Notes

P: Her Majesty the Queen Mother graciously surrendered last week to Her Majesty the Queen the $750,000 Kohinoor diamond of 106 carats. It has been the chief jewel of Queen Mary's Crown, now goes into new Queen Elizabeth's new crown on which London platinumsmiths are rushing work. By an unprecedented alteration in British rules of precedence the extremely popular Queen Mother was last week slated to drive ahead of the King & Queen in the Coronation procession. At previous Coronations it has been customary for a Queen Mother to make no public appearance at all.

P: "We are not sure yet that what happened in Germany couldn't happen here," a Canadian interviewer was told in London by Britain's No. 1 Jewish industrialist Lord Melchett. "Another slump like the last one--and I'm afraid we'd have civil war in Britain!" Melchett told of advising the Government to buy 300,000 tons of copper at Depression's dirt-cheap price of $150 per ton, remarked that the Government is now screaming for copper at $350 per ton, cannot find as much as it wants for rearmament.

He was asked if Socialism might be the answer. "The trouble with Socialism," Melchett snorted, "is that if it's efficient it isn't Socialism, and if it's Socialism it's not efficient. It's like platonic love: if it's platonic it isn't nice, and if it isn't nice it isn't platonic!"

What His Majesty's Government ought to do, declared shrewd Melchett, is not to stage the present British public works boom jointly with the rearmament boom, but to hold back on everything that can possibly be held back and then, as the rearmament boom subsides, start up the rest by pulling out and using, one by one, a series of Depression-averting plans which should be prepared today amid Britain's relative Prosperity.

Concluded Lord Melchett: "In the hands of Sir Maurice Hankey [Secretary of the Committee for Imperial Defense] there is the famous War Book, containing detailed plans about practically everything for the event of war. Well, we ought to have a Peace Book, mobilization plans for times of peace!" P: "Officials here are trying assiduously to prevent the British Lion from roaring or showing its teeth as Mussolini twists its tail," cabled United Press last week from London. "Within the limits of freedom of the press prevailing in Britain, where there is no censorship, authorities are trying to modulate the openly anti-Italian tone in some leading newspapers. . . . The Cabinet . . . discussed the . . . situation. . . . Authorities sought tonight to restrain British newspapers and news agencies from publishing information likely to incite further the anger of Premier Benito Mussolini."

This was difficult, since British editors felt they had to print and British news agencies felt they had to distribute such information as that in the House of Commons last week Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin's Cabinet was shouted at by War-time Prime Minister David Lloyd George in words which could scarcely fail to vex Il Duce. "Stand up to Mussolini!", roared the Welshman. "Earn some respect for Britain! ... I'd rather have Italy's anger than Italy's contempt." As they left town for England's long Easter holiday, rusticating members of His Majesty's Government ignored a Laborite M. P. who attempted the role of Cassandra. "The most dreaded contingency is near--a German attack on Czechoslovakia," cried Independent Miss Eleanor Rathbone.

P: Royal Navy strengthened the grog* served to tars last week from "three-water-rum" to "two-water-rum"--a measure to stimulate recruiting at once contrasted with the Army's recent issuance of extra milk (TIME, March 29).

P:The Lord Chamberlain's Office, official censors of the British stage, were asked to pass on "an American burlesque strip-tease artiste" last week, decorously replied that they have preliminary jurisdiction only over spoken lines, whereas it is the understanding of the Lord Chamberlain's Office that strip-teasers say nothing. Instead of reassuring the British producer who was about to give the Kingdom its first taste of striptease, this official attitude of pointed refusal to censor caused him to cancel the act and he declared: "I guess it's too hot for England!"

Meanwhile Oxford undergraduates, celebrating their first crew race victory over Cambridge in 14 years, rampaged through London's show district, invading theatres in some of which they climbed on the stage and "took over the show." Rightly suspecting that the young gentlemen would want to finish up by stealing the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus, police had it swiftly boarded up and a hollow square of burly Bobbies easily withstood charge after tipsy Oxonian charge. Old Oxonian A. P. Herbert, famed Punch funster and Member of Parliament, attended the fray for hours, ready according to his wisecracks to testify as an M. P. in behalf of any student who might be arrested. Legislator Herbert kept calling to the police: "We are making no trouble at all!"

P:The King's yearly duty of distributing coppers to the poor on Maundy Thursday at Westminster Abbey, now boarded up in preparation for the Coronation, was discharged last week by the Archbishop of Canterbury at St. Paul's Cathedral, for His Majesty is being spared "fatiguing public appearances." Chicago Tribune's David Darrah and United Press's Dan Rogers broke stories that the Archbishop of Canterbury is slashing the Coronation Service right & left in efforts to get it as short and unfatiguing as possible, has decided to omit the sermon, hopes to telescope the ritual from a service normally of about four hours' duration into one, starting at the Abbey at 11 a. m., with the King out of the Abbey by 1:30 and back in Buckingham Palace by 4 p. m.

In private he considered last week a request from the Duke of Windsor that a paragraph in the Court Circular be devoted in due time to announcing His Royal Highness' engagement to marry Mrs. Bessie-Wallis Warfield Simpson.

P:With Her Majesty beside him last week His Majesty drove a car briefly in Windsor, was promptly described as "the first King in British history to drive his Queen in an automobile." George V never drove Queen Mary: Edward VIII drove Mrs. Simpson. She remained last week in France with friends whose chef she last year got appointed chef of Buckingham Palace. He resigned last week, one jump ahead of dismissal by George VI. Meanwhile the letters patent creating the Dukedom of Windsor were passed under the Great Seal. They are so drawn that the Duchess of Windsor and her children have full princely rank and the style of Royal Highness. This week the Duke, after intimations that the Rothschilds would like him to pay some rent for their castle in Austria (TIME. March 29), moved out. Journeying to a former pension or boarding house on the shore of Lake St. Wolfgang, where Edward of Wales and Mrs. Simpson stayed happily for a time in 1935, the Duke took up residence. He was obsequiously conducted from car to boarding house by officials of the British diplomatic service, one of whom held an umbrella over His Royal Highness, for brilliant sunshine had changed to a driving blizzard.

P:Newest "Coronation novelties" on sale in London are cakes of bath soap bearing sculptured busts of King George & Queen Elizabeth in bas relief. Hairbrushes similarly adorned were offered, also a bathroom gadget holding side by side a bust of His Majesty and a toothbrush.

P: The 500,000 schoolchildren of London learned last week that they will choose 40,000 of their number by vote to see the Coronation procession from great grandstands along the Thames Embankment. From towns near London 8,000 schoolchildren will be brought and as the grandstands will be uncovered appeals were launched last week for gifts of child-size raincoats to add to His Majesty's Government's revolving store. These number some 500 today, are loaned free to London children too poor to show up on such occasions in the raincoats all schoolchildren in the capital are always asked to wear at Royal functions.

Because the Princess Royal, Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood, was tripped up by her 10-foot train at the age of 14 and her coronet fell off at the door of Westminster Abbey in 1911, it was announced last week that Princess Elizabeth, 10-year-old heir to the Throne, will profit by this lesson of experience. Her Royal Highness will be supplied with a very short train not apt to trip her, a very light coronet not apt to slide off in any case, equipped with a strong elastic band.

*In the early 18th Century famed British Admiral Edward Vernon made it his whim to wear a cloak of heavy French grosgrain silk. The Admiral's tars called him "Old Grogram," an English corruption of grosgrain current for a century before. As a temperance measure Old Grogram introduced the rule that rum must never be served straight to enlisted men but mixed with water and this mixture was soon being called "Grogram . . . Grog . . . grog."

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