(Editor, "North-China Daily News," 1911-1930)
London, Aug. 12. THUNDERSTORMS, deluges, northwest London streets deep in hailstones, the Bakerloo stopped running, cars awash and immobilized on river-like roads, more than one death from lightning and two yearlings killed at a Yorkshire race stable, and 2-ft. of snow at Bridkington—such has been the appropriate background for a week of fresh scares, aggravated no doubt by so much electricity in the air.
The Prime Minister's unexpected return to London from his holiday in Scotland, coinciding with one lof those spasmodic universal demands for gold which give us such horrid frights, and the Russo-Japanese crisis naturally set the: Cassandras going. Actually Mr, Chamberlain's return was perfectly innocent.
The nasal catarrh from which he has been suffering for some weeks grew worse instead of better in Scotland, and he came back for treatment, which is reported to be doing him good.
Gold is one of those things "no feller can' understand" though many pretend they can, The sudden hunger for.) it—shown in purchases of £1/760}000 yesterday, £1;519,000 the day|belore and £2,000,000 today—is stimulated by stories of German industrialists and even Nazi officials using every device imaginable to get their money to London in spite of the ferocious penalties imposed on shipping Marks abroad.
Odd' tales are told of penniless German aristocrats who for a consideration, take the notes to the Dutch frontier, unscrew the enamelled metal signs which are common on German trains and hide the marks behind them; which one thinks, might perhaps be done once but never again. Another trick is said to be to travel ostentatiously with a Jew, escaping notice in the noise with which he is pounced upon. I pass on such yarns for what they are worth: they are all swallowed by the timid as-sure evidence that Germany is about to let loose the days of war.
Against this, it is agreed by all correspondents in Berlin that when the Japanese Ambassador asked what Germany would do to help if Japan really came to grips with Russia, he was told plainly to expect no more than moral support. In spite of leaving Geneva, Germany has learnt something of League technique.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.