Empire Notes

An astute group of malefactors have recently been circulating pirated editions of the London Telephone Directory. Shrewd, they have reaped pelf from advertising sales. Last week, however, they were ordered by a London court to pay damages ot -L-300 ($1,458) to him who owns the copyrights of all British telephone directories, namely the King-Emperor.

Persons who wondered how George V has managed to acquire so unique a monopoly wondered no longer when they reflected that British telephones are owned and operated by His Majesty's Post Office.

The Admiralty's estimate of its budgetary needs was presented to the House of Commons, last week, by rubicund First Lord of the Admiralty William Clive Bridgeman. After tolling out the mighty total sum of -L-57,300,000 ($278,478,000), Mr. Bridgeman remarked that this represents a cut of -L-700,000 from the appropriations of last year.

Referring pointedly to the U. S. Naval program (TIME, Feb. 27), he piously declared: "Nothing ... is going to drive us ... into a great naval competition with America or anybody else."

But British naval supremacy will continue amply maintained under the present estimates.