1951-06-05 — Page 4

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THE CHINA MAIL, TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1951.

GILES TOUR OF BRITAIN

London Express Service

Owing to a power cut it is impossible to see whether those workers in a Midlands factory are making jokes about the illuminations on the Festival site or not.

DON IDDON'S

HOME DIARY

THE last time I saw Birmingham was 16 years ago. I was wish- ed good luck in Fleet

Street by my colleagues on the Birmingham Gazette and presented with a silver cigarette-case,

Not, today, with New York dateline,

from

the usual

but

BIRMINGHAM

pubs, on carpets in hotels, on waiters' and waitresses' uniforms and dresses. An energetic wash- and-brush-up is needed.

Europe is waiting for

The Spitfire Touch

By HUGH DUNDAS

Na fighter airfield at all eyes are turned to America's

Rheima, in Franco, armoury of the air.

senior British, French, and U.S. Air Force officers lined up with politicians and diplomats to join in a cere-

underline mony and trend.

A

"Shooting Star" "Thunder- Jet," "Sabre"-these are house-... hold words on the Continent; they Corry the mantle ot glamour and efficiency which ance was worn by the British Spitüre and Mosquito.

The ceremony was the pre- that the man-in-the-street looks In Italy, certainly, I found sentation of 12 American

Thunderjet fighter planes, blank at the words Vampire or which U.S. Ambassador David Venom. Say "Thunderjet," and Bruce gave to the French Air his eyes light up, his arma Force "as an

earnest of con- Besticulate enthusiastically. tributions to come."

The trend was for the favour of European countries to swing away from British-bullt planes and towards the latest U.S. types.

to

means

more

than

Д

THE trend is carefully velled by Atlantic Pact oficials. little below the But scratch a surface and you soon find that the deep-set longing for Ameri- can fighters is backed by a still One cun either rejoice to ungmeial, but very high level. hear that the smaller countries plan to build Thunderjets or of the Atlantle Pact are getting Sabres in factories which could Grst-class Jot fighters from be opened up in Central Italy America, or one can grieve to and Sardinia. hear that, in spite of long- standing contracts

This inulid nighters of British desir, our blow to British prestige. Continental neighbours nro IT MEANS muddle in tho falling over themselves to get West; for mixed equipment is U.S. planes.

Inemcient equipment, particu- Jarly when the alr forces of on neighbour countries rely each other for mutual support.

IT MEANS waste of effort; for while the planners, with their Venom programmes,

direction, the pulling in one enthusiasts, with their dreams of Thunderjets and swept-wing Sabres, are pulling in another,

FIRST

noted the trend in Italy. I have been there to see how the Italian factorles- potentially the biggest nero- plane and engine producers in Eisenhower's alliance-ure gel-

ting on with their job of build Ing de Havilland Vampires. Venoms, and Ghost engines for the Allied air forces,

They are getting on with it very slowly.

Though the Vampire con tract was signed in 1949, not Actually I have found Bir-one plone has yet been built minghum people better dressed The Venom and Ghost pro- and better groomed than in most gramme is similarly delayed. places I have visited.

18

the AND IT MEANS that

Europe rest of

has clearly understood something which Britain's Air Minister has to believe: stubbornly refused that our straight-wing Venom is not a match for any of the swept-wing challengers, Russian or Amerier, which can reu- Of course, the Italians are sonably sure to the Spitfire- What about

politics? Most short nf money und raw aura of any future war.

met except materials. But they people I have

ure even Tiptali have scomed puzzled. The shorter of something more im-

in the Socialists and no: muc condence in the Conservatives, But as certain as Britain is the called Great, and is great, British have limitless confidence in the British themselves.

"What about America?" I British have not much confidene portant: enthusiasm for British WHAT

ed words and pay tribute to taxes and prices the people can- This time I have been wished the vast improvement they say: not get the things they want." good luck in Fleet Street and "Things are terrible." If I say: blunt. "Britain is in a mess-I thought

you would have had it better asked. than this," they reply: "We have made all sorts of progress."

sume

presented with advice. "Don't judge Britain by London's West End. Don't write exuberant letters to the Editor about Merrie England until you have seen something of how the people live."

I should have been prepared for this stern talk. Ever since wrote that letter in, 1 thought. pardonable ebullience about pul ting out the flags and striking up the bands have been hounded by housewives.

war

The British today are angry. and no wonder. After the colossal effort and the travail for years afterwards they were told "Now we are turning the corner things are going to be better."

Instead there has been a ter- rible let down, • new from wavering Government, now calls for greater efforts and sacrifices.

The Lord Mayor sakd: thinking person IN "Every

extra deeply grateful for the ordinary generosity. st the Americans. There's no rasent- bitterness towards ment Americans,"

I

41

Some bitterness

an

Footnote-Birmingham, town of AL

aircraft.

That my Inquiries show, is something they share with the rest of Europe.

ore

calamity it all is. W Here

we arc, with

the world's most powerful jet on- gine (running in a workshop), the finest fighter

prototypes (the Swift, for example, seen and the only at air displays), designers who built the Spli- the Hurricane, the Typhoon, and the Tempest.

and the But as the Italians French know well, ideas need wings. Swepl-wings for cholee, while the foreign and plenty of them-IN THE prepare lethargically AIR.

➡(Loridon Express Service.) these British planes,

No one but the Air Minister pretends that Vampires anything but obsolescent, or fire and that Venoms, versatile Though the they are, can be accepted as am not so sure the Lord

thousand and one fighters of the future. Mayor is right. I sense some trades, is also the city of a demands

And So, bitterness towards the Americans million and one ideas,

factories in the British air. I have been

for mistaken

American TOMORKOW: from Manchester.to build because of the labels on my

and But about Birmingham, I luggage (imagine that) hot auger. They said: "Come to called first to see the men I used heard the porter say: "There the provinces and have the fat to work with. II. Benoil, my flayed off you. Your letter mode me ree-red.Merrie England be editor in the old days, hadn't

"changed much; -- blowed! Try living on 10d.-worth of meat a week. We are being frantic by the meat driven shortage, the housing shortage, the enormous prices."

Seventy-eight wrote to me in

Housewives right

He arn't grumbling: "It's not so bad as all that. Perhaps people used to eat too much in the past, anyway. Birmingham is prosper- Gus. There's plenty of тонеу about-not that it buys much, There's not a great deal of com-

I

goes another damn lucky Yank.” BRITON-FROM-THE-RANKS

After the Lord Mayor I saw Dirmingham's stormiest citizen, industrialist. Norman Tiptaft, publicist-of Norman Tiptaf author, and journalist.. Mr Tip- taft, an ex-Lord Mayor himself, was helpful and explosive,

"Liurs and incompelents in the

plaining. The housing shortage is Government-men who couldn' grim, of course," Morley White. run a tripeshop, let alone run a editor of the Sunday Mercury, country. Birmingham is a mid- said much the same thing. Victorian dump-tao big-make

SHOWS U.S. HOW

From FREDERICK Cook

New York,

They elected him president, 50-year-old businessman He told me: "T culled in the from Chelmsford. Es leaders of the union, and tuld

it a modern town. People could sex, Rus given the Ameri- them how I started out at 13 one Certainly Birmingham looks work a lot harder-at least some cans A convincing demon- and came up from the ranks.

well-as gond as, or better than, of them could." when I worked there. It looks solid. stable, safe, and it is better

ONLY, one reader, J. H. Willcox -curiousts, from Birming- ham itself-said: "Your letter did me, and no doubt many ethers, i

of

Only good." power acquaintance.

Tom

Driberg, the

stration that "know-how" is Labou: M.P., whom I saw at the

1 Mr Tiptal and Festival grounds, said: "I liked

agree not an exclusively American thing-the your letter-it's a change to see rum than the average American undoubtedly on one The truth in the Tory papers."

city.

inemelency of the British. tele-export.

business,

and

the

a mild criticism of

With British "know-how" in

he relations,

has

So there was obviously some- The stares are bright and full phone service. I think it is bad. Yel

2 industrial hote: Tiptaft thinks it terrible.

made a when I thing wrong with my first blithe of shoppers, and brash reaction. Now I am lounges and pubs are doing brisk the system in a broadcast the transformed in three years the touring the cities of Great

Union of Post Office Workers Norma Hoffman Bearings Cor- Britain and writing about them This is a city of drive, energy, (Faraday telephonists branch)poration of Stamford, Connec- for the great world outside with get-up-and-go. I telephoned the wrote to protest in the strongest ticut. the same objectivity 1 try to Rector of Birmingham, Cunon terms." apply to Chicago or Delroll or Bryan Green, who was a tremen-

San Francisco.

dous

success in his sermons and lectures in the United States. The housewives are, or course, He said: "Let's make an early

I sold: right. They are having a brutal, appointment."

"Ten

1. protest

The company were torn by bitter labour-management strife. Profis fell in 1948 to some 30,000 dollars, from ü

protest in the strongest terms at having to wait half-hours quarter of a million agonising, heartbreaking time of o'clock." Mr Green said: "That's for routine trunk calls. I protest earller,

it. They are worried and harried late in Birmingham meet me sick. The anest allotment is for breakfast at eight forty- monstrous, the prices of almost five." everything absurdly high. Their

regard for victory is Glood- Revival needed

chilling sacrifice.

her wonder kitchṣa,

are

There is a dangerous idea that

*

усаг

in the strongest terms at having Today, thanks to the man from my eardrums almost punctured Chelmsford, all that has been

by explosions und shrill noises changed. off-stage.

RESULTS WATCHED

I

Mr Hubbard came from the

At the coming annual meeting, Our telephone service is not one-Alth_sa good as America's the firm's president, 50-year-old CO we breakfasted miserably Where the housewives So

and hundreds of thousands of William L. Hubbard who came wrong, however, is In their on salty kipper at my valuable man-hours must be lost out from Essex late in 1948. assumption that everything is hotel, and the clergyman spoke weekly. We lose the man-hours, will be able to report a record opulence and abundance for the up: "Only a revival of religion we lose the business, and we lose profit, a new factory nearing American, Almost all my cor- can save Birmingham, Britain,

doubled

and Britain more food. respondents, and almost all the the world. There isn't a revival the money which would get completion, the working force

in process of being a multi-million-donar backlog people I have met, seen to here like there is in America, but

These remarks apply to the of orders on hand sufficient to assume that the American house, one is coming. Peace is essential wife has a mountain of meat in for this religious revival, and telephone service wherever I keep the enlarged plant busy for

the revival is essential for peace," have been in England.

two years, The rector has interesting There is a feeling in Birming- the American business man and views on politics and wants to ham that London is monopoilsing working man are encased in fat see a relurn of high morallty and the festivities too much. Certain Hoffman Manufacturing Com- integrity in public lite. He ly London sears to be taking and bloated with dollars. It is not belloves the very poor are worse more than its fair share of paint. Pany of Chelmsford, owners of so. Meat is so expensive in the off in the US. than in Britain, Couldn't some be spared to a majority of the stock in the United States. that the average and that Anglo-American rela- brighten up the diamal ironwork Nerron Hoffman Company Steak is eaten only occasionally tons have been botched by outside the Queen's Hotel here? this sido,

lumderers here and abroad. I Paint and soap and water night by the great mass of Americans. ulked him,

be

lavishly dispensed anore everywhere to make this a more You are sensitive

I also rajoyed meeting the new vivid Festival. Lord Mayor, Alderman R C. Yates. TULERE are hundreds of thou- sands protably millions--of Americans living in conditions as bad as, and possibly worse than, those in which the British, with pour, or modest wages Hve,

American often cannot afford it.

I know about the prices of clothes, but I tell you deliberate The Lord. Mayer, tall, distiny the British could be better guished, was a gunner in the first groomed. world war and in R.A.F. Balloons

on

With him he brought Brilish notions of labour-management relations and has "made them stlek." Industrialists all over the US, are watching his results with envy,

。,་

It took him only five months to straighten out, the tangled

In London and in the provinces affairs, of the Connecticut com- in the second. I asked. If he thought Britain would make a there are many people who could pany. He was preparing to go came back, and he said: "We'va with a good scrubbing. There home when the US. directors I believe that the British at the already anade one, despito, great is an awful lot of dirt about in urged him to take over tho moment are in a mood of acute dimouities, but there are not meitain on men's suits and hats, management on a permatient sensitivity. If I give them honey-"enough inventives, and because of on plates in cazes, on, glasses in busin.

They liked that,"

A calm, reasoned approach to the problema. quickly led to d two-year contract between union

China

Coast

Ports

CHINA

and firm.

It has just been renowed for two years more,

"The secret of the whole thing was the British approach no bluster, no cajolling, no threatening, and no pleading.

"When labour here gets a rise

more OX-

it expects the industry to cut costs to meet it. British labour.

negollators are much union better trained and perienced."

Mr Hubbard has brought over his wife and two children.

-London Express Service),

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