POINTS FROM LETTERS

SOME SAFEGUARDING FIGURES.

In your issue of December 15th, Sir Henry Page Croft gives figures showing the rate of increase of exports of manu- factured goods between 1880 and 1927 from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States of America, and Canada, and he also gives a comparison of such increase per head of population, but he omits the actual figures of population at any date. Taking these figures for 1927 from Whitaker's Ahnanack, viz., population of the United Kingdom (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) 44,000,000, France 40,000,000, Germany 63,000,000, U.S.A. 106,000,000, Canada 9,000,000, the comparison is still all in favour of this country, as exporting in 1927, per head of population, twice as much in value as either Germany, or U.S.A., and nearly twice as much as France.--FREDERICK W. STEPHENSON, Winter Field, Melbury Abbas, Shaftesbury, Dorset.

SAFEGUARDING.

Your article of December 8th, is interesting, but opponents of Safeguarding have yet to explain how every other great industrial country has built up, maintained and expanded its industries under the handicap(?) of tariffs ; and how any manufacturer in this country of free imports can effectively compete against those in protected countries, in most of which countries wages are much lower, hours as long, or longer, and currency depreciated.—J. S. M. J.

SAFEGUARDING AND U.S.A.

In reference to your article in your issue of December 8th upon the subject of " Safeguarding," may I put two questions ? (1) Would Ford establish large works at Dagenham, from which to supply not only the British, but the European trade (employing eventually -20,000 men) had it not been for safe- guarding in the motor trade ? (2) Might not a similar measure, applied to certain selected trades, give this country a (sadly

needed) bargaining power with the U.S.A., which could be used with a view to redneing their high protective duties, and thus enabling us to increase our exports thence ?—FREDERICK Hamm, 2 Queenhithe, Upper Thames Street, London, E.C. 4.

CATS AND ULTRA-VIOLET RAYS.

In answer to your correspondent, is it not lilrely that the ultra-violet rays have activated the ergosterol in the fur and the- skin of the cat, giving it a sensation of extra warmth ? The eat would naturally be surprised at this sensation after what it had been accustomed to. .There have been a variety of cases in which it has been asserted that "Vita " glass transmits more heat than ordinary glass, and tests have been carried out to prove that the action of the ultra-violet rays is, so far as heat is concerned, purely a physiological one.—R. R. BYRNE, " Vita " Glass Marketing Board, Aldwych House, London, W.C. 2.

KUBLA KHAN.

In his letter about " Kubla Klian " (Points from Letters) does not Mr. Baldwin S. Harvey rather give himself away ? " Alf," as a short for Alfred, is a modernism, quite unknown to Coleridge and his contemporaries, and even now only in use in the costermonger class. " Pants ". is a modern con-. traction of pantaloons, designated by the Oxford Dictionary as " and, as far as I know, used only in trade—like " hose " for stockings. If poets are to limit their choice of words in deference to such considerations as Mr.- Harvey advances, their art will suffer.—C. R.

[It may be true to say that the abbreviation " Alf " is not used in the highest circles in this country, but in the United States it is widely used.—En. Spectator.]

JINKING.

I wrote " Dight yer shoon," not " Light yer shoon (as it appears in your rendering of my letter) which would not have conveyed my meaning at all. Chaucer uses this word in The Canterbury Tales. In The Clerkes Tale, pars sexta, stanza six, we find :— " And with that word she gan the boos to dight,

And tables for to setts, and beddes make, And peined hire to don all that she might."

I am afraid my handwriting must resemble that of Mr. R. H.. Hutton (of which you record some amusing stories), and although in this respect I follow the example of so great a man, I feel, nevertheless, I owe you an apology for the trouble I cause.—A NATIVE OF LOWLAND' SCOTLAND.

POLYGAMY.

In the review of Living India in the Spectator of December 15th, your reviewer complains that the author confuses polyandry with polygamy." Is not the reviewer himself confusing polygamy with- polygyny ? Although the latter— one man with many wives—is the form of polygamy that we hear most about, it is not the only form, and has no exclusive right to the name. Polyandry is as much a form of polygamy as polygyny is.—HAROLD W. H. HELBY, Maelcombe, East Prawle, Devon.

[Lord Meston, our reviewer, writes : Your correspondent is technically right in his interpretation of polygamy. In practice, however, as the dictionaries recognize, the word is used more frequently in the sense of having more than one wife at the same time, than in the sense of having more than one husband at the same time. It was in the former sense, certainly, that Living India was written, while apparently treating polyandry as having the same meaning.] THE CURE OF DISTEMPER.

I was very much interested in the paragraph in the Spectator of December 8th on the Field Distemper Fund. For the past four or five years there has been a serum in use in the United States, which has effectively checked the outbreak of this disease in puppies. The treatments are simple and not expensive. They consist of hypodermic injections, usually given at one appointment, as puppies are nervous of the hypodermic. We had three puppies of about six months old, who were treated with this serum by a veterinary surgeon. Also a friend of ours had two Chow puppies, who are especially susceptible to distemper, treated during an epidemic. They remained well, though her other puppies caught the disease. All of the cases in which this serum has been used have been successful, though it is important that it be given when the puppies are young, as it is a preventative rather than a cure for the disease. Just how effective it is with older dogs is impossible to say, as I have not followed the research statistics.—K. M. GROESBECK, Capri, Italy. - • '