¶ 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.
¶ "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!" ¶ "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."