Postblogging Technology, November 1955, I: The Path of Duty

First week at Number 1 started 26 November. Princess Margaret isn't exactly a working class hero, but I bet she's vibing to this right now!

R_.C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada




Dear Father:

After the excitement of playing secret agent for a few weeks, I am afraid that my life has turned into that of a junior associate doing her best to get her billable hours up and having to watch her children being raised by someone else. 

Since elsewhere I'm on about the history of Route 40 and the French and Indian
War, here's another reminder that there is no such thing as the crest of the 
Appalachians. This is about a day's walk from Gnaddenhutten. 

I have to confess that the thought of turning in some masterpiece of corporate "raiding" and half-retiting on my laurels was very attractive. Otherwise, it will be hard for James and I to spend anywhere near as much time together as we would like. Hawaii and San Francisco aren't that far apart, at least for dashing airmen, but trans-Pacific dashes can be wearing for any of us. At least he is not in Washington flogging the SeaMaster on. And, yes, if we want to give little James-James and Vickie a little brother or sister, it would be best to do it before James is put aboard an atomic aircraft!

We are not thinking about moving from Palo Alto, although thank you for your offer. The house is nice, and the train is punctual and a good time to do some paperwork --at least in theory!  


Your Loving Daughter,

Ronnie

The Economist, 5 November 1955

Leaders

"Any Pennies for the Guy?" Labour MPs are being very mean to Rab when they say that his tax cuts last April were just for the election. If they don't stop being mean, they won't be able to take advantage of the "continuing instability of the British economy" brought on by Butler's "miscalculation." A long explanation of talking about talking at Geneva follows. The last Leader is about British licensing laws. Even more exciting!

"Graduated Deterrence" Hydrogen bombs are good for peace because an atomic war would blow up the world, but what if a war starts that isn't atomic to start? A "graduated" response, first using regular weapons, and then chemical and biological weapons, and then "tactical" atomic weapons, and only, finally, hydrogen bombs. It sounds good, but it won't actually work. 

From The Economist of 1855, "England and America"explains that Americans are being unreasonably anti-British right now. And boy does he go on!

Notes

Thami El Glaoui died in 1956, and his lands were seized by the crown in 1958 to 
the tune of 11,400 irrigated hectares in one province alone.  

"The Path of Duty" Princess Margaret isn't going to marry her man, because everyone was mean to  her, but The Economist likes to call it, as above. The Economist expects that Butler won't deflate enough. It's also worried about "wages and the budget," but since it's always worried about wages and budgets, what can I even say? France is going to have an election under the old electoral law, so it will have a new and equally broken Assembly after the election, probably in December. The centre right is clinging to the current electoral law because it believes that the law guarantees it a majority irrespective of what the voters think. The concern is that the Socialists will respond to this by forming a coalition with the Communists.  The Economist points out that the Presence Francaise and their allies in France have gone strangely silent ever since the Pasha of Marrakesh shifted his loyalties to the returning Sultan from the French puppet, and goes on to point out how he and his partners have made vast amounts of money by taking a share in French investments in Morocco. 

"Rouble Diplomacy in Asia" On top of the delivery of "133 huge cases of arms" only ten days after the announcement of the Egyptian-Czech arms deal, the Russians are now said to be offering to finance the Aswan high dam, although The Economist is skeptical that the Russians can swing this, on the basis of how big the gap between Russian talk and Russian money has been elsewhere in Asia. The Economist congratulates the government for the prospective elimination of the council housing backlog by 1960, and then throws a fit over the fact that the Tories will still be building housing at that point, and thinks that what is actually needed is "a quite dramatic amendment of the Rent Restriction Act." 

"The Term of Service" The Government continues to insist on a two-year term of service as the minimum to make a National Serviceman efficient, although by raising the age of the call-up, the number of conscripts is to be reduced by 170,000 by 1958, as you will recall Newweek was panicking about last month.  As Selwyn Lloyd points out, of the 200,000 national servicemen in the Army, 6000 are officers, 27,000 are NCOs, and 88,000 are tradesmen. Good on National Service for that, but that does mean that the Regulars have a huge training burden, so the cut, even of conscripts, is bad news for service efficiency. 

The first week at Geneva consisted of monologues across the table, with the Israel-Arab conflict and tourism, or in general East Bloc access to Western influence, being dragged into the discussion. Sinister Communist machinations continue in Singapore. The bread subsidy is bad and should go, even though everyone agrees that it will be the end of good bread in Britain, because small bakeries won't be able to compete with the big plants without it. WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD??!? Some companies have created a scholarship fund so that there will be more British scientists. We are reminded that there is a shortage of scientists because not enough people want to be scientists. Clearly the solution is paying them to study! The Economist also doesn't like the new copyright bill, which offers far too much protection for musicians and television producers. The Economist reminds the Japanese prime minister, currently out and about doing diplomatic things, not to listen to Communists.. Belgian employers and the government have conceded the 45 hour, five day week to end a nationwide strike. The Economist disapproves, because Belgian workers are too lazy to deserve it., and it will all end badly. An extended discussion of the imminent British Togoland plebiscite over union with the Gold Coast is very thorough. Eden is making a fool of himself over parliamentary arcana, and should stop. 

Letters

Geoffrey Tyson points out that the fuss in the press over Lord Home's recent address to the Indian Council of World Affairs is much ado about nothing. J. Hancock points out that even though Rab is now restricting capital spending to relieve inflation, London Transport is spending too much on bussese, and what about that? Someone writes in from the National Union of Manufacturers to complain about labour affairs, etc. J. H. Mensah points out that without racial equality, all the new states in east and Central Africa are going to go the same route as South Africa and end up being fascist siege states. The Office of the High Commissioner of Pakistan writes to point out that Pakistan doesn't think that Jammu and Kashmir are part of India. 

 Books

Obviously The Economist reviews the first volume of de Gaulle's war memoirs. They're pretty good reading, is the thrust of the review. G. R. Elton's England Under the Tudors is, according to friends of mine and not the reviewer, a pretty revolutionary treatment of the development of English government. The reviewer is impressed, but not as impressed. Paul Blanshard's The Irish and Catholic Power is a silly and unpleasant book, seemingly written more in an attempt to ward of the election of Catholics in American national elections than to portray the place of the Church in Ireland today. Hachiya Michihiko's Hiroshima Diary is a  harrowing account of what it meant to be subject to an atomic attack. Current Legal Problems 1955 is not nearly as worthy a book as title and emiting institution (the UCL Faculty of Law) promises. The editor needs to crack the whip more, or perhaps assign topics. 

American Survey

The magazine (I'm not sure whether it's the London or New York offices) looks on at the contretemps over financing American agricultural exports such as to make it, in effect, foreign aid. 

"The Cost of Defence" At first it seemed as though the Pentagon would take a $1 billion cut as its ahre of the 3% reduction in spending across departments to get the Administration to its long-dreamed-of balanced budget, but then it was realised that this would mean no huge B-52 programme to counter all those Soviet jet bombers,, and no $300 million atomic aircraft carrier, and fewer men to do all the things that the army does. (Drive tanks?) And clearly that wasn't on, unless the President can make the hard choice to cut spending in the face of the communist menace. 

"Dykes Against Oil" The Director of Defence Mobilisation has instructed American  oil companies to reduce their imports from Canada and Venezuela by 25,000 barrels a day, or about 7%, because that's how much the Cabinet decided that foreigners should be allowed to export to the United States for all sorts of good reasons, although if Arthur Flemming can't get the importers to agree to voluntary reductions, he is going to have to come up with a quota regime and persuade the President to push it through, and that might be a probleme. 

"The Coming of the Robots" "A recent radio poll in Detroit found that next to Russia, what frightened people most was automation." Accordingly, Congress had hearings about what government should do about automation, at which they will hear from "youthful 'automation consultants,'" engineers, industrialists, labour leaders, and then, to fill out some time at the end, the Secretary of Labour. At the end it was cordially agreed that no-one knows anything about anything except that the important point is who gets the money. 

"Print to Fit the News" Canadian newsprint producers are raising prices for the usual reasons, and American newspapers and their pets in Congress are responding in the usual way. The Economist (New York office) determines that because it is Canadians on the one hand, and Americans on the other, and it involves newspapers, that the pulp mills should give way., even though they've done nothing wrong. 

"History Today" This seems like a good year to have another argument over MacArthur? MacArthur's Rendezvous with History is out to show that the General won the war and would have stopped communism single-handed if it weren't for Roosevelt and the New Deal, and we all know who was behind that! This led to the State Department rebuttal, but what everyone is waiting for is Truman's memoirs, now being serialised. Since that isn't enough rehashing of recent history, Dean Acheson has a book out, and everyone is combing through Morgenthau's recently published diaries for evidence that Harry Dexter White was the Svengali of the New Deal. Disease has damaged the fruit and vegetable crops and now there is excess production in the can industry, which over-expanded to fill supermarket shelves with long turnover items that fit their business model. 

The World Overseas

"Mr. Sharrett's Mission" "There is at present in the Knesset no majority for preventive war." Heruth is the only party explicitly for it, and it is having trouble attracting coalition partners, but might well win enough from Mapai if the members were not constrained by party discipline to support the Labour government. This is why Sharrett is in Geneva, to secure a strong enough guarantee of Israeli security that he can command his own party. Norwegians are fighting over how to deal with minor wartime collaborators who have successfully sued to get some compensation for being sacked. Collectivisation in China is not without its hiccups. Sudan is divided between north and south and between parties as it approaches the possibility of a national election. The East German government's approach to German unification is in the news because it is being discussed in Geneva.

The Business World

Or you can build your airport to the airplane.

"The Market for Aircraft" World airlines have placed orders for £240 million in 100--150 seat airliners, most of designs which have not yet flown, and £60 million of that has already changed hands. This is a major upheaval in civil aviation, the second since the war, the first being the introduction of the "Atlantic" piston airliners. The North Atlantic crossing is the great challenge due to distance and weather, and there are two jets and one turboprop going on the market that can handle it, the 707, DC8, and Britannia III. The two earlier makes of the Britannia and the Comet IV are not Atlantic-capable. For medium-range airliners, the choice is the Viscount or the Electra, although there is also the Convair 440 to consider. On shorter flights, the DC3 will apparently fly forever. There are 4000 civil transport aircraft west of the Iron Curtain, 2000 Douglas-built, 1400 of them being DC3s, with the remainder divided between Constellations and Convairliners of various models. There are 43 Viscounts flying, and 77 have been delivered. For British builders to get an economical share of the world market, they must sell to American airlines, which are very big, with American Airlines operating 188, United 180, TWA 146, Pan Am 127, and Eastern 119. BEA has 102, and BA 57, with European airlines operating 107. All these fleets require replacement every eight years. The question is whether prospective customers can be won over for British designs when the British builders are effectively new to the industry. There is also the question of the sheer size and weight of the American Atlantic jetliners, which may confine them to London Airport and a few American terminii. What will serve the secondary routes? 

There's too much cotton, is the drift of the second Leader.

Business Notes

It's nice that production is still rising, because the news is still markets this, dollar balances that. The first annual report of the Atomic Energy Authority is very solid and The Economist approves, thereby meeting its quota (1) of approving articles for this issue. It is noted that the Authority is solving its scientific manpower shortage by paying engineers and scientists more, and that the AEA is still not being very straightforward about how countries without atom bombs can expect to get enriched uranium for their reactors. There is not going to be a coal shortage this winter. The Economist is sad. Argentina has devalued its currency, house prices have stopped rising, motor industry profits are up, the US Tariff Commission has determined that British pipe producers are dumping on the American market, Alexander Gibb and Partners have been selected as consulting engineers for the Aswan high dam, part of more than £65 million earned abroad by British consulting engineers annually. BSI is very upset with us for skipping The Engineer last month and has tracked us down in the pages of The Economist, which has a short Note covering the British Standards Institute's year. They've been very busy! The increasing use of BSI standards in the furniture industry
is noted, and there is an ongoing discussion of forcing textile manufacturers to attach labels if they won't comply with national and international standards. (They are consulting with women's organisations, it says here. Ronnie rolls her eyes!) 

Flight, 4 November 1955

Leaders

Rather than worry about the creation of an independent chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, Flight celebrates William Dickson's promotion. 

"P. 1 vs F-104" The spotlight is on two planes with similar jobs and very different looks, the P. 1 being very much bigger than the F-104. The F-104 is designed around having "no visible means of support," (NOT Flight's joke!) while the P.1 relies on the highest sweep ever. People say that since the P.1 has two of the same engine as the F-104, the British require double the power to intercept Mach 0.91 bombers as the Americans, but the P.1 can carry more, heavier missiles. So there!

By Blockhaj - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107161949

From All Quarters reports that Air Marshal Boyle is succeeding Dickson, that the Comet 3 is going on a world tour to drum up sales, that Peru is ordering the Canberra, that the Ministry of Supply's Chemical Warfare Department is experimenting with cloud-seeding, that in a successful experimental use of the latest Martin Baker ejection seat, an RAF test pilot ejected at 40,000ft, and that Hugh Quentin Reeves, a consulting engineer working on jet engine silencing, has been shockingly and unexpectedly killed when he was sucked into a Dentner silencer on a Sapphire running at full power in a "pen of his own design" at Bitteswell, Leicestershire. 

Manzoin designed this controversial building as a public
library for Birmingham. 

The RAF had a special show to honour the President of Portugal, and Sweden's double-delta fighter has been rolled out for the press, and we have a whole story about De Havilland Otters flying local services for Philippine Air Lines. Here and There reports that The New York Times reports that the Soviets have sold Egypt some MiG-15s. Eight Westland Whirlwinds have been "diverted" to France to fight rebels in North Africa. The USAF report on flying saucers finds no evidence that any were aliens from Venus, Arcturus, or anywhere else. The B.S. I, is very disappointed with our failure to cover The Engineer last month, and invades Flight to make it report on its elections, which is has. Herbert Manzoni won! 

"Tug and Glider" reports on how sometimes gliders are towed by planes, which is either more interesting than  a pictorial about the first coast-to-coast test flight by a 707. 

"Helicopter Autopilot: A Promising Aid in Military Operation: Honeywell Device Described" That surely describes the one-page advertorial well enough. It's probably at one and the same time more detailed than anyone cares to hear and so untechnical as to be useless. It's nice to know that 'interconnections in the bridge circuit allows operations of the roll-error signal to be joined with the yaw-error signal," but it's both an impossibly technical sentence and so vague that you don't even know what it's saying! The writer would improve the whole thing a thousand percent just by saying what that is supposed to accomplish, apart from ensuring that the helicopter keeps on flying straight when the pilot is distracted by trying to drop a buoy on a submarine in a fresh Atlantic wind. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that Bell is working on a two-seat reconnaissance bomber, which has no official designation yet. Fairchild is working on a twin-boom upgrade of the C-123. The first Douglas DC7C will fly ahead of schedule. An Indian delegation had a look at the S.O. 4050 Vautour. Piaggio is working on a jet amphibian. 

By Clinton Groves - http://www.airlinefan.com/airline-photos
/1782551/Varig/Lockheed/L-188-Electra/PP-VJW/,
GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20203439

"Lockheed Electra: A Preliminary Description of America's First Turbine-Driven Airliner" The Electraa is well along, but the question of the engine is still pressing, and a British plant isn't out of the question. A pictorial celebrating the latest model of Javelin all-weather fighter, and a visit to an air magnetometer geophysical survey being conducted in the Midlands follows. We also look at De Havilland's latest airscrew and the "evolution" of the Aero Commander, but we don't cover light planes any more here. Dutch Aviolanda has a new target drone.
 

Correspondence

A. Davidson is alarmed at the possibility that BOAC will buy DC8s to plug a jet Atlantic gap in the late Fifties until Britannias become available, and suggests that we let TCA buy them and cooperate with them, so as to keep Britain pure. Michael Stanley points out that you can roll pretty much any big jet bomber or airliner if you're not worried about dying and stuff. Bruce Robertson and Dennis Powell recall the old days, before the war. "Incensed" thinks that experts should review British air accident reports before they go to the Civil Courts because lawyers and judges don't understand airplanes. 

The Industry reports that Folland is hopeful that someone might want to buy the Gnat, that Dunlop has a new tyre tester, that United Flexible Tubing has flexible tubing. Civil Aviation reports the United order for DC8s, that Handley Page is still looking for customers for the Herald in America, that even though they don't want it in America, the CAA and the International Cooperation Administration are flogging off VOR in Europe and Asia. There might be new customers for the Viscount, the Super Constellation has showed up in London for the first time. South African Airways has told the South African government where it can stick apartheid, on account of there not being enough Coloured passengers for separate services, and they're not turning customers away. The airports are still racially segregated, though, and the airline promises not to sit Europeans next to Africans, although European stewardesses will have to serve Coloured passengers, for now. Service Aviation, not normally covered here, has the makeup of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and, since we're here, the launching of the fully refitted HMAS Melbourne, ex HMS Majestic. 

The Economist, 12 November 1955

Leaders

We are so very excited and anxious about the Monopolies Bill. 

"Timeless Test or World Series?" So the idea is that West and East are competing to give economic aid to Arabs and Asians. Capitalism would, of course, win in a fair fight, but the Communists won't fight fair, instead lying about their plans for global Communist tyranny. Lulled of their fears of the Communist Menace, the Bandoeng countries think that they can "crusade to their hearts' content against the receding West without imperiling their freedom." Thus, economic aid won't be enough, and instead the West should do mostly unspecified (although better race relations would be grand) things  until come the Jubilee. 

"A Place for Spain" So, as we said at length in the last Leader, the West cherishes its freedom and democracy, even though it makes it hard to influence the rest of the world by lying up a storm. Too bad that our system is also our weakness! So, anyway, shouldn't we find room in our system for Spain? Remember, Franco didn't actually join the Axis during the war. He was practically an ally! And if we don't bring him on board, the Communists will! The "vestigial policy of ostracism of Spain is unrealistic." Besides, Spain is only a bit totalitarian now, far less so than the Communist powers! And we like Rhee, Diem, and Tito, so why not Franco?  

Image search took me to this article in Prospect by none other than
Adam Tooze, reporting on a hate read of the early Ecomomist.  

From The Economist of 1855, "The True Test of Sobriety." Alcoholism doesn't exist, prohibition won't work, prohibition won't happen, and prohibition will probably hurt "drunkards" more by promoting "false remedies." Just to repeat, Wilson lies in a forgotten grave in Calcutta because he went out in 1860, and tried to sweat the dysentery season alone. 

Notes

"Molotov's Monster" It's not a small matter that the Soviets announced that they weren't going to allow a free plebiscite on German reunification. I just don't want to cover it every time it comes up in the press! The Economist supposes that this is because they would prefer to make a deal with the kind of West German politician that would want to make some kind of cynical arrangement swapping reunification for neutrality, or, in other words, Nazis. It is noted that amongst the various third party visitors to Geneva, Wang Ping-nan, the Chinese ambassador to Poland, has been having a very good conference. 

A long wander through the aftermath of the parliamentary hearings on Burgess and Maclean somehow ends up getting very upset at an unnamed Marcus Lipton to arrive at the conclusion that "widening of entry" into the Foreign Service will just lower standards without stopping treason, because it is just silly that people like an unnamed Kim Philby are more sympathetic to Communism than some boorish trade unionist. There is sure to be movement on these awful agricultural subsidies soon. Dulles and Tito have had a very productive meeting. Turning to the putative Israel-Egypt conflict, The Economist points out that Nasser is a practical military man who surely knows that "a real battle at the far end of tenuous trans-desert communications could not be won," and therefore won't push the issue in Gaza, just use it politically. "Israel is far less well served by an atmosphere of tension and eve-of-battle. What it needs is a permanent settlement from which weak Arab governments would derive no advantage, and many of its citizens think that a sharp onslaught intended to force a settlement now would be the best way to its goal." But if Israel did attack, it has no objective short of the Suez Canal, and such blatant aggression would not go unpunished. It is sinister that Soviet spokesmen are talking about catching up with America economically. The House of Lords debate on defence focussed on which committees the Minister of Defence should sit on, which I assume was a very worthy debate. The Ministry of Housing is on about slum clearance. Newcastle has 4,600 unfit dwellings, Liverpool 88,000, the County of London 21,000, Leeds has about the same, Manchester 60,000. Clearly the solution is less rent control. A meander about the "two German armies" ends up with The Economist pointing out that the Soviets are clearly planning for a Prague-style coup in Bonn, and that the most important thing about the new West German army is that it be prepared to fight for democracy in a German civil war. That doesn't sound ominous at all! The Economist apologises for making up a story about how Lord Home's talk to the very important Indian talking shop was repressed, suppressed, and censored in the Indian press. The Clean Air Bill is just fine and all the MPs who want to strengthen it are silly and wrong. The Committee on administrative tribunals is bad and wrong. The Dental Bill is fine, but not enough to fix Britain's terrible shortage of dentists. The next French elections aren't going to change anything. Various legal setbacks for the trade union meeting are met with relish, and the British continue to worry about the shortage of scientists, engineers, and "first class men" in general. 

American Survey 

"Stevenson at the Post" Stevenson has worked hard to turn himself into a polished and professional Presidential candidate, and now actually believes that he ought to win, because it turns out that letting the Republicans into office is a bad idea, even when they are led by Ike. He's great! Also, they like him in the South, unlike Harriman (who is "hard to take seriously as a candidate") and Kefauver. Stevenson will not be able to slide past Kefauver's ability to win primaries, and will have to contest primaries himself. Since he will be in the public eye for a full year, though, he may well be stale by election time. From a British perspective, this would be a shame, since the rest of the world is tired of an amateurish Republican foreign policy of "menace by slogan" and anti-intellectualism. Ford is going to sell shares to the public next year, which is a big deal, and Democratic mayors' success in local elections in Indiana are good news for Democrats. Various think tanks think that America could do with a genuine free trade policy. Democrats in Congress are taking aim at Fred Andahl, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, who they portray as the lynchpin of the Administration's plot to hand the nation's power over to the private utilities, the current battlefront being rural electricity collectives in Georgia.  Farmers Unions get a full page. 

Sometimes, labour shortages are real and have consequences. 

Autumn Books

A very long meditation on the role of economists in the historical dialectic serves as a review of W. A. Jolu and H. W. Singer, The Role of the Economist as Official Advisor. The book is a very worthy study of administrative issues. The meditation is a response to the Marxist objection that non-Marxist economists are "running dogs of capitalism" because, in the dialectic of history, they can't be anything else. If you don't believe in the dialectic, though, it's not a problem! F. R. Leavis has a biography of D. H. Lawrence, and Charles Carrington one of Rudyard Kipling; the students of G. M. Trevelyan have a Festschrift in honour of the master, Herbert Butterfield has dived into his own navel to come up with a study of the study of history, and A. L. Rowe's history of the expansion of Elizabethan England is a great work of real history, and so is Raymond Postgate's approach of writing a total history of one very important year, while Robert Browning on golf, and Rupert Croft-Cooke on sherry are good amateur history. Far below histories of important things and in fact below the garden books is a notice of W.. H. Godfrey's history of the English almhouse. Arthur Koestler's latest collection of essays is a goodbye to the world. The first volume of David Garnett's autobiography is out (he's a poet), while Wyndham Lewis' latest is such a book of that sort of book that the reviewer produces that sort of review, full of recursive anecdotes and name dropping. F. D. Omaney's Island of Cloves is the best book about Zanzibar to date and "one of the few very good books about any part of East Africa." I don't know where D. J. Enright on Japan stands in the lists of books about Japan, because it sounds like a pretty silly picture of the modern country. The Marquess of Anglesey has an edited collection of the best letters from the Capel family's years of debt exile in Belgium from 1814 to 1817, W. H. Lewis has a splendid popular biography of the Duc du Maine, while James Kenward looks back on the lost utopia of a suburban childhood in the old days of suburban rail commuting, which New Yorkers might not know is rapidly passing! Alan and Mary Wood are on about the Channel Islands in the war, there are several garden books, and, buried below them, yet more Boswell, an autobiography by Roger Bannister,  a silly-sounding book about Africa by "Jungian" Laurens Van der Post, lives or studies of Paul Nash and Van Gogh, by Bertram and the Hansons respectively. Sibylle von Cles-Reden's picture book about the Etruscans gets mixed reviews, Harry Hodgkinson on the Adriatic is that sort of book, there's a nice book about the National Gallery, and, last of all, Sonia Cole's Counterfeit, a series of case studies of famous forgeries, is a delight. 

Amazingly, the racist South African crackpot fraud
turns out to have been a bad person. 

The moral of the story is that it is better to write a few good letters than do anything as tedious as run a four minute mile or explore the history of major social institutions, much less be a tropical sultanate. 

The World Overseas

We lead off with yet another discussion of Molotov's demarche on Germany at Geneva. Ben-Gurion's new government is the next item up, and, for a change, the discussion revolves around whether the new government will continue the wage freeze policy rather than war. "A Correspondent" writes about how Afghanistan's ambitions are going to lead to trouble. Russia has 500 technicians in the country and has been supplying it with oil ever since Pakistan cut if off last summer, and no doubt there will be trouble if Afghanistan continues to support the carving out of a Pathan state from western Afghanistan. Infra-German trade is a story, and so is Jugoslavia's attempt to improve the domestic living standard. Brazil hasn't had a communist revolution even though the left-leaning candidate won the elections, so that's good. Queen Juliana's tour of the Caribbean seems to be going well, and the second week at Geneva is something I can't bear to talk about more. 

The Business World

Leaders about the Chancellor's attempt to wring economies out of local authority spending and wage bargaining so far this year. Business Notes finds time amidst the financial news to note that exports are at the highest level ever, that the Union-Castle merger plan has been revised, that Argentina is winding up its national trading agency. Ironically with all the talk of air transport, liner orders are at the highest level ever. German steel output has finally overtaken British in its postwar recovery, even though the industry continues its incremental investment, same as chemicals. Lack of parking is holding back traffic in downtown London, and perhaps the London County Council can take a hand, since the expense of buying the land is scaring off private capital. There needs to be more chemical engineers in chemical engineering. Nylon is still the leading manmade fabric.  

Flight, 11 November 1955

Leaders

"Seeing at Night" Two years, ago, Flight reported on the post mortem of BATTLE ROYALE, concluding that atomic warfare was useless if you didn't know where the enemy was to bomb, and that as long as air reconnaissance was grounded in bad weather, even a 280mm atomic cannon was effectively more mobile. In that exercise, the RAF had to use RB-26s, which was embarrassing. This year, at least night photography has advanced, and the RAF has Canberras to drop the flares and take the pictures instead of Invaders. Flight hopes that newer and better reconnaissance aircraft are on the way, and that includes both a reconnaissance version of the Swift and possibly the Hunter. 

"--And at a Distance" Strategic reconnaissance is also in the  hands of Canberra variants, the PR3 and 7 having ceiling and cameras to beat the band. The prospects of forthcoming reconnaissance machines, whatever they might be, is darkened by progress in mixed-power interceptors and homing air-to-air missiles. Perhaps in the future modern "Ficon" operations will be adapted so that parent aircraft launch unmanned drones "of extreme performance." 

From All Quarters reports that Blackburn Universal Freighters are doing freighting stuff off in Arabia, land of flying carpets and genies. Earl Mountbatten is in Baltimore to look at the SeaMaster, ,and maybe a two-headed calf after that. (Ronnie proposes to eat her words on the deck of a yacht parked in Chesapeake Bay if anyone buys more than a preproduction series of SeaMasters.) "Although no official statement has yet emerged,it is now common knowledge that the V-1000 will not be built in quantity." 

"Britannia Progress Report" As everyone is reporting all the time, the latest model of Britannia has the newest Proteus and Atlantic range, and will be available any day now. 

Here and There reports that Jordan is buying Vampires, that Lord Hives is in America flogging the Tyne, and that a UAL DC6B has been lost to a mid-air explosion with 44 aboard, just a month and a hundred miles from the last United crash, the DC4 that took 66 lives with it on 4 October. "It has been reported that an explosives expert has been called in to assist the official investigation." 

"Sikorsky S-58: An Important Contender for the Civil Helicopter Market" A page-and-a-half article with preliminary details. 

"Reconnaissance Symposium" A symposium at the headquarters of Northern Forces Central Europe heard about the new process of "photo facsimile," whereby reconnaissance photographs can be rapidly disseminated from station to station by land or radio. The real solution will be a television reconaisance camera, but that is still a way off --and something we've been hearing about since this series started sixteen  years ago! Since even with pictures this is just a page-and-a-half, we get an inserted continuation of the Lockheed advertorial about the Electra describing details of the wing box spar, including its crack stoppers. 

Aircraft Intelligence reports that two mixed-power interceptor prototypes will soon be delivered by Avro and Saunders Roe. Piasecki is demonstrating its YH-16, the largest helicopter in the world. Fairchild has rolled out its 1112th and last C-119. Bell is putting three gas turbines into the passenger tansport of its HSL anti-submarine helicopter. The prototype Hiller rocket helicopter has crashed because, in retrospect, it was insanely dangerous. The U.S. A. F. is working on the KC-135 tanker and converting one hundred B-50s to tankers for Tactical Air Command. The Caravelle twin-Avon transport is going to be a bargain. 

The Aeronautical Bookshelf has G. A. Broomfield, The Power of the Air, three authors collaborating for a book about gliding and  A. F. "Bill" Goch has another SNORE, Brassey's Annual 1955, and Derek Hene, The Law of Sea and Air Traffic. Bromfield's book is a long overdue biography of Samuel Franklin Cody, the Texas showman who somehow became a British aviation pioneer. Brasseys isn't very useful as an annual any more, but it has been a lot of fun to see senior Service figures argue about aircraft carriers in its pages. This year's edition, however, has no more arguments. 

Schiphol Airport gets a pictorial, and, later, a DEW station site.  

"Lead-Collision Attack: America's Development of Automatic Interception" Oh for God's sake. Two pages on how the US is developing head-on interception with the Hughes FCS and rocket batteries. The only thing I haven't heard is the rationale that fighters can't sit on the tail of jet bombers with automatic gun turrets while they catch up with them ever so slowly --which is true, but the issue was always tht they don't have the gas to make overtaking intercepts, so this sounds more like rationalising the fact that American jet bombers still have tail turrets. 

"Real Saucers" Donald Quarles, the new Secretary of the Air Force, recently gave a statement about that Avro flying saucer that the USAF is helping to pay for, so that's a good excuse to summarise his description of it in a half page, even though we've heard it all before.  Following on the rehash of "collision interception" that's actually an advertisement for the Hughes FCS, does that mean that the Avro Coanda platform has a new lease on life?  

Correspondence

It was worn out from shelling Communists, and will return to that work in
December '57 before being decommissioned in 1959. Fifteen hundred men
were wasting their time with this nonsense! 

P. R. Payne responds to a letter promoting rigid rotor helicopters by noting that it would be great if they worked, but they don't. H. H. C. Perrem writes in about how much fun he is having with his Piper. A. R. Weyl, who, it is hard to believe, although he is only 57, is still alive, recalls the old days, before the war, and so does E. A. Starling. The Industry reports that the battery manufacturer's association have had a nice party, that Redifon is providing the radio beacons for the forthcoming Antarctic expeditions, including a Hunting Aerosurveys group now off to Grahamland, and that Anglo-American Hose has a new hose. Under the section rubric but a separately published advertorial is a description of vibration testing of models by Goodman Industries, which, it turns out, makes vibrators. Speaking of which, Civil Aviation is on about more potential American Viscount sales, more efforts to sell the Herald as a DC3 replacement, the joys of flying on a Pan Am DC7B, continuing trouble in the US with the nonskeds cutting into scheduled airlines' revenues on high profit routes leading to difficulties in subsidising the loss-making routes. Cambrian is buying some Herons, Lear is doing some Lodestar conversions, and the first Iraqi Airlines Viscount is now in service. Airwork has been chosen to lift the entire crew of the HMS Newcastle, some 1500 men, to Singapore when it recommissions. The "Britannia Progress" report continues here way down at the bottom of the issue with the admission that the Britannia will not enter service for "several months" after its spring 1956 target, due to icing problems, which should not be allowed to obscure what an incredibly grandly wonderful plane it is. 

The first time I've seen the Wikipedia "scam article" tag although this
doesn't seem to be the Shaklee Fruit of the Month club. 

Fortune's Wheel looks back at how the themes of a Fortune year are shaped by interest and articles of previous years, notably how, when it picked up the first signs of a "mild recession," it pivoted to articles about "buying," which is to say, encouraging customers to spend. It goes on to explain that it will spend '57 explaining "Finance," presumably to get everyone ready for the hard money-driven "mild recession" that will follow once Ike doesn't have to worry about being re-elected.

Letters

Pat McGinnis and Ed Nourse liked Adlai Stevenson's article, but Solomon Barkin of the Textile Workers of America is less impressed. Richard Detwiler is concerned that American Gypsum's decision not to expand production to meet the demands of the housing boom because it won't make money doing it is "medievalism." Richard Detwiler lives in Pelham Manor. R. E. Joyce defends whatever it is National Distillers is doing. Robert Bliss and I. D. Robbins have opinions about the article about corporate raiding. Bliss liked it, but Robbins wonders what is so wrong about corporate raiding. B. Gerald Cantor of Cantor, Fitzgerald, sees public transit making a comeback soon. 

Business Roundup reports that "some uncertainty" is "creeping into U.S. executives' appraisal of the outlook for business" in the wake of the President's heart attack. If he doesn't run, there'll be a recession now, not 1959! Fortune agrees with this sentiment. I won't go into the various signs in any detail, but I will note, for those tired of my cynicism, that inventories are starting to build up, so, politics aside, the economy is certainly slowing because people are spending less. Which is probably due to  hard money now! (And Federal budget cuts certainly won't help.)

In theory when productivity and exports rise, labour should get
a piece of the pie, but what about the declining gold reserve?

The Business Globe reports that those darn Europeans seem to be able to run their own economies and achieve prosperity in spite of the way they keep ignoring our helpful advice. In fact, it is beginning to look like they are doing it better than we are! The British might be the exception, with their irresponsible labour unions talking about exploiting low unemployment to push for the 40 hour week, and signs that the British are becoming uncompetitive on world markets, although invisible in actual exports, to be inferred from movements on the financial markets. World bankers are upset that the pound is so weak, a German industrialist gets a small profile, the worldwide success of Coke and PepsiCo another bit, and we visit Japan, where American hopes for a resurgence of Japanese trade with Southeast Asia are being derailed by the little matter of the seething hatred in the Philippines for all things Japanese. 

Leaders

Boy, Ike sure is great.. (Something about the Eisenhower approach to the economy, business, government and stuff being way better than the New Deal.) Fortune contemplates the nightmarish thought of du Pont being broken up just because it's a monopoly. Everyone else should stop subsidising wheat, and then the U.S. can maybe do that, too. Restrictions on U.S. petroleum imports are just protectionism, not "national security." Venezuela just accepted a Fiat bid to build a steel plant because the Fiat bid was low. Let that be a lesson for everyone! The Sears-Roebuck catalogue  must be great, because all the foreigners want one. Time to talk about CIVIL Aviation again! Some British construction union man is against the closed shop in his industry, which goes to show that the closed shop is wrong. 

"Productivity: The Great Age of 3%" Stupendous predictions of the future size of the U.S. economy rely on the assumption that productivity growth will rise from its current 2%/year to 3% over the next quarter century. Fortune explains why it believes that it will happen at some length.

The most convincing argument I see is the continuing fall of farm employment along with rising production. 

. 

Last month Adlai, this month Earl, as the Chief Justice explains "The Law and the Future." Then we look at public relations in an era when the American opinion of business has "never been higher," and the Pennsylvania Central Railway, which is doing this and that as part of its capital improvement efforts. As often this is a highly pictorial article and I would clip out giant pictures of new repair shops, classification (marshalling) yards, and S-curve rails climbing hills in (Eastern?) Ohio, but if you like that sort of thing, get your own copy! 

Dero Saunders reports from Connecticut's Naugatuck Valley (behind New Haven), which bore the brunt of New England's summer flooding. A dam at Thomaston might be the solution. But as Saunders points out, it is an issue of the old factories, built right to the water and even into it, originally for water wheels, but more recently because private property rights under the old common law extended to the "thread of the stream." The valley of the Naugatuck is only eight miles wide, and the hills on either side sometimes rise 300ft. This is how the flooding came to do $55 million in damage to 127 plants. 

"Colour TV: Who'll Buy a Triumph?" Colour TV is here, but it's still expensive. Various designs might cut the cost of manufacturing.

William Whyte looks at the way that the tax-exempt foundations are failing to fund independent researchers. Steve Bechtel gets a profile with pictures. It is striking how Steve has kept on building long after Uncle Henry turned into whatever he is now. (I don't want to say con artist, but that's what it sometimes seems like!)