with the same lecture twice, but rather the second part of the lecture. Aviation medicine, transonic aerodynamics, and, because it is Canada, skis for planes. (But not snowshoes, so not patriotic!) 

"Helicopters in the News" Helicopters should be in the news, damn it! (Mainly because the Army is still trying to decide which helicopter to buy, and the builders are afraid that someone will forget about one of them.)

"Collision-Course Interception" Guiding high speed interceptors into head-on interceptions so that they can shoot their rockets at jet bombers is a very hard job for radar and computers, but that stuff's so boring compared with the rockets, here are some pictures. 

"E. F. Coates, "Turboprops Over Australia: Impressive Results of TAA Viscounts' First Nine Months of Operations" Now listen up, you ungrateful Antipodeans, not all our planes are De Havilland junk, stop nosing around American jobs! 

"Light Aircraft for Civil Defence: A Proposal by a Pilot and C.D. Staff Office" The "proper hats" school will never die. Here's another RAF-affiliated young man arguing that the government should give him a plane, 

Correspondence

People won't necessarily pay attention to  you even if you're right

Several correspondents write in to ridicule Russians writing about aviation years ago, before the war, as is done. A. G. Mawby and the magnificently named Francis Boreham proceed to show how it is done. I hope you wanted to know more about HP42 serial registrations! T. G.. Hicks of Power Jets writes in to let everyone know that if they say the wrong thing about jet flaps, that's a patent lawsuit just waiting to happen. The Industry reports that William Jessop and Sons is getting ready to produce titanium in quantity, and that Thorn Electrical has new orders for its lighting panels for consoles and cockpits. Later and independently Flight gives the latest air charter company a page. Civil Aviation reports that Hunting Clan is scaling back operations, that Metropolitan claims to have 46 Convair 440 orders on the books, that Sabena ran a deficit last year, and summarises some findings from the latest ICAO navigation conference in this odd location, perhaps because it was mainly about lighting, which is boring, and further restricting old fashioned visual flying in no-visibility conditions, which is boring in a different way. 

Mr. Beswick's plan (essentially for nationalisation of the industry, which after all has basically only one customer, the government) is given a full page at the back. 

Fortune's  Wheel promises that this is a "New Goals" issue in Fortune's year long "Hurray, America" project. That means that Adlai Stevenson's "My Faith in Democratic Capitalism." The editor assures us that readers will find it surprisingly agreeable. I'm not sure that that's the article that captures business' "new goals" best in this issue, though.

Letters

Pierre Mendes-France really liked the article about Pierre Mendes-France. (And France.) C. W. Snedden of the Fairbanks News-Miner really liked the article about investing in Alaska. W. E. Young of a bank in Nebraska points out that the farm belt really is having a tough year. Stanley Dashew of Dashew Business Machines really liked the article about . . . a young man recently hired at J. P. Morgan. Roger Geffen finds an error. Some people liked John D. MacDonald's article about making business decisions, other's didn't. At least it got mail! Mrs. Charles Algernon likes the Open Sky proposal, some people haven't forgiven H. K. Porter, there is some disagreement about the average price of electricity in the U.S., and Joseph Becker has some thoughts about how long-running copyrights keeps competition in the arts down.  

Business Roundup reports that "the 1954--55 boom levels out," noticing declines of car  and house sales from previous record levels to still very high ones, so don't worry there won't be a recession right after the election thanks to monetary squeezing doing what it is supposed to do. 

The Business Globe reports that U.S. profit shares from overseas investment are rising, major American banks are making more overseas loans, that French investors in North Africa are afraid that they are going to lose their investments with their empire, that West Germans need to stop dreaming about the possibilities of the Russian market, that atomic fusion is not only a bit of pie-in-the-sky, but is likely to lead to more "socialisation" of industry, which is just what poor countries don't need. The big Japanese conglomerates are definitely back and the attempted de-cartelisation can be deemed a failure. 

Leaders

"Dolls, Bikes, Dams, and Folly" Tariffs and controls and stuff are bad, and, yes, the United States is helpless to stop raising tariffs and giving Westinghouse sweetheart deals when foreign firms underbid it, but that doesn't mean that the Europeans should keep on being so controlling and Keynesian! (Just in case you missed it the first time, Fortune does it again in a separate Leader questioning the legend of Ludwig Eberhard.) The French grow too much wine as well as drinking too much of it, and that is a pretty general problem on the farm side these days, but what are you going to do about it? Republican politicians who summered in Russia now want more trade with Russia. 

Fortune looks at the big business foundations to see if they really are bringing secret socialism. My guess is, "No," and follows up with "The Splendid Retreat of Alcoa," which has nice office buildings, spectacular works, and works in a big industry. It's splendid! Follows on Dero Saunders  reporting on "How Managements Get Tipped Over." I wonder if "Building spectacular monuments to corporate vanity at the peak of the market" is included? I know it's not something that Adlai Stevenson can talk about in "My Faith in Democratic Capitalism" and still get elected in '56/ Then it is off to talk to well-off Italians with American connections about "The Future Viewed from Italy." Count Carlo Faini of Montecatini actually has some sensible things to say about how the rise of the Italian population to 51 million in a gradual levellling off that "ends the population problem" will lead to a rise in the average life expectancy with "profound effects on the behaviour of the Italian people," and, for example, lead to an end in the gap between north and south. But mostly it's all "We have to stop communism." 

On the one hand, tennis whites. On the other, those parked cars. 

Edmund L. Van Deusen, "The Coming Victory Over Paper" Bank of America's new ERMA (Electronic Recording Machine --Accounting) shows how business can beat back the rising tide of paper. 

Werner-Lambert and PGE get profiles, as does Bill Martin of the Federal Reserve, "Republicans' favourite Democrat." (According to my Who's Who, "Bill Martin" is actually William Chesney Martin, Jr.)

Francis Bello, "The News About Noise" Faster and more powerful machines are  making the workplace louder and louder, and some new devices are "literally deafening." In 1948, a court even approved a compensation claim from a drop-forge worker for loss of hearing! GE now has a sound-reducing laboratory, and various companies are offering "quiet" products. The limited sales of Remington's "noiseless" typewriter, which has been on the market for thirty years, shows that this is perhaps a bit of lip service, or on the other hand that there is a market for it as long as it is cheap. And that means that there is hope for the hearing of our workers in the bright future of technology. (Sure, Fortune would say that, but that doesn't necessarily make it wrong!)

Aircraft noise silencing is particularly important. The rise in cabin noise from the DC3 to the DC7 is particularly noteworthy when you think about how much sleeker the DC7 is, and the DC9 is going to be a real problem, because jet noises are so much worse. There is a discussion of the baffles that have silenced NACA's supersonic wind tunnel at Lewis Clark Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Cleveland, although perhaps low frequency noise is going to be the real problem, and is harder to stop with baffles.