A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
Iis worth while, I think, to draw attention to a message 1 from Bishop Auckland in last Friday's Manchester Guardian describing how three Austrians, who have migrated to this country for political reasons, have opened a factory (for the manufacture of buttoni and other articles from erinoid, a milk product) which will ultimately give employment to zoo persons. This .rather strikingly bears out the contention of Sir John Hope Simpson, who conducted the recent enquiry on refugees for Chatham House, that refugees, so far from necessarily adding to unemployment, very frequently create fresh employment. The fact may be commended to Mr. Herbert Metcalfe, the Old Street magistrate, who dislikes Stateless Jews taking refuge in this country ; says the way they are pouring in is an outrage ; observes that this country's wise policy is to punish them sternly, not merely take them by the scruff of the neck and throw them out ; and accord- ingly sentences three of them (one of them pregnant) to six months' hard labour for having got into the country without permits. Mr. Metcalfe draws, I believe, L2,000 a year and can hold his post till he drops. From that cushioned eminence it must be a great deal more congenial to moralise to miserable refugees (and send them to hard labour) than to entertain a shred of sympathy for them. * * * * The question I raised last week regarding the nature of the facilities open to passengers on British liners for the despatch of radiograms brings me another instance which confirms the impression that the position requires more precise defini- tion. In this case, at a time when the vibration of the Queen Mary ' was under discussion, an American journalist handed in a message to his paper giving proof of the total absence of vibration. The message was refused on the ground that it contained a word, " vibration," the mention of which was definitely prohibited—even though the statement was that vibration was non-existent. This seems to raise a rather important question of principle. Radio despatch-stations on liners are part of the Post Office communication system ; they have to be licensed by the Post Office, and so have the operators. That being so it is arguable that no censorship should be admissible beyond what the Post Office would impose itself—and it is only under totalitarian Governments that messages are refused because they contain something which the Government dishltes.
* * * * Test Matches are not for wage-slaves like myself. But the couple of stolen hours I spent, with a pricking conscience, at the Oval. on Tuesday were abnormally worth stealing, for I saw two things, if not three, that no Test Match spectator had ever seen before—an individual batsman hit his three hundred and sixty-fourth run and a national total pass the 90o mark. As to the third, an over left unfinished after two balls because of an injury to the bowler, whether that is unique in Test Match annals I am not erudite enough to say. But with all its records the cricket, it must be confessed, was rather fiat. The stroke that ended Hutton's career simply dropped the ball into cover-point's ready hands, and Hardstaff, having sent his century up in the first over after lunch, took more than two hours over his next 6o. In the last over before tea he and Verity were playing with one bat between them ; Hardstaff's had apparently split, so he exchanged it for Verity's and changed back again when the Yorhshirernan had the bowling. About Hutton what can I say ? All the adjectives of appreciation in the dictionary have been worked so hard over him that they must be as exhausted as he was, so I -leave them alone. But life has its compensations. I do not at present bat as well as Hutton, and quite possibly I never shall, but when I heard him at the microphone on Tuesday night I decided that I should get better marks there. * * * * Opportunely enough a correspondent now in Canberra sends an instructive description of what he calls " the serious and prolonged exercise " of listening to Test Match reports in Australia. " The principal daily service begins at 8 or 9 p.m. and goes straight forward. The first part is an example of radio technique which I believe to be an Australian device not yet adopted anywhere else, even in America. There is a precise account of the match, point by point, ball by 'ball. Every possible detail is added, including the looks and bearing and actions of the players, the weather and the light, and all the incidental noises-off.' The whole thing is an elaborate build-up, done in the broadcasting studios of Sydney, on the basis of a continuous service of cablegrams—I am told, to the tune of three messages to every' over, of course cut down by the most rigorous code. Nearly all Australia, with a good part of New Zealand,' listens -closely to this unique report until after midnight (midday at Lord's or the Oval), when the direct service from England starts and the faithful may hear the actual voices of the commentators on the gniund. You meet people everywhere here who tell you with fervour that their households regularly endure to the end—even though the end is round about 6.3o a.m." * * * A chapter on Edinburgh in a book I have just been reading (and a very admirable book it is) called Summer in Scotland* reminds me of what struck me, when I was there- last month, as a regrettable sign of degeneracy in that great city. That was the invasion of the incomparable Princes Street by purely English trading concerns with headquarters in London and branches all over England. Personally I have not as much Scottish blood in my veins as would annoy a Nazi if Scot- land were a ghetto, but I confess to a perhaps extravagant admiration for most things Scottish, and it seems to me deplorable that in the greatest shopping street in Scotland the English element (English shoe-shops, English shirt-shops, English drug-shops—just like Oxford Street) should be ever more and more and the Scottish element ever less and less.
Has this never stirred Scottish Nationalists' bile ?
* * * * According to The Times it was expected that Sir John Simon would be able to move into the Chancellor's residence, I I Downing Street, nearly six months ago, " but repairs which have been found to be necessary have been going on since Mr. and Mrs,. Chamberlain left the house."
This suggests a new side of the Premier. How, I wonder, is No. ro standing it ? * * * This Week's Greatest. Thought " A good understanding between Germany and France would give us 5o years of peace in Europe. And it is quite possible."—Mr. H. de Vere Stacpoole, in The Times.
JA.Nus.
* By-John R. Allan. (Methnen. 8s. 6d.)
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