Skinflint's City Diary
1 suppose it's churlish not to congratulate Sir Denys Lowson on his decision to pay back E5 millions of profit he made on his recent dealings. Nevertheless, I don't suppose I am alone in think' ing that a man has to be very rich indeed — or very scared — to make such an extravagantly handsome gesture. 1 do not for a minute suppose Sir Denys to be scared. I have read that he is the second richest man in Britain. 1 don't know about that: I'd have thought the great propertied families nowadays contain the country's chief Croesuses. But there's no such thing as a poor Lord Mayor of London. Sir Denys was Lord Mayor back in the days of tile Festival of Britain; and anybody with his wits about him, who had enough money then to splash about on a thing like that, should be wallowing in it now.
Cheap commission?
Sir Arthur Cockfield — pronounced Co-field — and his Price Commission, anxious no doubt to justify their inflated salaries, claim that in May they knocked E100 millions off the inflationary rise in prices. If so, then cheap, you might say, at the price. Not necessarily so. The Price Commission will only justify its pay if it manages to keep prices sufficiently down to prevent the unions demanding, and getting, big wage increases — if necessary at the cost of strike action— in the autumn.
Meanwhile, I reckon that the Price Commission is far more likely' to become the instrument for permitting prices increases than for keeping prices down.
Diabetic profit
The Financial Times Breweries Acturies Index is down by 22.9 per cent. Is there less beer money around? I'm not a regular pub man myself, but one thing I've noted lately: the great increase in the number of my fat friends who are drinking the German beer ' D Pils,' originally intended for diabetic boozers, but going down the gullets of all calorific-minded drinkers who appreciate the fact that three bottles of the stuff is no more fattening than one small Scotch (if the calorie counts are right). Find out who handles it and buy, say I.
Soft Portuguese?
Rhodesian friends of mine always reckon the Portuguese are 'soft' on their Africans, and it's generally thought out there that Portugal's pro-consuls are far too keen on winning the 'hearts and minds ' of their African subjects and not anywhere near rough enough in dealing with the Frelimo terrorists and their tame priests. The Times have behaved appallingly over the matter. The Guardian, naturally enough, did its best not to be outclassed, and produced one horror story of exceptional squalor: "Some women said troops had raided their villages and committed atrocities. In particular, they said the Portuguese soldiers had ordered mothers to pulp their children to death in 'ntondos ' — large wooden pestles for grinding maize." I know it's a terrible thing to say these days, but this particularly atrocity sounds far more like an African than a European one to me. After all, there have been far more recent cases of cannibalism in Africa than in Europe.
Hospital rules
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the atrocity stories, the Government has been absolutely right to allow the Caetano visit to proceed as arranged. The rules of hospitality must never be broken.
speetatoThe July 21,1973
They are more important than they seem to feather-brained , idealists who do not understand that it is not love which makes the world go round, but business. And you can't do business with another without at times sitting ' him at your table or you taking his salt. You don't need to like his face; but on the other hand you don't need to spit in it either.
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