Teapot Talk

P: Since the fighting services of all nations are apt to regard men of the sword as an elite caste apart, no amount of fulmination against Germany last week made life any the less pleasant for Lieutenant von Wick. This spruce young German officer lately crossed the Channel for training with the 2nd Battalion of King George's swank Grenadier Guards, a British officer being "exchanged" to Germany at the same time for study with Adolf Hitler's military elite.

P: Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald to the House of Commons: "I must express surprise that this moment has been chosen by Germany to announce a shipbuilding program, especially the building of submarines. . . . The German decision is ominous and I do not minimize its gravity. . . . It would be a great calamity if there were any weakening or deterioration in the confidence which exists between France, Italy and ourselves, and we will take all care we humanly can that that shall not happen."

That British peace dove, elder Statesman Sir Austen Chamberlain, Knight of the Garter, Nobel Peace Prizeman and co-author of the Locarno Peace Pact (TIME, Oct. 26, 1925): "If Germany will not be a member of the family, if instead of seeking to negotiate she intends to exert her Will, she will find this country in her path again, and with this country the great free commonwealths [dominions] that cluster around it. And she will have met a force that once again will be her master!"

P: Excepting President Eamon de Valera of the Irish Free State, who stayed home from the Royal Silver Jubilee (see above), the other Premiers of the British dominions took loyal high tea last week with Prime Minister MacDonald.

They were reported to have agreed that: 1) the Mother Country is justified in greatly increasing her armaments, not to impose the Pax Britannica--that being somewhat out of date--but "to play an effective mediating role" in Europe; 2) the dominions expect Great Britain, if the necessity arises,to act in a European crisis even before she has opportunity to inform them fully of her policy; 3) each dominion in freedom under the Crown has the right to make its own decision whether or not to associate itself with the other Country's high policies.

P: No interest whatever was manifested by the London public last week when 81-year-old Sir John Eldon Bankes, Lord Justice of Appeal (retired), opened with no popping of flashlights or pushing crowds the proceedings of the Royal Commission on the Private Manufacture and Trade in Arms (TIME, March 4).

No stuffed shirts are the Royal Commissioners who include Sir Philip ("Now It Can Be Told") Gibbs, humanitarian Editor J. Alfred Spender and antiopium crusading Dame Rachel Crowdy. But British linen is simply not washed amid cascades of abuse.

Appearing as the first star witness, Pacifist Viscount Cecil of Chelwood at once aroused Dame Crowdy's interest by proposing that the League of Nations' system of opium control "not only by export licenses but by import certificates" be applied to armaments.

"The trade in armaments is as repulsive as the slave trade!" cried Lord Cecil. "Britain was the first country to abolish slavery."

P: With Adolf Hitler building submarines, the marriage in London last week of a daughter of First Lord of the British Admiralty Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell proved irresistibly attractive to the Frenchman who directs his country's naval armaments. Minister of Marine null Pietri. After the wedding M. Pietri disappeared with Sir Bolton into the library.

P: On the British Cabinet's grill last week was Scot MacDonald's aristocratic social mentor, Air Minister the Marquess of Londonderry. Since breeding and habit cause British statesmen to disregard what they read in the papers. Lord Londonderry was severely blamed by most of his Cabinet colleagues last week for not informing them months ago that most of what "the newspapers" were printing about German air rearmament was true. Since Deutschland has now stolen an air march on England, the Cabinet last week could only urge Lord Londonderry to build British battle planes as fast as Britains can--600 new planes costing $116,000,000.

P: Vice Admiral Sir Hugh J. Tweedie to the annual meeting last week of the Union Jack Club: "It may be that all of us in the services are going to see hard times. Most of the British fleet is now working overseas. There may be a cure for that. Adolf Hitler, like his predecessor, may see that our service is once more in home waters."

P: At the Foreign Office it was emphasized that Sir John Simon still hopes Adolf Hitler will return Germany to the League and resume general negotiations for treaty limitation of Europe's armaments.

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